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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 04: 1858
   Creator(s): Spurgeon, Charles Haddon (1834-1892)
CCEL Subjects: All; Sermons;
   LC Call no: BV42
  LC Subjects:

               Practical theology

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

               Times and Seasons. The church year
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                             The Warning Neglected

   A Sermon

   (No. 165)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, November 29, 1857, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood
   shall be upon him."--Ezekiel 33:5.

   IN ALL WORLDLY THINGS, men are always enough awake to understand their
   own interests. There is scarce a merchant who reads the paper, who does
   not read it in some way or other, with a view to his own personal
   concerns. If he finds that by the rise or fall of the markets, he will
   be either a gainer or loser, that part of the day's news will be the
   most important to him. In politics, in everything, in fact, that
   concerns temporal affairs, personal interest usually leads the van. Men
   will always be looking out for themselves, and personal and home
   interests will generally engross the major part of their thoughts. But
   in religion, it is otherwise. In religion men love far rather to
   believe abstract doctrines, and to talk of general truths, than the
   searching inquiries which examine their own personal interest in it.
   You will hear many men admire the preacher who deals in generalities,
   but when he comes to press home searching questions, by-and-by they are
   offended. If we stand and declare general facts, such as the universal
   sinnership of mankind, or the need of a Saviour, they will give an
   assent to our doctrine, and possibly they may retire greatly delighted
   with the discourse, because it has not affected them; but how often
   will our audience gnash their teeth, and go away in a rage, because,
   like the Pharisees with Jesus, they perceive, concerning a faithful
   minister, that he spoke of them. And yet, my brethren, how foolish this
   is. If in all other matters we like personalities--if in everything
   else we look to our own concerns, how much more should we do so in
   religion? for, surely, every man must give an account for himself, at
   the day of judgment. We must die alone; we must rise at the day of
   resurrection one by one, and each one for himself must appear before
   the bar of God; and each one must either have said to him, as an
   individual, "Come ye blessed;" or else, he must be appalled with the
   thundering sentence, "Depart, ye cursed." If there were such a thing as
   national salvation; if it could be possible that we could be saved in
   the gross and in the bulk, that so, like the sheaves of corn, the few
   weeds that may grow with the stubble, would be gathered in for the sake
   of the wheat, then, indeed, it might not be so foolish for us to
   neglect our own personal interests; but if the sheep must, every one of
   them, pass under the hand of him that telleth them, if every man must
   stand in his own person before God, to be tried for his own acts--by
   everything that is rational, by everything that conscience would
   dictate, and self-interest would command, let us each of us look to our
   own selves, that we be not deceived, and that we find not ourselves, at
   last, miserably cast away.

   Now, this morning, by God's help, I shall labor to be personal, and
   whilst I pray for the rich assistance of the Divine Spirit, I will also
   ask one thing of each person here present--I would ask of every
   Christian that he would lift up a prayer to God, that the service may
   be blessed; and I ask of every other person that he will please to
   understand that I am preaching to him, and at him; and if there be
   anything that is personal and pertinent to his own case, I beseech him,
   as for life and death, to let it have its full weight with him, and not
   begin to think of his neighbor, to whom perhaps it may be even more
   pertinent, but whose business certainly does not concern him.

   The text is a solemn one--"He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took
   not warning: his blood shall be upon him." The first head is this--the
   warning was all that could be desired--"he heard the sound of the
   trumpet." Secondly, the excuses for not attending to the startling
   warning are all of them both frivolous and wicked: and therefore, in
   the third place, the consequences of inattention must be terrible,
   because man's blood must then be on his own head.

   I. First, then, THE WARNING WAS ALL THAT COULD BE DESIRED. When in time
   of war an army is attacked in the night, and cut off and destroyed
   whilst asleep, if it were impossible for them to be aware of the
   attack, and if they had made all diligence in placing their sentinels,
   but nevertheless the foe were so wary as to destroy them, we should
   weep; we should attach no blame to any one, but should deeply regret,
   and should give to that host our fullest pity. But if, on the other
   hand, they had posted their sentinels, and the sentinels were wide
   awake, and gave to the sleepy soldiers every warning that could be
   desired, but nevertheless, the army were cut off, although we might for
   common humanity regret the loss thereof, yet at the same time we should
   be obliged to say, if they were foolish enough to sleep when the
   sentinels had warned them; if they folded their arms in presumptuous
   sloth, after they had sufficient and timely notice of the progress of
   their blood-thirsty enemy, then in their dying, we cannot pity them:
   their blood must rest upon their own heads. So, it is with you. If men
   perish under an unfaithful ministry, and have not been sufficiently
   warned to escape from the wrath to come, the Christian may pity them,
   yea, and methinks, even when they stand before the bar of God, although
   the fact of their not having been warned will not fully excuse them,
   yet it will go far to diminish their eternal miseries, which otherwise
   might have fallen upon their heads; for we know it is more tolerable
   for unwarned Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, than it is for any
   city, or any nation that has had the Gospel proclaimed in its ears. My
   brethren, if on the other hand, we have been warned, if our ministers
   have been faithful, if they have aroused our conscience, and have
   constantly and earnestly called our attention to the fact of the wrath
   to come, if we have not attended to their message, if we have despised
   the voice of God, if we have turned a deaf ear to their earnest
   exhortation, if we perish, we shall die warned--die under the sound of
   the Gospel, and our damnation must be an unpitied one, for our blood
   must fall upon out own heads. Permit me then, to try, if I can, to
   enlarge upon this thought, that the warning has been, in the case of
   many of you, all that could have been needed.

   In the first place, the warnings of the ministry have been to most of
   you warnings that have been heard--"He heard the sound of the trumpet."
   In far off lands, the trumpet sound of warning is not heard. Alas!
   there are myriads of our fellow-creatures who have never been warned by
   God's embassadors, who know not that wrath abideth on them, and who do
   not yet understand the only way and method of salvation. In your case
   it is very different. You have heard the Word of God preached to you.
   You cannot say, when you come before God, "Lord, I knew no better."
   There is not a man or a woman within this place who will dare then to
   plead ignorance. And moreover, you have not only heard with your ears,
   but some of you have been obliged to hear it in your consciences. I
   have before me many of my hearers whom I have had the pleasure of
   seeing now for some years. It has not been once, or twice, but many a
   time, I have seen the tear guttering their cheeks when I have spoken
   earnestly, faithfully, and affectionately to you. I have seen your
   whole soul moved within you; and yet, to my sorrow, you are now what
   you were: your goodness has been as the early cloud, and as the morning
   dew that passeth away. You have heard the Gospel. You wept under it,
   and you loved the sound of it, and you came again, and wept again, and
   many marveled that you did weep, but the greatest marvel was, that
   after having wept so well, you wiped away your tears so easily. Oh,
   yes, God is my witness, there are some of you not an inch nearer
   heaven, but ye have sealed your own damnation doubly sure, unless ye
   repent: for ye have heard the Gospel, ye have despised prophesyings, ye
   have rejected the counsel of God against yourself; and, therefore, when
   you shall die, ye must die pitied by your friends, but at the same time
   with your blood on your own heads.

   The trumpet was not only heard, but, more than that, its warning was
   understood. When the man, supposed in the text, heard the trumpet, he
   understood by it that the enemy was at hand, and yet he took not
   warning. Now, my brethren, in your case, the sound of the Gospel
   warning has been understood. A thousand faults your minister may have,
   but there is one fault from which he is entirely frees and that is, he
   in free from all attempts to use fine language in the expression of his
   thoughts; ye are all my witnesses, that if there be a Saxon word, or a
   homely phrase, a sentence that is rough and market-like, that will tell
   you the truth, I always use that first. I can say solemnly, as in the
   sight of God, that I never went out of my pulpit, except with the firm
   belief, that whatever might have happened, I was perfectly understood.
   I had sought, at least, so to gather wise words, that no man might
   mistake my meaning; gnash his teeth he might, but he could not say,
   "The preacher was misty and cloudy, talking to me of metaphysics,
   beyond my comprehension; he has been obliged to say, "Well, I know what
   he meant, he spoke plainly enough to me." Well, sirs, then if it be so,
   and if ye have heard warnings that ye could understand, so much the
   more guilty are ye, if ye are living this day in rejection of them. If
   I have preached to you in a style above comprehension, then on my head
   must be your blood, because I ought to have made you understand; but if
   I come down to men of low estate, and pick even vulgar phrases to suit
   common people, then if you understood the warning, and if ye then
   risked it, mark you, my hands are clean of your blood. If ye be damned,
   I am innocent of your damnation, for I have told you plainly, that
   except ye repent, ye must perish, and that except ye put your trust in
   the Lord Jesus Christ, there is for you no hope of salvation.

   Again, this trumpet sound was startling. The trumpet's sound is ever
   considered to be the most startling in the world. Tis that which shall
   be used on the resurrection morning to startle the myriads of sleepers,
   and make them rise from their tombs. Ay, and ye have had a startling
   ministry. Ye have sat, some of you, under ministers that might have
   made the devil himself tremble, so earnest have they been; and they
   have made you tremble sometimes, so much, that you could not sleep. The
   hair of your head was well nigh moved to stand upright. They spake as
   though they never might speak again: as dying men to dying men. They
   spoke as if they had been in hell, and knew the vengeance of the
   Almighty, and anon, they spoke as if they had entered into the heart of
   Jesus, and read his love to sinners. They had brows of brass; they knew
   not how to flinch. They laid your iniquity bare before your face, and
   with rough language that was unmistakable, they made you feel that
   there was a man there who told you all things that ever you did. They
   so declared it, that you could not help feeling under it. You always
   retained a veneration for that minister, because you felt that he at
   least was honest with you; and you have sometimes thought that you
   would even go and hear him again, because there at least your soul was
   moved, and you were made to hear the truth. Yes, you have had a
   startling ministry, some of you. Then, sirs, if ye have heard the cry
   of fire, if ye are burned in your beds, your charred ashes shall not
   accuse me. If I have warned you that he that believeth not must be
   damned, if you are damned, your miserable souls shall not accuse me. If
   I have startled you sometimes from your slumbers, and made your balls
   and your pleasure parties uneasy, because I have sometimes warned you
   of these things, then sirs, if after all you put away these warnings,
   and you reject these counsels, you will be obliged to say, "My blood is
   on my own head."

   In many of your cases the warning has been very frequent. If the man
   heard the trumpet sound once and did not regard it, possibly we might
   excuse him; but how many of my audience have heard the trumpet sound of
   the gospel very frequently. There you are, young man. You have had many
   years of a pious mother's teaching, many years of a pious minister's
   exhortations. Wagon loads of sermons have been exhausted upon you. You
   have had many sharp providences, many terrible sicknesses. Often when
   the death-bell has tolled for your friend, your conscience has been
   aroused. To you warnings are not unusual things; they are very common.
   Oh! my hearers, if a man should hear the gospel but once, his blood
   would be upon his own head for rejecting it; but of how much sorer
   punishment shall you be thought worthy who have heard it many and many
   a time. Ah! I may well creep, when I think how many sermons you have
   listened to, many of you, how many times you have been cut to the
   heart. A hundred times every year you have gone up to the house of God,
   and far oftener than that, and you have just added a hundred billets to
   the eternal pile. A hundred times the trumpet has sounded in your ears,
   and a hundred times you have turned away to sin again, to despise
   Christ, to neglect your eternal interests, and to pursue the pleasures
   and the concerns of this world. Oh! how mad is this, how mad! Oh, sirs,
   if a man had but once poured out his heart before you concerning your
   eternal interests, and if he had spoken to you earnestly, and you had
   rejected his message, then, even then, ye had been guilty. But what
   shall we say to you upon whom the shafts of the Almighty have been
   exhausted? Oh, what shall be done unto this barren ground that hath
   been watered with shower after shower, and that hath been quickened
   with sunshine after sunshine? What shall be done unto him who being
   often rebuked, still hardeneth his neck? Shall he not be suddenly
   destroyed, and that without remedy, and shall it not then be said, "His
   blood lieth at his own door, his guilt is on his own head?"

   And I would just have you recollect one thing more. This warning that
   you have had so often has come to you in time. "Ah," said an infidel
   once, "God never regards man. If there be a God, he would never take
   notice of men." Said a Christian minister, who was sitting opposite to
   him in the carriage, "The day may come, sir, when you will learn the
   truth of what you have just said. "I do not understand your allusion,
   sir," said he. "Well, sir, the day may come, when you may call, and he
   will refuse; when you may stretch out your hands and he will not regard
   you, but as he has said in the book of Proverbs, so will he do, Because
   I called, and ye refused; because I stretched out my hands, and no man
   regarded, I also will mock at your calamity, I will laugh when your
   fear cometh.'" But oh, sirs, your warning has not come too late. You
   are not warned on a sick bed, at the eleventh hour, when there is but a
   bare possibility of salvation, but you are warned in time, you are
   warned to-day, you have been warned for these many years that are now
   past. If God should send a preacher to the damned in hell, that were an
   unnecessary addition to their misery. Surely, if one could go and
   preach the gospel through the fields of Gehenna, and tell them of a
   Saviour they had despised, and of a gospel that is now beyond their
   reach, that were taunting poor souls with a vain attempt to increase
   their unutterable woe; but O my brethren, to preach the gospel now is
   to preach in a hopeful period; for "now is the accepted time: now is
   the day of salvation." Warn the boatman before he enters the current,
   and then, if he is swept down the rapids, he destroys himself. Warn the
   man before he drinks the cup of poison, tell him it is deadly: and
   then, if he drinks it, his death lies at his own door. And so, let us
   warn you before you depart this life; let us preach to you while as yet
   your bones are full of marrow, and the sinews of your joints are not
   loosed. We have then warned you in time, and so much the more shall
   your guilt be increased, because the warning was timely; it was
   frequent, it was earnest, it was appropriate, it was arousing, it was
   continually given to you, and yet you sought not to escape from the
   wrath to come.

   And so even this morning would I say to you, if ye perish, my skirts
   are white of your blood; if ye are damned, it is not for want of
   calling after, nor for want of praying for, nor for want of weeping
   over. Your blood must be on your own heads; for the warning is all that
   is needed.

   II. And now we come to the second point. MEN MAKE EXCUSES WHY THEY DO
   NOT ATTEND TO THE GOSPEL WARNING, BUT THESE EXCUSES ARE ALL FRIVOLOUS
   AND WICKED. I will just go over one or two of the excuses that people
   make. Some of them say, "Well, I did not attend to the warning because
   I did not believe there was any necessity for it." Ah! You were told
   that after death there was a judgment, and you did not believe there
   was any necessity that you should be prepared for that judgment. You
   were told that by the works of the law there shall no flesh living be
   justified, and that only through Christ can sinners be saved; and you
   did not think there was any necessity for Christ. Well, sir, you ought
   to have thought there was a necessity. You know there was a necessity
   in your inner consciousness. You talked very large things when you
   stood up as an unbeliever, a professed unbeliever: but you know there
   was a still small voice that while you spake belied your tongue. You
   are well aware that in the silent watches of the night you have often
   trembled; in a storm at sea you have been on your knees to pray to a
   God whom on the land you have laughed at; and when you have been sick
   nigh unto death, you have said, "Lord, have mercy upon me;" and so you
   have prayed, that you have believed it after all. But if you did not
   believe it, you ought to have believed it. There was enough in reason
   to have taught you that there was an hereafter; the Book of God's
   revelation was plain enough to have taught it to you, and if you have
   rejected God's Book, and rejected the voice of reason and of
   conscience, your blood is on your own head. Your excuse is idle. It is
   worse than that, it is profane and wicked, and still on your own head
   be your everlasting torment.

   "But," cries another, "I did not like the trumpet. I did not like the
   Gospel that was preached." Says one, "I did not like certain doctrines
   in the Bible. I thought the minister preached too harsh doctrines
   sometimes, I did not agree with the Gospel; I thought the Gospel ought
   to have been altered, and not to have been just what it was." You did
   not like the trumpet, did you? Well, but God made the trumpet, God made
   the Gospel; and inasmuch as ye did not like what God made, it is an
   idle excuse. What was that to you what the trumpet was, so long as it
   warned you? And surely, if it had been time of war, and you had heard a
   trumpet sounded to warn you of the coming of the enemy, you would not
   have sat still, and said, "now I believe that is a brass trumpet, I
   would like to have had it made of silver." No, but the sound would have
   been enough for you, and up you would have been to escape from the
   danger. And so it must be now with you. It is an idle presence that you
   did not like it. You ought to have liked it, for God made the Gospel
   what it is.

   But you say, "I did not like the man that blew it." Well, if you did
   not like one messenger of God, there are many in this city. Could you
   not find one you did like? You did not like one man's manner; it was
   too theatrical; you did not like another's: it was too doctrinal; you
   did not like another's: it was too practical--there are plenty of them,
   you may take which you do like, but if God has sent the men, and told
   them how to blow, and if they blow to the best of their ability, it is
   all in vain for you to reject their warnings, because they do not blow
   the way you like. Ah, my brethren, we do not find fault with the way a
   man speaks, if we are in a house that is on fire. If the man calls,
   "Fire! Fire!" we are not particular what note he takes, we do not think
   what a harsh voice he has got. You would think any one a fool, who
   should lie in his bed, to be burned, because he said he did not like
   the way the man cried, "Fire." Why his business was to have been out of
   bed and down the stairs at once, as soon as he heard it.

   But another says, "I did not like the man himself; I did not like the
   minister; I did not like the man that blew the trumpet; I could hear
   him preach very well, but I had a personal dislike to him, and so I did
   not take any notice of what the trumpet said." Verily, God will say to
   thee at last, "Thou fool, what hadst thou to do with that man; to his
   own master he stands or falls; thy business was with thyself." What
   would you think of a man? A man has fallen overboard from a ship, and
   when he is drowning, some sailor throws him a rope, and there it is.
   Well, he says, in the first place, "I do not like that rope; I don't
   think that rope was made at the best manufactory; there is some tar on
   it too, I do not like it; and in the next place, I do not like that
   sailor that threw the rope over, I am sure he is not a kind-hearted
   man, I do not like the look of him at all;" and then comes a gurgle and
   a groan, and down he is in the bottom of the sea; and when he was
   drowned, they said, that it served him right, if he would not lay hold
   of the rope, but would be making such foolish and absurd objections,
   when it was a matter of life and death. Then on his own head be his
   blood. And so shall it be with you at last. You are so busy with
   criticising the minister, and his style, and his doctrine, that your
   own soul perishes. Remember you may get into hell by criticism, but you
   will never criticise your soul out of it. You may there make the most
   you can of. it. You may be there and say, "I did not like the minister,
   I did not like his manner, I did not like his matter;" but all your
   dislikings will not get one drop of water to cool your burning tongue,
   nor serve to mitigate the unalleviated torments of that world of agony.

   There are many other people who say, "Ah, well, I did none of those
   things, but I had a notion that the trumpet sound ought to be blown to
   everybody else, but not to me." Ah! that is a very common notion. "All
   men think all men mortal, but themselves," said a good poet; and all
   men think all men need the Gospel, but not themselves. Let each of us
   recollect that the Gospel has a message to each one of us. What saith
   the Gospel to thee my hearer ? What saith the Word to thee? Forget thy
   neighbors, and ask this question. Doth it condemn thee? or doth it
   assure thee of thy pardon? for recollect, all thou hast to do in the
   hearing of the Word, is to hear with thine own ears for thine own soul,
   and it will be idle for any one to say "I did not think it applied to
   me," when we know that it is to be preached to every creature under
   heaven, and therefore there must be something in it for every creature
   or else it would not be preached to every creature.

   Well, says another, "But I was so busy, I had so much to do, that I
   could not possibly attend to my soul's concerns. What will you say of
   the man who had so much to do that he could not get out of the burning
   house, but was burnt to ashes? What will you say of the man that had so
   much to do, that when he was dying, he had not time to send for a
   physician? Why, you will say, then he ought not to have so much to do.
   And if any man in the world has a business which causes him to lose his
   own soul for want of time, let him lay this question to his heart,
   "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his
   own soul?" But it is false--it is false--men have got time. It is the
   want of will, not want of way. You have time, sir, have you not,
   despite all your business, to spend in pleasure? You have time to read
   your newspaper--have you no time to read your Bible? You have time to
   sing a song--have you no time to pray a prayer? Why, you know when
   farmer Brown met farmer Smith in the market one day, he said to him,
   "Farmer Smith, I can't think how it is you find time for hunting. Why,
   man, what with sowing and mowing and reaping and plowing, and all that,
   my time is so fully occupied on my farm, and I have no time for
   hunting." "Ah," said he, "Brown, if you liked hunting as much as I do,
   if you could not find time, you'd make it." And so it is with religion,
   the reason why men can not find time for it is, because they do not
   like it well enough. If they liked it, they would find time. And
   besides, what time does it want? What time does it require? Can I not
   pray to God over my ledger? Can I not snatch a text at my very
   breakfast, and think over it all day? May I not even when I am busy in
   the affairs of the world, be thinking of my soul, and casting myself
   upon a Redeemer's blood and atonement? It wants no time. There may be
   some time required; some time for my private devotions, and for
   communion with Christ, but when I grow in grace, I shall think it right
   to have more and more time, the more I can possibly get, the happier I
   shall be, and I shall never make the excuse that I have no time.

   "Well," says another, "but I thought I had time enough, you do not want
   me, sir, to be religious in my youth, do you? I am a lad, and may I not
   have a little frolic and sow my wild oats as well as anybody else?"
   Well--yes, yes; but at the same time the best place for pleasure that I
   know of, is where a Christian lives; the finest happiness in all the
   world is the happiness of a child of God. You may have your
   pleasures--oh, yes! you shall have them doubled and trebled, if you are
   a Christian. You shall not have things that worldlings call pleasures,
   but you shall have some that are a thousand times better. But only look
   at that sorrowful picture. There, far away in the dark gulf of woe,
   lies a young man, and he cries, "Ah! I meant to have repented when I
   was out of my apprenticeship, and I died before my time was up." "Ah!"
   says another by his side, "and I thought, whilst I was a journeyman,
   that when I came to be a master, I would then think of the things of
   Christ, but I died before I had got money enough to start for myself."
   And then a merchant behind wails with bitter woe, and says, "Ah! I
   thought I would be religious when I had got enough to retire on, and
   live in the country; then I should have time to think of God, when I
   had got all my children married out, and my concerns settled about me,
   but here I am shut up in hell; and now what are all my delays worth,
   and what is all the time I gained for all the paltry pleasures in the
   world? Now I have lost my soul over them." We experience great vexation
   if we are unpunctual in many places; but we can not conceive what must
   be the horror and dismay of men who find themselves too late in the
   next world! Ah! friends, if I knew there was one here who said, "I
   shall repent next Wednesday," I would have him feel in a dreadful state
   till that Wednesday came; for what if he should die? Oh! what if he
   should die? Would his promise of a Wednesday's repentance save him from
   a Tuesday damnation?

   Ah, these are all idle excuses. Men make not such when their bodily
   life is concerned. Would God that we were wise, that we would not make
   such pitiful pretences to apology, when our soul, our own soul, is the
   matter at stake. If they take not warning, whatever their excuse, their
   blood must be upon their own head.

   III. And now, I come most solemnly to conclude with all the power of
   earnestness; the warning has been sufficient, the excuse for not
   attending to it has been proved profane; then the last thought is "HIS
   BLOOD SHALL BE ON HIS OWN HEAD." Briefly thus--he shall perish; he
   shall perish certainly; he shall perish inexcusably. He shall perish.
   And what does that mean? There is no human mind, however capacious,
   that can ever guess the thought of a soul eternally cast away from God.
   The wrath to come is as inexpressible as the glory that shall be
   revealed hereafter. Our Saviour labored for words with which to express
   the horrors of a future state of the ungodly. You remember he talked of
   worms that die not, and fires that are never quenched, of a pit without
   a bottom, of weeping, and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the outer
   darkness.

   No preacher was ever so loving as Christ, but no man ever spoke so
   horribly about hell; and yet even when the Saviour had said his best
   and said his worst, he had not told us what are the horrors of a future
   state. Ye have seen sicknesses, ye have heard the shrieks of men and
   women when their pangs have been upon them. We, at least, have stood by
   the bed-sides even of some dear to us, and we have seen to what an
   extent agony may be carried in the human body, but none of us know how
   much the body is capable of suffering. Certainly the body will have to
   suffer forever--"He is able to cast both body and soul into hell." We
   have heard of exquisite torments, but we have never dreamt of any like
   unto this. Again, we have seen something of the miseries of the soul.
   Have we never marked the man that we used to know in our childhood who
   was depressed in spirits. All that ever could be done for him never
   could evoke a smile from him--never did the light of cheerfulness light
   up his eye--he was mournfully depressed. Ay, and it was my unhappy lot
   to live with one who was not only depressed in spirits, but whose mind
   had gone so far amiss, that it did brood fancies so mournful and
   dismal, that the very sight of him was enough to turn the sunlight of
   summer into the very darkness of a dreary winter. He had nothing to say
   but dark, groaning words. His thoughts always had a sombre appearance
   about them. It was midnight in his soul--a darkness that might be felt.
   Have you never seen yourselves what power the mind has over us to make
   us full of misery? Ah, brethren and sisters, if ye could go to many of
   our asylums, and to our sick wards--ay, and dying beds, too, you may
   know what acute anguish the mind may feel. And remember that the mind,
   as well as the mortal frame, is to endure damnation. Yes, we must not
   shirk that word, the Scripture saith it, and we must use it. Oh! men
   and women, except we repent, except we do each of us cry for mercy to
   him that is able to save, we must perish. All that is meant by that
   word "hell" must be realized in me, except I be a believer; and so all
   that is meant by "Depart, ye cursed," must be thine, unless thou dost
   turn unto God with full purpose of heart.

   But again, he that turneth not at the rebuke of the minister shall die,
   and he shall die certainly. This is not a matter of perhaps or chance.
   The things we preach, and that are taught in Scripture, are matters of
   solemn certainty. It may be that death is that bourne from which no
   traveller returns, but it is not true that we know nothing of it. It is
   as certain as that there are men, and a world in which they live, that
   there is another world to come, and that if they die impenitent, that
   world will be to them one of misery. And mark you--there is no chance
   of escape, die without Christ, and there is no gate out of which you
   can escape--forever, oh, forever lost, and not one hope of mercy--cast
   away, and not one outlet for escape, not one solitary chance of ransom.
   Oh, if there were hope that in the world to come, men might escape, we
   need not be so earnest; but since once lost, lost for aye--once cast
   away, cast away without hope, without any prospect of a hope, we must
   be earnest. Oh, my God, when I remember that I have to-day some here
   present who in all probability must be dead before next Sabbath, I must
   be earnest. Out of so large an assembly, the chances are that we shall
   not all of us be found pilgrims in this world within another seven
   days. It is not only possible, but probable, that some one out of this
   vast audience will have been launched upon a world unknown. Shall it be
   myself, and shall I sail to the port of bliss, or must I sail over
   fiery waves forever, lost, shipwrecked, stranded, on the rocks of woe?
   Soul, which shall it be with thee? It may be thou shalt die, my
   gray-headed hearer, or thou young lad, thou boy, thou mayest die--I
   know not which, nor can we tell--God only knoweth. Then let each one
   ask himself--Am I prepared, should I be called to die? Yes, you may die
   where you are, on the benches where you are sitting--you may now
   die--and whither would you go? for recollect that whither ye go, ye go
   forever. Oh! eternity--eternity--eternity--must I climb thy topless
   steeps forever, and never reach the summit, and must my path be ever
   misery or joy. Oh! eternity, thou depth without a bottom, thou sea
   without a shore, must I sail over thy boundless waves forever in one
   undeviating track--and must I either plough through seas of bliss, or
   else be driven by the stormy winds of vengeance, over gulfs of misery?
   "Then what am I?" "My soul awake and an impartial survey take." Am I
   prepared? Am I prepared? Am I prepared? For, prepared or not, death
   admits of no delay, and if he is at my door, he will take me where I
   must go forever, prepared or not.

   Now, the last thing is, the sinner will perish--he will perish
   certainly, but, last of all, he will perish without excuse--his blood
   shall be on his own head. When a man is bankrupt, if he can say, "It is
   not through reckless trading--it has been entirely through the
   dishonesty of one I trusted that I am what I am;" he takes some
   consolation, and he says, "I can not help it." But oh, my hearers, if
   you make bankrupts of your own souls, after you have been warned, then
   your own eternal bankruptcy shall lie at your own door. Should never so
   great a misfortune come upon us, if we can trace it to the providence
   of God, we bear it cheerfully; but if we have inflicted it upon
   ourselves, then how fearful is it! And let every man remember that if
   he perish after having heard the Gospel, he will be his own murderer.
   Sinner, thou wilt drive the dagger into thine heart thyself. If thou
   despisest the Gospel, thou art preparing fuel for thine own bed of
   flames, thou art hammering out the chain for thine own everlasting
   binding; and when damned, thy mournful reflection will be this:--I have
   damned myself, I cast myself into this pit; for I rejected the Gospel;
   I despised the message; I trod under foot the Son of Man; I would have
   none of his rebukes; I despised his Sabbaths; I would not hearken to
   his exhortations, and now I perish by mine own hand, the miserable
   suicide of my own soul."

   And now a sweet reflection strikes me. A good writer says, "There are,
   doubtless, spots in the world that would be barren forever, if we
   recollected what had happened there." Says he, "I was once in St.
   Paul's cathedral, just under the dome, and a friend just touched me
   gently and said, Do you see that little chisel mark? and I said Yes.'
   He said, That is where a man threw himself down, and there he fell, and
   was dashed to atoms.'" The writer says, "We all started aside from that
   little spot, where a fellow-creature's blood had been shed. It seemed
   an awful place when we remembered that." Now, there is many a street,
   there is many a way-side, there is many a house of God, where men have
   taken the last decision, and damned their own souls. I doubt not, there
   are some here this morning, standing or sitting, to whom the voice of
   conscience says, "Decide for God," and now Satan and the evil heart
   together are saying, "Reject the message; laugh it off; forget it: take
   a ticket for the theater to-morrow: do not let this man alarm us: it is
   his very profession to talk to us like this; let us go away, and laugh
   it off; and let us spend the rest of this day in merriment." Yes, that
   is the last warning thou wilt ever have. It is so with some of you.
   There are some of you that will this hour decide to damn yourselves,
   and you will look forever throughout eternity, to that place under the
   gallery, and you will say, "Alas! woe was the day I heard that man, I
   was half impressed--almost he persuaded me to be a Christian, but I
   decided for hell." And that will be a solemn spot to angels where you
   are standing, or where you are sitting, for angels will say to one
   another, "Stand aside; that is a spot where a man ruined his own soul
   for ever and ever. But the sweet thought is, that there are some places
   just the reverse.

   Why, you are sitting, my friend, this morning, on a spot where some
   three weeks ago one sat who was converted to God; and that place where
   you are sitting you ought to venerate, for in that place there sat one
   who was one of the chiefest of sinners like yourself, and there the
   Gospel message met him. And far back there, behind the door, many a
   soul has been brought to Christ. Many a piece of good news have I heard
   from some in yonder upper gallery. "I could not see your face, sir, all
   the sermon through, but the arrow of the Lord found its way round the
   corner, and reached my heart notwithstanding that, and I was saved."
   Ah, well, may God so bless this place, that every seat of it this day
   may be solemnized by his own grace, and a spot to be remembered in your
   future history by reason of the beginning of your blessedness, the dawn
   of your salvation. "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and be baptized, and
   thou shalt be saved." This is the gospel we are told to preach to every
   creature--"He that believeth, and is immersed, shall be saved, he that
   believeth not shall be damned."
     __________________________________________________________________

                            The Destroyer Destroyed

   A Sermon

   (No. 166)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 6, 1857, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death,
   that is the devil"--Hebrews 2:14.

   IN GOD'S ORIGINAL empire everything was happiness, and joy, and peace.
   If there be any evil, any suffering and pain, that is not God's work.
   God may permit it, overrule it, and out of it educe much good; but the
   evil cometh not of God. He himself standeth pure and perfect, the clean
   fountain out of which gusheth forth ever more sweet and pure waters.
   The devil's reign, on the contrary, containeth nought of good, "the
   devil sinneth from the beginning," and his dominion has been one
   uniform course of temptation to evil and infliction of misery. Death is
   a part of Satan's dominion, he brought sin into the world when he
   tempted our mother Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit, and with sin he
   brought also death into the world, with all its train of woes. There
   had been likely no death, if there had been no devil. If Satan had not
   tempted, mayhap man had not revolted, and if he had not revolted he
   would have lived for ever, without having to undergo the painful change
   which is caused by death. I think death is the devil's masterpiece.
   With the solitary exception of hell, death is certainly the most
   Satanic mischief that sin hath accomplished. Nothing ever delighted the
   heart of the devil so much as when he found that the threatening would
   be fulfilled, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
   die," and never was his malicious heart so full of hellish joy as when
   he saw Abel stretched upon the earth, slain by the club of his brother.
   "Aha!" said Satan, "this is the first of all intelligent creatures that
   has died. Oh how I rejoice! This is the crowning hour of my dominion.
   It is true that I have marred the glory of this earth by my guileful
   temptation; it is true the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in
   pain by reason of the evil that I have brought into it; but this, this
   is my masterpiece; I have killed man; I have brought death into him,
   and here lieth the first--the first dead man." Since that time Satan
   hath ever gloated over the death of the human race, and he hath had
   some cause of glory, for that death has been universal. All have died.
   Though they had been wise as Solomon, their wisdom could not spare
   their head; though they had been virtuous as Moses, yet their virtue
   could not avert the axe, All have died; and therefore the devil hath
   boasted in his triumph. But twice hath he been defeated; but two have
   entered heaven without dying, but the mass of mankind have had to feel
   the scythe of death; and he has rejoiced because this, his mightiest
   work, has had foundations broad as earth, and a summit that reached as
   high as the virtues of mankind could climb.

   There is something fearful in death. It is frightful even to him that
   hath the most of faith. It is only the gildings of death, the
   afterwards, the heaven, the harp, the glory, that maketh death bearable
   even to the Christian. Death in itself must ever be an unutterably
   fearful thing to the sons of men. And oh! what ruin doth it work! It
   darkens the windows of the eyes; it pulls down the polished pillars of
   the divine architecture of the body; it turns the inhabitant the soul,
   out of its door, and bids it fly to worlds unknown; and it leaves in
   place of a living man a corpse whose appearance is so wretched that
   none can look upon it without emotions of horror. Now, this is Satan's
   delight. He conceives death to be his masterpiece, because of its
   terror, and because of the ruin which it works. The greater the evil,
   the better doth he delight in it. No doubt he gloats over our
   sicknesses; he rejoices himself in our sin; but death is to him a theme
   of as much delight as he can be capable of in his eternal misery. He,
   as far as he can, shouteth for joy when he witnesseth how, by one fell
   deed of his, one piece of treachery, he hath swept the world with the
   besom of destruction, and hurried all men to the tomb.

   And death is very lovely to the devil for another reason--not only
   because it is his chief work on earth, but because it gives him the
   finest opportunity in the world for the display of his malice and his
   craft. The devil is a coward, the greatest of cowards, as most wicked
   beings are. A Christian in health he will seldom attack; a Christian
   who has been living near his Master, and is strong in grace, the devil
   will leave alone, because he knows he will meet his match then; but if
   he can find a Christian either weak in faith, or weak in body, then he
   thinks it a fair opportunity for attack.

   Now when death comes with all its terrors, it is usual for Satan to
   make a fierce inroad into the soul. Usually with many of the saints, if
   not in the last article of death, yet some little time before it, there
   is a ferocious onslaught made by the great enemy of souls. And then he
   loves death, because death weakens the mind. The approach of death
   destroys some of the mental power, and takes away from us for a season
   some of those spirits by which we have been cheered in better days. It
   makes us lie there, languid, and faint, and weary. "Now is my
   opportunity," says the evil one; and he steals in upon us. Hence I
   believe for this reason he is said to have the power of death, for I
   cannot conceive that the devil hath the power of death in any other
   sense but this, that it was originated by him, and that he at such time
   generally displays the most of his malice and of his power. For it is
   certain my brethren the devil has not the power over death so as to
   cause death. All the devils in hell could not take away the life of the
   smallest infant in the world, and though we lie gasping and sick, so
   that the physician despairs of us, it is nothing but the fiat of the
   Almighty that can cause us to die, even in the extremity of our
   weakness As far as the cause is concerned, the devil is not the cause
   of death. We rejoice to believe with Dr. Young, that an angel's arm
   cannot hurl us to the grave, even though it be the arm of that fallen
   archangel Lucifer; and we rejoice to know that afterwards a myriad
   angels cannot confine us there. So that neither for the unlocking of
   the door, nor for the securing of it afterwards, hath the devil any
   power whatever over the Christian in death.

   Why, there are many persons here present who have such notion of
   religion that they conceive it to be a thing of happiness and pleasure,
   and delight, and living near the fountain of all bliss, that is their
   God, their path is filled with sunshine, and their eye sparkles with
   perpetual happiness. They bear the trials of this life manfully as
   Christians should; they take afflictions from the hand of God with all
   resignation and patience. Now the devil says, "It is of no use my
   meddling with that man with doubting thoughts; he is too mighty for me;
   he is powerful on his knees, and he is powerful with his God." "Hands
   off!" says the Christian to the devil then. But when we begin to be
   weak, when our mind through the influence of the body begins to be sad,
   when we have either been starving ourselves by some wicked religious
   asceticism, or when the rod of God hath bruised us, then in our evil
   plight the foe will beset us. And for this reason the devil loves
   death, and hath the power over it, because it is the time of nature's
   extremity, and therefore is the time of the devil's opportunity.

   The subject of our discourse this morning is this. Jesus Christ through
   his death, hath destroyed what power the devil hath over death. Ay, and
   to add a second truth which shall be our second head, he hath not only
   by his death destroyed the power which the devil had over death, but he
   hath destroyed the devil's power entirely in every respect by the death
   which he died.

   I. Let us begin, then, at the beginning. BY THE DEATH OF CHRIST THE
   DEVIL'S POWER OVER DEATH IS TO THE CHRISTIAN UTTERLY DESTROYED. The
   devil's power over death lies in three places, and we must look at it
   in three aspects. sometimes the devil hath power in death over the
   Christian, by tempting him to doubt his resurrection, and leading him
   to look into the black future with the dread of annihilation. We will
   look at that first, and we will endeavor to show you that by the death
   of Christ that peculiar form of the devil's power in death is entirely
   removed. When the poor spirit lieth on the verge of eternity, if faith
   be weak, and if the eye-sight of hope be dim, the Christian will most
   likely look forward into what? Into a world unknown, and the language
   of even the infidel sometimes rush into the lips of the most faithful
   child of God.

   "My soul looks down on what?

   A dread eternity; a dreary gulf."

   You may tell him of the promises; you may try to cheer him by reminding
   him of the certain revelations of the future; but apart from the death
   of Christ, I say, even the Christian himself would look forward to
   death as being a dreary goal, a dark cloudy end to a life of weariness
   and woe. Whither am I speeding? An arrow shot from the bow of God's
   creation! Whither am I speeding? And the answer cometh back from blank
   nothingness thou camest, and thou art speeding to the same; there is
   nought to thee; when thou diest thou art lost. Or if reason has been
   well tutored it may perhaps reply to him, "Yes, there is another world,
   but reason can only tell him that it thinks so. It dreams of it. but
   what that other world shall be, what its tremendous mysteries, what its
   gorgeous splendors, or what its horrible terrors, reason cannot tell."
   And the sting of death would be to such a man, who had no view of
   immortality in Christ, the thought that he was to be annihilated--not
   to exist--or if to exist that he knew not how, or where. But, beloved,
   by the death of Christ all this is taken away. If I lie a-dying, and
   Satan comes to me and says, "Thou art to be annihilated, thou art now
   sinking beneath the waves of time, and thou shalt lie in the caverns of
   nothingness for ever; thy living, leaping spirit, is to cease for ever
   and be not." I reply to him, "No, not so: I have no fear of that; O
   Satan, thy power to tempt me here faileth utterly and entirely. See
   there my Saviour! He died--he died really and actually, for his heart
   was pierced, he was buried, he lay in his grave three days; but, O
   Devil, he was not annihilated, for he rose again from the tomb on the
   third day, and in the glories of the resurrection he appeared unto many
   witnesses, and gave infallible proofs that he was risen from the dead.
   And now, O Satan, I tell thee, thou canst not put an end to my
   existence, for thou couldst not put an end to the existence of my Lord.
   As the Lord the Saviour rose, so all his followers must. I know that my
   Redeemer liveth,' and therefore I know that though the worms destroy
   this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.' Thou tellest me, O Satan,
   that I am to be swallowed up, and be a thing of nought, and sink into
   the bottomless pit of nonenity. I reply to thee, thou liest. My Saviour
   was not swallowed up, and yet he died, he died, but could not long be
   held a prisoner in the tomb. Come, death, and bind me, but thou canst
   not destroy me. Come on, O grave; open thy ghastly mouth, and swallow
   me up; but I shall burst thy bonds another day. When that all-glorious
   morning shall dawn, I having a dew like the dew of herbs upon me, shall
   be raised up and shall live in his sight. Because he lives I shall live
   also." So, you see, Christ, by being a witness to the feet of the
   resurrection, has broken the power of the devil in death. In this
   respect he has prevented him from tempting us to fear annihilation,
   because, as Christians, we believe that because Christ rose again from
   the dead, even so they that sleep in Jesus will the Lord bring with
   him.

   But now for a more common temptation--another phase of the devil's
   power in death. Full often the devil comes to us in our life-time, and
   he tempts us by telling us that our guilt will certainly prevail
   against us, that the sins of our youth and our former transgressions
   are still in our bones, and that when we sleep in the grave our sins
   shall rise up against us "They have many of them," saith he, "gone
   before you unto judgment, and others shall follow after." When the
   Christian getteth weak, and his heart and his flesh do fail him, were
   it not, I say for the great doctrine of the death of Christ the devil
   would be able to tempt him thus "Thou art about to die. I dare not tell
   thee that there is no future state, for if I do thou replies to me,
   'There is, for Christ rose from the dead and therefore I shall,' but I
   will tempt thee another way. Thou hast made a fine profession, but I
   charge upon thee that thou hast been a hypocrite. Thou pretendest that
   thou art one of the Lord's beloved: now look back upon thy sins:
   remember on such-a-day how thy rebellious lusts arose, and thou wast
   led if not quite to indulge in a transgression, yet to long after it.
   Recollect how often thou hast provoked him in the wilderness, how
   frequently thou hast made his anger wax hot against thee." The devil
   takes up our diary, and he turns over the page, and with black finger
   points to our sins; and he reads scornfully, with a leer upon his
   countenance. "See here saint" he says. "Saint! Aha! a fine saint you
   were. There! Sabbath breaking. There! evil thoughts of unbelief. There!
   departure from the living God." And he turns over page after page, and
   he stops over some very black page, and says, "See here!" And he twits
   the Christian with the thing. "Ah!" saith he, "David, remember
   Bathsheba. Lot, remember Sodom and the cave, Noah, remember the
   vineyard and the drunkenness." Ah! and it makes even the saint quiver,
   when sin stares him in the face--when the ghosts of his old sins rise
   up and stare upon him. He is a man that has got faith indeed that can
   look sin in the face, and still say, "The blood of Jesus Christ
   cleanseth me from sin." But were it not for that blood, were it not for
   the death of Christ, you can easily conceive what power the devil would
   have over us in the hour of death, because he would fling all our sins
   in our teeth just when we came to die, But now see how through death
   Christ has taken away the devil's power to do that. We reply to the
   temptation to sin, "In truth O Satan thou art right; I have rebelled, I
   will not belie my conscience and my memory; I own I have transgressed.
   O Satan, turn to the blackest page of my history, I confess all,

   'Should he send my soul to hell

   His righteous law approves it well.'

   But O fiend, let me tell thee my sins were numbered on the scape-goat's
   head of old. Go thou, O Satan, to Calvary's cross, and see my
   substitute bleeding there, Behold, my sins are not mine; they are laid
   on his eternal shoulders, and he has cast them from his own shoulders
   into the depths of the sea. Avaunt, hell-hound! Wouldst thou worry me?
   Go thou and satisfy thyself with a sight of that Man, who entered the
   gloomy dungeons of death, and slept awhile there, and then rent the
   bars away, and led captivity captive as a proof that he was justified
   of God the Father. and that I also am justified in him." Oh! yes, this
   is the way that Christ's death destroys the power of the devil. We can
   tell the devil that we care not for him, for all our sins are passed
   away, covered in the thick cloud, and shall not be brought against us
   any more for ever, "Ah!" said an aged saint once who had been much
   teased by Satan, "at last I got rid of my temptations, sir, and I
   enjoyed much peace," "How did you do it?" said a Christian friend who
   visited him, "I showed him blood, sir; I showed him the blood of
   Christ." That is a thing the devil cannot endure. You may tell the
   devil, "Oh! but I prayed so many times." He will sniff at your prayers.
   You may tell him, "Ah! but I was a preacher" He will laugh in your
   face, and tell you you preached your own damnation You may tell him you
   had some good works, and he will lift them up and say, "these are your
   good works--filthy rags: no one would have them at a gift." You may
   tell him, "Ah! but I have repented." He will sneer at your repentance.
   You may tell him what you like, he will sneer at you, till at last you
   say,

   "Nothing in my hands I bring,

   Simply to the cross I cling;"

   And it is all over with the devil then; there is nothing now that he
   can do, for the death of Christ has destroyed the power that the devil
   hath over us to tempt us on account of our guilt. "The sting of death
   is sin:" our Jesus took the sting away, and now death is harmless to
   us, because it is not succeeded by damnation.

   Once more, you may suppose a Christian who has firm confidence in a
   future state. The evil one has another temptation for him.."It. may be
   very true," saith he, "that you are to live for ever and that your sins
   have been pardoned; but you have hitherto found it very hard work to
   persevere, and now you are about to die you will be sure to fail. When
   you have had troubles you know you have been half inclined to go back
   again to Egypt. Why, the little hornets that you have met have worried
   you, and now this death is the prince of dragons; it will be all over
   with you now. You know that when you used to go through a cart-rut you
   were crying for fear of being drowned: what will you do now that you
   have got into the swellings of Jordan? "Ah!" says the devil, "you were
   afraid of the lions when they were chained: what will you do with this
   unchained lion? How will you come off now? When you were a strong man
   and had marrow in your bones, and your sinews were full of strength,
   even then you trembled at me: now I shall have at you, when I get you
   in your dying-time and your strength fails, and if I once get the grip
   of you

   'That desperate tug your soul shall feel,

   Through bars of brass and triple-steel.'

   Ah! you will then be overcome." And sometimes the poor feint-hearted
   Christian thinks that is true; I shall surely fall one day by the hand
   of the enemy. Up gets the Arminian divine, and says, "that is a very
   proper sort of feeling, my friend; God often does desert his children
   and cast them away." To which we reply "Thou liest, Arminian; shut thy
   mouth, God never did desert his children, neither can he, nor will he."

   And having answered the Arminian we turn to answer the devil, and we
   say to him, "O fiend, thou temptest us to think that thou wilt conquer
   us; remember Satan, that the strength that has preserved us against
   thee has not been our own; the arm that has delivered us has not been
   this arm of flesh and blood, else we had long since been overcome. Look
   thou there, fiend, at him that is Omnipotent: his Almightiness is the
   power that preserves us to the end; and, therefore, be we never so
   weak, when we are weak then we are strong, and in our last hour of
   peril we shall yet overcome thee."

   But please to notice, that this answer springs and arises from Christ's
   death. Let us just picture a scene. When the Lord Jesus came down to
   earth, Satan knew his errand. He knew that the Lord Jesus was the Son
   of God, and when he saw him an infant in the manger, he thought if he
   could kill him and get Him in the bonds of death what a fine thing it
   would be! So he stirred up the spirit of Herod to slay him; but Herod
   missed his mark. And many a time did Satan strive to put the personal
   existence of Christ in danger, so that he might get Christ to die. Poor
   fool as he was, he did not know that when Christ died he would bruise
   the devil's head. Once, you remember, when Christ was in the synagogue,
   the devil stirred up the people, and made them angry; and he thought,
   "Oh! what a glorious thing it would be if I could kill this man; then
   there would be an end of him, And I should reign supreme for ever." So
   he got the people to take him to the brow of the hill, and he gloated
   over the thought that now surely he would be cast down headlong. But
   Christ escaped. He tried to starve him, he tried to drown him; he was
   in the desert without food, and he was on the sea in a storm; but there
   was no starving or drowning him, and Satan no doubt panted for his
   blood and longed that he should die. At last the day arrived; it was
   telegraphed to the court of hell that at last Christ would die. They
   rung their bells with hellish mirth and joy. "He will die now," said
   he, "Judas has taken the thirty pieces of silver. Let those Scribes and
   Pharisees get him, they will no more let him go than the spider will a
   poor unfortunate fly. He is safe enough now." And the devil laughed for
   very glee, when he saw the Saviour stand before Pilate's bar. And when
   it was said, "Let him be crucified," then his joy scarce knew bounds,
   except that bound which his own misery must ever set to it. As far as
   he could he revelled in what was to him a delightful thought, that the
   Lord of glory was about to die. In death, as Christ was seen of angels,
   he was seen of devils too; and that dreary march from Pilate's palace
   to the cross was one which devils saw with extraordinary interest. And
   when they saw him on the cross, there stood the exulting fiend, smiling
   to himself. "Ah! I have the King of Glory now in my dominions, I have
   the power of death, and I have the power over the Lord Jesus." He
   exerted that power, till the Lord Jesus had to cry out in bitter
   anguish, "My God, my God, Why hast thou forsaken me?" But ah! how
   short-lived was hellish victory! How brief was the Satanic triumph! He
   died, and "It is finished!" shook the gates of hell. Down from the
   cross the conqueror leaped, pursued the fiend with thunder-bolts of
   wrath; swift to the shades of hell the fiend did fly, and swift
   descending went the conqueror after him; and we may conceive him
   exclaiming--

   "Traitor! this bolt shall find and pierce thee through,

   Though under hell's profoundest wave thou div'st,

   To find a sheltering grave."

   And seize him he did--chained him to his chariot wheel; dragged him up
   the steps of glory; angels shouting all the while, "He hath led
   captivity captive, and received gifts for men." Now, devil, thou saidst
   thou wouldst overcome me, when I came to die. Satan I defy thee, and
   laugh thee to scorn! My Master overcame thee, and I shall overcome thee
   yet. You say you will overcome the saint, do you? You could not
   overcome the saint's Master, and you will not overcome him. You once
   thought you had conquered Jesus: you were bitterly deceived. Ah! Satan,
   thou mayest think thou shalt overcome the little faith and the faint
   heart; but thou art wondrously mistaken--for we shall assuredly tread
   Satan under our feet shortly; and even in our last extremity, with
   fearful odds against us, we shall be "more than conquerors through him
   that loved us."

   You see that thus, my brethren, Christ's death has taken away from
   Satan the advantage which he has over the saint in the hour of death;
   so that we may joyfully descend the shelving banks of Jordan, or may
   even, if God calls us to a sudden death, glide from its abrupt cliffs,
   for Christ is with us, and to die is gain.

   II. But now, I want just a moment or two, whilst I try to show you that
   not only has Christ by his death taken away the devil's power in death;
   but HE HAS TAKEN AWAY THE DEVIL'S POWER EVERYWHERE ELSE OVER A
   CHRISTIAN. "He hath destroyed," or overcome, "him that had the power of
   death, that is, the devil."

   Death was the devil's chief intrenchment: Christ bearded the lion in
   his den, and fought him in his own territory; and when he took death
   from him and dismantled that once impregnable fortress, he took away
   from him not only that, but every other advantage that he had over the
   saint. And now Satan is a conquered foe, not only in the hour of death,
   but in every other hour and in every other place. He is an enemy, both
   cruel and mighty, but he is a foe who quakes and quails when a
   Christian gets into the lists with him; for he knows that though the
   fight may waver for a little while in the scale, the balance of victory
   must fall on the side of the saint, because Christ by his death
   destroyed the devil's power.

   Satan, my brethren, may to-morrow get much power over you, by tempting
   you to indulge in the lusts of the flesh, or in the pride of life; he
   may come to you and say, "Do such-and-such a thing that would be
   dishonest, and I will make you rich; indulge in such-and-such a
   pleasure, and I will make you happy. come," saith Satan, "yield to my
   blandishments; I will give you wine to quaff that shall be richer than
   ever came from the wine-vats of Holy Scripture; I will give you bread
   to eat that you know not of. Eat thou the tempting fruit; it is sweet;
   it will make thee like a god.". "Ah!" saith the Christian, "but Satan,
   my Master died when he had to do with thee, and therefore I will have
   nothing to do with thee. If thou didst kill my Lord, thou wilt kill me
   too if thou canst, and therefore away with thee! but inasmuch as thou
   layest down silver for me, and tellest me I can have it if I do wrong,
   lo, Satan, I can cover thy silver with gold, and have ten times as much
   to spare afterwards. Thou sayest I shall get gain if I sin. Nay, but
   the treasures of Christ are greater riches than all the treasures of
   Egypt. Why, Satan, if thou wert to bring me a crown, and say, There!
   thou shalt have that if thou wilt sin.' I should say, Poor crown! Why,
   Satan, I have got a better one than that laid up in heaven, I could not
   sin for that, that is a bribe too paltry," In he brings his bags of
   gold. and he says, "Now, Christian, sin for them." The Christian says,
   "Why fiend, that stuff is not worth my looking at. I have an
   inheritance in a city where the streets are paved with solid gold; and,
   therefore, what are these poor chinking bits to me? Take them back!" He
   brings in loveliness, and he tempts us by it. but we say to him, "Why,
   devil, what art thou at? What is that loveliness to me? Mine eyes have
   seen the King in his beauty and the land that is very far oft; and by
   faith I know that I shall go where beauty's self, even in her
   perfection, is excelled--where I shall see my Saviour, who is the chief
   among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely.' That is no temptation
   to me! Christ has died, and I count all these things but dross, that I
   may win Christ and be found in him." So that you see, even in
   temptation, the death of Christ has destroyed the devil's power

   "You will not yield, will you?" says the devil "You cannot be tempted!
   Ah! well," says he, "if you cannot be drawn aside, I'll pull you aside.
   What are you, that you should stand against me? A poor puny man! Why, I
   have made angels fall, and I am not afraid of you. Come on!" And he
   puts his foot to our foot, and with his dragon yell he frights the
   echoes till they dare not reply. He lifts his blazing sword, and thinks
   to smite us to the ground. You know, my brethren, what the shield is
   that must catch the blow. It is the shield of faith in Christ that died
   for us. He hurls his darts, but his darts hurt not, for lo, we catch
   them also on this all-powerful shield, Christ and his cross. So that,
   let his insinuations be never so direful, the death of Christ has
   destroyed the devil's power either to tempt or to destroy. He may be
   allowed to attempt either the one or the other, but he can be
   successful in neither. The death of Christ has "destroyed him that had
   the power of death, that is, the devil."

   Some people say they don't believe in a devil. Well, I have only to
   tell them I don't believe in them because if they knew themselves much
   they would very soon find a devil. But it is quite possible that they
   have very little evidence of there being any devil; for you know the
   devil never wastes his time. He comes up a street, and he sees a man
   engaged in business, hoarding, covetous, grasping. He has got a widow's
   house in his throat, he has just swallowed the last acre of a poor
   orphan's lands. "Oh," says the devil, "drive by, I shall not stop
   there; he does not need me; he will go to hell easily enough." He goes
   to the next house: there is a man there, a drunkard. spending his time
   in riotousness: he marches by, and says, "There's no need for me here;
   why should I trouble my own dear friends? Why should I meddle with
   those whom I am sure to have at last? There's no need to tease them."
   He finds a poor saint upon his knees, exercising but very little power
   in prayer. "Oh!" says the devil, "I shant have this creature at last;
   I'll howl at him now." There is a poor sinner just returning from his
   evil ways and crying, "I have sinned and done evil in thy sight; Lord,
   have mercy upon me " "Losing a subject," says Satan; "I'll have him;
   I'm not going to lose my subjects like this." So he worries him. The
   reason why you don't believe there is a devil, very likely is, that the
   devil very seldom comes to you because you are so safe that he does not
   take any trouble to look after you, and you have not seen him, because
   you are too bad for him to care about, and he says, "Oh no, there's no
   need for me to waste time to tempt that man, it would be carrying coals
   to Newcastle to tempt him, for he is as bad as he can be, and therefore
   let him alone." But when a man lives near to God, or when a man's
   conscience begins to be aroused, then Satan cries, "To arms! to arms!
   to arms!" For two good reasons: first, because he wants to worry him,
   and secondly, because he wants to destroy him. Well, we bless God that
   though the devil may direct his utmost scorn and craft and malice
   against the Christian, the Christian is safe behind the rock Christ
   Jesus, and may rest secure.

   And now, in conclusion, suffer a word or two of comfort to the people
   of God, and a warning to those that know him not.

   O children of God! death hath lost its sting, because the devil's power
   over it is destroyed. Then cease to fear dying. Thou knowest what death
   is: look him in the face, and tell him thou art not afraid of him. Ask
   grace from God, that by an intimate knowledge and a firm belief of thy
   Master's death, thou mayest be strengthened for that dread hour. And
   mark me, if thou so livest, thou mayest be able to think of death with
   pleasure, and to welcome it when it comes with intense delight. It is
   sweet to die: to lie upon the breast of Christ, and have one's soul
   kissed out of one's body by the lips of divine affection. And you that
   have lost friends, or that may be bereaved, sorrow not as those that
   are without hope; for remember the power of the devil is taken away.
   What a sweet thought the death of Christ brings us concerning those who
   are departed! They are gone, my brethren; but do you know how far they
   have gone? The distance between the glorified spirits in heaven and the
   militant saints on earth seems great; but it is not so. We are not far
   from home.

   "One gentle sigh the spirit breaks,

   We scarce can say tis gone,

   Before the ransomed spirit takes

   Its station near the throne."

   We measure distance by time. We are apt to say that a certain place is
   so many hours from us. If it is a hundred miles off and there is no
   railroad we think it a long way; if there is a railway, we think we can
   be there in no time, But how near must we say heaven is? For it is just
   one sigh and we get there. Why, my brethren, our departed friends are
   only in the upper room, as it were, of the same house; they have not
   gone far off; they are up stairs, and we are down below.Yea, more as
   the poet says,

   "Ten thousands to their endless home,

   This solemn moment fly,

   And we are to the margin come,

   And soon expect to die."

   And then he describes them.

   "Part of the host have crossed the flood."

   There they are, on the other side the banks. Here is another part, deep
   in the stream. Here are we on the margin, just about to step down. They
   are all one army; there is not one gap, right down from Abel to the one
   that is now departing; and they never shall be but one, till the pearly
   gates are shut for ever, and they are all secure.

   "E'en now by faith we clasp our hands

   With those that went before,

   And greet the blood-besprinkled bands

   Upon the eternal shore."

   And now I close by saying this word to the sinner O thou that knowest
   not God, thou that believest not in Christ, death is to thee a horrible
   thing. I need not tell thee that; for thine own conscience tells it to
   thee. Why, man, thou mayest laugh sometimes at religion; but in thine
   own solitary moments it is no laughing thing. The greatest brags in the
   world are always the greatest cowards. If I hear a man saying, "Oh, I
   am not afraid of dying, I don't care about your religion," he does not
   deceive me; I know all about that. He says that to cover up his fears,
   when he is alone of a night. You should see how white his cheek is if a
   leaf falls against the window When there is lightning in the air you
   should look at him. "Oh that flash" he says. Or if he is a strong man
   perhaps he does not say a word, but he feels in such horror all the
   time the storm is on. Not like the Christian man: not like the man who
   has courage. Why, I love the lightnings; God's thunder is my delight. I
   never feel so well as when there is a tremendous thunder and lightning
   storm. Then I feel as if I could mount up, and my whole heart sings. I
   love then to sing--

   "This awful God is mine

   My Father and my love,

   He shall send down his heavenly powers

   To carry me above.

   Yes, you are afraid of dying I know; and what I shall say to you is
   this _ You have good need to be afraid of dying, and you have good need
   to be afraid of dying now. Because you have escaped many times you
   think you shall never die. Suppose we should take a man and tie him to
   that pillar, and a good marksman should take bow and arrows and shoot
   at him. Well, one arrow might glance and strike some one that sits at
   the right, and another might glance and strike some one that is to the
   left; one might go above his head, and another beneath his feet, but
   you cannot suppose that man would laugh and mock, when the arrows were
   flying about his ears, and if he was quite certain that it only wanted
   the marksman to take an aim at him, and he would be shot, then, my
   friends, you cannot conceive how he would tell you what terror he would
   experience. But certainly there would be no laughter. He would not say,
   "Oh! I shall not die, see, the man has been shooting all these others."
   No, the risk of dying would be enough to steady him and the thought
   that that marksman had an eye so true and a hand so steady that he had
   but to pull the string, and the arrow would certainly reach his heart,
   would be enough at least to sober him, and keep him always watchful;
   for in a moment, when he thought not that arrow might fly. Now, that is
   you to-day, God puts the arrow to the string: your neighbor is dead on
   the right, and another on the left; the arrow will come to you soon, it
   might have come before, if God willed it. Oh, mock not at death, and
   despise not eternity, but begin to think whether you are prepared for
   death, lest death should come and find you wanting. And remember, death
   will make no delays for you. You have postponed the time of thought:
   death will not be postponed to suit you, but when you die, there will
   be no hour allowed for you in which then to turn to God. Death comes
   with its first blow; damnation comes afterwards, without the hope of
   reprieve. "He that believeth and is immersed shall be saved; he that
   believeth not shall be damned." Thus do we preach the Gospel of God
   unto you as God would have us. "Go ye into all the world and preach the
   Gospel to every creature." "Go ye and teach all nations, immersing them
   in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Behold,
   I tell you, faith in Jesus is the soul's only escape; profession of
   that in immersion is God's own way of professing faith before men. The
   Lord help you to obey him in the two great gospel commandments, for
   Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                       The Holy Spirit and the One Church

   A Sermon

   (No. 167)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 13, 1857, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the
   Spirit."--Jude 1:19.

   WHEN a farmer comes to thrash out his wheat, and get it ready for the
   market there are two things that he desires--that there may be plenty
   of it, of the right sort, and that when he takes it to market, he may
   be able to carry a clean sample there. He does not look upon the
   quantity alone; for what is the chaff to the wheat? He would rather
   have a little clean than he would have a great heap containing a vast
   quantity of chaff, but less of the precious corn. On the other hand, he
   would not so winnow his wheat as to drive away any of the good grain,
   and so make the quantity less than it need to be. He wants to have as
   much as possible--to have as little loss as possible in the winnowing,
   and yet to have it as well winnowed as may be. Now, that is what I
   desire for Christ's Church, and what every Christian will desire. We
   wish Christ's church to be as large as possible. God forbid that by any
   of our winnowing, we should ever cast away one of the precious sons of
   Zion. When we rebuke sharply, we would be anxious lest the rebuke
   should fall where it is not needed, and should bruise and hurt the
   feelings of any who God hath chosen. But on the other hand, we have no
   wish to see the church multiplied at the expense of its purity. We do
   not wish to have a charity so large that it takes in chaff as well as
   wheat: we wish to be just charitable enough to use the fan thoroughly
   to purge God's floor, but yet charitable enough to pick up the most
   shrivelled ear of wheat, to preserve it for the Master's sake, who is
   the husbandman. I trust, in preaching this morning, God may help me so
   to discern between the precious and the vile that I may say nothing
   uncharitable, which would cut off any of God's people from being part
   of his true and living and visible church; and yet at the same time I
   pray that I may not speak so loosely, and so without God's direction,
   as to embrace any in the arms of Christian affection whom the Lord hath
   not received in the eternal covenant of his love.

   Our text suggests to us three things: first, an inquiry--Have we the
   Spirit? secondly, a caution--if we have not the spirit we are sensual;
   thirdly, a suspicion--there are many persons that separate themselves.
   Our suspicion concerning them is, that notwithstanding their
   extra-superfine profession, they are sensual, not having the Spirit;
   for our text says, "These be they who separate themselves, sensual,
   having not the Spirit."

   I. First, then, our text suggests AN INQUIRY--Have we the Spirit? This
   is an inquiry so important, that the philosopher may well suspend all
   his investigations to find an answer to this question on his own
   personal account. All the great debates of politics, all the most
   engrossing subjects of human discussion, may well stop to-day, and give
   us pause to ask ourselves the solemn question--"Have I the Spirit?" For
   this question does not deal with any externals of religion, but it
   deals with religion in its most vital point. He that hath the Spirit,
   although he be wrong in fifty things, being right in this, is saved; he
   that hath not the Spirit, be he never so orthodox, be his creed as
   correct as Scripture-ay and in his morals outwardly as pure as the law,
   is still unsaved; he is destitute of the essential part of
   salvation--the Spirit of God dwelling in him.

   To help us to answer this question, I shall try to set forth the
   effects of the Spirit in our hearts under sundry Scriptural metaphors.
   Have I the Spirit? I reply, And what is the operation of the, Spirit?
   How am I to discern it? Now the Spirit operates in divers ways, all of
   them mysterious, and supernatural, all of them bearing the real marks
   of his own power, and having certain signs following whereby they may
   be discovered and recognised.

   1. The first work of the Spirit in the heart is a work during which the
   Spirit is compared to the wind. You remember that when our Saviour
   spoke to Nicodemus he represented the first work of the Spirit in the
   heart as being like the wind, "which bloweth where it listeth;" "even
   so;" saith he, "is every one that is born of the Spirit." Now you know
   that the wind is a most mysterious thing; and although there be certain
   definitions of it which pretend to be explanations of the phenomenon,
   yet they certainly leave the great question of how the wind blows, and
   what is the cause of its blowing in a certain direction, where it was
   before. Breath within us, wind without us, all motions of air, are to
   us mysterious. And the renewing work of the Spirit in the heart is
   exceedingly mysterious. It is possible that at this moment the Spirit
   of God may be breathing into some of the thousand hearts before me; yet
   it would be blasphemous if any one should ask, "Which way went the
   Spirit from God to such a heart? How entered it there?" And it would be
   foolish for a person who is under the operation of the Spirit to ask
   how it operates: thou knowest not where is the storehouse of the
   thunder; thou knowest not where the clouds are balanced; neither canst
   thou know how the Spirit goeth forth from the Most High and enters into
   the heart of man. It may be, that during a sermon two men are listening
   to the same truth; one of them hears as attentively as the other and
   remembers as much of it; the other is melted to tears or moved with
   solemn thoughts; but the one though equally attentive, sees nothing in
   the sermon, except, maybe, certain important truths well set forth; as
   for the other, his heart is broken within him and his soul is melted.
   Ask me how it is that the same truth has an effect upon the one, and
   not upon his fellow: I reply, because the mysterious Spirit of the
   living God goes with the truth to one heart and not to the other. The
   one only feels the force of truth, and that may be strong enough to
   make him tremble, like Felix; but the other feels the Spirit going with
   the truth, and that renews the man, regenerates him, and causes him to
   pass into that gracious condition which is called the state of
   salvation. This change takes place instantaneously. It is as miraculous
   a change as any miracle of which we read in Scripture. It is supremely
   supernatural. It may be mimicked, but no imitation of it can be true
   and real. Men may pretend to be regenerated without the Spirit, but
   regenerated they cannot be. It is a change so marvellous that the
   highest attempts of man can never reach it. We may reason as long as we
   please, but we cannot reason ourselves into regeneration; we may
   meditate till our hairs are grey with study; but we cannot meditate
   ourselves into the new birth. That is worked in us by the sovereign
   will of God alone.

   "The Spirit, like some heavenly wind,

   Blows on the sons of flesh,

   Inspires us with a heavenly mind,

   And forms the man afresh."

   But ask the man how: he cannot tell you. Ask him when: he may recognize
   the time, but as to the manner thereof he knoweth no more of it than
   you do. It is to him a mystery.

   You remember the story of the valley of vision. Ezekiel saw dry bones
   lying scattered here and there in the valley. The command came to
   Ezekiel, "Say to:these dry bones, live." He said, "Live," and the bones
   came together, "bone to his bone, and flesh came upon them;" but as yet
   they did not live. "Prophesy, son of man; say to the wind, breathe upon
   these slain, that they may live." They looked just like life: there was
   flesh and blood there; there were the eyes and hands and feet; but when
   Ezekiel had spoken there was a mysterious something given which men
   call life, and it was given in a mysterious way, like the blowing of
   the wind. It is even so to-day. Unconverted and ungodly persons may be
   very, moral and excellent; they are like the dry bones, when they are
   put together and clothed with flesh and blood. But to make them live
   spiritually it needs the divine afflatus from the breath of the
   Almighty, the divine pneuma, the divine Spirit, the divine wind should
   blow on them, and then they would live. Say, my hearer, hast thou ever
   had any supernatural influence on thine Heart? For if not I may seem to
   be harsh with thee, but I am faithful: if thou hast never had more than
   nature in thy heart, thou art "in the gall of bitterness and in the
   bonds of iniquity." Nay, sir, sneer not at that utterance; it is as
   true as this Bible, for tis from this Bible it was taken, and for proof
   thereof hear thou me. "except a man be born again (from above) of water
   and of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God." What sayest thou
   to that? It is in vain for thee to talk of making thyself to be born
   again; thou canst not be born again except by the Spirit, and thou must
   perish, unless thou art. You see, then, the first effect of the Spirit,
   and by that you may answer the question.

   2. In the next place, the Spirit in the word of God is often compared
   to fire. After the Spirit, like the wind, has made the dead sinner
   live, then comes the Spirit like fire. Now, fire has a searching and
   tormenting power. It is purifying, but it purifies by a terrible
   process. Now, after the Holy Spirit has given us the life of
   Christianity, there immediately begins a burning in our heart: the Lord
   searches and tries our reins, and lights a candle within our spirits
   which discovers the wickedness of our nature, and the loathsomeness of
   our iniquities. Say, my hearer, dost thou know anything about that fire
   in thine heart? For if not, thou hast not yet received the Spirit. To
   explain what I mean, let me just tell a piece of my own experience, by
   way of illustrating the fiery effects of the Spirit. I lived careless
   and thoughtless; I could indulge in sin as well as others, and did do
   so. Sometimes my conscience pricked me, but not enough to make me cease
   from vice. I could indulge in transgression, and I could love it: not
   so much as others loved it--mine early training would not let me do
   that--but still enough to prove that my heart was debased and corrupt.
   Once on a time something more than conscience pricked me: I knew not
   then what it was. I was like Samuel, when the Lord called him; I heard
   the voice, but I knew not whence it came. A stirring began in my heart,
   and I began to feel that in the sight of God I was a lost, ruined, and
   condemned sinner. That conviction I could not shake off. Do what I
   might it followed me. If I sought to amuse my mind and take it off from
   serious thoughts it was of no use; I was obliged still to carry about
   with me a heavy burden on my back. I went to my bed, and there I
   dreamed about hell, and about "the wrath to come." I woke up, and this
   dreary nightmare, this incubus, still brooded on me. What could I do? I
   renounced first one vicious habit, then another: it mattered not; all
   this was like pulling one firebrand from a flame, that fed itself with
   blazing forests. Do what I might, my conscience found no rest. Up to
   the house of God I went to hear the gospel: there was no gospel for me;
   the fire burned but the more fiercely, and the very breath of the
   gospel seemed to fan the flame. Away I went to my chamber and my closet
   to pray: the heavens were like brass, and the windows of the sky were
   barred against me. No answer could I get; the fire burned more
   vehemently. Then I thought, "I would not live always; would God I had
   never been born!" But I dared not die, for there was hell when I was
   dead; and I dared not live, for life had become intolerable. Still the
   fire blazed right vehemently; till at last I came to this resolve: "If
   there be salvation in Christ, I will have it. I have nothing of my own
   to trust to; I do this hour, O God, renounce my sin, and renounce my
   own righteousness too." And the fire blazed again, and burned up all my
   good works, ay, and my sins with them. And then I saw that all this
   burning was to bring me to Christ. And oh! the joy and gladness of my
   heart, when Jesus came and sprinkled water on the flame, and said, "I
   have bought thee with my blood; put thy trust in me; I will do for thee
   what thou canst not do for thyself; I will take thy sins away; I will
   clothe thee with a spotless robe of righteousness; I will guide thee
   all thy journey through, and land thee at last in heaven." Say, my dear
   hearer, Dost know anything about the Spirit of burning? For if not,
   again I say, I am not harsh, I am but true; if thou hast never felt
   this, thou knowest not the Spirit.

   3. To proceed a little further. When the Spirit has thus quickened the
   soul and convinced it of sin, then he comes under another metaphor. He
   comes under the metaphor of oil. The Holy Spirit is very frequently in
   Scripture compared to oil. "Thou anointest mine head with oil; my cup
   runneth over." Ah! brethren, though the beginning of the Spirit is by
   fire, it does not end there. We may be first of all convinced and
   brought to Christ by misery; but when we get to Christ there is no
   misery in him, and our sorrow results from not getting close enough to
   him. The Holy Spirit comes, like the good Samaritan, and pours in the
   oil and the wine. And oh! what oil it is with which he anoints our
   head, and with which he heals our wounds! How soft the liniments which
   he binds round our bruises! How blessed the eye-salve with which he
   anoints our eyes! How heavenly the ointment with which he binds up our
   sores, and wounds, and bruises, and makes us whole, and sets our feet
   upon a rock, and establishes our goings! The Spirit, after he has
   convinced, begins to comfort; and ye that have felt the comforting
   power of the Holy Spirit, will bear me witness there is no comforter
   like him that is the Paraclete. Oh! bring hither the music, the voice
   of song, and the sound of harps; they are both as vinegar upon nitre to
   him that hath a heavy heart. Bring me here the enchantments of the
   magic world, and all the enjoyments of its pleasures; they do but
   torment the soul and prick it with many thorns. But oh! Spirit of the
   living God, when thou dost blow upon the heart, there is not a wave of
   that tempestuous sea which does not sleep for ever when thou biddest it
   be still; there is not one single breath of the proud hurricane and
   tempest which doth not cease to howl and which doth not lie still, when
   thou sayest to it, "Peace be unto thee; thy sins are forgiven thee."
   Say, do you know the Spirit under the figure of oil? Have you felt him
   at work in your spirits, comforting you, anointing your head, making
   you glad, and causing you to rejoice?

   There are many people that never felt this. They hope they are
   religious; but their religion never makes them happy. There are scores
   of professors who have just enough religion to make them miserable. Let
   them be afraid that they have any religion at all; for religion makes
   people happy; when it has its full sway with man it makes him glad. It
   may begin in agony, but it does not end there. Say, hast thou ever had
   thine heart leaping for joy? Hath thy lip ever warbled songs of
   ecstatic praise? Doth thine eye ever flash the fire of joy? If these
   things be not so, I fear lest thou art still without God, and without
   Christ; for where the Spirit comes, his fruits are, joy in the Spirit,
   and peace, and love, and confidence, and assurance for ever.

   4. Bear with me once more. I have to show you one more figure of the
   Spirit, and by that also you will be able to ascertain whether you are
   under his operation. When the Spirit has acted as wind, as fire, and as
   oil, he then acts like water. We are told that we are "born again of
   water and of the Spirit." Now I do not think you foolish enough to need
   that I should say that no water, either of immersion or of sprinkling,
   can in the least degree operate in the salvation of a soul. There may
   be some few poor creatures, whose heads were put on their shoulders the
   wrong way, who still believe that a few drops of water from a priest's
   hands can regenerate souls. There may be such a few, but I hope the
   race will soon die out. We trust that the day will come when all those
   gentry will have no "other Gospel" to preach in our churches, but will
   have clean gone over to Rome, and when that terrible plague-spot upon
   the Protestant Church, called Puseyism, will have been cut out like a
   cancer, and torn out by its very roots. The sooner we get rid of that
   the better; and whenever we hear of any of them going over to Rome, let
   them go--I wish we could as easily get rid of the devil, they may go
   together--we do not want either of them in the Protestant Church,
   anyhow. But the Holy Spirit when he comes in the heart comes like
   water. That is to say, he comes to purify the soul. He that is to-day
   as foul a liver as he was before his pretended conversion is a
   hypocrite and a liar; he that this day loveth sin and liveth in it just
   as he was wont to do, let him know that the truth is not in him, but he
   hath received the strong delusion to believe a lie: God's people are a
   holy people; God's Spirit works by love, and purifies the soul. Once
   let it get into our hearts, and it will have no rest till it has turned
   every sin out. God's Holy Spirit and man's sin cannot live together
   peaceably; they may both be in the same heart, but they cannot both
   reign there, nor can they both be quiet there; for "the Spirit lusteth
   against the flesh, and the flesh lusteth against the Spirit;" they
   cannot rest, but there will be a perpetual warring in the soul, so that
   the Christian will have to cry, "O wretched man that I am! who shall
   deliver me from the body of this death?" But in due time the Spirit
   will drive out all sin, and will present us blameless before the throne
   of his Majesty with exceeding great joy.

   Now, my hearer, answer thou this question for thyself, and not for
   another man. Hast thou received this Spirit? Answer me, anyhow; if it
   be with a scoff, answer me; if thou sneerest and sayest, "I know
   nothing of your enthusiastic rant," be it so, sir; say, nay, then. It
   may be thou carest not to reply at all. I beseech thee do not put away
   my entreaty. Yes or no. Hast thou received the Spirit? "Sir no man can
   find fault with my character; I believe I shall enter heaven through my
   own virtues." It is not the question, sir. Hast thou received the
   Spirit? All that thou sayest thou mayest have done; but if thou hast
   left the other undone, and hast not received the Spirit, it will go ill
   with thee at last. Hast thou had a supernatural operation upon thine
   own heart? Hast thou been made a new man in Christ Jesus! For if not,
   depend on it, as God's Word is true, thou art out of Christ, and dying
   as thou art thou wilt be shut out of heaven, be thou who thou mayest
   and what thou mayest.

   II. Thus, I have tried to help you to answer the first question--the
   inquiry, Have we received the Spirit? And this brings me to the
   CAUTION. He that has not received the Spirit is said to be sensual. Oh,
   what a gulf there is between the least Christian and the greatest
   moralist! What a wide distinction there is between the greatest
   professor destitute of grace, and the least of God's believers who has
   grace in his heart. As great a difference as there is between light and
   darkness between death and life, between heaven and hell, is there
   between a saint and a sinner; for mark, my text says, in no very polite
   phrase, that if we have not the Spirit we are sensual. " Sensual!" says
   one; "well, I am not converted man--I don t pretend to be; but I am not
   sensual." Well, friend, and it is very likely that you are not--not in
   the common acceptation of the term sensual; but understand that this
   word, in the Greek, really means what an English word like this would
   mean, if we had such a one--soulish. We have not such a word--we want
   such a one. There is a great distinction between mere animals and men,
   because man hath a soul, and the mere animal hath none. There is
   another distinction between mere men and a converted man. The converted
   man hath the Spirit--the unconverted man hath none; he is a soulish
   man--not a spiritual man; he has got no further than mere nature and
   has no inheritance in the spiritual kingdom of grace. Strange it is
   that soulish and sensual should after all mean the same! Friend, thou
   hast not the Spirit. Then thou art nothing better--be thou what thou
   art, or whatsoever thou mayest be--than the fall of Adam left thee.
   That is to say, thou art a fallen creature, having only capacities to
   live here in sin, and to live for ever in torment; but thou hast not
   the capacity to live in heaven at all, for thou hast no Spirit; and
   therefore thou art unable to know or enjoy spiritual things. And mark
   you, a man may be in this state, and be a sensual man, and yet he may
   have all the virtues that could grace a Christian; but with all these,
   if he has not the Spirit, he has got not an inch further than where
   Adam's fall left him--that is, condemned and under the curse. Ay, and
   he may attend to religion with all his might--he may take the
   sacrament, and be baptized, and may be the most devout professor; but
   if he hath not the Spirit he hath not started a solitary inch from
   where he was, for he is still in "the bonds of iniquity," a lost soul.
   Nay, further, he may pick up religious phrases till he may talk very
   fast about religion; he may read biographies till he seems to be a deep
   taught child of God; he may be able to write an article upon the deep
   experience of a believer; but if this experience be not his own, if he
   hath not received it by the Spirit of the living God, he is still
   nothing more than a carnal man, and heaven is to him a place to which
   there is no entrance. Nay, further, he might go so far as to become a
   minister of the gospel, and a successful minister too, and God may
   bless the word that he preaches to the salvation of sinners, but unless
   he has received the Spirit, be he as eloquent as Apollos, and as
   earnest as Paul, he is nothing more than a mere soulish man, without
   capacity for spiritual things.

   Nay, to crown all, he might even have the power of working miracles, as
   Judas had--he might even be received into the church as a believer, as
   was Simon Magus, and after all that, though he had cast out devils,
   though he had healed the sick, though he had worked miracles, he might
   have the gates of heaven shut in his teeth, if he had not received the
   Spirit. For this is the essential thing, without which all others are
   in vain--the reception of the Spirit of the living God. It is a
   searching truth, is it not, my friends? Do not run away from it. If I
   am preaching to you falsehood, reject it; but if this be a truth which
   I can substantiate by Scripture, I beseech you, rest not till you have
   answered this question: Hast thou the Spirit, living, dwelling, working
   in thy heart?

   III. This brings me, in the third place, to THE SUSPICION. How singular
   that "separation" should be the opposite of having the Spirit. Hark! I
   hear a gentle man saying, "Oh! I like to hear you preach smartly and
   sharply; I am persuaded, sir, there are a great many people in the
   church that ought not to be there; and so I, because there is such a
   corrupt mixture in the church, have determined not to join anywhere at
   all. I do not think that the Church of Christ now a days is at all
   clean and pure enough to allow of my joining with it. At least, sir, I
   did join a church once, but I made such a deal of noise in it they were
   very glad when I went away. And now I am just like David's men; I am
   one that is in debt and discontented, and I go round to hear all new
   preachers that arise. I have heard you now these three months; I mean
   to go and hear some one else in a very little time if you do not say
   something to flatter me. But I am quite sure I am one of God's special
   elect. I don't join any church because a church is not good enough for
   me; I don't become a member of any denomination, because they are all
   wrong, every one of them." Hark ye brother, I have something to tell
   you, that will not please you. "These be they that separate themselves,
   sensual, having not the Spirit." I hope you enjoy the text: it
   certainly belongs to you, above every man in the world. "These be they
   who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit." When I read
   this over I thought to myself, there be some who say, "Well, you are a
   dissenter, how do you make this agreeable with the text, These be they
   who separate themselves;' " you are separated from the Church of
   England. Ah, my friends, that a man may be, and be all the better for
   it; but the separation here intended is separation from the one
   universal Church of Christ. The Church of England was not known in
   Jude's day: so the apostle did not allude to that. "These be they who
   separate themselves,"--that is from the Church of Christ; from the
   great universal body of the elect. Moreover, let us just say one thing.
   We did not separate ourselves--we were turned out. Dissenters did not
   separate themselves from the Church of England, from the Episcopal
   church; but when the Act of Uniformity was passed, they were turned out
   of their pulpits. Our forefathers were as sound Churchmen as any in the
   world, but they could not take in all the errors of the Prayer Book,
   and they were therefore hounded to their graves by the intolerance of
   the conforming professors. So they did not separate themselves.
   Moreover, we do not separate ourselves. There is not a Christian
   beneath the scope of God's heaven from whom I am separated. At the
   Lord's table I always invite all Churches to come and sit down and
   commune with us. If any man were to tell me that I am separate from the
   Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, or the Methodist, I would tell him he
   did not know me, for I love them with a pure heart fervently, and I am
   not separate from them. I may hold different views from them, and in
   that point truly I may be said to be separate; but I am not separate in
   heart, I will work with them--I will work with them heartily; nay,
   though my Church of England brother sends me in, as he has done, a
   summons to pay a churchrate that I cannot in conscience pay, I will
   love him still; and if he takes chairs and tables it matters not--I
   will love him for all that; and if there be a ragged-school or anything
   else for which I can work with him to promote the glory of God, therein
   will I unite with him with all my heart. I think this bears rather hard
   on our friends--the Strict Communion Baptists. I should not like to say
   anything hard against them, for they are about the best people in the
   world, but they really do separate themselves from the great body of
   Christ's people. The Spirit of the living God will not let them do this
   really, but they do it professedly. They separate themselves from the
   great Universal Church. They say they will not commune with it; and if
   any one comes to their table who has not been baptized, they turn him
   away. They "separate," certainly. I do not believe it is willful schism
   that makes them thus act; but at the same time I think the old man
   within has some hand in it.

   Oh, how my heart loves the doctrine of the one church. The nearer I get
   to my Master in prayer and communion, the closer am I knit to all his
   disciples. The more I see of my own errors and failings, the more ready
   am I to deal gently with them that I believe to be erring. The pulse of
   Christ's body is communion; and woe to the church that seeks to cure
   the ills of Christ's body by stopping its pulse. I think it sin to
   refuse to commune with anyone who is a member of the Church of our Lord
   Jesus Christ. I desire this morning to preach the unity of Christ's
   church. I have sought to use the fan to blow away the chaff. I have
   said no man belongs to Christ's church unless he has the Spirit; but,
   if he hath the Spirit, woe be to the man that separates himself from
   him. Oh! I should think myself grossly in fault if at the foot of these
   stairs I should meet a truly converted child of God, who called himself
   a Primitive Methodist, or a Wesleyan. or a Churchman, or an
   Independent, and I should say, "No, sir, you do not agree with me on
   certain points; I believe you are a child of God, but I will have
   nothing to do with you." I should then think that this text would bear
   very hard on me. "These be they who separate themselves, sensual,
   having not the Spirit." But would we do so, beloved? No, we would give
   them both our hands, and say, God speed to you in your journey to
   heaven; so long as you have got the Spirit we are one family, and we
   will not be separate from one another. God grant the day may come when
   every wall of separation shall be beaten down! See how to this day we
   are separate. There! you will find a Baptist who could not say a good
   word to a Poedo-Baptist if you were to give him a world. You find to
   this day Episcopalians who hate that ugly word, "Dissent;" and it is
   enough for them that a Dissenter has done a thing; they will not do it
   then, be it never so good.

   Ah! and furthermore, there are some to be found in the Church of
   England that will not only hate dissent, but hate one another into the
   bargain. Men are to be found that cannot let brother ministers of their
   own church preach in their parish. What an anachronism such men are!
   They would seem to have been sent into the world in our time purely by
   mistake. Their proper era would have been the time of the dark ages. If
   they had lived then, what fine Bonners they would have made! What
   splendid fellows they would have been to have helped to poke the fire
   in Smithfield! But they are quite out of date in these times, and I
   look upon such a curious clergyman in the same way that I do upon a
   Dodo--as an extraordinary animal whose race is almost, if not quite
   extinct. Well, you may look, and look and wonder. The animal will be
   extinct soon. It will not be long, I trust, before not only the Church
   of England shall love itself, but when all who love the Lord Jesus
   shall be ready to preach in each other's pulpits, preaching the same
   truth, holding the same faith, and mightily contending for it. Then
   shall the world "see how these Christians love one another; " and then
   shall it be known in heaven that Christ s kingdom has come, and that
   his will is about to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

   My hearer, dost thou belong to the church? For out of the church there
   is no salvation. But mark what the church is. It is not the
   Episcopalian, Baptist, or Presbyterian: the church is a company of men
   who have received the Spirit. If thou canst not say thou hast the
   Spirit, go thy way and tremble; go thy way and think of thy lost
   condition; and may Jesus by his Spirit so bless thee, that thou mayest
   be led to renounce thy works and ways with grief, and fly to him who
   died upon the cross, and find a shelter there from the wrath of God.

   I may have said some rough things this morning, but I am not given much
   to cutting and trimming, and I do not suppose I shall begin to learn
   that art now. If the thing is untrue, it is with you to reject it; if
   it be true, at your own peril reject what God stamps with divine
   authority. May the blessing of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
   rest upon the one church of Israel's one Jehovah. Amen and Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                           The First Christmas Carol

   A Sermon

   (No. 168)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 20, 1857, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward
   men."--Luke 2:14.

   IT IS SUPERSTITIOUS to worship angels; it is but proper to love them.
   Although it would be a high sin, and an act of misdemeanor against the
   Sovereign Court of Heaven to pay the slightest adoration to the
   mightiest angel, yet it would be unkind and unseemly, if we did not
   give to holy angels a place in our heart's warmest love. In fact, he
   that contemplates the character of angels, and marks their many deeds
   of sympathy with men, and kindness towards them, cannot resist the
   impulse of his nature--the impulse of love towards them. The one
   incident in angelic history, to which our text refers, is enough to
   weld our hearts to them for ever. How free from envy the angels were!
   Christ did not come from heaven to save their compeers when they fell.
   When Satan, the mighty angel, dragged with him a third part of the
   stars of heaven, Christ did not stoop from his throne to die for them;
   but he left them to be reserved in chains and darkness until the last
   great day. Yet angels did not envy men. Though they remembered that he
   took not up angels, yet they did not murmur when he took up the seed of
   Abraham; and though the blessed Master had never condescended to take
   the angel's form, they did not think it beneath them to express their
   joy when they found him arrayed in the body of an infant. How free,
   too, they were from pride! They were not ashamed to come and tell the
   news to humble shepherds. Methinks they had as much joy in pouring out
   their songs that night before the shepherds, who were watching with
   their flocks, as they would have had if they had been commanded by
   their Master to sing their hymn in the halls of Caesar. Mere men--men
   possessed with pride, think it a fine thing to preach before kings and
   princes; and think it great condescension now and then to have to
   minister to the humble crowd. Not so the angels. They stretched their
   willing wings, and gladly sped from their bright seats above, to tell
   the shepherds on the plain by night, the marvelous story of an
   Incarnate God. And mark how well they told the story, and surely you
   will love them! Not with the stammering tongue of him that tells a tale
   in which he hath no interest; nor even with the feigned interest of a
   man that would move the passions of others, when he feeleth no emotion
   himself; but with joy and gladness, such as angels only can know. They
   sang the story out, for they could not stay to tell it in heavy prose.
   They sang, "Glory to God on high, and on earth peace, good will towards
   men." Methinks they sang it with gladness in their eyes; with their
   hearts burning with love, and with breasts as full of joy as if the
   good news to man had been good news to themselves. And, verily, it was
   good news to them, for the heart of sympathy makes good news to others,
   good news to itself. Do you not love the angels? Ye will not bow before
   them, and there ye are right; but will ye not love them? Doth it not
   make one part of your anticipation of heaven, that in heaven you shall
   dwell with the holy angels, as well as with the spirits of the just
   made perfect? Oh, how sweet to think that these holy and lovely beings
   are our guardians every hour! They keep watch and ward about us, both
   in the burning noon-tide, and in the darkness of the night. They keep
   us in all our ways; they bear us up in their hands, lest at any time we
   dash our feet against stones. They unceasingly minister unto us who are
   the heirs of salvation; both by day and night they are our watchers and
   our guardians, for know ye not, that "the angel of the Lord encampeth
   round about them that fear him."

   Let us turn aside, having just thought of angels for a moment, to think
   rather of this song, than of the angels themselves. Their song was
   brief, but as Kitto excellently remarks, it was "well worthy of angels
   expressing the greatest and most blessed truths, in words so few, that
   they become to an acute apprehension, almost oppressive by the pregnant
   fulness of their meaning"--"Glory to God in the highest, on earth
   peace, good will toward men." We shall, hoping to be assisted by the
   Holy Spirit, look at these words of the angels in a fourfold manner. I
   shall just suggest some instructive thoughts arising from these words;
   then some emotional thoughts; then a few prophetical thoughts; and
   afterwards, one or two preceptive thoughts.

   I. First then, in the words of our text. There are many INSTRUCTIVE
   THOUGHTS.

   The angels sang something which men could understand--something which
   men ought to understand--something which will make men much better if
   they will understand it. The angels were singing about Jesus who was
   born in the manger. We must look upon their song as being built upon
   this foundation. They sang of Christ, and the salvation which he came
   into this world to work out. And what they said of this salvation was
   this: they said, first, that it gave glory to God; secondly, that it
   gave peace to man; and, thirdly, that it was a token of God's good will
   towards the human race.

   1. First, they said that this salvation gave glory to God. They had
   been present on many august occasions, and they had joined in many a
   solemn chorus to the praise of their Almighty Creator. They were
   present at the creation: "The morning stars sang together, and all the
   sons of God shouted for joy." They had seen many a planet fashioned
   between the palms of Jehovah, and wheeled by his eternal hands through
   the infinitude of space. They had sung solemn songs over many a world
   which the Great One had created. We doubt not, they had often chanted
   "Blessing and honour, and glory, and majesty, and power, and dominion,
   and might, be unto him that sitteth on the throne," manifesting himself
   in the work of creation. I doubt not, too, that their songs had
   gathered force through ages. As when first created, their first breath
   was song, so when they saw God create new worlds then their song
   received another note; they rose a little higher in the gamut of
   adoration. But this time, when they saw God stoop from his throne, and
   become a babe, hanging upon a woman's breast, they lifted their notes
   higher still; and reaching to the uttermost stretch of angelic music,
   they gained the highest notes of the divine scale of praise, and they
   sung, "Glory to God in the highest," for higher in goodness they felt
   God could not go. Thus their highest praise they gave to him in the
   highest act of his godhead. If it be true that there is a hierarchy of
   angels, rising tier upon tier in magnificence and dignity--if the
   apostle teaches us that there be "angels, and principalities, and
   powers, and thrones, and dominions," amongst these blest inhabitants of
   the upper world--I can suppose that when the intelligence was first
   communicated to those angels that are to be found upon the outskirts of
   the heavenly world, when they looked down from heaven and saw the
   newborn babe, they sent the news backward to the place whence the
   miracle first proceeded, singing

   "Angels, from the realms of glory,

   Wing your downward flight to earth,

   Ye who sing creation's story,

   Now proclaim Messiah's birth;

   Come and worship,

   Worship Christ, the newborn King."

   And as the message ran from rank to rank, at last the presence angels,
   those four cherubim that perpetually watch around the throne of
   God--those wheels with eyes--took up the strain, and, gathering up the
   song of all the inferior grades of angels, surmounted the divine
   pinnacle of harmony with their own solemn chant of adoration, upon
   which the entire host shouted, "The highest angels praise
   thee."--"Glory to God in the highest." Ay, there is no mortal that can
   ever dream how magnificent was that song. Then, note, if angels shouted
   before and when the world was made, their hallelujahs were more full,
   more strong, more magnificent, if not more hearty, when they saw Jesus
   Christ born of the Virgin Mary to be man's redeemer--"Glory to God in
   the highest."

   What is the instructive lesson to be learned from this first syllable
   of the angels' song? Why this, that salvation is God's highest glory.
   He is glorified in every dew drop that twinkles to the morning sun. He
   is magnified in every wood flower that blossoms in the copse, although
   it live to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness in the forest air. God
   is glorified in every bird that warbles on the spray; in every lamb
   that skips the mead. Do not the fishes in the sea praise him? From the
   tiny minnow to the huge Leviathan, do not all creatures that swim the
   water bless and praise his name? Do not all created things extol him?
   Is there aught beneath the sky, save man, that doth not glorify God? Do
   not the stars exalt him, when they write his name upon the azure of
   heaven in their golden letters? Do not the lightnings adore him when
   they flash his brightness in arrows of light piercing the midnight
   darkness? Do not thunders extol him when they roll like drums in the
   march of the God of armies? Do not all things exalt him, from the least
   even to the greatest? But sing, sing, oh universe, till thou hast
   exhausted thyself, thou canst not afford a song so sweet as the song of
   Incarnation. Though creation may be a majestic organ of praise, it
   cannot reach the compass of the golden canticle--Incarnation! There is
   more in that than in creation, more melody in Jesus in the manger, than
   there is in worlds on worlds rolling their grandeur round the throne of
   the Most High. Pause Christian, and consider this a minute. See how
   every attribute is here magnified. Lo! what wisdom is here. God becomes
   man that God may be just, and the justifier of the ungodly. Lo! what
   power, for where is power so great as when it concealeth power? What
   power, that Godhead should unrobe itself and become man! Behold, what
   love is thus revealed to us when Jesus becomes a man. Behold ye, what
   faithfulness! How many promises are this day kept? How many solemn
   obligations are this hour discharged? Tell me one attribute of God that
   is not manifest in Jesus; and your ignorance shall be the reason why
   you have not seen it so. The whole of God is glorified in Christ; and
   though some part of the name of God is written in the universe, it is
   here best read--in Him who was the Son of Man, and, yet, the Son of
   God.

   But, let me say one word here before I go away from this point. We must
   learn from this, that if salvation glorifies God, glorifies him in the
   highest degree, and makes the highest creatures praise him, this one
   reflection may be added--then, that doctrine, which glorifies man in
   salvation cannot be the gospel. For salvation glorifies God. The angels
   were no Arminians, they sang, "Glory to God in the highest." They
   believe in no doctrine which uncrowns Christ, and puts the crown upon
   the head of mortals. They believe in no system of faith which makes
   salvation dependent upon the creature, and, which really gives the
   creature the praise, for what is it less than for a man to save
   himself, if the whole dependence of salvation rests upon his own free
   will? No, my brethren; they may be some preachers, that delight to
   preach a doctrine that magnifies man; but in their gospel angels have
   no delight. The only glad tidings that made the angels sing, are those
   that put God first, God last, God midst, and God without end, in the
   salvation of his creatures, and put the crown wholly and alone upon the
   head of him that saves without a helper. "Glory to God in the highest,"
   is the angels' song.

   2. When they had sung this, they sang what they had never sung before.
   "Glory to God in the highest," was an old, old song; they had sung that
   from before the foundations of the world. But, now, they sang as it
   were a new song before the throne of God: for they added this
   stanza--"on earth, peace." They did not sing that in the garden. There
   was peace there, but it seemed a thing of course, and scarce worth
   singing of. There was more than peace there; for there was glory to God
   there. But, now, man had fallen, and since the day when cherubim with
   fiery swords drove out the man, there had been no peace on earth, save
   in the breast of some believers, who had obtained peace from the living
   fountain of this incarnation of Christ. Wars had raged from the ends of
   the world; men had slaughtered one another, heaps on heaps. There had
   been wars within as well as wars without. Conscience had fought with
   man; Satan had tormented man with thoughts of sin. There had been no
   peace on earth since Adam fell. But, now, when the newborn King made
   his appearance, the swaddling band with which he was wrapped up was the
   white flag of peace. That manger was the place where the treaty was
   signed, whereby warfare should be stopped between man's conscience and
   himself, man's conscience and his God. It was then, that day, the
   trumpet blew--"Sheathe the sword, oh man, sheathe the sword, oh
   conscience, for God is now at peace with man, and man at peace with
   God." Do you not feel my brethren, that the gospel of God is peace to
   man? Where else can peace be found, but in the message of Jesus? Go
   legalist, work for peace with toil and pain, and thou shalt never find
   it. Go, thou, that trustest in the law: go thou, to Sinai; look to the
   flames that Moses saw, and shrink, and tremble, and despair; for peace
   is nowhere to be found, but in him, of whom it is said, "This man shall
   be peace." And what a peace it is, beloved! It is peace like a river,
   and righteousness like the waves of the sea. It is the peace of God
   that passeth all understanding, which keeps our hearts and minds
   through Jesus Christ our Lord. This sacred peace between the pardoned
   soul and God the pardoner; this marvelous at-one-ment between the
   sinner and his judge, this was it that the angels sung when they said,
   "peace on earth."

   3. And, then, they wisely ended their song with a third note. They
   said, "Good will to man." Philosophers have said that God has a good
   will toward man; but I never knew any man who derived much comfort from
   their philosophical assertion. Wise men have thought from what we have
   seen in creation that God had much good will toward man, or else his
   works would never have been so constructed for their comfort; but I
   never heard of any man who could risk his soul's peace upon such a
   faint hope as that. But I have not only heard of thousands, but I know
   them, who are quite sure that God has a good will towards men; and if
   you ask their reason, they will give a full and perfect answer. They
   say, he has good will toward man for he gave his Son. No greater proof
   of kindness between the Creator and his subjects can possibly be
   afforded than when the Creator gives his only begotten and well beloved
   Son to die. Though the first note is God-like, and though the second
   note is peaceful, this third note melts my heart the most. Some think
   of God as if he were a morose being who hated all mankind. Some picture
   him as if he were some abstract subsistence taking no interest in our
   affairs. Hark ye, God has "good will toward men." You know what good
   will means. Well, Swearer, you have cursed God; he has not fulfilled
   his curse on you; he has good will towards you, though you have no good
   will towards him. Infidel, you have sinned high and hard against the
   Most High; he has said no hard things against you, for he has good will
   towards men. Poor sinner, thou hast broken his laws; thou art half
   afraid to come to the throne of his mercy lest he should spurn thee;
   hear thou this, and be comforted-- God has good will towards men, so
   good a will that he has said, and said it with an oath too, "As I live,
   saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but
   had rather that he should turn unto me and live;" so good a will
   moreover that he has even condescended to say, "Come, now, let us
   reason together; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wool;
   though they be red like crimson, they shall be whiter than snow." And
   if you say, "Lord, how shall I know that thou hast this good will
   towards me," he points to yonder manger, and says, "Sinner, if I had
   not a good will towards thee, would I have parted with my Son? if I had
   not good will towards the human race, would I have given up my Son to
   become one of that race that he might by so doing redeem them from
   death?" Ye that doubt the Master's love, look ye to that circle of
   angels; see their blaze of glory; hear their son, and let your doubts
   die away in that sweet music and be buried in a shroud of harmony. He
   has good will to men; he is willing to pardon; he passes by iniquity,
   transgression, and sin. And mark thee, if Satan shall then add, "But
   though God hath good will, yet he cannot violate his justice, therefore
   his mercy may be ineffective, and you may die;" then listen to that
   first note of the song, "Glory to God in the highest," and reply to
   Satan and all his temptations, that when God shows good will to a
   penitent sinner, there is not only peace in the sinner's heart, but it
   brings glory to every attribute of God, and so he can be just, and yet
   justify the sinner, and glorify himself.

   I do not pretend to say that I have opened all the instructions
   contained in these three sentences, but I may perhaps direct you into a
   train of thought that may serve you for the week. I hope that all
   through the week you will have a truly merry Christmas by feeling the
   power of these words, and knowing the unction of them. "Glory to God in
   the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men."

   II. Next, I have to present to you some EMOTIONAL THOUGHTS. Friends,
   doth not this verse, this song of angels, stir your heart with
   happiness? When I read that, and found the angels singing it, I thought
   to myself, "Then if the angels ushered in the gospel's great head with
   singing, ought I not to preach with singing? And ought not my hearers
   to live with singing? Ought not their hearts to be glad and their
   spirits to rejoice?" Well, thought I, there be some somber religionists
   who were born in a dark night in December that think a smile upon the
   face is wicked, and believe that for a Christian to be glad and rejoice
   is to be inconsistent. Ah! I wish these gentlemen had seen the angels
   when they sang about Christ; for angels sang about his birth, though it
   was no concern of theirs, certainly men ought to sing about it as long
   as they live, sing about it when they die, and sing about it when they
   live in heaven for ever. I do long to see in the midst of the church
   more of a singing Christianity. The last few years have been breeding
   in our midst a groaning and unbelieving Christianity. Now, I doubt not
   its sincerity, but I do doubt its healthy character. I say it may be
   true and real enough; God forbid I should say a word against the
   sincerity of those who practice it; but it is a sickly religion. Watts
   hit the mark when he said,

   "Religion never was designed

   To make our pleasures less."

   It is designed to do away with some of our pleasures, but it gives us
   many more, to make up for what it takes away; so it does not make them
   less. O ye that see in Christ nothing but a subject to stimulate your
   doubts and make the tears run down your cheeks; O ye that always say,

   "Lord, what a wretched land is this,

   That yields us no supplies,"

   Come ye hither and see the angels. Do they tell their story with
   groans, and sobs, and sighs? Ah, no; they shout aloud, "Glory to God in
   the highest." Now, imitate them, my dear brethren. If you are
   professors of religion, try always to have a cheerful carriage. Let
   others mourn; but

   "Why should the children of a king

   Go mourning all their days?"

   Anoint your head and wash your face; appear not unto men to fast.
   Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say unto you rejoice. Specially
   this week be not ashamed to be glad. You need not think it a wicked
   thing to be happy. Penance and whipping, and misery are no such very
   virtuous things, after all. The damned are miserable; let the saved be
   happy. Why should you hold fellowship with the lost by feelings of
   perpetual mourning? Why not rather anticipate the joys of heaven, and
   begin to sing on earth that song which you will never need to end? The
   first emotion then that we ought to cherish in our hearts is the
   emotion of joy and gladness.

   Well, what next? Another emotion is that of confidence. I am not sure
   that I am right in calling that an emotion, but still in me it is so
   much akin to it, that I will venture to be wrong if I be so. Now, if
   when Christ came on this earth God had sent some black creature down
   from heaven, (if there be such creatures there) to tell us, "Glory to
   God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men," and if
   with a frowning brow and a stammering tongue he delivered his message,
   if I had been there and heard it, I should have scrupled to believe
   him, for I should have said, "You don't look like the messenger that
   God would send--stammering fellow as you are--with such glad news as
   this." But when the angels came there was no doubting the truth of what
   they said, because it was quite certain that the angels believed it;
   they told it as if they did, for they told it with singing, with joy
   and gladness. If some friend, having heard that a legacy was left you,
   and should come to you with a solemn countenance, and a tongue like a
   funeral bell, saying, "Do you know so-and-so has left you £10,000!" Why
   you would say, "Ah! I dare say," and laugh in his face. But if your
   brother should suddenly burst into your room, and exclaim, "I say, what
   do you think? You are a rich man; So-and-so has left you £10,000!" Why
   you would say, "I think it is very likely to be true, for he looks so
   happy over it." Well, when these angels came from heaven they told the
   news just as if they believed it; and though I have often wickedly
   doubted my Lord's good will, I think I never could have doubted it
   while I heard those angels singing. No, I should say, "The messengers
   themselves are proof of the truth, for it seems they have heard it from
   God's lips; they have no doubt about it, for see how joyously they tell
   the news." Now, poor soul, thou that art afraid lest God should destroy
   thee, and thou thinkest that God will never have mercy upon thee, look
   at the singing angels and doubt if thou darest. Do not go to the
   synagogue of long-faced hypocrites to hear the minister who preaches
   with a nasal twang, with misery in his face, whilst he tells you that
   God has good will towards men; I know you won't believe what he says,
   for he does not preach with joy in his countenance; he is telling you
   good news with a grunt, and you are not likely to receive it. But go
   straightway to the plain where Bethlehem shepherds sat by night, and
   when you hear the angels singing out the gospel, by the grace of God
   upon you, you cannot help believing that they manifestly feel the
   preciousness of telling. Blessed Christmas, that brings such creatures
   as angels to confirm our faith in God's good will to men!

   III. I must now bring before you the third point. There are some
   PROPHETIC UTTERANCES contained in these words. The angels sang "Glory
   to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men." But I
   look around, and what see I in the wide, wide world? I do not see God
   honored. I see the heathen bowing down before their idols; I mark the
   Romanist casting himself before the rotten rags of his relics, and the
   ugly figures of his images. I look about me, and I see tyranny lording
   it over the bodies and souls of men; I see God forgotten; I see a
   worldly race pursuing mammon; I see a bloody race pursuing Moloch; I
   see ambition riding like Nimrod over the land, God forgotten, his name
   dishonored. And was this all the angels sang about? Is this all that
   made them sing "Glory to God in the highest?" Ah! no. There are
   brighter days approaching. They sang, "Peace on earth." But I hear
   still the clarion of war; and the cannon's horrid roar: not yet have
   they turned the sword into a ploughshare, and the spear into a
   pruning-hook! War still reigns. Is this all that the angels sang about?
   And whilst I see wars to the ends of the earth, am I to believe that
   this was all the angels expected? Ah! no, brethren; the angels' song is
   big with prophecy; it travaileth in birth with glories. A few more
   years, and he that lives them out shall see why angels sang; a few more
   years, and he that will come shall come, and will not tarry. Christ the
   Lord will come again, and when he cometh he shall cast the idols from
   their thrones; he shall dash down every fashion of heresy and every
   shape of idolatry; he shall reign from pole to pole with illimitable
   sway; he shall reign, when like a scroll, yon blue heavens have passed
   away. No strife shall vex Messiah's reign, no blood shall then be shed;
   they'll hang the useless helmet high, and study war no more. The hour
   is approaching when the temple of Janus shall be shut for ever, and
   when cruel Mars shall be hooted from the earth. The day is coming when
   the lion shall eat straw like the ox, when the leopard shall lie down
   with the kid; when the weaned child shall put his hand upon the
   cockatrice den and play with the asp. The hour approacheth; the first
   streaks of the sunlight have made glad the age in which we live. Lo, he
   comes, with trumpets and with clouds of glory; he shall come for whom
   we look with joyous expectation, whose coming shall be glory to his
   redeemed, and confusion to his enemies. Ah! brethren, when the angels
   sang this there was an echo through the long aisles of a glorious
   future. That echo was--

   "Hallelujah! Christ the Lord

   God Omnipotent shall reign."

   Ay, and doubtless the angels heard by faith the fulness of the song,

   "Hark! the song of jubilee

   Loud as mighty thunders' roar,

   Or the fulness of the sea,

   When it breaks upon the shore."

   "Christ the Lord Omnipotent reigneth."

   IV. Now, I have one more lesson for you, and I have done. That lesson
   is PRECEPTIVE. I wish everybody that keeps Christmas this year, would
   keep it as the angels kept it. There are many persons who, when they
   talk about keeping Christmas, mean by that the cutting of the bands of
   their religion for one day in the year, as if Christ were the Lord of
   misrule, as if the birth of Christ should be celebrated like the orgies
   of Bacchus. There are some very religious people, that on Christmas
   would never forget to go to church in the morning; they believe
   Christmas to be nearly as holy as Sunday, for they reverence the
   tradition of the elders. Yet their way of spending the rest of the day
   is very remarkable; for if they see their way straight up stairs to
   their bed at night, it must be by accident. They would not consider
   they had kept Christmas in a proper manner, if they did not verge on
   gluttony and drunkenness. They are many who think Christmas cannot
   possibly be kept, except there be a great shout of merriment and mirth
   in the house, and added to that the boisterousness of sin. Now, my
   brethren, although we, as successors of the Puritans, will not keep the
   day in any religious sense whatever, attaching nothing more to it than
   to any other day: believing that every day may be a Christmas for ought
   we know, and wishing to make every day Christmas, if we can, yet we
   must try to set an example to others how to behave on that day; and
   especially since the angels gave glory to God: let us do the same.

   Once more the angels said, "Peace to men:" let us labor if we can to
   make peace next Christmas day. Now, old gentleman, you won't take your
   son in: he has offended you. Fetch him at Christmas. "Peace on earth;"
   you know: that is a Christmas Carol. Make peace in your family.

   Now, brother, you have made a vow that you will never speak to your
   brother again. Go after him and say, "Oh, my dear fellow, let not this
   day's sun go down upon our wrath." Fetch him in, and give him your
   hand. Now, Mr. Tradesman, you have an opponent in trade, and you have
   said some very hard words about him lately. If you do not make the
   matter up today, or tomorrow, or as soon as you can, yet do it on that
   day. That is the way to keep Christmas, peace on earth and glory to
   God. And oh, if thou hast anything on thy conscience, anything that
   prevents thy having peace of mind, keep thy Christmas in thy chamber,
   praying to God to give thee peace; for it is peace on earth, mind,
   peace in thyself, peace with thyself, peace with thy fellow men, peace
   with thy God. And do not think thou hast well celebrated that day till
   thou canst say, "O God,

   'With the world, myself, and thee

   I ere I sleep at peace will be. "

   And when the Lord Jesus has become your peace, remember, there is
   another thing, good will towards men. Do not try to keep Christmas
   without keeping good will towards men. You are a gentleman, and have
   servants. Well, try and set their chimneys on fire with a large piece
   of good, substantial beef for them. If you are men of wealth, you have
   poor in your neighborhood. Find something wherewith to clothe the
   naked, and feed the hungry, and make glad the mourner. Remember, it is
   good will towards men. Try, if you can, to show them good will at this
   special season; and if you will do that, the poor will say with me,
   that indeed they wish there were six Christmases in the year.

   Let each one of us go from this place determined, that if we are angry
   all the year round, this next week shall be an exception; that if we
   have snarled at everybody last year, this Christmas time we will strive
   to be kindly affectionate to others; and if we have lived all this year
   at enmity with God, I pray that by his Spirit he may this week give us
   peace with him; and then, indeed, my brother, it will be the merriest
   Christmas we ever had in all our lives. You are going home to your
   father and mother, young men; many of you are going from your shops to
   your homes. You remember what I preached on last Christmas time. Go
   home to thy friends, and tell them what the Lord hath done for thy
   soul, and that will make a blessed round of stories at the Christmas
   fire. If you will each of you tell your parents how the Lord met with
   you in the house of prayer; how, when you left home, you were a gay,
   wild blade, but have now come back to love your mother's God, and read
   your father's Bible. Oh, what a happy Christmas that will make! What
   more shall I say? May God give you peace with yourselves; may he give
   you good will towards all your friends, your enemies, and your
   neighbors; and may he give you grace to give glory to God in the
   highest. I will say no more, except at the close of this sermon to wish
   every one of you, when the day shall come, the happiest Christmas you
   ever had in your lives.

   "Now with angels round the throne,

   Cherubim and seraphim,

   And the church, which still is one,

   Let us swell the solemn hymn;

   Glory to the great I AM!

   Glory to the Victim Lamb.

   Blessing, honour, glory, might,

   And dominion infinite,

   To the Father of our Lord,

   To the Spirit and the Word;

   As it was all worlds before,

   Is, and shall be evermore."
     __________________________________________________________________

                               What Have I Done?

   A Sermon

   (No. 169)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 27, 1857, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "What have I done?"--Jeremiah 8:6.

   PERHAPS NO FIGURE represents God in a more gracious light than those
   figures of speech, which represent him as stooping from his throne, and
   as coming down from heaven to attend to the wants and to behold the
   woes of mankind. We must have love for that God, who, when Sodom and
   Gomorrah were reeking with iniquity, would not destroy those cities,
   although he knew their guilt and their wickedness, until he had made an
   actual visitation to them and had sojourned for awhile in their
   streets. Methinks we can not help pouring out our heart in affection to
   that God, of whom we are told that he inclines his ear from the highest
   glory, and puts it to the lip of the faintest that breathes out the
   true desire. How can we resist feeling that he is a God whom we must
   love, when we know that he regards everything that concerns us, numbers
   the very hairs of our heads, bids his angels protect our footsteps lest
   we dash our feet against stones, marks our path end ordereth our ways.
   But especially is this great truth brought near to man's heart, when we
   recollect how attentive God is, not merely to the temporal interests of
   his creatures, but to their spiritual concerns. God is represented in
   Scripture as waiting to be gracious, or, in the language of the
   parable, when his prodigals are yet a great way off he sees them; he
   runs and falls upon their neck and kisses them. He is so attentive to
   everything that is good, even in the poor sinner's heart, that to him
   there is music in a sigh, and beauty in a tear; and in this verse that
   I have just read, he represents himself as looking upon man's heart and
   listening--listening, if possibly he may hear something that is good.
   "I hearkened and heard; I listened; I stood still, and I attended to
   them." And how amiable does God appear, when he is represented as
   turning aside, and as it were with grief in his heart, exclaiming, "I
   did listen, I did hearken, but they spake not aright; no man repented
   of his wickedness, saying, "What shall I do?" Ah! my hearer, thou never
   hast a desire toward God which does not excite God's hope; thou dost
   never breathe a prayer toward heaven which he does not notice; and
   though thou hast very often uttered prayers which have been as the
   morning cloud and as the early dew that soon passeth away, yet all
   these things have moved Jehovah's bowels; for he has been hearkening to
   thy cry and noticing the breathing of thy soul, and though it all hath
   passed away, yet it did not pass away unnoticed, for he remembers it
   even now. And oh! thou that art this day seeking a Saviour, remember,
   that Saviour's eyes are on thy seeking soul to-day. Thou art not
   looking after one who can not see thee; thou art coming to thy Father,
   but thy Father sees thee even in the distance. It was but one tear that
   trickled down thy cheek, but thy Father noticed that as a hopeful sign;
   it was but one throb that went through thy heart just now during the
   singing of the hymn, but God, the Loving, noticed even that, and
   thought upon it as at least some omen that thou wast not yet quite
   hardened by sin, nor yet given up by love and mercy.

   The text is "What have I done?" I shall just introduce that by a few
   words of affectionate persuasion, urging all now present to ask that
   question: secondly, I shall give them a few words of assistance in
   trying to answer it; and when I have so done, I shall finish by a few
   sentences of solemn admonition to those who have had to answer the
   question against themselves.

   I. First, then, a few words of EARNEST PERSUASION, requesting every one
   now present, and more especially every unconverted person, to ask this
   question of himself, and answer it solemnly: "What have I done?"

   Few men like to take the trouble to review their own lives, most men
   are so near bankruptcy that they are ashamed to look at their own
   books. The great mass of mankind are like the silly ostrich, which,
   when hard pressed by the hunters, buries its head in the sand and shuts
   its eyes, and then thinks, because it does not see its pursuers, that
   therefore it is safe. The great mass of mankind, I repeat, are ashamed
   to review their own biographies; and if conscience and memory together
   could turn joint authors of a history of their lives throughout, they
   would buy a huge iron clasp and a padlock to it, and lock the volume
   up, for they dare not read it. They know it to be a book full of
   lamentation and woe, which they dare not read, and still go on in their
   iniquities. I have therefore a hard task in endeavoring to persuade you
   one and all to take down that book, and be its pages few or many, be
   they white or be they black, I have some difficulty in getting you to
   read them through. But may the Holy Spirit persuade you now, so that
   you may answer this question, "What have I done?" For remember, my dear
   friend, that searching yourself can do you no hurt. No tradesman ever
   gets the poorer by looking to his books; he may find himself to be
   poorer than he thought he was, but it is not the looking to the books
   that hath hurt him; he hath hurt himself by some ill trading before.
   Better, my friend, for you to know the past whilst there is yet time
   for repairing it, than that you should go blindfolded, hoping to enter
   the gates of Paradise and find out your mistake when alas! it is too
   late, because the door is shut. There is nothing to be lost by taking
   stock; you can not be any the worse for a little self examination. This
   of itself shall be one strong argument to induce you to do it; but
   remember you may be a great deal the better; for suppose your affairs
   are all right with God, why then you may make good cheer and comfort
   yourself for he that is right with his God has no cause to be sad. But
   ah! remember there are many probabilities that you are wrong. There are
   so many in this world that are deceived, that there are many chances
   that you are deceived too. You may have a name to live and yet be dead;
   you may be like John Bunyan's tree, of which he said "twas fair to look
   upon and green outside, but the inside of it was rotten enough to be
   tinder for the devils tinder box." You may this day thus stand before
   yourself your fellow creatures well whitewashed, and exceeding fair,
   but you may be like that Pharisee of whom Christ said, "Thou art a
   whited sepulcher, for inwardly thou art full of rottenness and dead
   men's bones." Now, man, however thou mayest wish to be self-deceived,
   for my own part I feel that I would a thousand times rather know my own
   state really than have the most pleasing conceptions about it and find
   myself deceived. Many a time have I solemnly prayed that prayer, "Lord,
   help me to know the worst of my own case; if I be still an apostate
   from thee, without God and without Christ, at least let me be honest to
   myself and know what I am." Remember, my friend, that the time you have
   for self-examination is, after all, very short. Soon thou wilt know the
   great secret. I perhaps may not say words rough enough to rend off the
   mask which thou now hast upon thee, but there is one called Death who
   will stand no compliment. You may masquerade it out to-day in the dress
   of the saint, but death will soon strip you, and you must stand before
   the judgment seat after death has discovered you in all your nakedness,
   be that naked innocence or naked guilt. Remember, too, though you may
   deceive yourself, you will not deceive your God. You may have light
   weights, and the beam of the scale in which you weigh yourself may not
   be honest, and may not therefore tell the truth; but when God shall try
   you he will make no allowances; when the everlasting Jehovah grasps the
   balances of justice and puts his law into one scale, ah, sinner, how
   wilt thou tremble when he shall put thee into the other; for unless
   Christ be thy Christ thou wilt be found light weight--thou wilt be
   weighed in the balances and found wanting, and be cast away for ever.

   Oh! what words shall I adopt to induce every one of you now to search
   yourselves! I know the various excuses that some of you will make. Some
   of you will plead that you are members of churches, and that,
   therefore, all is right with you. Perhaps you look across from the
   gallery, and you say to me, "Mr. Spurgeon, your hands baptized me but
   this year into the Lord Jesus, and you have often passed to me the
   sacramental bread and wine. Ah, my hearer, I know that, and I have
   baptized, I fear, many of you that the Lord hath never baptized; and
   some of you have been received into the church fellowship on earth who
   were never received by God. If Jesus Christ had one hypocrite in his
   twelve, how many hypocrites must I have here in nearly twelve hundred?
   Ah! my hearers, in this age it is a very easy thing to make a
   profession of religion: many churches receive candidates into their
   fellowship without examination at all; I have had such come to me, and
   I have told them, "I must treat you just the same as if you came from
   the world," because they said, "I never saw the minister; I wrote a
   note to the Church, and they took me in." Verily, in this age of
   profession, a man may make the highest profession in the world, and yet
   be at last found with damned apostates. Do not put off the question for
   that; and do not say, "I am too busy to attend to my spiritual
   concerns; there is time enough yet." Many have said that, and before
   their "time enough" has come, they have found themselves where time
   shall be no more. O! thou that sayest thou hast time enough, how little
   dost thou know how near death is to thee. There are some present that
   will not see New Year's Day; there is every probability that a very
   large number will never see another year. O, may the Lord our God
   prepare us each for death and for judgment, and bless this mornings
   exhortation to our preparation, by leading us to ask the
   question--"What have I done?"

   II. Now, then, I am to help you to answer the question--"What have I
   done?"

   Christian, true Christian, I have little to say to thee this morning. I
   will not multiply words, but leave the inquiry with thine own
   conscience. What hast thou done? I hear thee reply, "I have done
   nothing to save myself; for that was done for me in the eternal
   covenant, from before the foundation of the world. I have done nothing
   to make a righteousness for myself, for Christ said, It is finished;' I
   have done nothing to procure heaven by my merits, for all that Jesus
   did for me before I was born." But, say, brother, what hast thou done
   for him who died to save thy wretched soul? What hast thou done for his
   church? What hast thou done for the salvation of the world? What hast
   thou done to promote thine own spiritual growth in grace? Ah! I might
   hit some of you that are true Christians very hard here; but I will
   leave you with your God. God will chastise his own children. I will,
   however, put a pointed question. Are there not many Christians now
   present who can not recollect that they have been the means of the
   salvation of one soul during this year? Come, now; turn back. Have you
   any reason to believe that directly or indirectly you have been made
   the means this year of the salvation of a soul? I will go further.
   There are some of you who are old Christians, and I will ask you this
   question: Have you any reason to believe that ever since you were
   converted you have ever been the means of the salvation of a soul? It
   was reckoned in the East, in the time of the patriarchs, to be a
   disgrace to a woman that she had no children--to have none born unto
   God through his instrumentality! And yet, there are some of you here
   that have been spiritually barren, and have never brought one convert
   to Christ; you have not one star in your crown of glory, and must wear
   a starless crown in heaven. Oh! I think I see the joy and gladness with
   which a good child of God looked upon me last week, when we had heard
   some one who had been converted to God by her instrumentality. I took
   her by the hand and said, "Well, now, you have reason to thank God."
   "Yes, sir," she said, "I feel a happy and an honored woman now. I have
   never, that I know of, before been the means of bringing a soul to
   Christ." And the good woman looked so happy; the tears were in her eyes
   for gladness. How many have you brought during this year? Come,
   Christian, what have you done? Alas! alas! you have not been barren
   fig-trees, but still your fruit is such that it can not be seen. You
   may be alive unto God, but how many of you have been very unprofitable
   and exceedingly unfruitful? And do not think that while I thus deal
   hardly with you I would escape myself. No, I ask myself the question,
   "What have I done?" And when I think of the zeal of Whitfield, and of
   the earnestness of many of those great evangelists of former times, I
   stand here astounded at myself, and I ask myself the question, "What
   have I done?" And I can only answer it with some confusion of face. How
   often have I preached to you, my hearers, the Word of God, and yet how
   seldom have I wept over you as a pastor should? How often ought I to
   have warned you of the wrath to come, when I have forgotten to be so
   earnest as I might have been. I fear lest the blood of souls should lie
   at my door, when I come to be judged of my God at last. I beseech you,
   pray for your minister in this thing, that he may be forgiven, if there
   has ever been a lack of earnestness, and energy, and prayerfulness, and
   pray that during the next year I may always preach as though I ne'er
   might preach again.

   "A dying man to dying men."

   I heard the moralist whilst I was questioning the Christian, say, "What
   have I done? Sir, I have done all I ought to have done. You may, as a
   Gospeller, stand there and talk to me about sins; but I tell you, Sir,
   I have done all that was my duty; I have always attended my church or
   chapel regularly every Sunday as ever a man or woman could; I have
   always read prayers in the family, and I always say prayers before I go
   to bed and when I get up in the morning. I don't know that I owe
   anybody anything, or that I have been unkind to anybody; I give a fair
   share to the poor, and I think if good works have any merit I certainly
   have done a great deal." Quite right, my friend, very right, indeed, if
   good works have any merit; but then it is very unfortunate that they
   have not any; for our good works, if we do them to save ourselves by
   them, are no better than our sins. You might as well hope to go to
   heaven by cursing and swearing, as by the merits of your own good
   works; for although good works are infinitely preferable to cursing and
   swearing in a moral point of view, yet there is no more merit in one
   than there is in the other, though there is less sin in one than in the
   other. Will you please to remember, then, that all you have been doing
   all these years is good for nothing? "Well, but, sir, I have trusted in
   Christ." Now, stop! Let me ask you a question. Do you mean to say, that
   you have trusted partly in Christ, and partly in your own good works?
   "Yes, sir." Well, then, let me tell you, the Lord Jesus Christ will
   never be a make weight; you must take Christ wholly, or else no Christ
   at all, for Christ will never go shares with you in the work of
   salvation. So, I repeat, all you have ever done is good for nothing.
   You have been building a card-house, and the tempest will blow it down;
   you have been building a house upon the sand, and when the rains
   descend and the floods come, the last vestige of it will be swept away
   forever. Hear ye the word of the Lord! "By the works of the law shall
   no flesh living be justified." "Cursed is every one that continueth not
   in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them;" and
   in as much as you have not continued in all things that are written in
   the law you are transgressors of the law, and you are under the curse,
   and all that the law has to say to you is, "Cursed, cursed, cursed!
   Your morality is of no help to you whatever, as to eternal things."

   I turn to another character. He says, "Well, I don't trust in my
   morality nor in anything else; I say,

   'Begone dull care, I pray thee begone from me.'

   I have nothing to do with talking about eternity, as you would have me.
   But, sir, I am not a bad fellow after all. It is a very little that I
   ever do amiss; now and then a peccadillo, just a little folly, but
   neither my country, nor my friends, nor my own conscience, can say
   anything against me. True, I am none of your saints; I don't profess to
   be too strict; I may go a little too far sometimes, but it is only a
   little; and I dare say we shall be able to set all matters straight
   before the end comes." Well, friend, but I wish you had asked yourself
   the question, "What have I done?"--it strikes me that if each of you
   would just take off that film, that films your heart and your life
   over, you might see a grievous leprosy lurking behind what you have
   done. "Well, for the matter of that," says one, "perhaps I may have
   taken a glass or two too much sometimes." Stop a bit! What is the name
   of that? Stutter as much as you like! Out with it! What is the name of
   it? "Why, it is just a little mirth, sir." Stop, let us have the right
   name of it. What do you call it in any one else? "Drunkenness, I
   suppose." Says another, "I have been a little loose in my talk
   sometimes." What is that? "It has been just a merry spree." Yes, but
   please to call it what it ought to be called--lascivious conversation.
   Write that down. "Oh! no, sir; things are looking serious." Yes, they
   are indeed; but they do not look any more serious than they really are.
   Sometimes you have been out on the Sabbath day haven't you? "Oh! yes;
   but that has been only now and then--just sometimes." Yes, but let us
   put it down what it is, and we will see what the list comes to.
   Sabbath-breaking! "Stop," you say, "I have gone no further, sir;
   certainly I have gone no further." I suppose in your conversation,
   sometimes during your life, you have quoted texts of Scripture to make
   jokes of them, haven't you? And sometimes you have cried out, when you
   have been a little surprised, "Lord, have mercy upon me, and such
   things. I don't venture to say you swear; though there is a Christian
   way of swearing that some people get into, and they think it is not
   quite swearing, but what it is besides nobody knows, and so we will put
   it down as swearing--cursing and swearing. "Oh! sir, it was only when
   somebody trod on my toes, or I was angry." Never mind, put it down by
   its right name: we shall get a pretty good list against you by and by.
   I suppose that in trade you never adulterate your articles. "Well that
   is a matter of business in which you ought not to interfere." Well, it
   so happens I am going to interfere--and if you please we will call it
   by its right name--stealing. We will put that down. I suppose you have
   never been hard with a debtor, have you? You have never at any time
   wished that you were richer, and sometimes half wished that your
   opposite neighbor would lose part of his custom, so that you might have
   it? Well, we will call it by its right name: that is "covetousness,
   which is idolatry." Now, the list seems to be getting black indeed.
   Besides that, how have you spent all this year; and though you have
   pretended sometimes to say prayers, have you ever really prayed? No,
   you have not. Well, then there is prayerlessness to put down. You have
   sometimes read the Bible, you have sometimes listened to the ministry
   but have you not, after all, let all these things pass away? Then I
   want to know whether that is not despising God, and whether we must not
   put that down under that name. Truly we need go but very little
   further; for the list already when summed up is most fearful, and few
   of us can escape from sins so great as these, if our conscience be but
   a little awake.

   But there is one man here who has grown very careless and indifferent
   to every point of morality, and he says, "Ah! young man, I could tell
   you what I have done during the year." Stop, sir, I don't particularly
   wish to know just now; you may as well tell it to yourself when you get
   home. There are young people here: it would not do them much good to
   know what you have done perhaps. You are no better than you should be,
   some people say; which means, you are so bad they would not like to say
   what you are. Do you suppose in all this congregation we have no
   debauched men--none that indulge in the vilest sin and lust? Why, God's
   angel seems even now to be flying through our midst, and touching the
   conscience of some, to let them know in what iniquities they have
   indulged during the year. I pray God that my just simply alluding to
   them may be the means of startling your conscience. Ah! ye may hide
   your sins; the coverlet of darkness may be your shelter; you may think
   they shall never be discovered; but remember, every sin that you have
   done shall be read before the sun, and men, and angels shall hear it in
   the day of final account. Ah! my hearer, be thou moral or be thou
   dissolute, I beseech thee, answer this question solemnly to-day: "What
   have I done?" It would be as well if you took a piece of paper when you
   went home, and just wrote down what you have done from last January to
   December; and if some of you do not get frightened at it I must say you
   have got pretty strong nerves, and are not likely to be frightened at
   much yet.

   Now I specially address myself to the unconverted man and I would help
   him to answer this question in another point of view. "What have I
   done?" Ah! man, thou that livest in sin, thou that art a lover of
   pleasure more than a lover of God, what hast thou done? Dost thou not
   know that one sin is enough to damn a soul for ever? Hast thou never
   read in Holy Scripture that cursed is he that sins but once? How damned
   then, art thou by the myriad sins of this one year! Recall, I beseech
   thee, the sins of thy youth and thy former transgressions up till now;
   and if one sin would ruin thee for ever, how ruined art thou now! Why,
   man, one wave of sin may swamp thee. What will these oceans of thy
   guilt do? One witness against thee will be enough to condemn thee:
   behold the crowds of follies and of crimes now gathered round the
   judgment-seat that have gone before thee into judgment. How wilt thou
   escape from their testimonies, when God shall call thee to his bar.
   What hast thou done? Come, man, answer this question. There are many
   consequences involved in thy sin, and in order to answer this question
   rightly thou must reply to every consequence, what hast thou done to
   thine own soul? Why, thou hast destroyed it; thou hast done thy best to
   ruin it for ever. For thine own poor soul thou hast been digging
   dungeons; thou hast been piling faggots; thou hast been forging chains
   of iron--faggots with which to burn it, and fetters with which to bind
   it for ever.

   Remember, thy sins are like sowing for a harvest. What a harvest is
   that which thou hast sown for thy poor soul! Thou hast sown the wind,
   thou shalt reap the whirlwind; thou hast sown iniquity, thou shalt reap
   damnation. But what hast thou done against the gospel? Remember, how
   many times this year thou hast heard it preached? Why, since thy birth
   there have been wagon-loads of sermons wasted on thee. Thy parents
   prayed for thee in thy youth; thy friends instructed thee till thou
   didst come to manhood. Since then how many a tear has been wept by the
   minister for thee! How many an earnest appeal has been shot into thine
   heart! But thou hast rent out the arrow. Ministers have been concerned
   to save thee, and thou cast never been concerned about thyself. What
   hast thou done against Christ? Remember, Christ has been a good Christ
   to sinners here; but as there is nothing that burns so well as that
   soft substance, oil, so there is nothing that will be so furious as
   that gentle-hearted Saviour, when he comes to be your Judge. Fiercer
   than a lion on his prey is rejected love. Despise Christ on the cross,
   and it will be a terrible thing to be judged by Christ on his throne.

   But again: what have you done for your children this year? Oh! there be
   some here present that have been doing all they could to ruin their
   children's souls. Tis solemn what responsibility rests upon a father;
   and what shall be said of a drunken father?--the father that sets his
   children an example of drunkenness. Swearer, what have you done for
   your family? Haven't you, too, been twisting the rope for their eternal
   destruction? Will they not be sure to do as you do? Mother, you have
   several children, but this year you have never prayed for one of them,
   never put your arms round their necks as they kneeled at their little
   chair at night, and said, "Our Father;" you have never told them of
   Jesus that loved children, and once became a child like them. Ah, then,
   you too have neglected your children. I remember a mother who was
   converted to God in her old age, and she said to me--and I shall never
   forget the womanly grief--"God has forgiven me, but I shall never
   forgive myself. For sir," she said, "I have nourished and brought up
   children but I have done it without any respect to religion." And then
   she burst into tears, and said, "I have been a cruel mother, sir; I
   have been a wretch!" "Why," said I, "my good woman, you have brought
   your children up." "Yes," said she, "my husband died when they were
   young, and left me with six of them, and these hands have earned their
   bread and found them clothes; no one," she said, "can accuse me of
   being unkind to them in anything but this; but this is the worst of
   all; I have been a cruel mother to them, for while I fed their bodies I
   neglected their souls. But some have gone further than this. Ah, young
   man, you have not only done your best this year to damn yourself, but
   you have done your best to damn others! Remember, last January, you
   took that young man into the tavern for the first time, and laughed at
   all his boyish scruples, as you called them, and told him to drink
   away, as you did. Remember, when in the darkness of night you first led
   astray one young man whose principles were virtuous, and who had not
   known lust unless you had revealed it to him; you said at the time,
   "Come with me; I'll show you London life, I'll let you see pleasure!"
   That young man, when he first came to your shop, used to go to the
   house of God on Sunday, and seemed to bid fair for heaven--"Ah," you
   say, "I have laughed religion out of Jackson, he doesn't go any where
   on a Sunday now except for a spree, and he is just as merry as any of
   us." Ah! sir, and you will have two hells when you are damned; you will
   have your own hell and his too, for he will look through the lurid
   flames upon you, and say, "Mayhap, I had never been here if you had not
   brought me here!" And ah! seducer, what eyes will be those that will
   glare at you through hell's horror?--The eyes of one whom you led into
   iniquity! what double hells they will be to you as they glare on you
   like two stars, whose light is fury, and wither your blood for ever!
   Pause, ye that have led others astray, and tremble now. I paused
   myself, and prayed to God when I first knew a Saviour, that he would
   help me to lead those to Christ that I had ever in any way led astray.
   And I remember George Whitfield says when he began to pray, his first
   prayer was that God would convert those with whom he used to play at
   cards and waste his Sundays. "And blessed be God," he says, "I got
   every one of them."

   O my God, can I not detect in some face here astonishment and terror.
   Doth no man's knees knock together? Doth no man's heart quail within
   him because of his iniquity? Surely it cannot be so, else were your
   hearts turned to steel, and your bowels become as iron in the midst of
   you. Surely, if it be so, the words of God are most certainly true,
   wherein he saith, in the seventh verse of this chapter--"The stork in
   the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane,
   and the swallow, observe the time of their coming; but my people know
   not the judgment of the Lord;" and certainly that prophet was true who
   said, "The ox knoweth its owner, and the ass his masters crib; but my
   people doth not know, Israel doth not consider." Oh, are ye so brutish
   as to let the reflections of that guilt pass over you without causing
   astonishment and terror? Then, surely we who feel our guilt have need
   to bend our knees for you, and pray that God might yet bring you to
   know yourselves; for, living and dying as you are, hardened and without
   hope, your lot must be horrible in the extreme.

   How happy should I be if I might hope that the great mass of you could
   accompany me in this humble confession of our faith; may I speak as if
   I were speaking for each one of you? It shall be at your option, either
   to accept what I say, or to reject it; but, I trust, the great
   multitude of you will follow me. "Oh, Lord! I this morning confess that
   my sins are greater than I can bear; I have deserved thy hottest wrath,
   and thine infinite displeasure; and I hardly dare to hope that thou
   canst have mercy upon me; but inasmuch as thou didst give thy Son to
   die upon the cross for sinners, thou hast also said, Look unto me and
   be ye saved all the ends of the earth,' Lord, I look to thee this
   morning, though I never looked before, yet I look now; though I have
   been a slave of sin to this moment, yet Lord, accept me, sinner though
   I be, through the blood and righteousness of thy Son, Jesus Christ. Oh
   Father, frown not on me; thou mayest well do so, but I plead that
   promise which says, Whosoever cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast
   out. Lord, I come--

   Just as I am, without one plea,

   But that thy blood was shed for me,

   And that thou bid'st me come to thee,

   O Lamb of God, I come.

   My faith doth lay its hand,

   On that dear head of thine,

   While like a penitent I stand,

   And there confess my sin.

   "Lord accept me, Lord pardon me, and take me as I am, from this time
   forth and for ever, to be thy servant whilst I live, to be thy redeemed
   when I die." Can you say that? Did not many a heart say it? Did I not
   hear many a lip in silence utter it? Be of good cheer, my brother, my
   sister, that if that came from your heart, you are as safe as the
   angels of heaven, for you are a child of God, and you shall never
   perish.

   III. Now I have to address a few words of AFFECTIONATE ADMONITION, and
   then I have done. It is a very solemn thing to think how years roll
   away. I never spent a shorter year in my life than this one, and the
   older I grow, the shorter the years get; and you, old men, I dare say,
   look back on your sixty and seventy years, and you say, "Ah, young man,
   they will seem shorter, soon!" No doubt, they will. "So teach us to
   number our days, O God, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." But,
   is it not a solemn thing, that there is another year nearly gone; and
   yet many of you are unsaved? You are just where you were last year. No,
   you are not, you are nearer death, and you are nearer hell, except you
   repent; and, perhaps, even what I have said this morning will have no
   effect upon you. You are not altogether hardened, for you have had many
   serious impressions. Scores of times you have wept under discourses,
   and yet all has been in vain, for you are what you were. I beseech you,
   answer this question, "What have I done?" for, remember, there will be
   a time when you will ask this question, but it will be too late. When
   Is that--say you--on the death bed? No, it is not too late there.

   "While the lamp holds out to burn,

   The vilest sinner may return."

   But it will be too late to ask, "What have I done?" when the breath has
   gone out of your body. Just suppose the monument as it used to be,
   before they caged it round. Suppose a man going up the winding
   staircase to the top, with a full determination to destroy himself. He
   has got on the outside of the railings. Can you imagine him for a
   moment saying, "What have I done?" just after he has taken his leap.
   Why, methinks some spirit in the air might whisper, "Done? you have
   done what you can never undo. You are lost--lost--lost!" Now, remember
   that you that have not Christ, are to-day going up that spiral
   stair-case; perhaps, to-morrow you will be standing in the article of
   death upon the palisading, and when death has gotten you, and you are
   just leaping from that monument of life down to the gulf of despair,
   that question will be full of horror to you. "What have you done?" But
   the answer for it will not be profitable, but full of terror. Methinks,
   I see a spirit launched upon the sea of eternity. I hear it say, "What
   have I done?" It is plunged in flaming waves, and cries, "What have I
   done?" It sees before it a long eternity; but it asks the question
   again, "What have I done?" The dread answer comes; thou hast earned all
   this for thyself. Thou knewest thy duty, but thou didst it not; Thou
   wast warned, but thou didst despise the warning. Ah! hear the doleful
   soliloquy of such a spirit. The last great day is come; the flaming
   throne is set, and the great book is opened. I hear the leaves as with
   terrible rustle they are turned over. I see men motioned to the right
   or to the left, according to the result of that great book. And what
   have I done? I know that to me sin will be destruction, for I have
   never sought a Saviour. What is that? The Judge has fixed his eye on
   me. Now, it is on me turned. Will he say, "Depart ye cursed," unto me?
   Oh! let me be crushed for ever, rather than bear that sight. There is
   no noise, but the finger is lifted, and I am dragged out of the crowd,
   and singly I stand before the Judge. He turns to my page, and before he
   reads it, my heart quakes within me. "Be it so," says he, "it has never
   been blotted with my blood. You despised my calls; you laughed at my
   people; you would have none of my mercy; you said that you would take
   the wages of unrighteousness. You shall have them, the wages of sin is
   death." Ah! me, and is he about to say, "Depart, ye cursed?" Yes, with
   a voice louder than a thousand thunders, he says, "Depart, ye cursed,
   into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Ah! it
   is all true now. I laughed at the minister, because he preached about
   hell; and here am I in hell, myself. Ah! I used to wonder why he wanted
   to frighten us so. Ah! I would to God he had frightened me more, if he
   might but have frightened me out of this place. But now, here am I
   lost, and there is no escape. I am in darkness so dark, there is not a
   ray of light can ever reach me. I am shut up so close, that not one of
   the bolts and bars can ever be removed. I am damned for ever. Ah! that
   is a dreary soliloquy. I cannot tell it to you. Oh! if you were there,
   yourselves, if you could only know what they feel, and see what they
   endure, then would you wonder that I am not more earnest in preaching
   the Gospels and you would marvel, not that I wish to make you weep, but
   that I did not weep far more myself, and preach more solemnly. Ah! my
   hearers, as the Lord my God liveth, before whom I stand, I shall one
   day stand acknowledged by our conscience as having been a true witness
   unto you this morning; for there is not one of you here today, but will
   be without excuse, if you perish. You have been warned, I have warned
   you as earnestly as I can. I have no more powers to spend, no more arts
   to try, no more persuasion that I can use. I can only conclude by
   saying, I beseech you, fly to Jesus. I entreat you, as immortal spirits
   that are bound for endless weal or woe, fly ye to Christ; seek for
   mercy at his hands; trust in him, and be saved; and, at your peril,
   reject my solemn warning. Remember, ye may reject it, but ye reject not
   me, but him that sent me. Ye may despise it, but ye despise not me, but
   a greater than Moses, even Jesus Christ the Lord; and when ye come
   before his bar, piercing will be his language, and terrible his words,
   when he condemns you for ever, for ever, for ever, without hope, for
   ever, for ever, for ever. May God deliver us from that, for Jesus'
   sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                           The Immutability of Christ

   A Sermon

   (No. 170)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, January 3, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever."--Hebrews
   13:8.

   IT IS WELL that there is one person who is the same. It is well that
   there is one stable rock amidst the changing billows of this sea of
   life; for how many and how grievous have been the changes of this year?
   How many of you who commenced in affluence, have by the panic, which
   has shaken nations, been reduced almost to poverty? How many of you,
   who in strong health marched into this place on the first Sabbath of
   last year, have had to come tottering here, feeling that the breath of
   man is in his nostrils, and wherein is he to be accounted of? Many of
   you came to this hall with a numerous family, leaning upon the arm of a
   choice and much loved friend. Alas! for love, if thou wert all and
   naught beside, O earth! For ye have buried those ye loved the best.
   Some of you have come here childless, or widows, or fatherless, still
   weeping your recent affliction. Changes have taken place in your estate
   that have made your heart full of misery. Your cups of sweetness have
   been dashed with draughts of gall; your golden harvests have had tares
   cast into the midst of them, and you have had to reap the noxious weed
   along with the precious grain. Your much fine gold has become dim, and
   your glory has departed; the sweet frames at the commencement of last
   year became bitter ones at the end. Your raptures and your ecstacies
   were turned into depression and forebodings. Alas! for our changes, and
   hallelujah to him that hath no change.

   But greater things have changed than we; for kingdoms have trembled in
   the balances. We have seen a peninsula deluged with blood, and mutiny
   raising its bloody war whoop. Nay, the whole world hath changed; earth
   hath doffed its green, and put on its somber garment of Autumn, and
   soon expects to wear its ermine robe of snow. All things have changed.
   We believe that not only in appearance but in reality, the world is
   growing old. The sun itself must soon grow dim with age; the folding up
   of the worn-out vesture has commenced; the changing of the heavens and
   the earth has certainly begun. They shall perish; they all shall wax
   old as doth a garment; but for ever blessed be him who is the same, and
   of whose years there is no end. The satisfaction that the mariner
   feels, when, after having been tossed about for many a day, he puts his
   foot upon the solid shore, is just the satisfaction of a Christian
   when, amidst all the changes of this troublous life, he plants the foot
   of his faith upon such a text as this--"the same yesterday, and to-day,
   and for ever." The same stability that the anchor gives the ship, when
   it hath at last got the grip of some immovable rock, that same
   stability doth our hope give to our spirits, when, like an anchor, it
   fixes itself in a truth so glorious as this--"Jesus Christ the same
   yesterday, and to-day, and for ever."

   I shall first try this morning to open the text by a little
   explanation; then I shall try to answer a few objections, which our
   wicked unbelief will be quite sure to raise against it; and afterward I
   shall try to draw a few useful, consoling, and practical lessons from
   the great truth of the immutability of Jesus Christ.

   I. First, then, we open the text by a little EXPLANATION--"Jesus Christ
   the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." He is the same in his
   person. We change perpetually; the bloom of youth gives place to the
   strength of manhood, and the maturity of manhood fades away into the
   weakness of old age. But "Thou hast the dew of thy youth." Christ
   Jesus, whom we adore, thou art as young as ever! We came into this
   world with the ignorance of infancy; we grow up searching, studying,
   and learning with the diligence of youth; we attain to some little
   knowledge in our riper years; and then in our old age we totter back to
   the imbecility of our childhood. But O, our Master! thou didst
   perfectly foreknow all mortal or eternal things from before the
   foundations of the world, and thou knowest all things now, and for ever
   thou shalt be the same in thine omniscience. We are one day strong, and
   the next day weak--one day resolved, and the next day wavering--one
   hour constant, and the next hour unstable as water. We are one moment
   holy, kept by the power of God; we are the next moment sinning, led
   astray by our own lusts; but our Master is for ever the same; pure and
   never spotted; firm, and never changing--everlastingly Omnipotent,
   unchangeably Omniscient. From him no attribute doth pass away; to him
   no parallax, no tropic, ever comes; without variableness or shadow of a
   turning, he abideth fast and firm. Did Solomon sing concerning his best
   beloved, "His head is as the most fine gold: his locks are bushy and
   black as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of
   waters, washed with milk, and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of
   spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling
   myrrh. His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as
   bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. His legs are as pillars of
   marble, set upon sockets of fine gold: his countenance is as Lebanon,
   excellent as the cedar ?" Surely we can even now conclude the
   description from our own experience of him; and while we endorse every
   word which went before, we can end the description by saying, "His
   mouth is most sweet, yea he is altogether lovely. His matchless beauty
   is unimpaired; he is still the chief among ten thousand'--fairest of
   the sons of men." Did the divine John talk of him when he said--"His
   head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes
   were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they
   burned 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 as the sun shineth in his
   strength." He is the same; upon his brow there is ne'er a furrow; his
   locks are gray with reverence, but not with age; his feet stand as firm
   as when they trod the everlasting mountains in the years before the
   world was made--his eyes as piercing when, for the first time he looked
   upon a new-born world. Christ's person never changes. Should he come on
   earth to visit us again, as sure he will, we should find him the same
   Jesus; as loving, as approachable, as generous, as kind, and though
   arrayed in nobler garments than he wore when first he visited earth,
   though no more the Man of Sorrows and griefs acquaintance, yet he would
   be the same person, unchanged by all his glories, his triumphs, and his
   joys. We bless Christ that amid his heavenly splendors his person is
   just the same, and his nature unaffected.. "Jesus Christ the same
   yesterday, to-day, and for ever."

   Again: Jesus Christ is the same with regard to his Father as ever. He
   was his Father's well-beloved Son before all worlds; he was his
   well-beloved in the stream of baptism; he was his well-beloved on the
   cross; he was his well-beloved when he led captivity captive, and he is
   not less the object of his Father's infinite affection now than he was
   then. Yesterday he lay in Jehovah's bosom, God, having all power with
   his Father--to-day he stands on earth, man, with us, but still the
   same, for ever--he ascends on high, and still he is his Father's
   son--still by inheritance, having a more excellent name than
   angels--still sitting far above all principalities and powers, and
   every name that is named. O Christian, give him thy cause to plead; the
   Father will answer him as well now as he did aforetime. Doubt not the
   Father's grace. Go to thine Advocate. He is as near to Jehovah's heart
   as ever--as prevalent in his intercession. Trust him, then, and in
   trusting him thou mayest be sure of the Father's love to thee.

   But now there is a yet sweeter thought. Jesus Christ is the same to his
   people as ever. We have delighted, in our happier moments, in days that
   have rolled away, to think of him that loved us when we had no being;
   we have often sung with rapture of him that loved us when we loved not
   him.

   "Jesus sought me when a stranger,

   Wandering from the fold of God;

   He to save my soul from danger

   Interposed his precious blood."

   We have looked back, too, upon the years of our troubles and our
   trials; and we can bear our solemn though humble witness that he has
   been true to us in all our exigencies, and has never failed us once.
   Come, then, let us comfort ourselves with this thought--that though
   to-day he may distress us with a sense of sin, yet his heart is just
   the same to us as ever. Christ may wear masks that look black to his
   people, but his face is always the same; Christ may sometimes take a
   rod in his hand instead of a golden scepter, but the name of his saint
   is as much engraved upon the hand that grasps the rod as upon the palm
   that clasps the scepter. And oh, sweet thought that now bursts upon our
   mind! Beloved, can you concede how much Christ will love you when you
   are in heaven? Have you ever tried to fathom that bottomless sea of
   affection in which you shall swim, when you shall bathe yourself in
   seas of heavenly rest? Did you ever think of the love which Christ will
   manifest to you, when he shall present you without spot, or blemish, or
   any such thing before his Father's throne? Well, pause and remember
   that he loves you at this hour a. much as he will love you then; for he
   will be the same for ever as he is to-day, and he is the same to-day as
   he will be for ever. This one thing I know: if Jesus' heart is set on
   me he will not love me one atom better when this head wears a crown,
   and when this hand shall, with joyous fingers, touch the strings of
   golden harps, than he does now, amid all my sin and care and woe. I
   believe that saying which is written--"As the Father hath loved me,
   even so have I loved you;" and a higher degree of love we can not
   imagine. The Father loves his Son infinitely, and even so to-day,
   believer, doth the Son of God love thee. All his heart flows out to
   thee. All his life is thine; all his person is thine. He can not love
   thee more; he will not love thee less. The same yesterday, to-day, and
   for ever.

   But let us here recollect that Jesus Christ is the same to sinners
   to-day as he was yesterday. It is now eight years ago since I first
   went to Jesus Christ. Come the sixth of this month, I shall then be
   eight years old in the gospel of the grace of Jesus; a child, a little
   child therein as yet. I recall that hour when I heard that
   exhortation--"Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth,
   for I am God, and beside me there is none else." And I remember, how
   with much trembling and with a little faith I ventured to approach the
   Saviour's feet. I thought he would spurn me from him. "Sure," said my
   heart, "if thou shouldst presume to put thy trust in him as thy
   Saviour, it would be a presumption more damnable than all thy sins put
   together. Go not to him; he will spurn thee." However, I put the rope
   about my neck, feeling that if God destroyed me for ever, he would be
   just. I cast the ashes on my head, and with many a sigh I did confess
   my sin; and then, when I ventured to draw nigh to him, when I expected
   that he would frown, he stretched out his hand and said, "I, even I, am
   he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not
   remember thy sins." I came like the prodigal, because I was forced to
   come. I was starved out of that foreign country where, in riotous
   living I had spent my substance, and I saw my Father's house a great
   way off; little did I know that my Father's heart was beating high with
   love to me. O rapturous hour, when Jesus whispered I was his, and when
   my soul could say, "Jesus Christ is my salvation." And now I would
   refresh my own memory by reminding myself that what my Master was to me
   yesterday that he is to-day; and if I know that as a sinner I went to
   him then and he received me, if I have never so many doubts about my
   saintship I can not doubt but what I am a sinner; so to thy cross, O
   Jesus, I go again, and if thou didst receive me then, thou wilt receive
   me now; and believing that to be true, I turn round to my
   fellow-immortals, and I say, "He that received me, he that received
   Manasseh, he that received the thief upon the cross, is the same to-day
   as he was then. Oh! come and try him! Come and try him! Oh! ye that
   know your need of him, come ye to him; ye that have sold for nought
   your heritage above may have it back unbought, the gift of Jesus' love.
   Ye that are empty, Christ is as full today as ever. Come! fill
   yourselves here. Ye that are thirsty, the stream is flowing; ye that
   are black, the fountain still can purify; ye that are naked, the
   wardrobe is not empty.

   "Come, guilty souls, and flee away,

   To Christ, and heal your wounds;

   Still tis the gospel's gracious day,

   And now free grace abounds"

   I can not pretend to enter into the fullness of my text as I could
   desire, but one more thought. Jesus Christ is the same to-day as he was
   yesterday in the teachings of his Word. They tell us in these times
   that the improvements of the age require improvements in theology. Why,
   I have heard it said that the way Luther preached would not suit this
   age. We are too polite! The style of preaching, they say, that did in
   John Bunyan's day, is not the style now. True, they honor these men;
   they are like the Pharisees; they build the sepulchers of the prophets
   that their fathers slew, and so they do confess that they are their
   father's own sons, and like their parents. And men that stand up to
   preach as those men did, with honest tongues, and know not how to use
   polished courtly phrases, are as much condemned now as those men were
   in their time; because, say they, the world is marching on, and the
   gospel must march on too. No, sirs, the old gospel is the same; not one
   of her stakes must be removed, not one of her cords must be loosened.
   "Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in
   faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." Theology hath nothing new in
   it except that which is false. The preaching of Paul must be the
   preaching of the minister to-day. There is no advancement here. We may
   advance in our knowledge of it; but it stands the same, for this good
   reason, that it is perfect, and perfection can not be any better. The
   old truth that Calvin preached, that Chrysostom preached, that Paul
   preached, is the truth that I must preach to-day, or else be a liar to
   my conscience and my God. I can not shape the truth. I know of no such
   thing as the paring off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox's
   gospel is my gospel. That which thundered through Scotland must thunder
   through England again. The great mass of our ministers are sound enough
   in the faith, but not sound enough in the way they preach it. Election
   is not mentioned once in the year in many a pulpit; final perseverance
   is kept back; the great things of God's law are forgotten, and a kind
   of mongrel mixture of Arminianism and Calvinism is the delight of the
   present age. And hence the Lord hath forsaken many of his tabernacles
   and left the house of his covenant; and he will leave it till again the
   trumpet gives a certain sound. For wherever there is not the old gospel
   we shall find "Ichabod" written upon the church walls ere long. The old
   truth of the Covenanters, the old truth of the Puritans, the old truth
   of the Apostles, is the only truth that will stand the test of time,
   and never need to be altered to suit a wicked and ungodly generation.
   Christ Jesus preaches to-day the same as when he preached upon the
   mount; he hath not changed his doctrines; men may ridicule and laugh,
   but still they stand the same--semper idem written upon every one of
   them. They shall not be removed or altered.

   Let the Christian remember that this is equally true of the promises.
   Let the sinner remember this is just as true of the threatenings. Let
   us each recollect that not one word can be added to this Sacred Book,
   nor one letter taken away from it; for as Christ Jesus is yet the same,
   so is his Gospel, the same yesterday, to-day and for ever.

   I have thus briefly opened the text, not in its fullest meanings, but
   still enough to enable the Christian at his own leisure to see into
   that depth without a bottom--the immutability of Christ Jesus the Lord.

   II. And now comes in one of crooked gait, with hideous aspect--one that
   hath as many lives as a cat, and that can not be killed any how, though
   many a great gun hath been shot against him. His name is old Mr.
   Incredulity--unbelief; and he begins his miserable oration by
   declaring, "How can that be true? Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and
   to-day, and for ever.' Why, yesterday Christ was all sunshine to
   me--to-day I am in distress!" Stop, Mr. Unbelief, I beg you to remember
   that Christ is not changed. You have changed yourself; for you have
   said in your very accusation that yesterday you rejoiced, but to-day
   you are in distress. All that may happen, and yet there may be no
   change in Christ. The sun may be the same always, though one hour may
   be cloudy and the next bright with golden light; yet there is no proof
   that the sun has changed. Tis even so with Christ.

   "If today he deigns to bless us

   With a sense of pardoned sin,

   He to-morrow may distress us,

   Make us feel the plague within.

   All to make us,

   Sick of self and fond of him."

   There is no change in him.

   "Immutable his will,

   Though dark may be my frame,

   His loving heart is still

   Unchangeably the same.

   My soul through many changes goes,

   His love no variation knows"

   Your frames are no proof that Christ changes: they are only proof that
   you change.

   But saith old Unbelief again--"Surely God has changed if you look at
   the old saints of ancient times. What happy men they were! How highly
   favored of their God! How well God provided for them! But now, sir,
   when I am hungry, no ravens come and bring me bread and meat in the
   morning, and bread and meat in the evening. When I am thirsty, no water
   leaps out of the rock to supply my thirst. It is said of the children
   of Israel that their clothes waxed not old; but I have a hole in my
   coat today, and where I shall get another garment I know not. When they
   marched through the desert he suffered no man to hurt them; but, sir, I
   am continually beset by enemies. It is true of me as it says in the
   Scriptures, And the Ammonites distressed Israel at the coming in of the
   year;' for they are distressing me. Why, sir, I see my friends die in
   clouds; there are no fiery chariots to carry God's Elijahs to heaven
   now. I lost my son; no prophet lay upon him and gave him life again; no
   Jesus met me at the city gates, to give me back my son from the gloomy
   grave. No sir, these are evil times; the light of Jesus Christ has
   become dim; if he walks among the golden candlesticks, yet, still it is
   not as he used to do. And worse than that, sir, I have heard my father
   talk of the great men that were in the age gone by: I have heard the
   names of Romaine, and Toplady, and Scott; I have heard of Whitfields
   and of Bunyans; and even but a few years ago I heard talk of such men
   as Joseph Irons--solemn and earnest preachers of a full gospel. But
   where are those men now? Sir, we have fallen upon an age of
   drivellings; men have died out, and we have only a few dwarfs left us;
   there are none that walk with the giant tramp and the colossal tread of
   the mighty fathers, like Owen, and Howe, and Baxter, and Charnock. We
   are all little men. Jesus Christ is not dealing with us as he did with
   our fathers. Stop, Unbelief, a minute: let me remind thee that the
   ancient people of God had their trials too. Know ye not what the
   apostle Paul says? "For thy sake we are killed all the day long." Now,
   if there be any change it is a change for the better; for you have not
   yet "resisted unto blood, striving against sin."

   But remember that does not affect Christ; for neither nakedness, nor
   famine, nor sword, has separated us from the love of God, which is in
   Christ Jesus our Lord. It is true that you have no fiery chariot; but
   then the angels carry you to Jesus' bosom, and that is as well. It is
   true no ravens bring you food; it is quite as true you get your food
   somehow or other. It is quite certain that no rock gushes out with
   water; but still your water has been sure. It is true your child has
   not been raised from the dead; but you remember that David had a child
   that was not raised any more than yours. You have the same consolation
   that he had: "I shall go to him; he shall not return to me." You say
   that you have more heart-rendings than the saints had of old. It is
   your ignorance that makes you say so. Holy men of old said, "Why art
   thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within me?" Even
   prophets had to say--"Thou hast made me drunken with wormwood, and
   broken my teeth with gravel stones." O, you are mistaken: your days are
   not more full of trouble than the days of Job; you are not more vexed
   by the wicked than was Lot of old, you have not more temptations to
   make you angry than had Moses; and certainly your way is not half so
   rough as the way of your blessed Lord. The very fact that you have
   troubles is a proof of his faith fulness; for you have got one half of
   his legacy, and you will have the other half. You know that Christ's
   last will and testament has two portions in it. "In the world ye shall
   have tribulation:" you have got that. The next clause is--"In me ye
   shall have peace." You have that too. "Be of good cheer; I have
   overcome the world." That is yours also.

   And then you say that you have fallen upon a bad age with regard to
   ministers. It may be so; but remember, the promise is true still.
   "Though I take away from thee bread and water, yet will I never take
   away thy pastors." You have still such as you have--still some that are
   faithful to God and to his covenant, and who do not forsake the truth,
   and though the day may be dark, yet it is not so dark as days have
   been; and besides remember, what you say to-day is just what your
   forefathers said. Men in the days of Toplady looked back to the days of
   Whitfield; men in the days of Whitfield looked back to the days of
   Bunyan; men in the days of Bunyan wept because of the days of Wycliffe,
   and Calvin, and Luther; and men then wept for the days of Augustine and
   Chrysostom. Men in those days wept for the days of the Apostles; and
   doubtless men in the days of the Apostles wept for the days of Jesus
   Christ; and no doubt some in the days of Jesus Christ were so blind as
   to wish to return to the days of prophesy, and thought more of the days
   of Elijah than they did of the most glorious day of Christ. Some men
   look more to the past than the present. Rest assured, that Jesus Christ
   is the same to-day as he was yesterday, and he will be the same for
   ever.

   Mourner, be glad! I have heard of a little girl who, when her father
   died, saw her mother weeping immoderately. Day after day, and week
   after week, her mother refused to be comforted; and the little girl
   stepped up to her mother, and putting her little hand inside her
   mothers hand, looked up in her face, and said. "Mamma is God dead? Is
   God dead, mamma?" And her mother thought, "Surely, no." The child
   seemed to say, "Thy maker is thy husband; the Lord of hosts is his
   name. So you may dry your tears, I have a father in heaven, and you
   have a husband still." O! ye saints that have lost your gold and your
   silver; ye have got treasure in heaven, where no moth nor rust doth
   corrupt, where no thieves break through and steal! Ye that are sick
   to-day, ye that have lost health, remember the day is coming when all
   that shall be made up to you, and when ye shall find that the flame has
   not hurt you, it has but consumed your dross and refined your gold.
   Remember, Jesus Christ is "the same today, yesterday, and for ever."

   III. And now I must be brief in drawing one or two sweet conclusions
   from that part of the text.

   First, then, if he be the same to-day as yesterday, my soul, set not
   thine affections upon these changing things, but set thine heart upon
   him. O my heart, build not thine house upon the sandy pillars of a
   world that soon must pass away, but build thy hopes upon this rock,
   which, when the rain descends, and floods shall come, shall stand
   immovably secure. O my soul, I charge thee, lay up thy treasure in this
   secure granary. O my heart, I bid thee now put thy treasure where thou
   canst never lose it. Put it in Christ; put all thine affections in his
   person, all thy hope in his glory, all thy trust in his efficacious
   blood, all thy joy in his presence, and then thou wilt have put thyself
   and put thine all where thou canst never lose anything, because it is
   secure. Remember, O my heart, that the time is coming when all things
   must fade, and when thou must part with all. Death's gloomy night must
   soon put out thy sunshine; the dark flood must soon roll between thee
   and all thou hast. Then put thine heart with him who will never leave
   thee; trust thyself with him who will go with thee through the black
   and surging current of death's stream, and who will walk with thee up
   the steep hills of heaven and make thee sit together with him in
   heavenly places for ever. Go, tell thy secrets to that friend that
   sticketh closer than a brother. My heart, I charge thee, trust all thy
   concerns with him who never can be taken from thee, who will never
   leave thee, and who will never let thee leave him, even "Jesus Christ,
   the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." That is one lesson.

   Well, then, the next. If Jesus Christ be always the same, then, my
   soul, endeavor to imitate him. Be thou the same, too. Remember that if
   thou hadst more faith, thou wouldst be as happy in the furnace, as on
   the mountain of enjoyment. Thou wouldst be as glad in famine, as in
   plenty; thou wouldst rejoice in the Lord when the olive yielded no oil,
   as well as when the vat was bursting and overflowing its brim. If thou
   hadst more confidence in thy God, thou wouldst have far less of
   tossings up and down; and if thou hadst greater nearness to Christ thou
   wouldst have less vacillation. Yesterday thou couldst pray with all the
   power of prayer; perhaps if thou didst always live near thy Master,
   thou mightest always have the same power on thy knees. One time thou
   canst bid defiance to the rage of Satan, and thou canst face a frowning
   world; to-morrow thou wilt run away like a craven. But if thou didst
   always remember him who endured such contradiction of sinners against
   himself, thou mightest always be firm and stedfast in thy mind. Beware
   of being like a weathercock. Seek of God, that his law may be written
   on your hearts as if it were written on stone, and not as if it were
   written in sand. Seek, that his grace may come to you like a river, and
   not like a brook that fails. Seek, that you may keep your conversation
   always holy; that your course may be like the shining light that
   tarries not, but that burneth brighter and brighter, until the fullness
   of the day. Be ye like Christ--ever the same.

   Again: if Christ be always the same, Christian, rejoice! Come what may,
   thou art secure.

   "Let mountains from their seats be hurled

   Down to the deeps, and buried there;

   Convulsions shake the solid world;

   Our faith shall never need to fear."

   If kingdoms should go to rack, the Christian need not tremble! Just for
   a minute imagine a scene like this. Suppose for the next three days the
   sun should not rise; suppose the moon should be turned into a clot of
   blood, and shine no more upon the world; imagine that a darkness that
   might be felt, brooded over all men; imagine, next, that all the world
   did tremble in an earthquake, till every tower, and house, and hut fell
   down: imagine, next, that the sea forgot its place, and leaped upon the
   earth; and that the mountains ceased to stand, and began to tremble
   from their pedestals; conceive after that, that a blazing comet
   streamed across the sky--that the thunder bellowed incessantly--that
   the lightnings, without a moment's pause, followed one the other;
   conceive, then, that thou didst behold divers terrible sights, fiendish
   ghosts, and grim spirits; imagine, next, that a trumpet, waxing
   exceeding loud, did blow; that there were heard the shrieks of men
   dying and perishing; imagine, that in the midst of all this confusion,
   there wee to be a found a saint. My friend, "Jesus Christ, the same
   yesterday, to-day, and for every, would keep him as secure amidst all
   these horrors, as we are to-day. Oh! rejoice! I have pictured the worst
   that can come. Then you would be secure. Come what may then, you are
   safe, while Jesus Christ is the same.

   And now, last of all, if Jesus Christ be "the same yesterday, to-day,
   and for ever," what sad work this is for the ungodly! Ah! sinner, when
   he was on earth, he said, "Their worm dieth not, and their fire is not
   quenched." When he stood upon the mount, he said, "It were better to
   enter life halt or maimed, than having two hands, and two eyes to be
   cast into hell-fire." As a man on earth, he said that the goats should
   be on the left, and that he would say to them, "Depart, ye cursed."
   Sinner, he will be as good as his word. He has said, "He that believeth
   not shall be damned." He will damn you if you believe not, depend upon
   it. He has never broken a promise yet; he will never break a
   threatening. That same truth which makes us confident to-day that the
   righteous shall go away into everlasting life, should make you quite as
   confident that unbelievers shall go into eternal misery. If he had
   broken his promise, he might break his threatening; but as he has kept
   one, he will keep the other. Do not hope that he will change, for
   change he will not. Think not that the fire which he said was
   unquenchable, will, after all, be extinguished. No, within a few more
   years, my hearer, if thou dost not repent, thou wilt find that every
   jot and every letter of the threatenings of Jesus will be fulfilled;
   and, mark thee, fulfilled in thee. Liar, he said, "All liars shall have
   their portion in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone." He will
   not deceive you. Drunkard, he has said, "Ye know that no drunkard hath
   eternal life." He will not belie his word. You shall not have eternal
   life. He has said, "The nations that forget God shall be cast into
   hell." All ye that forget religion, moral people you may be, he will
   keep his word to you; he will cast you into hell. O "kiss the Son lest
   he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but
   a little; blessed are an they that put their trust in him. Come,
   sinner, bow thy knee; confess thy sin and leave it; and then come to
   him; ask him to have mercy upon thee. He will not forget his
   promise--"Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." Come and
   try him. With all your sins about you, come to him now. "Believe on the
   Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved;" for this is my Master's gospel,
   and I now declare it--"He that believeth and is immersed shall be
   saved; he that believeth not shall be damned. God grant you grace to
   believe, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                           Paul's Sermon Before Felix

   A Sermon

   (No. 171)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, January 10, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come,
   Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a
   convenient season, I will call for thee."--Acts 24:25.

   THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL appears in marvelous grandeur when we see its
   hold upon hearts devoted to it, when subjected to trouble, persecution,
   and sorrow. How mighty must that gospel be, which, when it gained an
   entrance into the heart of Paul, could never be driven out of it! For
   it he suffered the loss of all things, and as for them, he counted them
   but dung, that he might win Christ. To spread the truth, he encountered
   hardships, shipwrecks, perils on the land, and perils by sea; but none
   of these things moved him, neither did he count his life dear unto him,
   that he might win Christ and be found in him. Persecution followed
   persecution; of the Jews was he beaten with rods; he was dragged from
   one tribunal to another; scarce in any city did he find anything but
   bonds and imprisonment awaiting him. Attacked in his own country--he is
   accused at Jerusalem, and arraigned at Cesarea; he is taken from one
   tribunal to another to be tried for his life. But mark how he always
   maintains the prominent passion of his soul. Put him where you may, he
   seems to be like John Bunyan, who says, "If you let me out of prison
   to-day, I will preach the gospel again to-morrow, by the grace of God."
   Nay, more than that, he preached it in prison, before his judges he
   proclaimed it. Standing up before the Sanhedrim, he cries, "As touching
   the resurrection of the dead I am called in question." When brought to
   stand before Agrippa, he tells out his conversion, and so sweetly
   speaks of the grace of God, that the king himself cries, "Almost thou
   persuadest me to be a Christian;" and here in our text when he stands
   before the Roman Procurator, to be tried for life or death, instead of
   entering into a defence of himself, he reasons "of righteousness,
   continence, and judgment to come," until his judge trembles, and he
   that sits upon the throne takes the prisoner's place, while the
   prisoner judges him, in anticipation of that time when the saints shall
   judge the angels, as assessors with Christ Jesus. Why, once let a man
   believe the gospel, and determine to spread it, and it makes him a
   grand man. If he be a man destitute of power, intellect, and talent, it
   makes him grandly earnest in his arduous desire to serve Christ, in the
   little measure in which he can do it; but if he be a gifted man, it
   sets his whole soul on fire, brings out all his powers, develops
   everything that lies hidden, digs up every talent that had been buried
   in its napkin, and spreads out all the gold and silver of man's
   intellectual wealth, displaying it all to the honor of that Christ who
   has bought it all with his blood.

   We might stay a little while and dilate on this thought, and show you
   how, in all ages, this has been the truth, that the power of the gospel
   has been eminently proved in its influence over men's hearts, proving
   the truth of that utterance of Paul, when he said, that neither
   tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or
   peril, or sword, shall separate them from the love of God, which is in
   Jesus Christ their Lord. But instead of so doing, I invite you to
   contemplate the text more closely. We have before us a picture
   containing three characters: Felix and Drusilla, sitting side by side
   upon the judgment-seat; Paul, the prisoner, brought in bound in chains,
   to explain to Drusilla and Felix the doctrines of the Christian
   religion, in order that he might either be acquitted or condemned to
   die. You have a judge extremely willing to put the prisoner to death,
   because he desired to please the Jews; you have, on the other hand, a
   prisoner, unabashed, who comes before the judge, and without any
   debate, begins to unfold the gospel, selecting a certain part of it,
   described in our text as reasoning concerning "righteousness,
   temperance, and judgment to come." The Judge trembles, dismisses the
   prisoner in haste; and promises to attend to him at a convenient
   season.

   Note, first then, the appropriate sermon; secondly, the affected
   audience--for the audience was certainly moved--"Felix trembled!" Note,
   then, thirdly, the lamentable disappointment. Instead of attending to
   the message, "Go thy way" was all that Paul had.

   I. First, then, we have an APPROPRIATE SERMON. Just hear for a moment
   or two the history of Felix. Felix was originally a slave; he was freed
   by Claudius, and became one of the infamous favorites of the emperor.
   Of course in that capacity he pandered to his master's vices, and was
   at all times prepared to indulge the Emperor in every lustful wish of
   his abominable heart. Through this he became promoted, and ran through
   the stages of Roman preferment, until he obtained the Governorship of
   Judea. Whilst he was Governor there, he committed every act of
   extortion which it was possible for him to commit, and went so far at
   last, that the Emperor Nero was obliged to recall him, and he would
   have been severely punished for his crimes, had it not been for the
   influence of his brother Pallas, another freedman, with the Emperor,
   through whom he obtained a release, after a sharp rebuke. The Roman
   historian, Tacitus, says, "He exercised, in Judea, the imperial
   functions with a mercenary soul." You may easily see, then, how
   appropriate was the discourse, when the apostle Paul reasoned
   concerning righteousness. Felix had been an unjust extortioner, and the
   apostle purposely selected righteousness to be a topic of his
   discourse. By the side of Felix sat Drusilla; in the verse preceding
   our text she is called his wife. It is said she was a Jewess. This
   Drusilla was a daughter of Herod Agrippa, the great--a woman noted in
   that age for her superlative charms, and for her unbridled
   voluptuousness. She had been once affianced to Antioch who, upon the
   death of Herod, refused to marry her. She was afterward married to
   Azizus, the king of the Amesenes, who, although a heathen, was so fond
   of her, that he submitted to the most rigorous rites of the Jewish
   religion in order to obtain her in marriage. His love was but
   ill-requited, for in a little time she deserted him at the instigation
   of Felix, and was, at the time of Paul's address, living as the wife of
   the lascivious Felix. We may easily understand then, why the apostle
   Paul, fixing his stern eye on Drusilla, reasoned concerning continence,
   and publicly rebuked both Felix and Drusilla for the shameless lust in
   which they were publicly living. And then you may imagine since there
   was now a court sitting, and Felix himself was the judge, and Paul the
   prisoner, how strikingly appropriate was the last theme--"judgment to
   come."

   I think, my brethren, it would not be very hard for us to imagine how
   well the apostle handled this subject. I can conceive that Felix
   expected to have a grand disquisition upon some recondite themes of the
   gospel. Possibly he expected that the apostle Paul would reason
   concerning the resurrection of the dead. He thought perhaps that
   predestination, election, and free will would be the topics or the
   apostles discourse. "Surely," thought he, "he will tell me those deep
   and hidden matters in which the gospel of Jesus differs from Judaism."
   Not so. In another place, on Mar's Hill, the apostle would speak of
   resurrection; in another place he could speak of election, and declare
   that God was the potter, and man was but the clay. This was not the
   place for that; and this was not the time for such subjects; this was
   the time for preaching the plain precepts of the gospel, and for
   dealing sternly with a wicked man who sat in eminent power. Conceive
   then, the pointed manner of his opening discourse--How he would address
   Felix concerning righteousness. I can imagine how he would bring before
   the mind of Felix, the widow who had been defrauded of inheritance, the
   fatherless children, who, cast from affluence, were led to beg their
   bread. I can suppose how he brought before the mind of that base man
   the many bribes that he had taken, when he sat upon his judgment-seat.
   He would recall to him the false decisions that he had given; he would
   remind him how the Jews, as a nation had been oppressed--how by
   taxation, they had been ground to the earth; he would bring before him
   one scene after another, where avarice had overridden equity, boldly
   and sternly depicting the exact character of the man; and then, at the
   end, declaring that such men could have no inheritance in the kingdom
   of God--bidding him repent of this his wickedness, that his sins might
   be forgiven him. Then gently and delicately turning to the other
   subject, I can imagine how he would fix his eyes upon Drusilla, and
   remind her that she had lost everything for which a woman ought to
   live, and solemnly bring the most powerful motives to bear upon her
   lascivious heart; and then turning to Felix, would remind him that
   adulterers, fornicators, and unclean persons, have no inheritance in
   the kingdom of God--reminding him how the vices of a ruler would tend
   to pollute a nation, and how the iniquities of the nation of the Jews
   must, in a great measure, be laid to his charge. I can conceive how,
   for a moment, Felix would bite his lips. Paul gave him no time for
   anger and passion; for in a moment, in a fury of impassioned eloquence,
   he introduced the "judgment to come." He made Felix think he saw the
   great white throne, the books opened, and himself arraigned before his
   judge: he made him hear the voices of the trumpet--the "Come ye
   blessed"--the "Depart ye cursed." He petrified him, nailed him to his
   seat, opened his ears, and made them listen, while with stern and
   impassioned earnestness, though his hands were bound with chains, he
   used the liberty of the gospel in upbraiding him. Well do I conceive
   that then Felix began to tremble. He that had been base, and mean, and
   perfidious, trembled like a coward slave, as he really was; and though
   sitting on throne, he pictured himself already damned. What he next
   would have done we can not tell, if the devil had not then suggested to
   him that it was time to rise; for in hot haste he and Drusilla left the
   throne. "Go thy way for this time; when I have convenient season, I
   will call for thee."

   Hear me, then, brethren! What the apostle Paul did, every minister
   ought to do. He selected a topic appropriate to his audience. It is
   ours ever to do the same. But are there not to be found many ministers
   who, if they addressed kings and princes, would pour out before them
   the vilest adulation and flattery that ever came from mortal lips? Are
   there not many who, when they are aware the great and mighty ones are
   listening to them, trim their doctrine, cut the edges of their speech,
   and endeavor in some way or other to make themselves pleasing to their
   audience? Can there not be found many ministers who, if addressing an
   Antinomian audience, would confine themselves strictly to
   predestination and reprobation? and ministers who, if they addressed an
   audience of philosophers, would just talk about morality but never
   mention such words as the covenant of grace and salvation by blood? Are
   there not some to be found, who think the highest object of the
   minister is to attract the multitude and then to please them? O my God!
   how solemnly ought each of us to bewail our sin, if we feel that we
   have been guilty in this matter. What is it to have pleased men? Is
   there aught in it that can make our head lie easy on the pillow of our
   death? Is there aught in it that can give us boldness in the day of
   judgment, or cause us happiness when we face thy tribunal, O Judge of
   quick and dead? No, my brethren, we must always take our texts so that
   we may bear upon our hearers with all our might. I hope I may never
   preach before a congregation--I desire always to preach to you; nor do
   I wish to exhibit powers of eloquence, nor would I even pretend to
   exhibit any depth of learning. I would simply say, "Hear me, my fellow
   men, for God doth send me unto you. There are some things that concern
   you; I will tell you of them. You are dying; many of you when you die
   must perish for ever; it is not for me to be amusing you with some deep
   things that may instruct your intellect but do not enter your hearts;
   it is for me to fit the arrow to the string and send it home--to
   unsheathe the sword--be the scabbard never so glittering, to cast it
   aside, and let the majesty of naked truth smite at your hearts; for in
   the day of judgment aught beside personal home-speaking will be
   consumed as wood, and hay, and stubble; but these shall abide, like the
   gold and silver and precious stones that can not be consumed.

   But some men will say, "Sir, ministers ought not to be personal."
   Ministers ought to be personal, and they will never be true to their
   Master till they are. I admire John Knox for going, Bible in hand, to
   Queen Mary, and sternly upbraiding her. I admit I do not exactly love
   the way in which he did it; but the thing itself I love. The woman had
   been a sinner, and he told her so flat to her face. But now we poor
   graven sons of nobodies have to stand and talk about generalities; we
   are afraid to point you out and tell you of your sins personally. But,
   blessed be God, from that fear I have been delivered long ago. There
   walketh not a man on the surface of this earth whom I dare not reprove.
   There are none of you, however connected with me by ties of profession
   or in any other respect, that I would blush to speak personally to, as
   to the things of the kingdom of God; and it is only by being bold,
   courageous, and sending home the truth, that we shall at last be free
   from the blood of our hearers. May God grant us the power of Paul, that
   we may reason on appropriate subjects, and not select generalities,
   when we ought to be pushing home truths to the consciences of our
   hearers. After all, the apostle Paul needs no eulogy. The best eulogy
   that could be passed on the apostle was the fact that "Felix trembled."
   And that brings us to the second part of our subject.

   II. "FELIX TREMBLED." Yes, the poor prisoner, having nought wherewith
   to assist him in the delivery of the truth but having everything to his
   disadvantage--the chain, the prison dress, the character of one that
   had stirred up sedition in a nation--this poor prisoner, with believing
   hand, laid hold on the sword of truth, and with this he did divide in
   sunder the joints and marrow. He did beard the lion in his den. Even
   now I see him look the governor sternly in the face, attack him in his
   heart, drive him from his excuses, push the word home at the point of
   the bayonet of truth, drive him from every refuge of lies, and make him
   tremble! O marvellous power of a preached gospel! O mighty truth that
   God is with the ministry, when the kings of the earth that take counsel
   together are yet dismayed by it. Who is he that doth not see here
   something more than human eloquence, when prisoner becomes the judge
   and the prince upon the throne becomes the criminal? "Felix trembled."
   Have I not some here who have experienced the same feelings as Felix?
   Some plain-spoken minister has told you something that was rather too
   plain for you. At first you were angry; on second thoughts, and as the
   man moved on in his discourse, you became chagrined that you gave him
   the opportunity of thus exposing you, as you imagined. A better thought
   struck you and you saw at once that the man could have no intention
   personally to insult you; and then your feelings changed. Thunderbolt
   after thunderbolt fell from his lips; he seemed a very Jupiter Tonans
   sitting upon his throne, casting lightnings from his lips. Ye began to
   tremble. "Verily here is a man that has told me all things that ever I
   did; is not this man sent from Christ?" Ah! and thus you have borne
   your witness to the truth of the gospel. Though you have not felt its
   power to your salvation, yet you have been an unwilling witness that
   the gospel has been true; for you have felt its power when it made your
   knees knock together, and your eyes run down with tears.

   But what is it that makes men tremble under the sound of the Gospel?
   Some say it is their conscience. Yes, and doubtless it is in some
   sense. The poet said, "Conscience makes cowards of us all;" and
   certainly, when the minister's exposition is faithful and pertinent to
   our own case, conscience, if it be not thoroughly seared and dead, will
   make the blush mantle on our cheeks. But I take it that conscience of
   itself is so thoroughly corrupt, together with all the other powers of
   manhood, that it would never even make a man go so far as trembling, if
   there were not something at work upon the conscience, besides being
   left to its own natural force. My brethren, I believe that what some
   people call natural conviction is, after all, the work of the Spirit.
   Some very profound divines are so fond of the doctrine that the Holy
   Spirit always works efficaciously, that they think that the Spirit
   never can work a transitory emotion in a man's soul; they impute such
   things to conscience. And if they see a man like Felix trembling, they
   say tis all natural conscience! Now, do they not see that they are in
   this touching on another doctrine equally dear to them--the doctrine of
   total depravity?--for if men be totally depraved by nature, then as
   trembling is a good thing, they are not capable even of that without
   some influence of the Holy Spirit. The fact is, my hearers, the Holy
   Spirit works in two ways. In some men's hearts he works with
   restraining Grace only, and the restraining Grace, though it will not
   save them, is enough to keep them from breaking out into the open and
   corrupt vices in which some men indulge who are totally left by the
   restraints of the Spirit. Now, there was in Felix some little portion
   of this restraining Grace; and when the Apostle laid the Gospel open to
   him, this restraining Grace quickened the conscience, and compelled
   Felix to tremble. Mark you, this Grace man may resist and does resist;
   for albeit that the Holy Spirit is Omnipotent and never can be resisted
   when he works Omnipotently, yet as a strong man may sometimes not put
   out all his strength, but work with his finger, for instance, so that
   he may permit even a gnat or an ant to overcome him, even so the Holy
   Spirit sometimes works but temporarily and but for good and excellent
   purposes, which he always accomplishes; but he allows men to quench and
   resist his influences, so that salvation is not so much as approached
   thereby. God the Holy Spirit may work in men some good desires and
   feelings, and yet have no design of saving them. But mark, none of
   these feelings are things that accompany sure salvation, for if so,
   they would be continued. But he does not work Omnipotently to save,
   except in the persons of his own elect, whom he assuredly bringeth to
   himself. I believe, then, that the trembling of Felix is to be
   accounted for by the restraining grace of the Spirit quickening his
   conscience and making him tremble.

   But what shall be said of some of you who never tremble? Thou hast come
   hither this morning with thy brazen face, and with thine impudent and
   arrogant heart. Thou hast been mouthing high heaven with thy
   blasphemies; and now thou standest all unmoved and unabashed in the
   house of God. Though a Baxter should rise from the dead, and with
   moving sighs and tears should preach the Gospel, you would laugh and
   scoff; though Boanerges with a tongue of thunder should come and preach
   to you, you would turn up your lip and find some fault with his
   oratory, and his words would never reach your heart. O ungodly
   generation! how hath God given you up, and how hath hell bewitched you?
   O race of evil doers! children that are corrupters! how are ye seared.
   My soul reads with prophetic glance the handwriting on the wall! You
   are condemned already; you are past hope, "trees plucked up by the
   roots, twice dead." For in the fact that ye tremble not, there is proof
   not only of your death but of your positive corruption. Ye shall die as
   ye are, without hope, without trust or refuge; for he that hath lost
   feeling hath lost hope; he that is past conscience, God the Holy Spirit
   hath given up, and he will no more strive with him for ever.

   III. And now, passing rapidly over this point of the trembling
   audience, we come in the next place to the LAMENTABLE DISAPPPOINTMENT
   which Paul experienced, when he saw Felix rise in haste, and dismiss
   him from his presence. "It is wonderful," said a good man once to a
   minister, "it is wonderful to see a whole congregation moved to tears
   by the preaching of the Word." "Yes," said that minister, "it is
   wonderful; but I know a wonder ten times greater than that: the wonder
   is, that those people should so soon wipe away their tears and forget
   what they have heard. Tis wonderful that Felix trembled before Paul;
   tis more wonderful that Felix should say, "Go thy way." "Tis strange,
   tis passing strange," that when the word touches the conscience, even
   then sin hath such power over men, that the truth can be repulsed and
   driven out of the heart. Felix, unhappy Felix! why is it that thou dost
   rise from thy judgment-seat? Is it that thou hast much business to do?
   Stop, Felix; let Paul speak to thee a minute longer. Thou hast
   business: but hast thou no business for thy soul? Stop, unhappy man!
   Art thou about again to be extortionate, again to make thy personal
   riches greater! Oh! stop: canst thou not spare another minute for thy
   poor soul? It is to live for ever: hast thou naught laid up for it--no
   hope in heaven, no blood of Christ, no pardon of sin, no sanctifying
   Spirit, no imputed righteousness? Ah! man there will be a time when the
   business that seems so important to thee will prove to have been but a
   day-dream, a poor substitute for the solid realities thou hast
   forgotten. Dost thou reply, "Nay, the king has sent me an urgent
   commission; I must attend to Caesar." Ah! Felix, but thou hast a
   greater monarch than Caesar: there is one who is Emperor of heaven and
   Lord of earth; canst thou spare no time to attend to his commands?
   Before his presence Caesar is but a worm. Man! wilt thou obey the one,
   and wilt thou despise the other? Ah! no; I know what thou durst not
   say. Felix, thou art turning aside again to indulge in thy lascivious
   pleasures. Go, and Drusilla with thee! But stop! Darest thou do that,
   with that last word ringing in thy ears, "Judgment to come." What! wilt
   thou repeat that wanton dalliance that hath damned thee already, and
   wilt thou go again to imbrue thy hands in lust, and doubly damn thy
   spirit, after warnings heard and felt? O man! I could weep o'er thee,
   to think that as the bullock goeth to the slaughter, and as the lamb
   licks the knife, so dost thou go back to the sin that destroys thee,
   and to the lust that ruins thee. You, too, many of you, have often been
   impressed under the ministry. I know what you have said on the Monday
   morning, after deep searchings of heart on the Sabbath: you have said,
   "I must attend to business, I must see after the things of this world."
   Ah! you will say that one day, when hell shall laugh you in the face
   for your folly. Think of men that are dying every day saying, "We must
   live," and forgetting that they must die. O poor soul! to be caring
   about that house, thy body, and neglecting the tenant within! Another
   replies, "I must have a little more pleasure." Pleasure dost thou call
   it? What! can there be pleasure in turning suicide to thine own
   soul--pleasure in defying thy Maker, trampling on his laws, despising
   his grace? If this be pleasure, tis a pleasure over which angels might
   weep. What, man, wilt thou count this pleasure when thou comest to die?
   Above all, wilt thou count this pleasure when thou dost stand before
   thy Maker's bar at last? It is a strange delusion that causes thee to
   believe a lie. There is no pleasure in that which brings wrath upon thy
   soul, even to the uttermost.

   But the usual reply is, "There is time enough yet." The young man says,
   "Let me alone till I grow old." And you old men, what do you say? I can
   suppose that the youth looks forward to life, and expects to find a
   future time more convenient. But there are some of you o'er whose heads
   seventy winters have blown. When do you hope to find a convenient
   season? You are within a few days' march of the tomb: if you do but
   open your poor dull eyes, you may see death but a slight distance in
   advance. The young may die; the old must! To sleep in youth is to sleep
   in a siege; to sleep in old age is to slumber during the attack. What!
   man, wilt thou that art so near thy Maker's bar still put him off with
   a "Go thy way?" What! procrastinate now, when the knife is at thy
   throat--when the worm is at the heart of the tree, and the branches
   have begun to wither--when the grinders fail even now, because they are
   few, and they that look out of the windows are darkened? The sere and
   yellow leaf has come upon thee, and thou art still unready for thy
   doom! O man! of all fools, a fool with a gray head is the worst fool
   anywhere. With one foot in the grave, and another foot on a sandy
   foundation, how shall I depict you, but by saying to you, as God said
   to the rich man, "Thou fool! a few more nights and thy soul shall be
   required of thee;" and then where art thou?

   But still the common cry is, "There is time enough." Even the worldly
   moralist said, "Time enough is always little enough." Time enough, man!
   What for? Surely you have spent time enough in sin: the time past may
   "suffice you to have wrought the will of the Gentiles." What! time
   enough to serve a God that laid down his life for you? No! eternity
   will not be too long to utter his praise, and therefore it can not be
   too long to love him here, and serve him the few remaining days that
   you are to live on earth. But stop! I will reason with you. Come,
   Felix! thou shalt not go away this morning till my whole soul hath
   poured itself out over thee, not until I have cast mine arms round
   thee, and tried to stop thee this time from turning from the face of
   him that bids thee live. Thou sayest, "Another time." How knowest thou
   that thou wilt ever feel again as thou feelest now? This morning,
   perhaps, a voice is saying in thine heart, "Prepare to meet thy God."
   To-morrow that voice will be hushed. The gayeties of the ball-room and
   the theater will put out that voice that warns thee now, and perhaps
   thou wilt never hear it again. Men all have their warnings, and all men
   who perish have had a last warning. Perhaps this is your last warning.
   You are told to-day, that except ye repent, ye must perish, except ye
   put your trust in Christ, ye must be cast away forever. Perhaps no
   honest lip will again warn you; perhaps no tearful eye will ever look
   on you affectionately again; God to-day is pulling the reins tight to
   check you from your lust; perhaps, if to-day you spurn the bit, and
   rush madly on, he will throw the reins upon your back, saying, "Let him
   alone;" and then it is a dark steeplechase between earth and hell, and
   you will run it in mad confusion, never thinking of a hell till you
   find yourself past warning, past repentance, past faith, past hope.

   But again: how knowest thou, if thou shouldst ever have these feelings
   again, God will accept thee then? "To-day," he says, "to-day, if ye
   will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." This hour his love
   weepeth over you, and his bowels yearn for you. To-day he says, "Come,
   let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be
   as wool; and though they be red like crimson, they shall be whiter than
   snow." Do you to-day turn a deaf ear to trim? Do you to-day forego his
   invitation and despise his warning? Take heed! You may one day need
   what now you despise, and you may then cry to him, but he will not hear
   you; you may then pray to him, but he will shut out your prayer, and
   his only answer will be, "I called!" "I called, and you refused. You
   stood against that pillar under the gallery; I called and you refused!
   I stretched out my hands, as if I would bring you to my bosom, and no
   man regarded me. You were there in the gallery; you listened, but it
   was as though you heard not; therefore"--and oh! the dreadful
   conclusion!--"I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your
   fear cometh." Stay! those are not my words, they are God's words. Turn
   ye to the book of Proverbs, and find them there. It were a harsh thing
   for me to say of God; but God says it of himself, and God is true,
   though every man be a liar; and if he be true, how know ye that he may
   not despise your prayer one day, shut out your cry, and banish you
   forever?

   But again: how do you know that you shall live to be warned again? Said
   a minister once, when I gently hinted to him that he had not preached
   the gospel that morning, "No, I did not mean to preach to sinners in
   the morning; but I will preach to them in the evening." "Ah!" said I,
   "but what if some of your congregation of the morning should be in hell
   before the evening." So may I say to you. You have promised to go to a
   friend's house to-day, you think you can not break that promise; you
   wish you could. You wish you could go home and fall on your knees and
   pray; but no, you can not, because your promise binds you. You will
   have a convenient season one of these days! And so God Almighty is to
   wait man's convenience! How do you know you will live till that
   convenience comes? A little too much heat or too much cold within the
   brain--a little too fast flowing of the blood, or a little too slow
   circulation thereof--some little turning of the fluids of the body in a
   wrong direction, and you are dead!

   "Dangers stand thick through all the ground,

   To bear you to the tomb,

   And fierce diseases wait around,

   To hurry mortals home."

   Oh! why will you then dare to procrastinate, and say, "time enough
   yet?" Will your soul ever be saved by your saying "Time enough yet?"
   Archbishop Tillotson well says, "A man might say I resolve to eat, but
   the resolve to eat would never feed his body. A man might say, I am
   resolved to drink, but the resolve to drink would never slake his
   thirst." And you may say, "I am resolved by-and-by to seek God;" but
   your resolve will not save you. It is not the forgetful hearer but the
   doer of the word that shall be blessed therein. Oh that ye might now
   say--To-day, my God, to-day I confess my sin; to-day I ask thee to
   manifest thy grace; to-day receive my guilty soul, and show me a
   Saviours blood; to-day I renounce my follies, my vices, and my sins,
   constrained by Sovereign Grace; to-day I cast away my good works as my
   ground of trust; to-day I cry,

   "Nothing in my hand I bring,

   Simply to thy cross I cling!"

   Oh! happy minister who shall have such an audience!--happier than Paul,
   if he should know that his congregation had said this! Come, O Holy
   Spirit, and draw unwilling hearts, and make them bow before the scepter
   of sovereign grace.

   Preaching, you see, takes away my voice. Ah! it is not that. It is not
   the preaching, but the sighing over your souls that is the hard work. I
   could preach forever: I could stand here day and night to tell my
   Master's love, and warn poor souls; but tis the after-thought that will
   follow me when I descend these pulpit steps, that many of you, my
   hearers, will neglect this warning. You will go; you will walk into the
   street; you will joke; you will laugh. My Master says, "Son of man,
   hast thou heard what the children of Israel say concerning thee?
   Behold, thou art as one that playeth a tune upon an instrument; they
   make merry with thee, and they go their ways." Yes, but that were
   little. To be laughed at is no great hardship to me. I can delight in
   scoffs and jeers; caricatures, lampoons, and slanders, are my glory; of
   these things I boast, yea, in these I will rejoice. But that you should
   turn from your own mercy, this is my sorrow. Spit on me, but oh!
   repent! Laugh at me: but oh I believe in my Master! Make my body as the
   dirt of the streets, if you will: but damn not your own souls! Oh! do
   not despise your own mercies. Put not away from you the gospel of
   Christ. There are many other ways of playing fool beside that. Carry
   coals in your bosom: knock your head against a wall: but do not damn
   your souls for the mere sake of being a fool, for fools laugh at. Oh!
   be in earned upon an earnest subject. If there be no hereafter, live as
   you like; if there be no heaven, if there be no hell, laugh at me! But
   if these things be true, and you believe them, I charge you, as I shall
   face you at the judgment bar of the Lord Jesus in the day of
   judgment--I charge you, by your own immortal welfare, lay these things
   to heart. Prepare to meet your God, O sons of Israel! And the Lord help
   you in this thing; for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                             Search the Scriptures

   A Sermon

   (No. 172)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, January 17, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this
   word, it is because there is no light in them."--Isaiah 8:20.

   WHEN men will not learn of God, how huge their folly grows! If they
   despise the wisdom that is from above, how grievously does God allow
   them to prove their own ignorance! When a man will not bow down before
   God the Most High, immediately he buildeth for himself an idol; he
   maketh an image of wood or stone, and he degradeth himself by bowing
   before the work of his own hands. When men will not receive the
   Scripture testimony concerning God's creation, straightway they begin
   to form theories that are a thousand times more ridiculous than they
   have ever endeavoured to make the Bible account of it, for God leaveth
   them, if they will not accept his solution of the problem, to grope for
   another, and their own solution is so absurd, that all the world except
   themselves hath sense enough to laugh at it. And when men leave the
   Sacred Book of Revelation, ah! my friends, where do they go? We find
   that in Isaiah's time they went to strange places; for he says in the
   19th verse, that they sought unto familiar spirits, unto wizards that
   did peep and mutter; yea, they sought for things concerning the living,
   amongst the dead, and became the dupes of necromancers. It is
   marvellous that the men who most of all rail at faith are remarkable
   for credulity. One of the greatest unbelievers in the world, who has
   called himself a free-thinker from his birth, is to be found now
   tottering into his tomb, believing the veriest absurdity that a child
   might confute. Not caring to have God in their hearts, forsaking the
   living foundation, they have hewn out to themselves cisterns which are
   broken, and hold no water. Oh! that we may each of us be more wise,
   that we may not forsake the good old path, nor leave the way that God
   hath prepared for us. What wonder we should travel amongst thorns and
   briars, and rend our own flesh, or worse than that, fall among dark
   mountains, and be lost amongst the chasms thereof, if we despise the
   guidance of an unerring Father. Seek ye in the word of God, and read,
   Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and
   these are they that testify of Jesus Christ.

   I feel at this particular crisis of religious affairs, it is imperative
   upon the Christian minister to urge his people to hold fast the
   doctrines of the truth--the words of God. This seems likely to become
   the age of preaching, rather than the age of praying. We now see
   everywhere large congregations assembling in halls and abbeys to listen
   to the Word preached; and it is an ominous sign of the times, that
   these preachings are not only espoused by the orthodox, but even by
   those whom we have considered to be at least somewhat heretical from
   the old faith of the Protestant Church. It becomes, therefore, a
   serious thing; for it is most probable--and may not every wise man see
   it?--that whosoever may now arise who hath some powers of oratory and
   some graces of eloquence, will be likely to attract the multitude,
   preach he what he may, though the word that he should utter be as false
   as God's Word is true, and as contrary to the gospel as hell is opposed
   to heaven. Doth it not seem probable that in this age he would attract
   a multitude of followers? and is it not also very likely that through
   that spurious charity which is now growing upon us, which would gag the
   mouths of honest reprovers, we shall find it hard to rebuke the
   impostor when he arises, and difficult to expose the falsehood, even
   though it may be apparent unto us. We are now happily so well
   commingled together, the Dissenter and the Churchman have now become so
   friendly with each other, that we have less to dread the effects of
   bigotry, than the effects of latitudinarinism. We have some reason now
   to be upon the watchtower, lest haply some should arise in our midst,
   the spurious offspring of these happy times of evangelical alliance,
   who will claim our charity, whilst they are preaching that which we in
   our hearts do totally condemn. And what better advice can the minister
   give in such times as these? To what book shall he commend his hearers?
   How shall he keep them fast? Where is the anchor which he shall give
   them to cast into the rocks? or where the rocks into which they should
   cast their anchor? Our text is a solution to that question. We are here
   furnished with a great answer to the inquiry--"To the law and to the
   testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because
   there is no light in them."

   First, I shall endeavour this morning to urge you to bring certain
   things, to which we are afraid a superstitious importance may be
   attached, "to the law and to the testimony." Secondly, I shall try to
   show the good effects that will follow, if each of you rigidly bring
   everything you hear and believe, "to the law and to the testimony."
   And, thirdly, I shall give you some powerful reasons why you should
   subject everything to this sacred touchstone; and close by offering you
   some little advice how you may do this truly and profitably.

   I. Permit me to urge upon you the bringing CERTAIN THINGS "to the law
   and to the testimony."

   1. First, I would have you bring the ideas engendered in you by your
   early training, to the test of the Book of God. It is very much the
   custom of people to say, "Was I not born in the Church of England?
   Ought I not therefore to continue in it?" Or, on the other hand, "Was
   not my grandmother an Immersionist? Ought not I, therefore, to continue
   in the Baptist denomination?" God forbid that I should say aught
   against your venerable and pious relatives; or that you should pay any
   disrespect to their teaching! We always respect their advice, even when
   we cannot receive it, for the sake of the person who offers it to us;
   knowing that their training, even should it have been mistaken, was
   nevertheless well meant. But we claim for ourselves, as men, that we
   should not be fed with doctrines as we were fed in our helpless
   infancy, with food chosen for us: we claim that we should have the
   right of judging whether the things which we have received and heard,
   are according to this Sacred Book; and if we find that in aught our
   training has been erroneous, we do not consider that we are violating
   any principle of affection, if we dare to come forth from our families,
   and join a denomination holding tenets far different from those which
   our parents had espoused. Let us each recollect that as God has given
   every man a head on his shoulders, every man is bound to use his own
   head, and not his father's. God gave your father judgment. Well and
   good: he judged for himself. He has given you a judgment: judge for
   yourself too. Say, concerning all that you have received in your early
   childhood, "Well, I will not lightly part with this, for it may be
   sterling gold; but at the same time, I will not blindly hoard it, for
   it may be counterfeit coin. I will sit down to the study of the Sacred
   Book, and I will endeavour, as far as I can, to unprejudice myself. I
   will read the Bible, just as if I had never heard any preacher, or had
   never been taught by a parent; and I will there endeavour to find out
   what God saith, and what God saith, be it what it may, I will believe
   and espouse, hoping that by his grace I may also feel the power of it
   in my own soul.

   2. Remember, also, to bring the preachers of the gospel to this
   standard. A great many of you know but very little about what gospel
   is. The general notion of the mass is, that we are everyone of us
   right; that though to-day I may contradict some one else, and some one
   else may contradict me, yet we are all right; and though it is treason
   to common sense to believe such a thing, yet this is a common idea.
   Some men always believe like the last speaker. Should they hear the
   most hyper of hyper-Calvinists, they believe with him the fulness of
   the doctrine of reprobation; should they hear on the morrow the lowest
   of Arminians, they believe with him the most universal of redemptions
   and the most powerful of free-wills. Should they then hear the genuine
   Calvinist, who preaches that man hath destroyed himself, but in God is
   his help found, perhaps then they think the man contradicts himself,
   and for once they rebel against their teachers. But it is probable that
   should they hear such a person again, they will be easily reconciled to
   seeming contradictions; for to them it is just the man's appearance,
   just the man's way of saying the thing, that they like, and not the
   thing that he says. Just as I have heard of holy Mr. Durham, the writer
   of that sweet book on Solomon's Song. If I had lived in his time, I
   should never, I think, have wanted to hear any other preacher; I would
   have sat, both by night and day, to receive the sweet droppings of his
   honied lips. But in his time there was a young preacher, whose name is
   totally forgotten, whose church was crowded to the door, and Mr.
   Durham's meeting-house hard by forsaken. The reason of that is, because
   the mass of people do not lay hold upon what is said, but upon how it
   is said: and if it is said smartly, said prettily, and said forcibly,
   that is enough for them, though it be a lie; but if the truth be
   spoken, that they will not receive, unless it be attended by some
   graces of oratory and eloquence. Now, the Christian that has got above
   his babyhood, does not care about how the man says it; it is the thing
   that is said that he cares about. All he asks is, "Did he speak the
   truth?" He just gets hold of the corn. To him the straw is nothing, and
   the chaff less. He cares not for the trimming of the feast, nor for the
   exquisite workmanship of the dish; he only cares for that which is
   solid food for himself.

   Now, my dear friends, I claim for myself, when I enter this pulpit, the
   right of being heard; but I do not claim the right of being believed,
   unless the words that I speak shall be in accordance with this Sacred
   Book. I desire you to serve me as I would have you serve everybody
   else--bring us each "to the law and to the testimony." I thank God, of
   my Bible I have no need to be ashamed. I sometimes am ashamed of this
   translation of it, when I see how, in some important points, it is not
   true to God's Word; but of God's own Word I can say, it is the man of
   my right hand, my meditation both day and night; and if there be aught
   I preach that is contrary to this Word, trample it in the mire, spit
   upon it, and despise it. The truth lieth here. It is not what I say,
   but what my God saith, that you are demanded to receive. Put myself and
   put all my brethren into the sieve; cast us each into the fire; put us
   into the crucible of truth; and what is not according to God's Word
   must be consumed like dross.

   3. There is another class of men quite contrary to those I have
   referred to. These men are their own preachers; they believe no one but
   themselves, and without knowing it, there is every reason for them to
   hate the Pope, because "two of a trade never agree," they being Popes
   themselves. These persons, if they hear a truth preached, judge of it
   not by the Bible, but by what they think the truth ought to be. I have
   heard a person, for instance, say, when he has heard the doctrine of
   Election, or of particular Redemption, "Well, now the doctrine does not
   please me, I do not like it." And then he begins to urge some objection
   which he has forged upon his own anvil, yet never trying to quote a
   Scripture text to refute it, if he can; never turning to some old
   saying of the Prophets, and endeavouring to find out that the doctrine
   was an error, but only judging of it by his own opinion, by his wishes
   as to what the truth ought to be. What would you think of a man who
   should say to an astronomer, "Now, it is of no use your telling me that
   the constellation of Scorpio of such-and-such a shape; I tell you, I do
   not like the look of it. My dear fellow, I don't think that the
   constellation of Scorpio ought to have been made that shape; and I
   think this star ought to have been put just here, instead of there: and
   then all would be well." The astronomer would simply smile at him, and
   say, "Your opinion does not signify, because it does not alter facts.
   If you think I am wrong, your right way to disprove me is not to say
   where you think the stars ought to be, but just come and take a look
   through my telescope and see where the stars are." now, it is just the
   same with the truth. People say, "I do not like such a truth." That is
   no refutation of it. The question is,--Is it in the Bible? Because if
   it is there, like it or not like it, it is a fact, and all the minister
   has to do is to report the facts that he finds there. Why, the
   astronomer cannot put the stars in a row, like a row of gas lights, to
   please you; and the minister cannot put the doctrines into a shape in
   which you would wish to have them cast. All the astronomer does is to
   map them out, and say, "That is how they are in the sky:" you must then
   look at the sky, and see whether it is so. All I have to do is to tell
   you what I find in the Bible; if you do not like it, remember, that is
   no refutation of it, nor do I care for your liking it or not liking it;
   the only thing is, Is it in the Bible? If it is there I shall not stop
   to prove it. I do not come here to prove a doctrine at all. If it is in
   the Bible, it is true: there it is; I tell it out; reject it, and you
   do so to your own condemnation; for you yourself believe the Bible to
   be true, and I prove it to be there, and therefore it must be true.

   Should it be according to thy mind? Wouldst thou like to have a Bible
   made for the devices of thine own heart? If it were, it would be a
   worthless thing. Wouldst thou desire to have a Gospel according to thy
   wishes? Then with some of you it would be a Gospel that allowed
   lasciviousness. Wouldst thou wish to have a revelation made that should
   pamper thee in thy lusts, and indulge thee in thy pride? If so, this
   know, God will never stoop to feed thy haughtiness or wantonness. The
   Bible is a God-like book; he demands thy faith in it; and though thou
   kickest against it, this stone can never be broken; but, mark thee,
   thou mayest be broken upon it, yea, it may fall upon thee and bruise
   thee to powder. Bring, then, I beseech thee, your own thoughts and your
   own sentiments to the touchstone of the truth; for "if they speak not
   according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."

   4. And just do the same with all books that you read. This is the age
   of book-making and book-writing. Now-a-days, what with periodical
   literature and the books upon our shelves, our Bibles do not get much
   read. I will tell you a truthful story as it was told to me yesterday.
   There was a young man, who is now a student for the ministry, so
   extraordinarily ignorant was he of his own Bible, that upon hearing a
   young minister mention the story of Nebuchadnezzar's being driven out
   from men, until his nails did grow like birds' claws, and his hair like
   eagles' feathers, he said to the minister at the close of the sermon,
   "Well, that was a queer story you told the people, certainly: where did
   you fish that up?" "Why," said the minister, "have you never read your
   Bible? Can you not find it in the Book of Daniel?" The young man had
   read a great many other things, but never read his Bible through, and
   yet was going to be a teacher of it! Now, I fear that the same
   ignorance is very current in many persons. They do not know what is in
   the Bible: they could tell you what is in the Churchman's Penny, or the
   Christian's Penny, or the Churchman's Magazine, or the Wesleyan
   Magazine, or the Baptist Magazine, or the Evangelical Magazine, and all
   that; but there is one old magazine, a magazine of arms, a magazine of
   wealth, that they forget to read--that old-fashioned book called the
   Bible. "Ah!" said one, when he came to die, who had been a great
   classic, "I would to God I had spent as much time in reading my Bible
   as I have spent in reading Livy! Would to God I had been exact in my
   criticisms of Holy Scripture as I was in criticisms upon Horace!" Oh!
   that we were wise, to give the Bible the largest share of our time, and
   ever to continue reading it, both by day and night, that we might be as
   trees planted by the rivers of water, bringing forth our fruit in our
   season! Let us remember, as ministers of the Gospel, what M'Cheyne
   beautifully said; "Depend upon it," said he, "it is God's Word, not
   man's comment upon God's Word, that saves souls;" and I have marked,
   that if ever we have a conversion at any time, in ninety-nine cases out
   of a hundred, the conversion is rather traceable to the text, or to
   some Scripture quoted in the sermon, than to any trite or original by
   the preacher. It is God's Word that breaks the fetters and sets the
   prisoner free; it is God's Word instrumentally that saves souls; and
   therefore let us bring everything to the touchstone. "To the law and to
   the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because
   there is no light in them."

   II. Now I pass to my second point. Brethren, let me show you some of
   the GOOD EFFECTS that you will derive from a minute and careful study
   of the law and testimony of God.

   1. First, remember, that unless you study the Word of God, you will not
   be competent to detect error. A man may in your hearing preach
   downright falsehood, but you will not be qualified to judge concerning
   that falsehood unless you have studied the Word of God. You and I would
   not be fit to sit on the judgment bench of some of the superior courts
   of our land, because we are not acquainted with the intricacies of the
   law. We could not quote precedents, for we have not been learned
   therein. And so no man is able to judge concerning the thing that he
   hears, unless he is able to quote Scripture--unless he understands the
   Word of God, and is able to perceive and to know what it means.

   But I hear some one say, that the Bible is so difficult a book that he
   is sure he never could understand it. Mark thee, man, the Bible is so
   plain a book that he that is willing to understand it may do so; it is
   so plain that he that runs may read, and read while he runs; yea, it is
   so plain, that the simpler a man is, the more easily he can understand
   it. All the learning that man ever received is rather a hindrance than
   a benefit when he comes for the first time to read the Word. Learning
   may untie many a knot afterwards; it may unravel many a mystery in
   after times; but we have heard deep-minded critics say, that at first
   they would have given all the world, if they could have thrown their
   learning aside, just to read the Bible as the humble cottager reads it,
   and believe it as God's Word, without any quibbles of criticism. You
   know how Mrs. Beecher Stowe represents Uncle Tom reading it. He could
   not read it fast; so he just spelt it over letter by letter, and word
   by word; and the Bible is one of the books, she says, that always gains
   by that way of reading. You recollect how he read it.
   "Let--not--your--hearts--be----;" and then he stopped at the long word;
   and he fumbled it out at last, and it was, "troubled. Ye believe in
   God, believe also in me." Why, it gets sweeter from your being a long
   time reading it; and so far from your want of learning disqualifying
   you from understanding the Bible, the mass of it is all the more
   understandable from the simplicity of your heart. Come ye, and search
   the Scriptures; they are no such mysterious fables or learned volumes
   of hard words as some men say. This is no closed book, as the priest
   would tell us; it is a volume which the Sunday School child may
   understand, if the Spirit of God rests upon his heart. It is a book
   which the horny-handed workman may comprehend as well as the learned
   divine, and many such have become exceedingly wise therein. I say
   again, read your Bibles, that you may be qualified to detect error.

   2. But again: I do not like a man who is always looking out for error.
   That man has got some error in his own heart, depend on it. They say,
   "Set a thief to catch a thief;" and it is very likely that there is
   some love of error in your heart, or else you would not be so ready to
   suspect it in other people. But let me give you another reason. Search
   your Bibles; for then, when you are in a matter of dispute you will be
   able to speak very confidently. There is nothing gives a man so much
   power amongst his fellows as confidence. If in conversation I am
   contradicted as to any sentiment that I propound, if I have got
   Scripture at my fingers' ends, why I laugh at my opponent, and though
   he be never so wise and has read ten times more books than I have ever
   seen, I just smile at him, if I can quote Scripture; for then I am
   confident--I am sure--I am certain about the matter--for "thus saith
   the Lord," is an argument that no man can answer. It makes a man seem
   very foolish when he has to speak in a diffident manner. I always think
   that certain elegant ministers, who are afraid of being called
   dogmatical, and who therefore propound the gospel as if they did not
   hardly like to say they were sure it was true--as if they thought so,
   they nearly thought so--still they did not think so quite enough to say
   they knew, but leave it to their hearers. I always think they show the
   littleness of their minds in so doing. It may be a great thing to
   doubt, but it is a great thing to hold your tongue while you are
   doubting, and not to open your mouth till you believe, and then, when
   you do open your mouth, to say the thing you know is true, and stick to
   it, not as an opinion, but as an incontrovertible fact. No man will
   ever do much amongst his fellows till he can speak confidently what he
   knows to be revealed.

   Now, Bible readers, you can attain this confidence, but you can get it
   nowhere else but at the foot of Scripture. Hear ministers alone, and ye
   shall be led to doubt, for one of them shall confound what his brought
   sought to prove; but read your Bibles, and when ye get the Word legible
   by its own light, impressed upon your own hearts by the Holy Spirit,
   then

   "Should all the forms that men devise,

   Assault your faith with treacherous art,

   You'll call them vanity and lies,

   And bind the gospel to your heart."

   3. Furthermore, search the Scriptures, and bring everything you hear to
   this great test, because in so doing you will get a rich harvest of
   blessing to your own soul. I suppose there is scarce a text in Holy
   that has not been the instrument of the salvation of a soul. Now, "he
   that walketh among wise men will be wise;" and he that walks amongst
   the wise men that wrote Holy Scripture stands at least the highest
   probability of being made wise unto salvation. If I desired to put
   myself into the most likely place for the Lord to meet with me, I
   should prefer the house of prayer, for it is in preaching, that the
   Word is most blessed; but still I think I should equally desire the
   reading of the Scriptures; for I might pause over every verse, and say,
   "Such a verse was blessed to so many souls; then, why not to me? I am
   at least in the pool of Bethesda; I am walking amongst its porches, and
   who can tell but that the angel will stir the pool of the Word, whilst
   I lie helplessly by the side of it, waiting for the blessing?" Yea, the
   truth is so great, that God has blessed every word of Scripture, that I
   remember a striking anecdote of the conversion of a man by a passage of
   Scripture that did not seem adapted for any such purpose. You know that
   chapter in Genesis, that very dull chapter, where we read, "and
   Methusaleh lived 969 years, and he died," and such a one lived so many
   years and he died? We have heard of its being read once in public; and
   a man who stood there, when he heard the words often repeated, "and he
   died," thought, "Ah! and I shall die!" And it was the first note of
   warning that had ever struck his seared conscience, and was the means
   under God of bringing him to Jesus. Now, read the Scriptures for this
   reason. If you desire salvation, and if you are panting after mercy, if
   you feel your sin and want salvation, come ye to this sea of love, to
   this treasury of light, to this wardrobe of rich clothing, to this
   fountain of bliss; come ye, and have your wants supplied out of the
   fulness of the riches of Jesus, who is "evidently set forth" in this
   Word, "crucified among you."

   III. And now let me endeavour as briefly as I can, to urge upon you yet
   again the constant and perpetual reading of the Word of God, not only
   for the reasons that I have now propounded, but for others more
   important. Many false prophets have gone forth into the world: I
   beseech you, then, if ye would not be led astray, be diligent in the
   study of the Word of God. In certain parts of Dr. Livingstone's
   travels, he tells us, that his guides were either so ignorant or so
   determined to deceive him, that he could have done far better without
   them than with them; and he had constantly to refer to his compass,
   lest he should be led astray. Now, I would not say a hard thing if I
   did not believe it true; but I do solemnly think that there are some
   professed teachers of the Word, who are either so ignorant of spiritual
   things in their own hearts, or else so determined to preach anything
   but Christ, that you might do better without them than with them; and
   hence you have an absolute necessity to turn perpetually to this great
   compass by which alone you can steer your way. I scorn a charity that
   after all is not charity. I must tell you what I believe. Some would
   have me now stand here and say, "All that are eminent preachers are
   most certainly truthful preachers." now, I cannot say it. If at any
   time I hear a man preach the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone,
   through the merits of Christ, I give him my hand, and call him my
   brother, because he is right in the main thing; but when I do that I am
   long way from endorsing many other of his sentiments. It may be that he
   denies the effectual power of the Spirit in conversion; it may be he
   does not hold the doctrine of the entire depravity of the human
   race--does not insist upon free sovereign grace--does not hold forth
   and teach the doctrine of substitution and satisfaction through Christ.
   Now, I will not so befool myself as to tell you that wherein that man
   differs from the Word of God he is true. No doubt that man may be
   blessed for your salvation; but there may he a curse upon his ministry
   notwithstanding; so that while you may be saved by it, you may be all
   your lifetime subject to bondage through it, and you may go groaning,
   where you ought to have gone singing--crying, where you might have had
   a sacred burst of joy. You sit under such-and-such a man who has been
   made the means of your conversion; but he tells you that your salvation
   depends upon yourself, and not upon the power of Christ. He insists
   upon it that you may, after all, fall from grace and be a cast-away; he
   tells you that although you are saved, God did no more love you than he
   loved Judas; that there is no such thing as special love, no such
   thing, in fact, as Election. He tells you that others might have come
   to Christ, as well as yourself--that there was no extraordinary power
   put out in your case, more than in any others. Well, if he does not
   lead you to glory in man, to magnify the flesh, and sometimes to trust
   in yourself, or else lead you to distress yourself where there is no
   need for distress, I should marvel indeed, inasmuch as his doctrine is
   false, and must mislead you. It may be the means of your salvation, and
   yet it may fail in may points to minister to your edification and
   comfort. Therefore, if ye would not be thus misled, search ye the
   Scriptures.

   But ah! there is a solemn danger of being absolutely misled. Ye may
   hear all that the minister says, but he may forget to tell you the
   vital part of the truth; he may be one who delights in ceremonies, but
   does not insist upon the grace therein; he may hold forth to you the
   rubric and sacrament, and tell you there is efficacy in obedience to
   the one, and attention to the other, and he may forget to tell you that
   "Except a man be born again of the Spirit he cannot see the kingdom of
   God." Now, under such a ministry you may not only be misled, but alas!
   you may be destroyed altogether. He may be one who insists much upon
   morality of life; he may tell you to be honest, just, and sober; but
   mayhap he may forget to tell you that there is a deeper work required
   than mere morality; he may film the surface over, and never send the
   lancet into the deep ulcer of your heart's corruption. He may give you
   some palliating dose, some medicine that may still your conscience; he
   may never say to you, "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked;"
   he may be one of those that prophesy smooth things, that does not like
   to disturb you. And oh! remember that your minister may be the
   instrument in the hands of Satan of blindfolding your eyes and leading
   you to hell, while all the while you thought you were going to heaven.
   Ah! and hear me yet: I do not exclude myself from my own censure. It
   may be possible--I pray God it may not be so--that I myself may have
   mistaken the reading of the Holy Scripture, that I may have preached to
   you "another gospel which is not another;" and therefore I demand of
   you that my own teaching, and the teaching of every other man, whether
   by pen or lip, should be always brought "to the law and to the
   testimony," lest we should deceive you and lead you astray. Ah! my
   hearers, it would be an awful thing, if I should be the means of
   leading any of you into the gulf. Although in some measure your blood
   must be upon my head, if I deceive you, yet I beseech you, remember
   that I am not further responsible for your souls than my power can
   carry me. If you are misled by me, after this solemn declaration of
   mine, you shall be as verily guilty as if I had not misguided you; for
   I charge you, as ye love your own souls, as ye would make sure work for
   eternity, put no more trust in me than you would in any other man, only
   so far as I can prove, by infallible testimony of God's Word, that what
   I have said is true. Stand ye always to this. "To the law and to the
   testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because
   there is no light in them." I heard a story once that I remember to
   have told before, of some young person going out of the place, and
   saying, "Well, I don't like Mr. Spurgeon at all; he is so high in
   doctrine; he said so-and-so." And then the young body quoted a text out
   of the Bible as a very wicked thing that I had said--something about
   the potter having power over the clay. So the friend who was with her
   said, "It was Paul said that, not Mr. Spurgeon." "Ah!" said she, "and I
   think the Apostle Paul was a great deal too high too." Well, we are
   very glad to incur censure of that sort, and will not at all object to
   go with Paul wherever he may go; but we do beseech you never at any
   time to take our bare saying for a thing, but always to turn to your
   Bible and see whether it is so. That is a good habit some Christian
   fathers have; when the boys and girls come home, they say, "Well, now,
   what was the text?" And then the father wants them to tell over what
   the minister has said; and even the small boy knows something, and
   tells something or other that the minister said from the pulpit. Then
   the fathers turns to his Bible to see whether these things are so. Then
   he endeavours to explain the hard things; so that they become like
   those noble Bereans, who were more noble than those of Thessalonica,
   because they searched the Scriptures, whether those things were so.

   And now I may just hint at one or two peculiarities in that which I
   have ever preached to you, which peculiarities I desire you most
   anxiously to inquire into. Now, take nothing at second hand from me,
   but try all of it by the written Word. I believe, and I teach that all
   men by nature are lost by Adam's fall. See whether that be true or not.
   I hold that men have so gone astray that no man either will or can come
   to Christ except the Father draw him. If I be wrong, find me out. I
   believe that God, before all worlds, chose to himself a people, whom no
   man can number, for whom the Saviour died, to whom the Holy Spirit is
   given, and who will infallibly be saved. You may dislike that doctrine;
   I do not care: see if it is not in the Bible. See if it does not there
   declare that we are "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
   Father," and so on. I believe that every elect child of God must
   assuredly be brought by converting grace from the ruins of the fall,
   and must assuredly be "kept by the power of God, through faith, unto
   salvation," beyond the hazard of ever totally falling away. If I be
   wrong there, get your Bibles out, and refute me in your own houses. I
   hold it to be a fact that every man who is converted will lead a holy
   life, and yet at the same time will put no dependence on his holy life,
   but trust only in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. And I
   hold, that every man that believes, is in duty bound to be immersed. I
   hold the baptism of infants to be a lie and a heresy; but I claim for
   that great ordinance of God, Believer's Baptism, that it should have
   the examination of Scripture. I hold, that to none but believers may
   immersion be given, and that all believers are in duty bound to be
   immersed. If I am wrong, well and good; do not believe me; but if I am
   right, obey the Word with reverence. I will have no error, even upon a
   point which some men think to be unimportant; for a grain of truth is a
   diamond, and a grain of error may be of serious consequence to us, to
   our injury and hurt. I hold then, that none but believers have any
   right to the Lord's Supper; that it is wrong to give the Lord's Supper
   indiscriminately to all, and that none but Christians have a right
   either to the doctrines, the benefits, or the ordinances of God's
   house. If these things be not so, condemn me as you please; but if the
   Bible is with me, your condemnation is of no avail.

   And now I charge you that are now present to read your Bibles, for one
   thing. Read your Bibles to know what the Bible says about you; and some
   of you when you turn the leaves over, will find the Bible says, "Thou
   art in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity." If that
   startles you, turn over another page, and read this verse--"Come unto
   me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;"
   and when you have read that, turn to another and read, "Therefore being
   justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our
   Lord." I pray you, put not away your Bibles till their dust condemns
   you; but take them out, bend your knees, seek for the Spirit of divine
   teaching, and turn ye these pages with diligent search, and see if ye
   can find there the salvation of your souls, through our Lord Jesus
   Christ. May the blessing of God rest upon you in so doing, through
   Jesus Christ. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                              The Death of Christ

   A Sermon

   (No. 173)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, January 24, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when
   thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he
   shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
   his hand."--Isaiah 53:10.

   WHAT myriads of eyes are casting their glances at the sun! What
   multitudes of men lift up their eyes, and behold the starry orbs of
   heaven! They are continually watched by thousands--but there is one
   great transaction in the world's history, which every day commands far
   more spectators than that sun which goeth forth like a bridegroom,
   strong to run his race. There is one great event, which every day
   attracts more admiration than do the sun, and moon, and stars, when
   they march in their courses. That event is, the death of our Lord Jesus
   Christ. To it, the eyes of all the saints who lived before the
   Christian era were always directed; and backwards, through the thousand
   years of history, the eyes of all modern saints are looking. Upon
   Christ, the angels in heaven perpetually gaze. "Which things the angels
   desire to look into," said the apostle. Upon Christ, the myriad eyes of
   the redeemed are perpetually fixed; and thousands of pilgrims, through
   this world of tears, have no higher object for their faith, and no
   better desire for their vision, than to see Christ as he is in heaven,
   and in communion to behold his person. Beloved, we shall have many with
   us, whilst this morning we turn our face to the Mount of Calvary. We
   shall not be solitary spectators of the fearful tragedy of our
   Saviour's death: we shall but dart our eyes to that place which is the
   focus of heaven's joy and delight, the cross of our Lord and Saviour
   Jesus Christ.

   Taking our text, then, as a guide, we propose to visit Calvary, hoping
   to have the help of the Holy Spirit whilst we look upon him who died
   upon the cross. I would have you notice this morning, first of all, the
   cause of Christ's death--"It pleased the Lord to bruise him." "It
   pleased Jehovah to bruise him," saith the original; "he hath put him to
   grief." Secondly, the reason of Christ's death--"When thou shalt make
   his soul an offering for sin." Christ died because he was an offering
   for sin. And then, thirdly, the effects and consequences of Christ's
   death. "He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the
   pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." Come, Sacred Spirit,
   now, whilst we attempt to speak on these matchless themes.

   I. First, we have THE ORIGIN OF CHRIST'S DEATH. "It pleased Jehovah to
   bruise him; he hath put him to griefs." He who reads Christ's life, as
   a mere history, traces the death of Christ to the enmity of the Jews,
   and to the fickle character of the Roman governor. In this he acteth
   justly, for the crime and sin of the Saviour's death must lay at the
   door of manhood. This race of ours became a deicide and slew the Lord,
   and nailed its Saviour to a tree. But he who reads the Bible with the
   eye of faith, desiring to discover its hidden secrets, sees something
   more in the Saviour's death than Roman cruelty, or Jewish malice: he
   sees the solemn decree of God fulfilled by men, who were the ignorant,
   but guilty instruments of its accomplishment. He looks beyond the Roman
   spear and nail, beyond the Jewish taunt and jeer, up to the Sacred
   Fount, whence all things flow, and traces the crucifixion of Christ to
   the breast of Deity. He believes with Peter--"Him, being delivered by
   the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by
   wicked hands have crucified and slain." We dare not impute to God the
   sin, but at the same time the fact, with all its marvelous effects in
   the world's redemption, we must ever trace to the Sacred Fountain of
   divine love. So cloth our prophet. He says, "It pleased Jehovah to
   bruise him. He overlooks both Pilate and Herod, and traces it to the
   heavenly Father, the first Person in the Divine Trinity. "It pleased
   the Lord to bruise him, he hath put him to grief."

   Now, beloved, there be many who think that God the Father is at best
   but an indifferent spectator of salvation. Others do belie him still
   more. They look upon Him as an unloving, severe Being, who had no love
   to the human race, and could only be made loving by the death and
   agonies of our Saviour. Now, this is a foul libel upon the fair and
   glorious grace of God the Father, to whom for ever be honor: for Jesus
   Christ did not die to make God loving, but he died because God was
   loving.

   "Twas not to make Jehovah's love

   Toward his people flame,

   That Jesus from the throne above,

   A suffering man became.

   "Twas not the death which he endured,

   Nor all the pangs he bore,

   That God's eternal love procured,

   For God was love before."

   Christ was sent into the world by his Father, as the consequence of the
   Father's affection for his people. Yea, he "so loved the world, that he
   gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not
   perish, but have everlasting life. The fact is, that the Father as much
   decreed salvation, as much effected it, and as much delighted in it, as
   did either God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit. And when we speak of
   the Saviour of the world, we must always include in that word, if we
   speak in a large sense, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
   Ghost, for all these three, as one God, do save us from our sins. The
   text puts away every hard thought concerning the Father, by telling us
   that it pleased Jehovah to bruise Jesus Christ. The death of Christ is
   traceable to God the Father. Let us try if we can see it is so.

   1. First it is traceable in decree. God, the one God of heaven and
   earth, hath the book of destiny entirely in his power. In that book
   there is nothing written by a stranger's hand. The penmanship of the
   solemn book of predestination is from beginning to end entirely divine.

   "Chained to his throne a volume lies,

   With all the fates of men,

   With every angel's form and size

   Drawn by th' eternal pen."

   No inferior hand hath sketched even so much as the least minute parts
   of providence. It was all, from its Alpha to its Omega, from its divine
   preface to its solemn finis, marked out, designed, sketched, and
   planned by the mind of the all-wise, all-knowing God. Hence, not even
   Christ's death was exempt from it. He that wings an angel and guides a
   sparrow, he that protects the hairs of our head from falling
   prematurely to the ground, was not likely, when he took notice of such
   little things, to omit in his solemn decrees the greatest wonder of
   earth's miracles, the death of Christ. No; the blood-stained page of
   that book, the page which makes both past and future glorious with
   golden words,--that blood-stained page, I say, was as much written of
   Jehovah, as any other. He determined that Christ should be born of the
   Virgin Mary, that he should suffer under Pontius Pilate, that he should
   descend into Hades, that thence he should rise again, leading captivity
   captive, and then should reign for ever at the right hand of the
   Majesty on high. Nay, I know not but that I shall have Scripture for my
   warrant when I say, that this is the very core of predestination, and
   that the death of Christ is the very center and main-spring by which
   God did fashion all his other decrees, making this the bottom and
   foundation-stone upon which the sacred architecture should be builded.
   Christ was put to death by the absolute foreknowledge and solemn decree
   of God the Father, and in this sense "it pleased the Lord to bruise
   him; he hath put him to grief."

   2. But a little further, Christ's coming into the world to die was the
   effect of the Father's will and pleasure. Christ came not into this
   world unsent. He had laid in Jehovah's bosom from before all worlds,
   eternally delighting himself in his Father, and being himself his
   Father's eternal joy. "In the fullness of time" God did rend his Son
   from his bosom, his only-begotten Son, and freely delivered him up for
   us all. Herein was matchless, peerless love, that the offended judge
   should permit his co-equal Son to suffer the pains of death for the
   redemption of a rebellious people. I want your imaginations for one
   minute to picture a scene of olden times. There is a bearded patriarch,
   who rises early in the morning and awakes his son, a young man full of
   strength, and bids him arise and follow him. They hurry from the house
   silently and noiselessly, before the mother is awake. They go three
   days, journey with their men; until they come to the Mount, of which
   the Lord hath spoken. You know the patriarch. The name of Abraham is
   always fresh in our memories. On the way, that patriarch speaks not one
   solitary word to his son. His heart is too full for utterance. He is
   overwhelmed with grief. God has commanded him to take his son, his only
   son, and slay him upon the mountain as a sacrifice. They go together;
   and who shall paint the unutterable anguish of the father's soul,
   whilst he walks side by side with that beloved son, of whom he is to be
   the executioner? The third day has arrived; the servants are bidden to
   stay at the foot of the hill, whilst they go to worship God yonder.
   Now, can any mind imagine how the father's grief must overflow all the
   banks of his soul, when, as he walked up that hill-side, his son said
   to him, "Father, behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb
   for a burnt-offering?" Can you conceive how he stifled his emotions,
   and, with sobs, exclaimed, "My son, God will provide himself a lamb."
   See! the father has communicated to his son the fact that God has
   demanded his life. Isaac, who might have struggled and escaped from his
   father, declares that he is willing to die, if God hath decreed it. The
   father takes his son, binds his hands behind his back, piles up the
   stones, makes an altar, lays the wood, and has his fire ready. And now
   where is the artist that can depict the anguish of the fathers
   countenance, when the knife is unsheathed, and he holds it up, ready to
   slay his son? But here the curtain falls. Now the black scene vanishes
   at the sound of a voice from heaven. The ram caught in the thicket
   supplies the substitute, and faith's obedience need go no further. Ah!
   my brethren, I want to take you from this scene to a far greater one.
   What faith and obedience made man do, that love constrained God himself
   to do. He had but one son, that son his own heart's delight: he
   covenanted to yield him up for our redemption, nor did he violate his
   promise; for, when the fullness of time was come, he sent his Son to be
   born of the Virgin Mary, that he might suffer for the sins of man. O!
   can ye tell the greatness of that love, which made the everlasting God
   not only put his Son upon the altar, but actually do the deed, and
   thrust the sacrificial knife into his Son's heart? Can you think how
   overwhelming must have been the love of God toward the human race, when
   he completed in act what Abraham only did in intention? Look ye there,
   and see the place where his only Son hung dead upon the cross, the
   bleeding victim of awakened justice! Here is love indeed; and here we
   see how it was, that it pleased the Father to bruise him.

   3. This allows me to push my text just one point further. Beloved, it
   is not only true that God did design and did permit with willingness
   the death of Christ; it is moreover, true that the unutterable agonies
   that clothed the death of the Saviour with superhuman terror, were the
   effect of the Father's bruising of Christ in very act and deed. There
   is a martyr in prison: the chains are on his wrists, and yet he sings.
   It has been announced to him that to-morrow is his burning day. He
   claps his hands right merrily, and smiles while he says, "It will be
   sharp work to-morrow, I shall breakfast below on fiery tribulations,
   but afterward I will sup with Christ. Tomorrow is my wedding-day, the
   day for which I have long panted, when I shall sign the testimony of my
   life by a glorious deaths." The time is come; the men with the halberts
   precede him through the streets. Mark the serenity of the martyrs
   countenance. He turns to some who look upon him, and exclaims, "I value
   these iron chains far more than if they had been of gold; it is a sweet
   thing to die for Christ. There are a few of the boldest of the saints
   gathered round the stake, and as he unrobes himself, ere he stands upon
   the fagots to receive his doom, he tells them that it is a joyous thing
   to be a soldier of Christ, to be allowed to give his body to be burned;
   and he shakes hands with them, and bids them "Good by" with merry
   cheer. One would think he were going to a bridal, rather than to be
   burned. He steps upon the fagots; the chain is put about his middle;
   and after a brief word of prayer, as soon as the fire begins to ascend,
   he speaks to the people with manful boldness. But hark! he sings whilst
   the fagots are crackling and the smoke is blowing upward. He sings, and
   when his nether parts are burned, he still goes on chanting sweetly
   some psalm of old. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help
   in trouble; therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed and
   the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea."

   Picture another scene. There is the Saviour going to his cross, all
   weak and wan with suffering; his soul is sick and sad within him. There
   is no divine composure there. So sad is his heart, that he faints in
   the streets. The Son of God faints beneath a cross that many a criminal
   might have carried. They nail him to the tree. There is no song of
   praise. He is lifted up in the air, and there he hangs preparatory to
   his death. You hear no shout of exultation. There is a stern
   compression of his face, as if unutterable agony were tearing his
   heart--as if over again Gethsemane were being acted on the cross--as if
   his soul were still saying, "If it be possible let this cross pass from
   me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." Hark! he speaks.
   Will he not sing sweeter songs than ever came from martyr's lips? Ah!
   no; it is an awful wail of woe that can never be imitated. "My God, my
   God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The martyrs said not that: God was
   with them. Confessors of old cried not so, when they came to die. They
   shouted in their fires, and praised God on their racks. Why this? Why
   doth the Saviour suffer so? Why, beloved, it was because the Father
   bruised him. That sunshine of God's countenance that has cheered many a
   dying saint, was withdrawn from Christ; the consciousness of acceptance
   with God, which has made many a holy man espouse the cross with joy,
   was not afforded to our Redeemer, and therefore he suffered in thick
   darkness of mental agony. Read the 22nd Psalm, and learn how Jesus
   suffered. Pause over the solemn words in the 1st, 2nd, 6th, and
   following verses. Underneath the church are the ever lasting arms; but
   underneath Christ there were no arms at all, but his Father's hand
   pressed heavily against him; the upper and the nether mill-stones of
   divine wrath pressed and bruised him; and not one drop of joy or
   consolation was afforded to him. "It pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he
   hath put him to grief." This, my brethren, was the climax of the
   Saviour's woe, that his Father turned away from him, and put him to
   grief.

   Thus have I expounded the first part of the subject--the origin of our
   Saviour's worst sufferings, the Father's pleasure.

   II. Our second head must explain the first, or otherwise it is an
   insolvable mystery how God should bruise his Son, who was perfect
   innocence, while poor fallible confessors and martyrs have had no such
   bruising from him in the time of their trial. WHAT WAS THE REASON OF
   THE SAVIOUR'S SUFFERING? We are told here, "Thou shalt make his soul an
   offering for sin." Christ was thus troubled, because his soul was an
   offering for sin. Now, I am going to be as plain as I can, while I
   preach over again the precious doctrine of the atonement of Christ
   Jesus our Lord. Christ was an offering for sin, in the sense of a
   substitute. God longed to save; but, if such a word may be allowed,
   Justice tied his hands. "I must be just," said God; "that is a
   necessity of my nature. Stern as fate, and fast as immutability, is the
   truth that I must be just. But then my heart desires to forgive--to
   pass by man's transgressions and pardon them. How can it be done?
   Wisdom stepped in, and said, "It shall be done thus;" and Love agreed
   with Wisdom. "Christ Jesus, the Son of God, shall stand in man's place,
   and he shall be offered upon Mount Calvary instead of man. Now, mark:
   when you see Christ going up the Mount of Doom, you see man going
   there: when you see Christ hurled upon his back, upon the wooden cross,
   you see the whole company of his elect there; and when you see the
   nails driven through his blessed hands and feet, it is the whole body
   of his Church who there, in their substitute, are nailed to the tree.
   And now the soldiers lift the cross, and dash it into the socket
   prepared for it. His bones are every one of them dislocated, and his
   body is thus torn with agonies which can not be described. Tis manhood
   suffering there; tis the Church suffering there, in the substitute. And
   when Christ dies, you are to look upon the death of Christ, not as his
   own dying merely, but as the dying of all those for whom he stood as
   the scape-goat and the substitute. It is true, Christ died really
   himself; it is equally true that he did not die for himself, but died
   as the substitute, in the room, place, and stead of all believers. When
   you die you will die for yourselves; when Christ died, he died for you,
   if you be a believer in him. When you pass through the gates of the
   grave, you go there solitary and alone; you are not the representative
   of a body of men, but you pass through the gates of death as an
   individual; but, remember, when Christ went through the sufferings of
   death, he was the representative Head of all his people.

   Understand, then, the sense in which Christ was made a sacrifice for
   sin. But here lies the glory of this matter. It was as a substitute for
   sin that he did actually and literally suffer punishment for the sin of
   all his elect. When I say this, I am not to be understood as using any
   figure whatever, but as saying actually what I mean. Man for his sin
   was condemned to eternal fire; when God took Christ to be the
   substitute, it is true, he did not send Christ into eternal fire, but
   he poured upon him grief so desperate, that it was a valid payment for
   even an eternity of fire. Man was condemned to live forever in hell.
   God did not send Christ forever into hell; but he put on Christ,
   punishment that was equivalent for that. Although he did not give
   Christ to drink the actual hells of believers, yet he gave him a quid
   pro quo--something that was equivalent thereunto. He took the cup of
   Christ's agony, and he put in there, suffering, misery, and anguish
   such as only God can imagine or dream of, that was the exact equivalent
   for all the suffering, all the woe, and all the eternal tortures of
   every one that shall at last stand in heaven, bought with the blood of
   Christ. And you say, "Did Christ drink it all to its dregs?" Did he
   suffer it all? Yes, my brethren, he took the cup, and

   "At one triumphant draught of love,

   He drank damnation dry."

   He suffered all the horror of hell: in one pelting shower of iron wrath
   it fell upon him, with hail-stones bigger than a talent; and he stood
   until the black cloud had emptied itself completely. There was our
   debt; huge and immense; he paid the utmost farthing of whatever his
   people owed; and now there is not so much as a doit or a farthing due
   to the justice of God in the way of punishment from any believer; and
   though we owe God gratitude, though we owe much to his love, we owe
   nothing to his justice; for Christ in that hour took all our sins,
   past, present, and to come, and was punished for them all there and
   then, that we might never be punished, because he suffered in our
   stead. Do you see, then, how it was that God the Father bruised him?
   Unless he had so done the agonies of Christ could not have been an
   equivalent for our sufferings; for hell consists in the hiding of God's
   face from sinners, and if God had not hidden his face from Christ,
   Christ could not--I see not how he could--have endured any suffering
   that could have been accepted as an equivalent for the woes and agonies
   of his people.

   Methinks I heard some one say, "Do you mean us to understand this
   atonement that you have now preached as being a literal fact?" I say,
   most solemnly, I do. There are in the world many theories of atonement;
   but I can not see any atonement in any one, except in this doctrine of
   substitution. Many divines say that Christ did something when he died
   that enabled God to be just, and yet the Justifier of the ungodly. What
   that something is they do not tell us. They believe in an atonement
   made for every body; but then, their atonement is just this. They
   believe that Judas was atoned for just as much as Peter; they believe
   that the damned in hell were as much an object of Jesus Christ's
   satisfaction as the saved in heaven; and though they do not say it in
   proper words, yet they must mean it, for it is a fair inference, that
   in the case of multitudes, Christ died in vain, for he died for them
   all, they say; and yet so ineffectual was his dying for them, that
   though he died for them they are damned afterward. Now, such an
   atonement I despise--I reject it. I may be called Antinomian or
   Calvinist for preaching a limited atonement; but I had rather believe a
   limited atonement that is efficacious for all men for whom it was
   intended, than an universal atonement that is not efficacious for
   anybody, except the will of man be joined with it. Why, my brethren, if
   we were only so far atoned for by the death of Christ that any one of
   us might afterward save himself, Christ's atonement were not worth a
   farthing, for there is no man of us can save himself--no, not under the
   gospel; for if I am to be saved by faith, if that faith is to be my own
   act, unassisted by the Holy Spirit, I am as unable to save myself by
   faith as to save myself by good works. And after all, though men call
   this a limited atonement, it is as effectual as their own fallacious
   and rotten redemptions can pretend to be. But do you know the limit of
   it? Christ hath bought a "multitude that no man can number." The limit
   of it is just this: He hath died for sinners; whoever in this
   congregation inwardly and sorrowfully knows himself to be a sinner,
   Christ died for him; whoever seeks Christ, shall know Christ died for
   him; for our sense of need of Christ, and our seeking after Christ, are
   infallible proofs that Christ died for us. And, mark, here is something
   substantial. The Arminian says Christ died for him; and then, poor man,
   he has but small consolation therefrom, for he says, "Ah! Christ died
   for me; that does not prove much. It only proves I may be saved if I
   mind what I am after. I may perhaps forget myself; I may run into sin
   and I may perish. Christ has done a good deal for me, but not quite
   enough, unless I do something." But the man who receives the Bible as
   it is, he says, "Christ died for me, then my eternal life is sure. I
   know," says he, "that Christ can not be punished in a man's stead, and
   the man be punished afterwards. No," says he, "I believe in a just God,
   and if God be just, he will not punish Christ first, and then punish
   men afterwards. No; my Saviour died, and now I am free from every
   demand of God's vengeance, and I can walk through this world secure; no
   thunderbolt can smite me, and I can die absolutely certain that for me
   there is no flame of hell, and no pit digged; for Christ, my ransom,
   suffered in my stead, and, therefore, am I clean delivered. Oh!
   glorious doctrine! I would wish to die preaching it! What better
   testimony can we bear to the love and faithfulness of God than the
   testimony of a substitution eminently satisfactory for all them that
   believe on Christ? I will here quote the testimony of that
   pre-eminently profound divine, Dr. John Owen:--"Redemption is the
   freeing of a man from misery by the intervention of a ransom. Now, when
   a ransom is paid for the liberty of a prisoner, does not justice demand
   that he should have and enjoy the liberty so purchased for him by a
   valuable consideration? If I should pay a thousand pounds for a man's
   deliverance from bondage to him that retains him, who hath power to set
   him free, and is contented with the price I give, were it not injurious
   to me and the poor prisoner that his deliverance be not accomplished?
   Can it possibly be conceived that there should be a redemption of men,
   and those men not redeemed? That a price should be paid and the ransom
   not consummated? Yet all this must be made true, and innumerable other
   absurdities, if universal redemption be asserted. A price is paid for
   all, yet few delivered; the redemption of all consummated, yet, few of
   them redeemed; the judge satisfied, the jailer conquered, and yet the
   prisoners inthralled! Doubtless 'universal,' and 'redemption,' where
   the greatest part of men perish, are as irreconcilable as 'Roman, and
   'Catholic.' If there be a universal redemption of all, then all men are
   redeemed. If they are redeemed, then are they delivered from all
   misery, virtually or actually, whereunto they were inthralled, and that
   by the intervention of a ransom. Why, then, are not all saved? In a
   word, the redemption wrought by Christ being the full deliverance of
   the persons redeemed from all misery, wherein they were inwrapped, by
   the price of his blood, it can not possibly be conceived to be
   universal unless all be saved: so that the opinion of the Universalists
   is unsuitable to redemption."

   I pause once more; for I hear some timid soul say--"But, sir, I am
   afraid I am not elect, and if so, Christ did not die for me." Stop sir!
   Are you a sinner? Do you feel it? Has God, the Holy Spirit, made you
   feel that you are a lost sinner? Do you want salvation? If you do not
   want it it is no hardship that it is not provided for you; but if you
   really feel that you want it, you are God's elect. If you have a desire
   to be saved, a desire given you by the Holy Spirit, that desire is a
   token for good. If you have begun believingly to pray for salvation,
   you have therein a sure evidence that you are saved. Christ was
   punished for you. And if now you can say,

   "Nothing in my hands I bring,

   Simply to the cross I cling."

   you may be as sure you are God's elect as you are sure of your own
   existence; for this is the infallible proof of election--a sense of
   need and a thirst after Christ.

   III. And now I have just to conclude by noticing the BLESSED EFFECTS of
   the Saviour's death. On this I shall be very brief.

   The first effect of the Saviour's death is, "He shall see his seed."
   Men shall be saved by Christ. Men have offspring by life; Christ had an
   offspring by death. Men die and leave their children, and they see not
   their seed; Christ lives, and every day sees his seed brought into the
   unity of the faith. One effect of Christ's death is the salvation of
   multitudes. Mark, not a chance salvation. When Christ died the angel
   did not say, as some have represented him, "Now by his death many may
   be saved;" the word of prophecy had quenched all "buts" and
   "peradventures;" "By his righteousness he shall justify many. There was
   not so much as an atom of chance work in the Saviour's death. Christ
   knew what he bought when he died; and what he bought he will
   have--that, and no more, and no less. There is no effect of Christ's
   death that is left to peradventure. "Shalls" and "wills" made the
   covenant fast: Christ's bloody death shall effect its solemn purpose.
   Every heir of grace shall meet around the throne,

   "Shall bless the wonders of his grace,

   And make his glories known."

   The second effect of Christ's death is, "He shall prolong his days."
   Yes, bless his name, when he died he did not end his life. He could not
   long be held a prisoner in the tomb. The third morning came, and the
   conqueror, rising from his sleep burst the iron bonds of death, and
   came forth from his prison house, no more to die. He waited his forty
   days, and then, with shouts of sacred song, he "led captivity captive,
   and ascended up on high." "In that he died he died unto sin once; but
   in that he liveth he liveth unto God," no more to die.

   "Now by his Father's side he Sits,

   And there triumphant reigns,"

   the conqueror over death and hell.

   And, last of all, by Christ's death the Father's good pleasure was
   effected and prospered. God's good pleasure is, that that this world
   shall one day be totally redeemed from sin; God's good pleasure is,
   that this poor planet, so long swathed in darkness, shall soon shine
   out in brightness, like a new-born sun. Christ's death hath done it.
   The stream that flowed from his side on Calvary shall cleanse the world
   from all its blackness. That hour of mid-day darkness was the rising of
   a new sun of righteousness, which shall never cease to shine upon the
   earth. Yes, the hour is coming when swords and spears shall be
   forgotten things--when the harness of war and the pageantry of pomp
   shall all be laid aside for the food of the worm or the contemplation
   of the curious. The hour approacheth when old Rome shall shake upon her
   seven hills, when Mohammed's crescent shall wane to wax no more, when
   all the gods of the heathens shall lose their thrones and be cast out
   to the moles and the bats; and then, when from the equator to the poles
   Christ shall be honored, the Lord paramount of earth, when from land to
   land, from the river even to the ends of the earth, one King shall
   reign, one shout shall be raised, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, the Lord God
   Omnipotent reigneth." Then, my brethren, shall it be seen what Christ's
   death has accomplished, for "the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
   his hand."
     __________________________________________________________________

                           A Call to the Unconverted

   A Sermon

   (No. 174)

   Delivered on Sabbath Evening, November 8, 1857, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

   "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it
   is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which
   are written in the book of the law to do them."--Galatians 3:10.

   MY HEARER, ART THOU a believer, or no? for, according to thine answer
   to that question, must be the style in which I shall address thee
   to-night. I would ask thee as a great favor to thine own soul, this
   evening to divest thyself of the thought that thou art sitting in a
   chapel, and hearing a minister who is preaching to a large
   congregation. Think thou art sitting in thine own house, in thine own
   chair, and think that I am standing by thee, with thy hand in mine, and
   am speaking personally to thee, and to thee alone; for that is how I
   desire to preach this night to each of my hearers--one by one. I want
   thee, then, in the sight of God, to answer me this all important and
   solemn question before I begin--Art thou in Christ, or art thou not?
   Hast thou fled for refuge to him who is the only hope for sinners? or
   art thou yet a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, ignorant of God,
   and of his holy Gospel? Come--be honest with thine own heart, and let
   thy conscience say yes, or no, for one of these two things thou art
   to-night--thou art either under the wrath of God, or thou art delivered
   from it. Thou art to-night either an heir of wrath, or an inheritor of
   the kingdom of grace. Which of these two? Make no "ifs" or "ahs" in
   your answer. Answer straight forward to thine own soul; and if there be
   any doubt whatever about it, I beseech thee rest not till that doubt be
   resolved. Do not take advantage of that doubt to thyself, but rather
   take a disadvantage from it. Depend upon it, thou art more likely to be
   wrong than thou art to be right; and now put thyself in the scale, and
   if thou dost not kick the beam entirely, but if thou hangest between
   the two, and thou sayest, "I know not which," better that thou shouldst
   decide for the worst, though it should grieve thyself, than that thou
   shouldst decide for the better, and be deceived, and so go on
   presumptuously until the pit of hell shall wake thee from thy
   self-deception. Canst thou, then, with one hand upon God's holy word,
   and the other upon thine own heart, lifts thine eye to heaven, and say,
   "One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see; I know that I
   have passed from death unto life, I am not now what I once was; I the
   chief of sinners am, but Jesus died for me.' And if I be not awfully
   deceived, I am this night "A sinner saved by blood, a monument of
   grace?'" My brother, God speed you; the blessing of the Most High be
   with you. My text has no thunders in it for you. Instead of this verse,
   turn to the 13th, and there read your inheritance--"Christ hath
   redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for
   it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." So Christ
   was cursed in the stead of you, and you are secure, if you are truly
   converted, and really a regenerated child of God.

   But my hearer, I am solemnly convinced that a large proportion of this
   assembly dare not say so; and thou to-night (for I am speaking
   personally to thee), remember that thou art one of those who dare not
   say this, for thou art a stranger to the grace of God. Thou durst not
   lie before God, and thine own conscience, therefore thou dost honestly
   say, "I know I was never regenerated; I am now what I always was, and
   that is the most I can say." Now, with you I have to deal, and I charge
   you by him who shall judge the quick and the dead, before whom you and
   I must soon appear, listen to the words I speak, for they may be the
   last warning you shall ever hear, and I charge my own soul also, be
   thou faithful to these dying men, lest haply on thy skirts at last
   should be found the blood of souls, and thou thyself shouldst be a
   castaway. O God, make us faithful this night and give the hearing ear,
   and the retentive memory, and the conscience touched by the Spirit, for
   Jesus' sake.

   First, to-night we shall try the prisoner; secondly, we shall declare
   his sentence; and thirdly, if we find him confessing and penitent, we
   shall proclaim his deliverance; but not unless we find him so.

   I. First, then, we are about to TRY THE PRISONER.

   The text says--"Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things
   which are written in the book of the law to do them." Unconverted man,
   are you guilty, or not guilty? Have you continued "in all things that
   are written in the book of the law to do them?" Methinks you will not
   dare to plead, "Not guilty." But I will suppose for one moment that you
   are bold enough to do so. So, then, sir, you mean to assert that you
   have continued "in all things which are written in the book of the
   law." Surely the very reading of the law would be enough to convince
   thee that thou art in error. Dost thou know what the law is? Why, I
   will give thee what I may call the outside of it, but remember that
   within it there is a broader spirit than the mere words. Hear thou
   these words of the law--"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
   What! hast thou never loved anything better than God? Hast thou never
   made a god of thy belly, or of thy business, or of thy family, or of
   thine own person? Oh! surely thou durst not say thou art guiltless
   here. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness
   of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath,
   or that is in the water under the earth." What! hast thou never in thy
   life set up anything in the place of God? If thou hast not, I have,
   full many a time. And I wot, if conscience would speak truly, it would
   say, "Man, thou hast been a mammon worshiper, thou hast been a belly
   worshiper, thou hast bowed down before gold and silver; thou hast cast
   thyself down before honor, thou hast bowed before pleasure, thou hast
   made a god of thy drunkenness, a god of thy lust, a god of thy
   uncleanness, a god of thy pleasures!" Wilt thou dare to say that thou
   hast never taken the name of the Lord thy of God in vain? If thou hast
   never sworn profanely, yet surely in common conversation thou hast
   sometimes made use of God's name when thou oughtest not to have done
   so. Say, hast thou always hallowed that most holy name? Hast thou never
   called upon God without necessity? Hast thou never read his book with a
   trifling spirit? Hast thou never heard his gospel without paying
   reverence to it? Surely thou art guilty here. And as for that fourth
   commandment, which relates to the keeping of the Sabbath--"Remember the
   Sabbath day to keep it holy,"--hast thou never broken it? Oh, shut thy
   mouth and plead guilty, for these four commandments were enough to
   condemn thee! "Honor thy father and thy mother." What! wilt thou say
   thou has kept that? Hast thou never been disobedient in thy youth? Hast
   thou never kicked against a mother's love, and striven against a
   father's rebuke? Turn over a page of your history till you come to your
   childhood; see if you cannot find it written there; ay, and your
   manhood too may confess that you have not always spoken to your parents
   as you should, or always treated them with that honor they deserved,
   and which God commanded you to give unto them. "Thou shalt not kill;"
   you may never have killed any, but have you never been angry? He that
   is angry with his brother is a murderer; thou art guilty here. "Thou
   shalt not commit adultery." Mayhap thou hast committed unclean things,
   and art here this very day stained with lust; but if thou hast been
   never so chaste, I am sure thou hast not been quite guiltless, when the
   Master says, "He that looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath
   committed adultery already with her in his heart." Has no lascivious
   thought crossed thy mind? Has no impurity ever stirred thy imagination?
   Surely if thou shouldest dare to say so, thou wouldest be brazen-faced
   with impudence. And hast thou never stolen? "Thou shalt not steal;" you
   are here in the crowd to-night with the product of your theft mayhap,
   you have done the deed, you have committed robbery; but if you have
   been never so honest, yet surely there have been times in which you
   have felt an inclination to defraud your neighbor, and there may have
   been some petty, or mayhap some gross frauds which you have secretly
   and silently committed, on which the law of the land could not lay its
   hand, but which nevertheless, was a breach of this law. And who dare
   say he has not borne false witness against his neighbor? Have we never
   repeated a story to our neighbor's disadvantage, which was untrue? Have
   we never misconstrued his motives? Have we never misinterpreted his
   designs? And who among us can dare to say that he is guiltless of the
   last--"Thou shalt not covet?" for we have all desired to have more than
   God has given us; and at times our wandering heart has lusted after
   things which God has not bestowed upon us. Why, to plead not guilty, is
   to plead your own folly; for verily, my brethren, the very reading of
   the law is enough, when blessed by the Spirit, to make us cry, "Guilty,
   O Lord, guilty."

   But one cries, "I shall not plead guilty, for though I am well aware
   that I have not continued in all things which are written in the book
   of the law,' yet I have done the best I could." That is a lie--before
   God a falsehood. You have not! You have not done the best you could.
   There have been many occasions upon which you might have done better.
   Will that young man dare to tell me that he is doing the best he can
   now? that he cannot refrain from laughter in the house of God? It may
   be possible that it is hard for him to do so, but it is just possible
   he could, if he pleased, refrain from insulting his Maker to his face.
   Surely we have none of us done the best we could. At every period, at
   every time, there have been opportunities of escape from temptation. If
   we had had no freedom to escape from the sin, there might have been
   some excuse for it; but there have been turning points in our history
   when we might have decided for right or for wrong, but when we have
   chosen the evil and have eschewed the good, and have turned into that
   path which leadeth unto hell.

   "Ah, but," saith another, "I declare, sir, that while I have broken
   that law, without a doubt, I have been no worse than my
   fellow-creatures." And a sorry argument is that, for what availeth it
   thee? To be damned in a crowd is no more comfortable than to be damned
   alone. It is true, thou hast been no worse than thy fellow-creatures,
   but this will be of very poor service to thee. When the wicked are cast
   into hell, it will be very little comfort to thee that God shall say,
   "Depart ye cursed" to a thousand with thee. Remember, God's curse, when
   it shall sweep a nation into hell, shall be as much felt by every
   individual of the crowd, as if there were but that one man to be
   punished. God is not like our earthly judges. If their courts were
   glutted with prisoners, they might be inclined to pass over many a case
   lightly; but not so with Jehovah. He is so infinite in his mind, that
   the abundance of criminals will not seem to be any difficulty with him.
   He will deal with thee as severely and as justly as it there were never
   another sinner in all the world. And pray, what hast thou to do with
   other men's sins? Thou art not responsible for them. God made thee to
   stand or fall by thyself. According to thine own deeds thou shalt be
   judged. The harlot's sin may be grosser than thine, but thou wilt not
   be condemned for her iniquities. The murderers guilt may far exceed thy
   transgressions, but thou wilt not be damned for the murderer. Religion
   is a thing between God and thine own soul, O man; and therefore, I do
   beseech thee, do not look upon thy neighbor's, but upon thine own
   heart.

   "Ay, but," cries another, "I have very many times striven to keep the
   law, and I think I have done so for a little." Hear ye the sentence
   read again--"Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things
   which are written in the book of the law to do them." Oh! sirs; it is
   not some hectic flush upon the cheek of consumptive irresolution that
   God counts to be the health of obedience. It is not some slight
   obedience for an hour that God will accept at the day of judgment. He
   saith "continueth;" and unless from my early childhood to the day when
   my gray hairs descend into the tomb, I shall have continued to be
   obedient to God, I must be condemned. Unless I have from the first dawn
   of reason, when I first began to be responsible, obediently served God,
   until, like a shock of corn, I am gathered into my Master's garner,
   salvation by works must be impossible to me, and I must (standing on my
   own footing), be condemned. It is not I say, some slight obedience that
   will save the soul. Thou hast not continued "in all things which are
   written in the book of the law," and therefore thou art condemned.

   "But," says another, "there are many things I have not done, but still
   I have been very virtuous." Poor excuse that, also. Suppose thou hast
   been virtuous; suppose thou hast avoided many vices: turn to my text.
   It is not my word, but God's--turn to it--"all things. It does not say
   "some things."--"Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things
   which are written in the book of the law to do them." Now, hast thou
   performed all virtues? Hast thou shunned all vices? Dost thou stand up
   and plead, "I never was a drunkard?"--Yet shalt thou be damned, if thou
   hast been a fornicator. Dost thou reply, "I never was unclean?" Yet
   thou hast broken the Sabbath. Dost thou plead guiltless of that charge?
   Dost thou declare thou hast never broken the Sabbath? Thou hast taken
   God's name in vain, hast thou not? Somewhere or other God's law can
   smite thee. It is certain (let thy conscience now speak and affirm what
   I assert)--it is certain thou hast not continued "in all things which
   are written in the book of the law." Nay, more, I do not believe thou
   hast even continued in any one commandment of God to the full, for the
   commandment is exceeding broad. It is not the overt act, merely, that
   will damn a man; it is the thought, the imagination, the conception of
   sin, that is sufficient to ruin a soul. Remember, my dear hearers, I am
   speaking now God's own word, not a harsh doctrine of my own. If you had
   never committed one single act of sin, yet the thought of sin, the
   imagination of it would be enough to sweep your soul to hell for ever.
   If you had been born in a cell, and had never been able to come out
   into the world, either to commit acts of lasciviousness, murder, or
   robbery, yet the thought of evil in that lone cell might be enough to
   cast your soul for ever from the face of God. Oh! there is no man here
   that can hope to escape. We must every one of us bow our heads before
   God, and cry, "Guilty, Lord, guilty--every one of us guilty--'Cursed is
   every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the
   book of the law to do them.'" When I look into thy face, O law, my
   spirit shudders. When I hear thy thunders, my heart is melted like wax
   in the midst of my bowels. How can I endure thee? If I am to be tried
   at last for my life, surely I shall need no judge, for I shall be mine
   own swift accuser, and my conscience shall be a witness to condemn.

   I think I need not enlarge further on this point. O thou that art out
   of Christ, and without God, dost thou not stand condemned before him?
   Off with all thy masks, and away with all excuses; let every one of us
   turn our idle pretences to the wind. Unless we have the blood and
   righteousness of Jesus Christ to cover us, we must every one of us
   acknowledge that this sentence shuts the gates of heaven against us,
   and only prepares us for the flames of perdition.

   II. Thus have I singled out the character, and he is found guilty; now
   I have TO DECLARE THE SENTENCE.

   God's ministers love not such work as this. I would rather stand in
   this pulpit and preach twenty sermons on the love of Jesus, than one
   like this. It is very seldom that I meddle with the theme, because I do
   not know that it is often necessary; but I feel that if these things
   were kept altogether in the background, and the law were not preached,
   the Master would not own the gospel; for he will have both preached in
   their measure, and each must have its proper prominence. Now,
   therefore, hear me whilst I sorrowfully tell you what is the sentence
   passed upon all of you who this night are out of Christ. Sinner, thou
   art cursed to-night. Thou art cursed, not by some wizard whose fancied
   spell can only frighten the ignorant. Thou art cursed--not cursed by
   some earthly monarch who could turn his troops against thee, and
   swallow up thy house and thy patrimony quick. Cursed! Oh! what a thing
   a curse is anyhow! What an awful thing is the curse of a father. We
   have heard of fathers, driven to madness by the undutiful and
   ungracious conduct of their children, who have lifted their hands to
   heaven, and have implored a curse, a withering curse upon their
   children. We can not excuse the parent's mad and rash act. God forbid
   we should exempt him from sin; but oh, a father's curse must be awful.
   I can not think what it must be to be cursed by him that did beget me.
   Sure, it would put out the sunlight of my history for ever, if it were
   deserved. But to be cursed of God--I have no words with which to tell
   what that must be. "Oh, no," you say, "that is a thing of the future;
   we do not care about the curse of God; it does not fall upon us now."
   Nay, soul, but it does. The wrath of God abideth on you even now. You
   have not yet come to know the fullness of that curse, but you are
   cursed this very hour. You are not yet in hell; not yet has God been
   pleased to shut up the bowels of his compassion, and cast you for ever
   from his presence; but notwithstanding all that, you are cursed. Turn
   to the passage in the book of Deuteronomy, and see how the curse is a
   present thing upon the sinner. In the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy, at
   the 15th verse, we read all this as the sentence of the sinner: "Cursed
   shalt thou be in the city"--where you carry on your business God will
   curse you. "Cursed shalt thou be in the fields"--where you take your
   recreation; where you walk abroad, there shall the curse reach you.
   "Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of
   thy body and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the
   flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and
   cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out." There are some men upon whom
   this curse is very visible. Whatever they do is cursed. They get
   riches, but there is God's curse with the riches. I would not have some
   men's gold for all the stars, though they were gold: and if I might
   have all the wealth of the world, if I must have the miser's greed with
   it, I would rather be poor than have it. There art some men who are
   visibly cursed. Don't you see the drunkard? He is cursed, let him go
   where he may. When he goes into his house, his little children run up
   stairs to bed, for they are afraid to see their own father; and when
   they grow a little older, they begin to drink just as he did, and they
   will stand and imitate him; and they too will begin to swear, so that
   he is cursed in the fruit of his body. He thought it was not so bad for
   him to be drunk and to swear; but O what a pang shoots through the
   fathers conscience, if he has a conscience at all, when he sees his
   child following his footsteps. Drunkenness brings such a curse upon a
   man, that he can not enjoy what he eats. He is cursed in his basket,
   cursed in his store. And truly, though one vice may seem to develop the
   curse more than others, all sin brings the curse, though we can not
   always see it. O! thou that art out of God, and out of Christ, and a
   stranger to Jesus, thou art cursed where thou sittest, cursed where
   thou standest; cursed is the bed thou liest on; cursed is the bread
   thou eatest; cursed is the air thou breathest. All is cursed to thee.
   Go where thou mayest, thou art a cursed man. Ah! that is a fearful
   thought. O! there are some of you that are cursed to-night. O, that a
   man should say that of his brethren! but we must say it, or be
   unfaithful to your poor dying souls. O! would to God that some poor
   soul in this place would say, "Then I am cursed to-night; I am cursed
   of God, and cursed of his holy angels--cursed! cursed! cursed!--for I
   am under the law." I do think, God the Spirit blessing it, it wants
   nothing more to slay our carelessness than that one word--"cursed!"
   "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are
   written in the book of the law to do them."

   But now, my hearer, thou that art in this state, impenitent and
   unbelieving, I have more work to do before I close. Remember, the curse
   that men have in this life is as nothing compared with the curse that
   is to come upon them hereafter. In a few short years, you and I must
   die. Come, friend, I will talk to you personally again--young man, we
   shall soon grow old, or, perhaps, we shall die before that time, and we
   shall lie upon our bed--the last bed upon which we shall ever sleep--we
   shall wake from our last slumber to hear the doleful tidings that there
   is no hope; the physician will feel our pulse, and solemnly assure our
   relatives that it is all over! And we shall lie in that still room,
   where all is hushed except the ticking of the clock, and the weeping of
   our wife and children; and we must die. O! how solemn will it be that
   hour when we must struggle with that enemy, Death! The death-rattle is
   in our throat--we can scarce articulate--we try to speak; the
   death-glaze is on the eye: Death hath put his fingers on those windows
   of the body, and shut out the light for ever; the hands well-nigh
   refuse to lift themselves, and there we are, close on the borders of
   the grave! Ah! that moment, when the Spirit sees its destiny; that
   moment, of all moments the most solemn, when the soul looks through the
   bars of its cage, upon the world to come! No, I can not tell you how
   the spirit feels, if it be an ungodly spirit, when it sees a fiery
   throne of judgment, and hears the thunders of Almighty wrath, while
   there is but a moment between it and hell. I can not picture to you
   what must be the fright which men will feel, when they realize what
   they often heard of! Ah! it is a fine thing for you to laugh at me
   to-night. When you go away, it will be a very fine thing to crack a
   joke concerning what the preacher said; to talk to one another, and
   make merry with all this. But when you are lying on your death-bed, you
   will not laugh. Now, the curtain is drawn, you can not see the things
   of the future, it is a very fine thing to be merry. When God has
   removed that curtain, and you learn the solemn reality, you will not
   find it in your hearts to trifle. Ahab, on his throne laughed at
   Micaiah. You never read that Ahab laughed at Micaiah when the arrow was
   sticking between the joints of his harness. In Noah's time, they
   laughed at the old man; they called him a gray-headed fool, I doubt
   not, because he told them that God was about to destroy the earth with
   a flood. But ah! ye scorners, ye did not laugh in that day when the
   cataracts were falling from heaven, and when God had unloosed the doors
   of the great deep, and bidden all the hidden waters leap upon the
   surface; then ye knew that Noah was right. And when ye come to die,
   mayhap ye will not laugh at me. You will say, when you lie there, "I
   remember such-and-such a night I strolled into Park street; I heard a
   man talk very solemnly; I thought at the time I did not like it, but I
   knew he was in earnest, I am quite certain that he meant good for me;
   oh, that I had hearkened to his advice; oh, that I had regarded his
   words! What would I give to hear him again!" Ah! it was not long ago
   that a man who had laughed and mocked at me full many a time, went down
   one Sabbath day to Brighton, to spend his day in the excursion--he came
   back that night to die! On Monday morning, when he was dying, who do
   you suppose he wanted? He wanted Mr. Spurgeon! the man he had laughed
   at always; he wanted him to come and tell him the way to heaven, and
   point him to the Saviour. And although I was glad enough to go, it was
   doleful work to talk to a man who had just been Sabbath breaking,
   spending his time in the service of Satan, and had come home to die.
   And die he did, without a Bible in his house, without having one prayer
   offered for him except that prayer which I alone did offer at his
   bedside. Ah! it is strange how the sight of a death-bed may be blessed
   to the stimulating of our zeal. I stood some year or so ago, by the
   bedside of a poor boy, about sixteen years of age, who had been
   drinking himself to death, in a drinking bout, about a week before, and
   when I talked to him about sin and righteousness, and judgment to come,
   I knew he trembled, and I thought that he had laid hold on Jesus. When
   I came down from those stairs, after praying for him many a time, and
   trying to point him to Jesus, and having but a faint hope of his
   ultimate salvation, I thought to myself, O God! I would that I might
   preach every hour, and every moment of the day, the unsearchable riches
   of Christ; for what an awful thing it is to die without a Saviour. And
   then, I thought how many a time I had stood in the pulpit, and had not
   preached in earnest as I ought to have done; how I have coldly told out
   the tale of the Saviour, when I ought to have wept very showers of
   tears, in overwhelming emotion. I have gone to my bed full many a
   season, and have wept myself to sleep, because I have not preached as I
   have desired, and it will be even so to-night. But, oh, the wrath to
   come! the wrath to come! the wrath to come!

   My hearers, the matters I now talk of are no dreams, no frauds, no
   whims, no old wives' stories. These are realities, and you will soon
   know them. O sinner, thou that hast not continued in all things written
   in the book of the law; thou that hast no Christ; the day is coming
   when these things will stand before thee, as dread, solemn, real
   things. And then; ah! then; ah! then; ah! then what wilt thou do?--"And
   after death the judgment."--O, can ye picture--

   "The pomp of that tremendous day,

   When Christ with clouds shall come."

   I think I see that terrible day. The bell of time has tolled the last
   day. Now comes the funeral of damned souls. Your body has just started
   up from the grave, and you unwind your cerements, and you look up. What
   is that I see? O! what is that I hear? I hear one dread, tremendous
   blast, that shakes the pillars of heaven, and makes the firmament reel
   with affright; the trump, the trump, the trump of the arch-angel shakes
   creation's utmost bound. You look and wonder. Suddenly a voice is
   heard, and shrieks from some, and songs from others--he comes--he
   comes--he comes; and every eye must see him. There he is; the throne is
   set upon a cloud, which is white as alabaster. There he sits. Tis He,
   the Man that died on Calvary--I see his pierced hands--but ah, how
   changed! No thorn-crown now. He stood at Pilate's bar, but now the
   whole earth must stand at his bar. But hark! the trumpet sounds again:
   the Judge opens the book, there is silence in heaven, a solemn silence:
   the universe is still. "Gather mine elect together, and my redeemed
   from the four winds of heaven." Swiftly they are gathered. As with a
   lightning flash, the angel's wing divides the crowd. Here are the
   righteous all in-gathered; and sinner, there art thou on the left hand,
   left out, left to abide the burning sentence of eternal wrath. Hark!
   the harps of heaven play sweet melodies; but to you they bring no joy,
   though the angels are repeating the Saviour's welcome to his saints.
   "Come ye blessed, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
   foundations of the world." You have had that moments respite, and now
   his face is gathering clouds of wrath, the thunder is on his brow; he
   looks on you that have despised him, you that scoffed his grace, that
   scorned his mercy, you that broke his Sabbath, you that mocked his
   cross, you that would not have him to reign over you; and with a voice
   louder than ten thousand thunders, he cries, "Depart, ye cursed. And
   then--No, I will not follow you. I will not tell of quenchless flames:
   I will not talk of miseries of the body, and tortures for the spirit.
   But hell is terrible; damnation is doleful. Oh, escape! escape! Escape,
   lest haply, being where you are, you should have to learn what the
   horrors of eternity must mean, in the gulf of everlasting perdition.
   "Cursed is the man that hath not continued in all things that are
   written in the book of the law to do them."

   III. DELIVERANCE PROCLAIMED.

   "You have condemned us all," cries one. Yes, but not I--God has done
   it. Are you condemned? Do you feel you are to night? Come, again, let
   me take thee by the hand, my brother: yes, I can look round upon the
   whole of this assembly, and I can say, there is not one now in this
   place whom I do not love as a brother. If I speak severely unto any of
   you, it is that you may know the right. My heart, and my whole spirit
   are stirred for you. My harshest words are far more full of love than
   the smooth words of soft-speaking ministers, who say, "Peace, peace,"
   where there is no peace. Do you think it is any pleasure to me to
   preach like this? Oh? I had far rather be preaching of Jesus; his
   sweet, his glorious person, and his all-sufficient righteousness. Now,
   come, we will have a sweet word before we have done. Do you feel you
   are condemned? Do you say, "O God, I confess thou wouldest be just, if
   thou shouldest do all this to me?" Dost thou feel thou canst never be
   saved by thine own works, but that thou art utterly condemned through
   sin? Dost thou hate sin? Dost thou sincerely repent? Then, let me tell
   thee how thou mayest escape.

   Men and brethren, Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was crucified,
   dead, and buried; he is now risen, and he sitteth on the right hand of
   God, where he also maketh intercession for us. He came into this world
   to save sinners, by his death. He saw that poor sinners were cursed: he
   took the curse on his own shoulders, and he delivered us from it. Now,
   if God has cursed Christ for any man, he will not curse that man again.
   You ask me, then, "Was Christ cursed for me?" Answer me this question,
   and I will tell you--Has God the Spirit taught you that you are
   accursed? Has he made you feel the bitterness of sin? Has he made you
   cry, "Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner?" Then, my dear friend, Christ
   was cursed for you; and you are not cursed. You are not cursed now.
   Christ was cursed for you. Be of good cheer; if Christ was cursed for
   you, you can not be cursed again. "Oh!" says one, "if I could but think
   he was cursed for me." Do you see him bleeding on the tree? Do you see
   his hands and feet all dripping gore? Look unto him, poor sinner. Look
   no longer at thyself, nor at thy sin; look unto him, and be saved. All
   he asks thee to do is to look, and even that he will help thee to do.
   Come to him, trust him, believe on him. God the Holy Spirit has taught
   you that you are a condemned sinner. Now, I beseech you, hear this word
   and believe it: "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all
   acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."
   Oh, can you say, "I believe this Word--it is true--blessed be his dear
   name; it is true to me, for whatever I may not be, I know that I am a
   sinner; the sermon of this night convinces me of that, if there were
   nothing else; and, good Lord, thou knowest when I say I am a sinner, I
   do not mean what I used to mean by that word. I mean that I am a real
   sinner. I mean that if thou shouldest damn me, I deserve it; if thou
   shouldest cast me from thy presence forever, it is only what I have
   merited richly. O my Lord I am a sinner; I am a hopeless sinner, unless
   thou savest me; I am a helpless sinner, unless thou dost deliver me. I
   have no hope in my self-righteousness; and Lord, I bless thy name,
   there is one thing else, I am a sorrowful sinner, for sin grieves me; I
   can not rest, I am troubled. Oh, if I could get rid of sin, I would be
   holy, even as God is holy. Lord, I believe. But I hear an objector cry
   out, "What, sir, believe that Christ died for me simply because I am a
   sinner!" Yes; even so. "No, sir; but if I had a little righteousness;
   if I could pray well, I should then think Christ died for me." No, that
   would not be faith at all, that would be self-confidence. Faith
   believes in Christ when it sees sin to be black, and trusts in him to
   remove it all. Now, poor sinner, with all thy sin about thee, take this
   promise in thy hands, go home to-night, or if thou canst, do it before
   thou gettest home--go home, I say, up stairs, alone, down by the
   bed-side, and pour out thine heart, "O Lord, it is all true that that
   man said; I am condemned, and Lord, I deserve it. O Lord, I have tried
   to be better, and have done nothing with it all, but have only grown
   worse. O Lord, I have slighted thy grace, I have despised thy gospel: I
   wonder thou hast not damned me years ago; Lord, I marvel at myself;
   that thou sufferest such a base wretch as I am to live at all. I have
   despised a mother's teaching, I have forgotten a father's prayers.
   Lord, I have forgotten thee; I have broken thy Sabbath, taken thy name
   in vain. I have done everything that is wrong; and if thou dost condemn
   me, what can I say? Lord, I am dumb before thy presence. I have nothing
   to plead. But Lord; I come to tell thee to-night, thou hast said in the
   Word of God, "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out."
   Lord, I come: my only plea is that thou hast said, This is a faithful
   saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the
   world to save sinners.' Lord, I am a sinner; he came to save me; I
   trust in it--sink or swim--Lord, this is my only hope: I cast away
   every other, and hate myself to think I ever should have had any other.
   Lord, I rely on Jesus only. Do but save me, and though I can not hope
   by my future life to blot out my past sin, O Lord, I will ask of thee
   to give me a new heart and a right spirit, that from this time forth
   even for ever I may run in the way of thy commandments: for, Lord, I
   desire nothing so much as to be thy child. Thou knowest, O Lord, I
   would give all, if thou wouldest but love me; and I am encouraged to
   think that thou dost love me; for my heart feels so. I am guilty, but I
   should never have known that I was guilty if thou hadst not taught it
   to me. I am vile, but I never should have known my vileness, unless
   thou hadst revealed it. Surely, thou wilt not destroy me, O God, after
   having taught me this. If thou dost, thou art just, but,

   "Save a trembling sinner, Lord,

   Whose hopes still hovering round thy Word,

   Would light on some sweet promise there;

   Some sure support against despair."

   If you can not pray such a long prayer as that, I tell you what to go
   home and say. Say this, "Lord Jesus, I know I am nothing at all; be
   thou my precious all in all."

   Oh, I trust in God there will be some to-night that will be able to
   pray like that, and if it be so, ring, the bells of heaven; sing, ye
   seraphim; shout, ye redeemed; for the Lord hath done it, and glory be
   unto his name, for ever and ever.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                The Two Talents

   A Sermon

   (No. 175)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, January 31, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou
   deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other
   talents beside them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and
   faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will
   make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy
   Lord."--Matthew 25:22-23.

   EVERY good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down
   from the Father of lights." All that men have they must trace to the
   Great Fountain, the giver of all good. Hast thou talents? They were
   given thee by the God of talents. Hast thou time? hast thou wealth,
   influence, power? Hast thou powers of tongue? Hast thou powers of
   thought? Art thou poet, statesman, or philosopher? Whatever be thy
   position, and whatever be thy gifts, remember that they are not thine,
   but they are lent thee from on high. No man hath anything of his own,
   except his sins. We are but tenants at will. God hath put us into his
   estates, and he hath said, "Occupy till I come." Though our vineyards
   bear never so much fruit, yet the vineyard belongs to the King, and
   though we are to take the hundred for our hire, yet King Solomon must
   have his thousand. All the honor of our ability and the use of it must
   be unto God, because he is the Giver. The parable tells us this very
   pointedly; for it makes every person acknowledge that his talents come
   from the Lord. Even the man who digged in the earth and hid his Lords
   money, did not deny that his talent belonged to his Master; for though
   his reply, "Lo, there thou hast that is shine," was exceedingly
   impertinent, yet it was not a denial of this fact. So that even this
   man was ahead of those who deny their obligations to God, who
   superciliously toss their heads at the very mention of obedience to
   their Creator, and spend their time and their powers rather in
   rebellion against him than in his service. Oh, that we were all wise to
   believe and to act upon this most evident of all truths, that
   everything we have, we have received from the Most High.

   Now, there are some men in the world who have but few talents. Our
   parable says, "One had five, and another two. To them I shall address
   myself this morning; and I pray that the few pointed things I may say,
   may be blessed of God to their edification or rebuke. First, I shall
   notice the fact that there are many persons who have but few talents,
   and I will try to account for God's dispensing but few to them.
   Secondly, I shall remind them that even for these few talents they must
   be brought to account. And thirdly, I shall conclude by making the
   comforting observation, that if our few talents be rightly used,
   neither our own conscience nor our Master's judgment shall condemn us
   for not having more.

   I. First, then, GOD HAS MADE SOME MEN WITH FEW TALENTS. You very often
   hear men speak of one another as if God had made no mental differences
   at all. One man finds himself successful, and he supposes that if every
   one else could have been as industrious and as persevering as himself,
   every one must necessarily have been as successful. You will often hear
   remarks against ministers who are godly and earnest men, but who do not
   happen to have much attracting power, and they are called drones and
   lazy persons, because they cannot make much of a stir in the world,
   whereas the reason may be, that they have but little talent, and are
   making the best use of what they have, and therefore ought not to be
   rebuked for the littleness of what they are able to accomplish. It is a
   fact, which every man must see, that even in our birth there is a
   difference. All children are not alike precocious, and all men
   certainly are not alike capable of learning or of teaching. God hath
   made eminent and marvelous differences. We are not to suppose that all
   the difference between a Milton and a man who lives and dies without
   being able to read, has been caused by education. There was doubtless a
   difference originally, and though education will do much, it cannot do
   every thing. Fertile ground, when well-tilled will necessarily bring
   forth more than the best tilled estate, the soil of which is hard and
   sterile. God has made great and decided differences; and we ought, in
   dealing with our fellow-men, to recollect this, lest we should say
   harsh things of those very men to whom God will afterwards say, "Well
   done, good and faithful servant."

   But why is it that God has not given to all men like talents? My first
   answer shall be, because God is a Sovereign, and of all attributes,
   next to his love, God is the most fond of displaying his sovereignty.
   The Lord God will have men know that he has a right to do what he wills
   with his own. Hence it is, that in salvation he gives it to some and
   not to others; and his only reply to any accusation of injustice is,
   "Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the
   thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?"
   The worm is not to murmur because God did not make it an angel, and the
   fish that swims the sea must not complain because it hath not wings to
   fly into the highest heavens. God had a right to make his creatures
   just what he pleased, and though men may dispute his right, he will
   hold and keep it inviolate against all comers. That he may hedge his
   right about and make vain man acknowledge it, in all his gifts he
   continually reminds us of his sovereignty. "I will give to this man,"
   he says, "a mind so acute that he shall pry into all secrets; I will
   make another so obtuse, that none but the plainest elements of
   knowledge shall ever be attainable by him. I will give to one man such
   a wealth of imagination, that he shall pile mountain upon mountain of
   imagery, till his language seems to reach to celestial majesty; I will
   give to another man a soul so dull, that he shall never be able to
   originate a poetic thought." Why this, O God? The answer comes back,
   "Shall I not do what I will with mine own?" "So, then, the children
   being not yet born, neither having done good or evil, that the purpose
   of God according to election might stand, it was written, the elder
   shall serve the younger." And so it is written concerning men, that one
   of them shall be greater than another; one shall bow his neck, and the
   other put his foot upon it, for the Lord hath a right to dispose of
   places and of gifts, of talents and wealth, just as seemeth good in his
   sight.

   Now, most men quarrel with this. But mark, the thing that you complain
   of in God, is the very thing that you love in yourselves. Every man
   likes to feel that he has a right to do with his own as he pleases. We
   all like to be little sovereigns. You will give your money freely and
   liberally to the poor; but if any man should impertinently urge that he
   had a claim upon your charity, would you give unto him? Certainly not;
   and who shall impeach the greatness of your generosity in so doing? It
   is even as that parable, that we have in one of the Evangelists, where,
   after the men had toiled, some of them twelve hours, some of them six,
   and some of them but one, the Lord gave every man a penny. Oh! I would
   meekly bow my head, and say, "My Lord, hast thou given me one talent?
   then I bless thee for it, and I pray thee bestow upon me grace to use
   it rightly. Hast thou given to my brother ten talents? I thank thee for
   the greatness of thy kindness towards him; but I neither envy him, nor
   complain of thee." Oh! for a spirit that bows always before the
   sovereignty of God.

   Again: God gives to one five, and to another two talents, because the
   Creator is a lover of variety. It was said that order is heaven's first
   law; surely variety is the second; for in all God's works, there is the
   most beautiful diversity. Look ye towards the heavens at night: all the
   stars shine not with the same brilliance, nor are they placed in
   straight lines, like the lamps of our streets. Then turn your eyes
   below; see in the vegetable world, how many great distinctions there
   are, ranging from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall, or
   the moss that is smaller still. See, how from the huge mammoth tree,
   that seems as if beneath its branches it might shade an army, down to
   the tiny lichen, God hath made everything beautiful, but everything
   full of variety. Look on any one tree, if you please: see how every
   leaf differs from its fellow--how even the little tiny buds that are at
   this hour bursting at the scent of the approaching perfume of spring,
   differ from each other--not two of them alike. Look again, upon the
   animated world: God hath made every creature like unto another. How
   wide the range--from the colossal elephant, to the coney that burrows
   in the rock--from the whale, that makes the deep hoary with its
   lashings, to the tiny minnow that skims the brook; God hath made all
   things different, and we see variety everywhere. I doubt not it is the
   same, even in heaven, for there there are "thrones, and dominions, and
   principalities, and powers"--different ranks of angels, perhaps, rising
   tier upon tier. "One star differeth from another star in glory." And
   why should not the same rule stand good in manhood? Doth God cast us
   all in the same mold? It seems not so; for he hath not made our faces
   alike; no two countenances can be said to be exactly the same, for if
   there be some likeness, yet is there a manifest diversity. Should
   minds, then, be alike? Should souls all be cast in the same fashion?
   Should God's creation dwindle down into a great manufactory, in which
   everything is melted in the same fire and poured into the same mould?
   No, for variety's sake, he will have one man a renowned David, and
   another David's unknown armor bearer; he will have one man a Jeremy,
   who shall prophesy, and another a Baruch, who shall only read the
   prophesy; one shall be rich as Dives, another poor as Lazarus; one
   shall speak with a voice loud as thunder, another shall be dumb; one
   shall be mighty in word and doctrine, another shall be feeble in speech
   and slow in words. God will have variety, and the day will come when,
   looking down upon the world we shall see the beauty of its history to
   be mightily indebted to the variety of the characters that entered into
   it.

   But a little further. God hath a deeper reason than this. God gives to
   some men but few talents, because he has many small spheres, and he
   would have these filled. There is a great ocean, and it needs
   inhabitants. O Lord, thou hast made Leviathan to swim therein. There is
   a secret grotto, a hidden cavern, far away in the depths of the sea;
   its entrance is but small; if there were naught but a Leviathan, it
   must remain untenanted for ever: a little fish is made, and that small
   place becomes an ocean unto it. There are a thousand sprays and twigs
   upon the trees of the forest; were all eagles, how would the forests be
   made glad with song, and how could each twig bear its songster? But
   because God would have each twig have its own music, he has made the
   little songster to sit upon it. Each sphere must have the creature to
   occupy it adapted to the size of the sphere. God always acts
   economically. Does he intend a man to be the pastor of some small
   parish with four or five hundred inhabitants? Of what use is it giving
   to that man the abilities of an apostle? Does he intend a woman to be a
   humble teacher of her own children at home, a quiet trainer of her own
   family? Would it not even disturb her and injure her if God should make
   her a poetess, and give her gifts that might electrify a nation? The
   littleness of her talents will to a degree fit her for the littleness
   of her sphere. There is some youth who is quite capable of assisting in
   a Ragged School: perhaps if he had a higher genius he might disdain the
   work, and so the Ragged School would be without its excellent teacher.
   There are little spheres, and God will have little men to occupy them.
   There are posts of important duty, and men shall be found with nerve
   and muscle fitted for the labor. He has made a statue for every niche,
   and a picture for every portion of the gallery; none shall be left
   vacant; but since some niches are small, so shall be the statuettes
   that occupy them. To some he gives two talents, because two are enough,
   and five would be too many.

   Once more: God gives to men two talents, because in them very often he
   displays the greatness of his grace in saving souls. You have heard a
   minister who was deeply read in sacred lore; his wisdom was profound,
   and his speech graceful. Under his preaching many were converted. Have
   you never heard it not quite said, but almost hinted, that much of his
   success was traceable to his learning and to his graceful oratory? But,
   on the other hand, you have met with a man, rough in his dialect,
   uncouth in his manners, evidently without any great literary
   attainments; nevertheless, God has given that man the one talent of an
   earnest heart; he speaks like a son of thunder; with rough, stern
   language, he denounces and proclaims the gospel; under him hundreds are
   converted. The world sneers at him. "I can see no reason for all this,"
   says the scholar; "it is all rubbish--cant; the man knows nothing." The
   critic takes up his pen, nibs it afresh, dips it in the bitterest ink
   he can find, and writes a most delightful history of the man in which
   he goes so far as to say, not that he sees horns on his head, but
   almost everything but that. He is everything that is bad, and nothing
   that is good. He utterly denounces him. He is foolish, he is vain, he
   is base, he is proud, he is illiterate, he is vulgar. There was no word
   in the English language that was bad enough for him, but one must be
   coined. And now what says the church? What says the man himself? "Even
   so, O Lord; now must the glory be unto thee for ever, inasmuch as thou
   hast chosen the base things of this world, and the things that are not,
   to bring to naught the things that are." So it seemeth that out of the
   little God sometimes winneth more glory than he doth out of the great;
   and I doubt not that he has made some of you with little power to do
   good, with little influence, and with a narrow sphere, that he may, in
   the last great day, manifest to angels how much he can do in a little
   space. You know, dear friends, there are two things that always will
   attract our attention. One is skill embodied in a stupendous mass. We
   see the huge ship, the Leviathan, and we wonder that man could have
   made it; at another time we see an elegant piece of workmanship that
   will stand upon less than a square inch, and we say, "Well, I can
   understand how men can make a great ship, but I can not comprehend how
   an artist could have the patience and the skill to make so minute a
   thing as this." And ah! my friends, it seems to me that God is not a
   greater God to our apprehension, when we see the boundless fields of
   ether and the unnumbered orbs swimming therein, than when we see a
   humble cottager, and behold Godly perfect word carried out in her soul,
   and God's highest glory wrought from her little talent. Surely if in
   the little, man can honor himself as well as in the great, the
   Infinite, and the Eternal, can most of all glorify himself when he
   stoopeth to the littleness of mankind.

   II. Our second proposition was, that even A FEW TALENTS MUST BE
   ACCOUNTED FOR. We are very apt when we think of the day of judgment, to
   imagine that certain characters will undergo a more trying process than
   others. I know I have often involuntarily said, when reading the
   history of Napoleon, "Here is a man of tremendous ability, the world's
   master; a dozen centuries might be required to produce such another
   man; but here is a man who prostitutes all his ability to ambition,
   carries his armies like a destroying deluge across every country,
   widows wives, and renders children fatherless, not by hundreds but by
   thousands, if not by millions. What must be his solemn account when he
   stands before the throne of God? Shall not the witnesses rise up from
   the fields of Spain, of Russia, of Italy, of Egypt, of Palestine, and
   accuse the man who, to gratify his own bold ambition, led them to
   death?" But will you please to remember that though Napoleon must be a
   prisoner at the bar, each of us must stand there also P And though our
   position is not very high, and we have not stood upon the pinnacle of
   fame, yet we have stood quite high enough to be borne under the
   observation of the Most High, and we have had just ability enough and
   power enough to have done mischief in the world, and to be accountable
   for it. "Oh!" said one, "I thought that surely in the day of judgment
   he would pass me by; I have been no Tom Paine; I have not been a leader
   among low and vulgar infidels; I have not been a murderer; I have not
   been a prince among sinners; I have not been a disturber of the public
   peace; what few sins I have committed have taken place quietly; nobody
   has heard of them; I don't think my bad example has gone far; perhaps
   my children have not been much blessed by my behavior, but,
   nevertheless, mine has been a very small quantum of mischief, too small
   to have poisoned any one beside myself. I have been, on the whole, so
   tolerably moral, that though I cannot say I have served God, yet my
   defalcations from the path of duty have been slight indeed!" Ah! truly
   friends! you may think yourselves never so little, but your making
   yourselves insignificant will not excuse you. You have had but little
   entrusted to you! Then the less trouble for you to make use of your
   talents. The man who has many talents requires much hard labor to use
   them all. He might make the excuse that he found five talents too many
   to put out in the market at once; you have only one; anybody can lend
   out his one talent to interest--it will cost you but little trouble to
   supply that; and inasmuch as you live, and inasmuch as you die, without
   having improved the one talent, your guilt will be exceedingly
   increased by the very fact that your talent was but little, and,
   consequently, the trouble of using it would have been but little too.
   If you had but little, God required but little of you; why, then, did
   you not render that? If any man holds a house at a rental of a pound a
   year, let it be never so small a house for the money, if he brings not
   his rent there is not one half the excuse for him that there would be
   if his rent had been a hundred pounds, and he had failed to bring it.
   You shall be the more inexcusable on account of the little that was
   required of you. Let me, then, address you, and remind you that you
   must be brought to account.

   Remember, my hearer, that in the day of judgment thy account must be
   personal; God will not ask you what your church did--he will ask you
   what you did yourself. Now there is a Sunday-school. If God should try
   all members of the church in a body, they would each of them say, O
   Lord, as a body we had an excellent Sunday-school, and had many
   teachers, and so they would excuse themselves. But no; one by one, all
   professors must come before him. "What did you do for the
   Sabbath-school? I gave you a gift for teaching children--what did you
   do?" "O Lord, there was a Sabbath-school." That has nothing to do with
   it? What did you do? You are not to account now for the company with
   which you were united, but for yourself as an individual. "O," says
   one, "there were a number of poor ministers; I was at the Surrey Hall,
   and so much was done for them." No; what did you do? You must be held
   personally responsible for your own wealth, for your own ability.
   "Well, says one, "I am happy to say there is a great deal more
   preaching now than there used to be; the churches seem to be roused."
   Yes, sir, and you seem to take part of the credit to yourself. Do you
   preach more than you used to? You are a minister; do you make any
   greater efforts? Remember, it is not what your brethren are doing, but
   it is what you do that you will be called to account for at the bar of
   God; and each one of you will be asked this question, "What hast thou
   done with thy talent?" All your connection with churches will avail you
   nothing; it is your personal doings--your personal service towards God
   that is demanded of you as an evidence of saving grace. And if others
   are idle--if others pay not God his due--so much the more reason why
   you should have been more exceedingly diligent in doing so yourself.

   Recollect, again, that your account will have to be particular. God
   will go into all the items of it. At the day of judgment you will not
   have to cast up a hurried account in the gross, but every item shall be
   read. Can you prove that? Yes. "For every idle word that man shall
   speak, he shall be brought unto account at the day of judgment." Now,
   it is in the items that men go astray. "Well," says one, "If I look at
   my life in the bulk, I am not very much ashamed, but it is those items,
   those little items--they are the troublesome part of the account, that
   one does not care to meddle with." Do you know that all yesterday was
   made up of littles? And the things of to-day are all little, and what
   you do to-morrow will all be little things. Just as the tiny shells
   make up the chalk hills, and the chalk hills together make up the
   range, so the trifing actions make up the whole account, and each of
   these must be pulled asunder separately. You had an hour to spare the
   other day--what did you do? You had a voice--how did you use it? You
   had a pen--you could use that--how did you employ it? Each particular
   shall be brought out, and there shall be demanded an account for each
   one. Oh, that you were wise, that ye did not slur this matter, but
   would take every note in the music of your behavior, and seek to make
   each note in harmony with its fellow, lest, after all, the psalm of
   your life may prove to be a hideous discord. Oh, that ye who are
   without God would remember that your life is assuredly such, that the
   trial of the last great day must end in your condemnation.

   Again, that account will be very exact, and there will be no getting
   off without those little things. "Oh! there were a few pecadillos, and
   very small matters indeed; I never took stock of them at all." But they
   will all be taken stock of then. When God comes to look into our hearts
   at last, he will not only look at the great but at the little; every
   thing will be seen into, the pence sins as well as the pound
   iniquities--all must be brought against us, and an exact account given.

   Again, remember, in the last place, upon this point, that the account
   will be very impartial at the day of judgment, when all will be tried
   without any reference to their station. The prince will be summoned to
   give an account of his talents, and side by side must stand his
   courtier and his slave. The mightiest emperor must stand at God's bar,
   as well as the meanest cottager. And all must appear and be tried
   according to the deeds they have done in the body. As to our
   professions, they will avail us nothing. We may have been the proudest
   hypocrites that ever made the world sick with our pride, but we must be
   searched and examined, as much as if we had been the vilest sinners. We
   must take our own trial before God's eternal tribunal, and nothing can
   bias our judge, or give him an opinion for or against us, apart from
   the evidence. Oh, how solemn this will make the trial, especially if we
   have no blood of Christ to plead! The great Advocate will get his
   people an acquittal, through his imputed merits, even though our sin in
   itself would condemn them. But remember, that without him we shall
   never be able to stand the fiery ordeal of that last dread assize.
   "Well," said an old preacher, "when the law was given, Sinai was on a
   smoke, and it melted like wax; but when the punishment of the law is
   given, the whole earth will quake and quail. For who shall be able to
   endure the day of the Lord, the day of God's fierce anger?"

   III. The last point is, IF BY DIVINE GRACE (and it is only by divine
   grace that this can ever be accomplished)--OUR TWO TALENTS BE RIGHTLY
   USED, THE FACT THAT WE HAD NOT FIVE, WILL BE NO INJURY TO US.

   You say, when such a man dies, who stood in the midst of the church, a
   triumphant for the truth, the angels will crowd to heaven's gates to
   see him, for he has been a mighty hero, and done much for his Master. A
   Calvin or a Luther, with what plaudits shall they be received!--men
   with talents, who have been faithful to their trust. Yes, but know ye
   not, that there is many a humble village pastor whose flock scarcely
   numbers fifty, who toils for them as for his life, who spends hours in
   praying for their welfare, who uses all the little ability he has in
   his endeavor to win them to Christ; and do ye imagine that his entry
   into heaven shall be less triumphant than the entry of such a man as
   Luther? If so, ye know not how God dealeth with his people. He giveth
   them rewards, not according to the greatness of the goods with which
   they were entrusted, but according to their fidelity thereunto, and he
   that hath been faithful to the least, shall be as much rewarded, as he
   that hath been faithful in much. I want you briefly to turn to the
   chapter, to see this. You will note first, that the man with two
   talents came to his Lord with as great a confidence as the man that had
   five. "And he said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents; behold,
   I have gained two talents beside them." I will be bound to say, that
   while that poor man with the two talents was trading with them, he
   frequently looked upon his neighbor with the five talents, and said,
   "Oh, I wish I could do as much as he is doing! See now, he has five
   talents to put out, and how much interest he has coming every year; Oh,
   that I could do as much!" And as he went on he often prayed, "O my
   Lord, give me greater ability, and greater grace to serve thee, for I
   long to do more." And when he sat down to read his diary, he thought,
   "Ah, this diary does not tell much. There is no account of my journey
   through fifty counties; I can not tell how I have travelled from land
   to land, as Paul did, to preach the truth. No; I have just had to keep
   in this parish, and been pretty well starved to death, toiling for this
   people, and if I have added some ten or a dozen to the church, that has
   been a very great deal to me. Why, I hear that Mr. So-and-so, was
   privileged to add two or three hundred in a year, Oh, that I could do
   that! Surely when I go to heaven, I shall creep in at the door somehow,
   while he by grace will be enabled to go boldly in, bringing his sheaves
   with him." Now stop, poor little faith, stop; thy Master will not deal
   thus with thee. When thou shalt come to die, thou wilt through his
   grace feel as much confidence in dying with thy two well-used talents,
   as thy brother with his ten, for thou wilt, when thou comest there,
   have thy Lords sweet presence, and thou wilt say, "I am complete in
   Christ. Christ's righteousness covers me from head to foot, and now in
   looking back upon my past life, I can say, Blessed be his holy name. It
   is little that I could do, but I have done as much as I could for him.
   I know that he will pardon my defects, and forgive my miscarriages, and
   I shall never look back upon my humble village charge without much joy,
   that the Lord allowed me to labor there." And, Oh, methinks, that man
   will have even a richer commendation in his own conscience, than the
   man who has been more publicly applauded, for he can say to himself,
   after putting all his trust in Christ, "Well, I am sure I did not do
   all this for fame, for I blushed unseen--I have lost my sweetness on
   the desert air. No one has ever read my deeds; what I did was between
   myself and my God, and I can render up my account to him and say, Lord,
   I did it for thee, and not to honor myself.'" Yes, friends, I might
   tell you now of many a score of earnest evangelists in this our land
   who are working harder than any one of us, and yet win far less honor.
   Yes, and I could bring you up many a score of city missionaries whose
   toil for Christ is beyond all measure of praise, who never got much
   reward here, nay, rather meet with slights and disrespect. You see the
   poor man start as soon as he goes from his place of worship to-day. He
   has got three hours this afternoon to go and spend among the sick, and
   then you will see him on Monday morning. He has to go from house to
   house, often with the door slammed in his face, often exposed to mobs
   and drunken men, sometimes jeered and scoffed at, meeting with persons
   of all religious persuasions and of no persuasion. He toils on; he has
   his little evening meeting, and there he gets a little flock together
   and tries to pray with them, and he gets now and then a man or a woman
   converted; but he has no honor. He just takes him off to the minister,
   and he says, "Sir, here is a good man; I think he is impressed; will
   you baptize him and receive him into your church?" The minister gets
   all the credit of that, but as for the poor city missionary, there is
   little or nothing said of him. There is, perhaps, just his name, Mr.
   Brown, or Mr. Smith, mentioned sometimes in the report, but people do
   not think much of him, except. perhaps, as an object of charity they
   have to keep, whereas he is the man that gives them charity, giving all
   the sap and blood and marrow of his life for some poor sixty pounds a
   year, hardly enough to keep his family above want. But he, when he
   dies, my friend, shall have no less the approval of his conscience than
   the man who was permitted to stand before the multitudes and raised the
   nation into excitement on account of religion. He shall come before the
   Master clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and with unblushing face
   shall say, "I have received two talents; I have gained beside them two
   talents more."

   Furthermore, and to conclude, you will notice there was no difference
   in his Master's commendation--none in the reward. In both cases, it was
   "Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful in a few
   things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the
   joy of thy Lord." Here comes Whitfield, the man who stood before twenty
   thousand at a time to preach the gospel, who in England, Scotland,
   Ireland, and America has testified the truth of God, and who could
   count his converts by thousands, even under one sermon! Here he comes,
   the man that endured persecution and scorn, and yet was not moved--the
   man of whom the world was not worthy, who lived for his fellow men, and
   died at last for their cause; stand by angels and admire, while the
   Master takes him by the hand and says, "Well done, well done, good and
   faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!" See how free
   grace honors the man whom it enabled to do valiantly. Hark! Who is this
   that comes there? a poor thin-looking creature, that on earth was a
   consumptive; there was a hectic flush now and then upon her cheek, and
   she lay three long years upon her bed of sickness. Was she a prince's
   daughter, for it seems heaven is making much stir about her? No, she
   was a poor girl that earned her living by her needle, and she worked
   herself to death!--stitch, stitch, stitch, from morning to night! and
   here she comes. She went prematurely to her grave, but she is coming,
   like a shock of corn fully ripe, into heaven; and her Master says,
   "Well done, thou good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful in
   a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into
   the joy of thy Lord." She takes her place by the side of Whitfield. Ask
   what she ever did, and you find out that she used to live in some back
   garret down some dark alley in London; and there used to be another
   poor girl come to work with her, and that poor girl, when she first
   came to work with her, was a gay and volatile creature, and this
   consumptive child told her about Christ; and they used, when she was
   well enough, to creep out of an evening to go to chapel or to church
   together. It was hard at first to get the other one to go, but she used
   to press her lovingly; and when the girl went wild a little, she never
   gave her up. She used to say, "O Jane, I wish you loved the Saviour;"
   and when Jane was not there she used to pray for her, and when she was
   there she prayed with her: and now and then when she was stitching
   away, read a page out of the Bible to her, for poor Jane could not
   read. And with many tears she tried to tell her about the Saviour who
   loved her and gave himself for her. At last, after many a day of hard
   persuasion, and many an hour of sad disappointment, and many a night of
   sleepless tearful prayer, at last she lived to see the girl profess her
   love to Christ; and she left her and took sick, and there she lay till
   she was taken to the hospital, where she died. When she was in the
   hospital she used to have a few tracts, and she used to give them to
   those who came to see her; she would try, if she could, to get the
   women to come round, and she would give them a tract. When she first
   went into the hospital, if she could creep out of bed, she used to get
   by the side of one who was dying, and the nurse used to let her do it;
   till at last she got too ill, and then she used to ask a poor woman on
   the other side of the ward, who was getting better, and was going out,
   if she would come and read a chapter to her; not that she wanted her to
   read to her on her own account, but for her sake, for she thought it
   might strike her heart while she was reading it. At last this poor girl
   died and fell asleep in Jesus; and the poor consumptive needle-woman
   had said to her, "Well done"--and what more could an archangel have
   said to her?--"she hath done what she could."

   See, then, the Master's commendation, and the last reward will be equal
   to all men who have used their talents well. Ah! if there be degrees in
   glory, they will not be distributed according to our talents, but
   according to our faithfulness in using them. As to whether there are
   degrees or not, I know not; but this I know, he that doeth his Lord's
   will, shall have said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

   And now, friends, this one word only. I have told you that there are
   many in our denomination who are preaching the gospel continually. I
   should bring some few of the letters, written by the poor ministers to
   us to read, but sometimes I think this a violation of delicacy, and I
   do not like to do it. But when I did that one year, the collection was
   almost twice as good; so I think I might almost commit a breach of
   etiquette in order to help them. However, I can solemnly assure you,
   that if there is poverty anywhere, it is to be found among the
   ministers in the Baptist churches, and I am sorry to say that one cause
   of it is the fault of the people themselves; they are so little in the
   habit of giving, that their ministers are starved. Now, if Christ will
   say, "Well done," hereafter, to many a humble preacher, do you think he
   intends the church to starve them while they are here on $30 or $40 a
   year? Now, brethren, if Christ will say, "Well done," at last, we may
   anticipate his verdict and say "Well done to-day." And can we better
   say, "well done" than by unmuzzling the ox that treadeth out the corn,
   and give these poor ministers something out of our own wealth, as God
   may help us, that their necessities may be supplied? There will be
   pretty well a score of persons who will be dependent next year on what
   you give this year; perhaps you will remember that and assist them. One
   kind gentleman, who usually comes here, says, "I could not come to-day,
   so I forward my pound to be put in the box by the minister." And I
   trust, if there are any not here to-day who will be here next Sabbath,
   that they will not forget this collection. It is always very dear to
   the heart of my church.
     __________________________________________________________________

                             The Prodigal's Return

   A Sermon

   (No. 176)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, February 7, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "But when he was yet a great way off; his father saw him, and had
   compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."--Luke
   15:20.

   ALL PERSONS ENGAGED IN EDUCATION will tell you that they find it far
   more difficult to make the mind unlearn its errors than to make it
   receive truth. If we could suppose a man totally ignorant of anything,
   we should have a fairer chance of instructing him quickly and
   effectually than we should have had if his mind had been previously
   stored with falsehood. I have no doubt you, each of you, find it harder
   to unlearn than to learn. To get rid of old prejudices and preconceived
   notions is a very hard struggle indeed. It has been well said, that
   those few words, "I am mistaken," are the hardest in all the English
   language to pronounce, and certainly it takes very much force to compel
   us to pronounce them: and after having done so, it is even then
   difficult to wipe away the slime which an old serpentine error has left
   upon the heart. Better for us not to have known at all than to have
   known the wrong thing. Now, I am sure that this truth is never more
   true than when it applies to God. If I had been let alone to form my
   notion of God, entirely from Holy Scripture, I feel, that with the
   assistance of his Holy Spirit it would have been far more easy for me
   to understand what he is, and how he governs the world, than to learn
   even the truths of his own Word, after the mind had become perverted by
   the opinions of others. Why, brethren, who is it that gives a fair
   representation of God? The Arminian slanders God by accusing him (not
   in his own intention, but really so) of unfaithfulness; for he teaches
   that God may promise what he never performs; that he may give eternal
   life, and promise that those who have it shall never perish, and yet
   they may perish after all. He speaks of God as if he were a mutable
   being, for he talks of his loving men one day, and hating them the
   next; of his writing their names in the Book of Life one hour, and then
   erasing their names in the next. And the influence of such an error as
   that, is very baneful. Many children of God, who have imbibed these
   errors in early youth, have had to drag along their poor wearied and
   broken frames for many a day, whereas they might have walked joyfully
   to heaven if they had known the truth from the beginning. On the other
   hand, those who hear the Calvinistic preacher, are very apt to
   misinterpret God. Although we trust we would never speak of God in any
   other sense than that in which we find him represented in sacred
   Scripture, yet are we well aware that many of our hearers, even through
   our assertions, when most guarded, are apt to get rather a caricature
   of God, than a true picture of him. They imagine that God is a severe
   being, angry and fierce, very easily to be moved to wrath, but not so
   easily to be induced to love; they are apt to think of him as one who
   sits in supreme and lofty state, either totally indifferent to the
   wishes of his creatures, or else determined to have his own way with
   them, as an arbitrary Sovereign, never listening to their desires, or
   compassionating their woes. O that we could unlearn all these
   fallacies, and believe God to be what he is! O that we could come to
   Scripture, and there look into that glass which reflects his sacred
   image, and then receive him as he is, the all-Wise, the all-Just, and
   yet the all-Gracious, and all-Loving Jehovah! I shall endeavor this
   morning, by the help of God's Holy Spirit, to represent the lovely
   character of Christ; and if I shall be happy enough to have some in my
   audience who are in the position of the prodigal son in the
   parable--coming to Christ, and yet a great way off from him--I shall
   trust that they will be led by the same Divine Spirit, to believe in
   the loving kindness of Jehovah, and so may find peace with God now, ere
   they leave this house of prayer.

   "When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had
   compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." First, I
   shall notice the position intended in the words, "a great way off ;"
   secondly, I shall notice the peculiar troubles which agitate the minds
   of those, who are in this condition; and then, thirdly, I shall
   endeavor to teach the great loving-kindness of our own adorable God,
   inasmuch as when we are "a great way off," he runs to us, and embraces
   us in the arms of his love.

   I. First, then, what is the POSITION signified by being "a great way
   off?" I must just notice what is not that position. It is not the
   position of the man who is careless and entirely regardless of God; for
   you notice that the prodigal is represented now as having come to
   himself, and as returning to his father's house. Though it be true that
   all sinners are a great way off from God, whether they know it or not,
   yet in this particular instance, the position of the poor prodigal is
   intended to signify the character of one, who has been aroused by
   conviction, who has been led to abhor his former life, and who
   sincerely desires to return to God. I shall not, then, this morning,
   specially address the blasphemer, and the profane. To him, there may be
   some incidental warning heard, but I shall not specially address such a
   character. It is another person for whom this text is intended: the man
   who has been a blasphemer, if you please, who may have been a drunkard,
   and a swearer, and what not, but who has now renounced these things,
   and is steadfastly seeking after Christ, that he may obtain eternal
   life. That is the man who is here said to be, though coming to the
   Lord, "a great way off."

   Once again, there is another person who is not intended by this
   description, namely, the very great man, the Pharisee who thinks
   himself extremely righteous, and has never learned to confess his sin.
   You, sir, in your apprehension, are not a great way off. You are so
   really in the sight of God; you are as far from him as light from
   darkness, as the east is from the west; but you are not spoken of here.
   You are like the prodigal son, only that instead of spending your life
   righteously, you have run away from your Father, and hidden in the
   earth the gold which he gave you, and are able to feed upon the husks
   which swine do eat, whilst by a miserable economy of good works you are
   hoping to save enough of your fortune to support yourself here and in
   eternity. Your hope of self-salvation is a fallacy, and you are not
   addressed in the words of the text. It is the man who knows himself
   lost, but desires to be saved, who is here declared to be met by God,
   and received with affectionate embraces.

   And now we come to the question, Who is the man, and why is he said to
   be a great way off? For he seems to be very near the kingdom, now that
   he knows his need and is seeking the Saviour. I reply, in the first
   place, he is a great way off in his own apprehensions. You are here
   this morning, and you have an idea that never was man so far from God
   as you are. You look back upon your past life, and you recollect how
   you have slighted God, despised his Sabbath, neglected his Book,
   trampled upon the blood of sprinkling, and rejected all the invitations
   of his mercy. You turn over the pages of your history, and you remember
   the sins which you have committed--the sins of your youth and your
   former transgressions, the crimes of your manhood, and the riper sins
   of your older years; like black waves dashing upon a dark shore, they
   roll in wave upon wave, upon your poor troubled memory. There comes a
   little wave of your childish folly, and over that there leaps one of
   your youthful transgressions, and over the head of this there comes a
   very Atlantic billow of your manhood's transgressions. At the sight of
   them you stand astonished and amazed. "O Lord my God, how deep is the
   gulf which divides me from thyself, and where is the power that can
   bridge it? I am separated from thee by leagues of sin, whole mountains
   of my guilt are piled upward between me and thyself. O God, shouldest
   thou destroy me now, thou wouldest be just; and if thou dost ever bring
   me to thyself, it must be nothing less than a power as Omnipotent as
   that which made the world, which can ever do it. O! how far am I from
   God!" Some of you would be startled this morning, if your neighbors
   were to give you revelations of their own feelings. If yonder man
   standing there in the crowd could come into this pulpit, and tell you
   what he now feels, you might perhaps be horrified at his description of
   his own heart. How many of you have no notion of the way in which a
   soul is cut and hacked about, when it is under the convictions of the
   law! If you should hear the man tell out what he feels, you would say,
   "Ah! he is a poor deluded enthusiast; men are not so bad as that;" or
   else you would be apt to think he had committed some nameless crime
   which be dare not mention. that was preying on his conscience. Nay,
   sir, he has been as moral and upright as you have been; but should he
   describe himself as he now discovers himself to be, he would shock you
   utterly. And yet you are the same, though you feel it not, and would
   indignantly deny it. When the light of God's grace comes into your
   heart, it is something like the opening of the windows of an old cellar
   that has been shut up for many days. Down in that cellar, which has not
   been opened for many months, are all kinds of loathsome creatures, and
   a few sickly plants blanched by the darkness. The walls are dark and
   damp with the trail of reptiles; it is a horrid filthy place, in which
   no one would willingly enter. You may walk there in the dark very
   securely, and except now and then for the touch of some slimy creature,
   you would not believe the place was so bad and filthy. Open those
   shutters, clean a pane of glass, let a little light in, and now see how
   a thousand noxious things have made this place their habitation. Sure,
   twas not the light that made this place so horrible, but it was the
   light that showed how horrible it was before. So let God's grace just
   open a window and let the light into a man's soul, and he will stand
   astonished to see at what a distance he is from God. Yes, sir, to-day
   you think yourself second to none but the Eternal; you fancy that you
   can approach his throne with steady step; it is but a little that you
   have to do to be saved; you imagine that you can accomplish it at any
   hour, and save yourself upon your dying bed as well as now. Ah! sir, if
   you could but be touched by Ithuriel's wand, and made to be in
   appearance what you are in reality, then you would see that you are far
   enough from God even now, and so far from him that unless the arms of
   his grace were stretched out to bring you to himself, you must perish
   in your sin. Now I turn my eye again with hope, and trust I leave not a
   few in this large assembly who can say, "Sir, I feel I am far from God,
   and sometimes I fear I am so far from him that he will never have mercy
   upon me; I dare not lift so much as my eyes towards heaven; I smite on
   my breast, and say, Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner'" Oh! poor
   heart; here is a comforting passage for thee: "When he was yet a great
   way off, his father saw him, and had compassion on him."

   But again, there is a second sense in which some now present may feel
   themselves to be far off from God. Conscience tells every man that if
   he would be saved he must get rid of his sin. The Antinomian may
   possibly pretend to believe that men can be saved while they live in
   sin; but conscience will never allow any man to swallow so egregious a
   lie as that. I have not one person in this congregation who is not
   perfectly assured that if he is to be saved he must leave off his
   drunkenness and his vices. Sure there is not one here so stupefied with
   the laudanum of hellish indifference as to imagine that he can revel in
   his lusts, and afterwards wear the white robe of the redeemed in
   paradise. If ye imagine ye can be partakers of the blood of Christ, and
   yet drink the cup of Belial; if ye imagine that ye can be members of
   Satan and members of Christ at the same time, ye have less sense than
   one would give you credit for. No, you know that right arms must be out
   off, and right eyes plucked out--that the most darling sins must be
   renounced, if ye would enter into the kingdom of God. And I have a man
   here who is convinced of the unholiness of his life, and he has striven
   to reform, not because he thinks reformation would save him, for he
   knows better than that, but because he knows that this is one of the
   first-fruits of grace--reformation from sin. Well, poor man, he has for
   many years been an inveterate drunkard, and he struggles now to
   overcome the passion. He has almost effected it; but he never had such
   an Herculean labor to attempt before; for now some temptation comes
   upon him so strongly that it is as much as he can do to stand against
   it; and perhaps sometimes since his first conviction of sin he has even
   fallen into it. Or perhaps it is another vice, and you, my brother,
   have set your face against it; but there are many bonds and fetters
   that bind us to our vices, and you find that though it was easy enough
   to spin the warp and woof sin together, it is not so easy to unravel
   that which you have spun. You can not purge your house of your idols;
   you do not yet know how to give up all your lustful pleasures. Not yet
   can you renounce the company of the ungodly. You have cut off one by
   one your most intimate acquaintances, but it is very hard to do it
   completely, and you are struggling to accomplish it, and you often fall
   on your knees and cry, "O, Lord, how far I am from thee! what high
   steps these are which I have to climb! Oh! how can I be saved? Sure, if
   I can not purge myself from my old sins, I shall never be able to hold
   on my way; and even should I get rid of them, I should plunge into them
   once more." You are crying out, "Oh, how great my distance from God!
   Lord, bring me near!"

   Let me present you with one other aspect of our distance from God. You
   have read your Bibles, and you believe that faith alone can unite the
   soul to Christ. You feel that unless you can believe in him who died
   upon the cross for your sins, you can never see the kingdom of God; but
   you can say this morning, "Sir, I have striven to believe; I have
   searched the Scriptures, not hours, but days together, to find a
   promise on which my weary foot might rest; I have been upon my knees
   many and many a time, earnestly supplicating a Divine blessing; but
   though I have pleaded, all in vain I have urged my plea, for until now
   no whisper have I had of grace, no token for good, no sign of mercy.
   Sir, I have striven to believe, and I have said,

   "O could I but believe

   Then all would easy be;

   I would, but can not--Lord, relieve,

   My help must come from thee!"

   I have used all the power I have, and have desperately striven to cast
   myself at the Saviour's feet and see my sins washed sway in his blood.
   I have not been indifferent to the story of the cross; I have read it a
   hundred times, and even wept over it; but when I strive to put my hand
   upon the scape-goat's head, and labor to believe that my sins are
   transferred to him, some demon seems to stop the breath that would
   breathe itself forth in adoration, and something checks the hand that
   would lay itself upon the head that died for me. Well, poor soul, thou
   art indeed far from God. I will repeat the words of the text to thee.
   May the Holy Spirit repeat them in thine ear! "When he was yet a great
   way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on
   his neck, and kissed him." So shall it be with thee if thou hast come
   thus far, though great may be the distance, thy feet shall not have to
   travel it, but God, the Eternal One, shall from his throne look down
   and visit thy poor heart, though now thou tarriest by the way, afraid
   to approach him.

   II. Our second point is the PECULIAR TROUBLES which agitate the breasts
   of those who are in this position. Let us introduce to you the poor
   ragged prodigal. After a life of ease, he is, by his own vice, plunged
   into penury and labor. After feeding swine for a time, and being almost
   starved, he sets about returning to his father's house. It is a long
   and weary journey. He walks many a mile, until his feet are sore, and
   at last, from the summit of a mountain, he views his father's house far
   away in the plain. There are yet many miles between him and his father
   whom he has neglected. Can you conceive his emotions when, for the
   first time after so long an absence, he sees the old house at home? He
   remembers it well in the distance, for though it is long since he trod
   its floors, he has never ceased to recollect it; and the remembrance of
   his father's kindness, and of his own prosperity when he was with him,
   has never yet been erased from his consciousness. You would imagine
   that for one moment he feels a flash of joy, like some flash of
   lightning in the midst of the tempest, but anon a black darkness comes
   over his spirit. In the first place, it is probable he will think, "Oh!
   suppose I could reach my home, will my father receive me? Will he not
   shut the door in my face and tell me begone and spend the rest of my
   life where I have been spending the first of it?" Then another
   suggestion might arise: "Surely, the demon that led me first astray may
   lead me back again, before I salute my parent." "Or mayhap," thought
   he, "I may even die upon the road, and so, before I have received my
   father's blessing, my soul may stand before its God." I doubt not each
   of these three thoughts has crossed your mind if you are now in the
   position of one who is seeking Christ, but mourns to feel himself far
   away from him.

   First, you have been afraid lest you should die before Christ has
   appeared to you. You have been for months seeking the Saviour without
   finding him, and now the black thought comes, "And what if I should die
   with all these prayers unanswered? Oh! if he would but hear me ere I
   departed this world I would be content, though he should keep me
   waiting in anguish for many years. But what, if before tomorrow morning
   I should be a corpse? At my bed I kneel to-night and cry for mercy. Oh!
   if he should not send the pardon before to-morrow morning, and in the
   night my spirit should stand before his bar!--What then?" It is
   singular that other men think they shall live for ever, but men
   convinced of sin, who seek a Saviour, are afraid they shall not live
   another moment. You have known the time, dear Christian brethren, when
   you dared not shut your eyes for feel you should not open them again on
   earth; when you dreaded the shadows of the night lest they should
   darken for ever the light of the sun, and you should dwell in outer
   darkness throughout eternity. You have mourned as each day has entered,
   and you have wept as it has departed, because you fancied that your
   next step might precipitate you into your eternal doom. I have known
   what it is to tread the earth and fear lest every tuft of grass should
   but cover a door to hell; trembling, lest every particle, and every
   atom, and every stone, should be solar league with God against me, as
   to destroy me. John Bunyan says, that at one time in his experience, he
   felt that he had rather have been born a dog or a toad than a man; he
   felt so unutterably wretched on account of sin; and his great point of
   wretchedness was the fact, that though he had been three years seeking
   Christ, he might after all die without finding him. And in truth, this
   is no needless alarm. It may be perhaps too alarming to some who
   already feel their need of Christ, but the mass of us need perpetually
   to be startled with the thought of death. How few of you ever indulge
   that thought! Because ye live and are in health, and eat, and drink,
   and sleep, ye think ye shall not die. Do ye ever soberly look at your
   last end? Do ye ever, when ye come to your beds at night, think how one
   day ye shall undress for the last slumber? And when ye wake in the
   morning, do ye never think that the trump of the archangel shall
   startle you to appear before God in the last day of the great assize,
   wherein an universe shall stand before the Judge? No. "All men think
   all men mortal but themselves;" and thoughts of death we still push
   off, until at last we shall find ourselves waking up in torment, where
   to wake is to wake too late. But thou to whom I specially speak this
   morning, thou who feelest that thou art a great way off from Christ,
   thou shalt never die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord; if
   thou hast really sought him, thou shalt never die until thou hast found
   him. There was never a soul yet, that sincerely sought the Saviour, who
   perished before he found him. No; the gates of death shall never shut
   on thee till the gates of grace have opened for thee; till Christ has
   washed thy sins away thou shalt never be baptized in Jordan's flood.
   Thy life is secure, for this is God's constant plan--he keeps his own
   elect alive till the day of his grace, and then he takes them to
   himself. And inasmuch as thou knowest thy need of a Saviour, thou art
   one of his, and thou shalt never die until thou hast found him.

   Your second fear is, "Ah, sir! I am not afraid of dying before I find
   Christ, I have a worse fear than that; I have had convictions before,
   and they have often passed away; my greatest fear to-day is, that these
   will be the same." I have heard of a poor collier, who on one occasion,
   having been deeply impressed under a sermon, was led to repent of sin
   and forsake his former life; but he felt so great horror of ever
   returning to his former conversation, that one day he knelt down and
   cried thus unto God, "O Lord, let me die on this spot, rather than ever
   deny the religion which I have espoused, and turn back to my former
   conversation:" and we are credibly told, that he died on that very
   spot, and so his prayer was answered. God had rather take him home to
   heaven than suffer him to bear the brunt of temptation on earth. Now,
   when men come to Christ, they feel that they had rather suffer anything
   than lose their convictions. Scores of times have you and I been drawn
   to Christ under the preaching of the Word. We can look back upon dozens
   of occasions on which it seemed just the turning point with us.
   Something said in our hearts, "Now, believe in Christ, now is the
   accepted time, now is the day of salvation." But we said, "To-morrow,
   to-morrow ;" and when to-morrow came our convictions were gone. We
   thought what we said yesterday would be the deed of to-day; but instead
   of it, the procrastination of yesterday became the hardened wickedness
   of to-day: we wandered farther from God and forgot him. Now you are
   crying to him for fear, lest he should give you up again. You have this
   morning prayed before you came here, and you said, "Father, suffer not
   my companions to laugh me out of my religion; let not my worldly
   business so engross my thoughts, as to prevent my due attention to the
   matters of another world. Oh, let not the trifles of to-day so absorb
   my thoughts that I may not be preparing myself to meet my God--

   'Deeply on my thoughtful heart,

   Eternal things impress,'

   and make this a real saving work that shall never die out, nor be taken
   from me." Is that your earnest prayer? O poor prodigal, it shall be
   heard, it shall be answered. Thou shalt not have time to go back.
   To-day thy Father views thee from his throne in heaven; to-day he runs
   to thee in the message of his gospel; today he falls upon thy neck and
   weeps for joy; to-day he says to thee, "Thy sins, which are many, are
   all forgiven ;" to-day, by the preaching of the Word, he bids thee come
   and reason with him, "for though thy sins be as scarlet, they shall be
   as wool, though the be red like crimson, they shall be whiter than
   snow."

   But the last and the most prominent thought which I suppose the
   prodigal would have, would be, that when he did get to his father, he
   would say to him, "Get along with you, I will have nothing more to do
   with you." "Ah!" thought he to himself, "I recollect the morning, when
   I rose up before day-break, because I knew I could not stand my mothers
   tears; I remember how I crept down the back staircase and took all the
   money with me, how I stole down the yard and ran away into the land
   where I spent my all. Oh! what will the old gentlemen say of me when I
   come back? Why, there he is! he is running to me. But he has got a
   horsewhip with him, to be sure, to whip me away. It is not at all
   possible that if he comes he will have a kind word for me. The most I
   can expect is that he will say, Well John, you have wasted all your
   money, you can not expect me to do anything for you again. I won't let
   you starve; you shall be one of my servants: there, come, I will take
   you as footman;' and if he will do that I will be obliged to him; nay,
   that is the very thing I will ask of him; I will say, Make me as one of
   thy hired servants.'" "Oh," said the devil within him, "your father
   will never speak comfortably to you: you had better run away again. I
   tell you if he gets near you, you will have such a dressing as you
   never received in your life. You will die with a broken heart; you will
   very likely fall dead here; the old man will never bury you; the
   carrion crows win eat you. There is no hope for you: see how you have
   treated him. Put yourself in his place: what would you do if you had a
   son that had run away with half your living, and spent it upon
   harlots?" And the son thought if he were in his fathers place he should
   be very harsh and severe; and possibly, he almost turned upon his heel
   to run away. But he had not time to do that. When he was just thinking
   about running away, on a sudden his father's arms were about his neck,
   and he had received the paternal kiss. Nay, before he could get his
   whole prayer finished, he was arrayed in a white robe, the best in the
   house; and they had brought him to the table, and the fatted calf was
   being killed for his repast. And poor soul, it shall be so with you.
   Thou sayest, "If I go to God, he win never receive me. I am too vile
   and wretched: others he may have pressed to his heart, but he will not
   me. If my brother should go, he might be saved; but there are such
   aggravations in my crime; I have grown so old since; I have done such a
   deal of mischief; I have so often blasphemed him, so frequently broken
   his Sabbaths; ah! and I have so often deceived him; I have promised I
   would repent, and when I got well I have lied to God, and gone back to
   my old sin. Oh, if he would but let me creep inside the door of heaven!
   I win not ask to be one of his children; I win only ask that he will
   let me be where the Syro-Phoenician woman desired to be--to be a dog,
   to eat the crumbs that fall from the Master's table. That is all I ask;
   and oh! if he will but grant it to me, he shall never hear the last of
   it, for as long as I live I will sing his praise; and when the world
   doth fade away, and the sun grow dim with age, my gratitude, immortal
   as my soul, shall never cease to sing his love, who pardoned my
   grossest sins and washed me in his blood." It shad be so. Come and try.
   Now, sinners, dry your tears; let hopeless sorrows cease; look to the
   wounds of Christ, who died; let all your griefs now be removed, there
   is no further cause for them; your Father loves you; he accepts and
   receives you to his heart.

   III. Now, in conclusion, I may notice HOW THESE FEARS WERE MET IN THE
   PRODIGAL'S CASE, and how they shall be met in ours if we are in the
   same condition.

   The text says, "The Father saw him." Yes, and God saw thee just now.
   That tear which was wiped away so hastily--as if thou wast ashamed of
   it--God saw it, and he stored it in his bottle. That prayer which thou
   didst breathe just a few moments ago, so faintly, and with such little
   faith--God heard it. The other day thou wast in thy chamber, where no
   ear heard thee; but God was there. Sinner, let this be thy comfort,
   that God sees thee when thou beginnest to repent. He does not see thee
   with his usual gaze, with which he looks on all men; but he sees thee
   with an eye of intense interest. He has been looking on thee in an thy
   sin, and in all thy sorrow, hoping that thou wouldst repent; and now he
   sees the first gleam of grace, and he beholds it with joy. Never warder
   on the lonely castle top saw the first grey light of morning with more
   joy than that with which God beholds the first desire in thy heart.
   Never physician rejoiced more when he saw the first heaving of the
   lungs in one that was supposed to be dead, than God doth rejoice over
   thee, now that he sees the first token for good. Think not that thou
   art despised and unknown, and forgotten. He is marking thee from his
   high throne in glory, and rejoicing in what he sees. He saw thee pray,
   he heard thee groan; he marked thy tear; he looked upon thee and
   rejoiced to see that these were the first seeds of grace in thine
   heart.

   And then, the text says, "he had compassion on him." He did not merely
   see him, but he wept within himself to think he should be in such a
   condition. The old father had a very long range of eye-sight; and
   though the prodigal could not see him in the distance, he could see the
   prodigal. And the fathers first thought when he saw him was this--"O my
   poor son, O my poor boy! that ever he should have brought himself into
   such a state as this!" He looked through his telescope of love, and he
   saw him, and said, "Ah! he did not go out of my house in such trim as
   that. Poor creature, his feet are bleeding; he has come a long way,
   I'll be bound. Look at his face, he doesn't look like the same boy he
   was when he left me. His eye that was so bright, is now sunken in its
   socket; his cheeks that once stood out with fatness, have now become
   hollow with famine. Poor wretch, I can tell all his bones, he is so
   emaciated." Instead of feeling any anger in his heart, he felt just the
   contrary; he felt such pity for his poor son. And so the Lord feels for
   you--you that are groaning and moaning on account of sin. He forgets
   your sins; he only weeps to think you should have brought yourself to
   be what you are: "Why didst thou rebel against me, and bring thyself
   into such a state as this?" It was just like that day when Adam sinned.
   God walked in the garden, and he missed Adam. He did not cry out,
   "Adam, come here and be judged!" No; with a soft, sorrowful, and
   plaintive voice, he said, "Adam, where art thou? Oh, my fair Adam, thou
   whom I made so happy, where art thou now? Oh, Adam! thou didst think to
   become a God; where art thou now? Thou hast walked with me: dost thou
   hide thyself from thy friend? Little dost thou know, O Adam, what woes
   thou hast brought on thyself, and thine offspring. Adam, where art
   thou?" And Jehovah bowels yearn to-day over you. He is not angry with
   you; his anger is passed away, and his hands are stretched out still.
   Inasmuch as he has brought you to feel that you have sinned against
   him, and to desire reconciliation with him, there is no wrath in his
   heart. The only sorrow that he feels is sorrow that you should have
   brought yourself into a state so mournful as that in which you now are
   found.

   But he did not stop in mere compassion. Having had compassion, "he ran,
   and fell on his neck, and kissed him." This you do not understand yet;
   but you shall. As sure as God is God, if you this day are seeking him
   aright through Christ, the day shall come when the kiss of full
   assurance shall be on your lip, when the arms of sovereign love shall
   embrace you, and you shall know it to be so. Thou mayest have despised
   him, but thou shalt know him yet to be thy Father and thy Friend. Thou
   mayest have scoffed his name: thou shalt one day come to rejoice in it
   as better than pure gold. Thou mayest have broken his Sabbaths and
   despised his Word; the day is coming when the Sabbath shall be thy
   delight, and his Word thy treasure. Yes, marvel not; thou mayest have
   plunged into the kennel of sin, and made thy clothes black with
   iniquity; but thou shalt one day stand before his throne white as the
   angels be; and that tongue that once cursed him shall yet sing his
   praise. If thou be a real seeker, the hands that have been stained with
   lust shall one day grasp the harp of gold, and the head that has
   plotted against the Most High shall yet be girt with gold. Seemeth it
   not a strange thing that God should do so much for sinners? But strange
   though it seem, it shall be strangely true. Look at the staggering
   drunkard in the ale-house. Is there a possibility that one day he shall
   stand among the fairest sons of light? Possibility! ay, certainty, if
   he repents and turns from the error of his ways. Hear you yon curser
   and swearer? See you the man who labels himself as a servant of hell,
   and is not ashamed to do so? Is it possible that he shall one day share
   the bliss of the redeemed? Possible! ay, more, it is sure, if he
   turneth from his evil ways. O sovereign grace, turn men that they may
   repent! "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die, O house of Israel?"

   "Lord, do thou the sinner turn,

   For thy tender mercy's sake."

   One word or so, and I have done. If any of you to-day are under
   conviction of sin, let me solemnly warn you not to frequent places
   where those convictions are likely too be destroyed.

   A correspondent of the New York Christian Advocate furnishes the
   following affecting narrative:--

   "When I was travelling in the state of Massachusetts, twenty-six years
   ago, after preaching one evening in the town of ___________, a very
   serious-looking young man arose, and wished to address the assembly.
   After obtaining leave, he spoke as follows:--'My friends, about one
   year ago, I set out in company with a young man of my intimate
   acquaintance, to seek the salvation of my soul. For several weeks we
   went on together, we laboured together, and often renewed our covenant
   not to give over seeking till we obtained the religion of Jesus. But,
   all at once, the young man neglected attending meeting, appeared to
   turn his back on all the means of grace, and grew so shy of me, that I
   could scarcely get an opportunity to speak with him. His strange
   conduct gave me much painful anxiety of mind; but still I felt resolved
   to obtain the salvation of my soul, or perish, making the publican's
   plea. After a few days, a friend informed me that my young companion
   had received an invitation to a ball, and was determined to go. I went
   immediately to him, and, with tears in my eyes, endeavoured to persuade
   him to change his purpose, and to go with me on that evening to a
   prayer-meeting. I pleaded with him in vain. He told me, when we parted,
   that I must not give him up as lost, for after he had attended that
   ball, he intended to make a business of seeking religion. The appointed
   evening came, and he went to the ball, and I went to the
   prayer-meeting. Soon after the meeting opened, it pleased God, in
   answer to my prayer, to turn my spiritual captivity, and make my soul
   rejoice in his justifying love. Soon after the ball opened, my young
   friend was standing at the head of the ball-room, with the hand of a
   young lady in his hand, preparing to lead down the dance; and, while
   the musician was turning his violin,, without one moment's warning, the
   young man sallied back, and fell dead on the floor. I was immediately
   sent for, to assist in devising means to convey his remains to his
   father's house. You will be better able to judge what were the emotions
   of my heart, when I tell you that that young man was my own brother.'"

   Trifle not, then, with thy convictions, for eternity shall be too short
   for thee to utter thy lamentations over such trifling.
     __________________________________________________________________

                            God, the All-Seeing One

   A Sermon

   (No. 177)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, February 14, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "Hell and destruction are before the Lord: how much more then the
   hearts of the children of men?"--Proverbs 15:11.

   YOU HAVE OFTEN smiled at the ignorance of heathens who bow themselves
   before gods of wood and stone. You have quoted the words of Scripture,
   and you have said, "Eyes have they but they see not; ears have they,
   but they hear not." You have therefore argued that they could not be
   gods at all, because they could neither see nor hear, and you have
   smiled contemptuously at the men who could so debase their
   understandings as to make such things objects of adoration. May I ask
   you one question--but one? Your God can both see and hear: would your
   conduct be in any respect different, if you had a god such as those
   that the heathen worship? Suppose for one minute, that Jehovah, who is
   nominally adored in this land, could be (though it is almost blasphemy
   to suppose it) smitten with such a blindness, that he could not see the
   works and know the thoughts of man: would you then become more careless
   concerning him than you are now? I trow not. In nine cases out of ten,
   and perhaps in a far larger and sadder proportion, the doctrine of
   Divine Omniscience, although it is received and believed, has no
   practical effect upon our lives at all. The mass of mankind forget God:
   whole nations who know his existence and believe that he beholds them,
   live as if they had no God at all. Merchants, farmers, men in their
   shops, and in their fields, husbands in their families, and wives in
   the midst of their households, live as if there were no God; no eye
   inspecting them; no ear listening to the voice of their lips, and no
   eternal mind always treasuring up the recollection of their acts. Ah!
   we are practical Atheists, the mass of us; yea, all but those that have
   been born again, and have passed from death unto life, be their creeds
   what they may, are Atheists, after all, in life; for if there were no
   God, and no hereafter, multitudes of men would never be affected by the
   change; they would live the same as they do now--their lives being so
   full of disregard of God and his ways, that the absence of a God could
   not affect them in any great degree. Permit me, then, this morning, as
   God shall help me, to stir up your hearts; and may God grant that
   something I may say, may drive some of your practical Atheism out of
   you. I would endeavor to set before you, God, the all-seeing one, and
   press upon your solemn consideration the tremendous fact, that in all
   our acts, in all our ways, and in all our thoughts, we are continually
   under his observing eye.

   We have in our text, first of all, a great fact declared,--"Hell and
   destruction are before the Lord ;" we have, secondly, a great fact
   inferred,--"How much more then the hearts of the children of men?"

   I. We will begin with THE GREAT FACT WHICH IS DECLARED--a fact which
   furnishes us with premises from which we deduce the practical
   conclusion of the second sentence--"How much more then the hearts of
   the children of men?" The best interpretation that you can give of
   those two words, "hell" and "destruction," is, I think, comprehended in
   a sentence something like this,--"Death and hell are before the Lord."
   The separate state of departed spirits, and destruction, Abaddon, as
   the Hebrew has it, the place of torment, are both of them, although
   solemnly mysterious to us, manifest enough to God.

   1. First, then, the word here translated "hell," might just as well be
   translated "death," or the state of departed spirits. Now, death, with
   all its solemn consequences, is visible before the Lord. Between us and
   the hereafter of departed spirits a great black cloud is hanging. Here
   and there, the Holy Spirit hath made chinks, as it were, in the black
   wall of separation, through which, by faith we can see; for he hath
   "revealed unto us by the Spirit" the things which "eye hath not seen
   nor ear heard," and which the human intellect could never compass. Yet,
   what we know is but very little. When men die, they pass beyond the
   realm of our knowledge: both in body and in soul, they go beyond our
   understandings. But God understands all the secrets of death. Let us
   divide these into several heads, and enumerate them.

   God knows the burial-places of all his people. He notes as well the
   resting-place of the man who is buried tombless and alone, as the man
   over whom a mighty mausoleum has been raised. The traveler who fell in
   the barren desert, whose body became the prey of the vulture, and whose
   bones were bleached in the sun--the mariner, who was wrecked far out at
   sea, and over whose corpse no dirge was ever wailed, except the howling
   of the winds, and the murmuring of the wild waves--the thousands who
   have perished in battle, unnumbered and unnoticed--the many who have
   died alone, amid dreary forests, frozen seas, and devouring
   snow-storms--all these, and the places of their sepulchre, are known to
   God. That silent grot within the sea, where pearls lie deep, where now
   the shipwrecked one is sleeping, is marked by God as the death-place of
   one of his redeemed; that place upon the mountain-side, the deep ravine
   into which the traveler fell and was buried in a snow-drift, is marked
   in the memory of God as the tomb of one of the human race. No body of
   man, however it may have been interred or uninterred, has passed beyond
   the range of God's knowledge. Blessed be his name, if I shall die, and
   lie where the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep, in some neglected
   corner of the churchyard, I shall be known as well, and rise as well
   recognized by my glorious Father, as if interred in the cathedral,
   where forests of gothic pillars proudly stand erect, and where the
   songs of myriads perpetually salute high heaven. I shall be known as
   well as if I had been buried there in solemn pomp, and had been
   interred with music and with dread solemnities, and I shall be
   recognized as well as if the marble trophy and the famous pillar had
   been raised to my remembrance; for God knoweth no such thing as
   forgetfulness of the burying-places of his children. Moses sleeps in
   some spot that eye hath not seen. God kissed away his soul, and he
   buried him where Israel could never find him, though they may have
   searched for him. But God knoweth where Moses sleeps; and if he knows
   that, he understands where all his children are hidden. Ye cannot bell
   me where is the tomb of Adam; ye could not point out to me the sleeping
   place of Abel. Is any man able to discover the tomb of Methuselah and
   those long-lived dwellers in the time before the flood? Who shall tell
   where the once-treasured body of Joseph now sleeps in faith? Can any of
   you discover the tombs of the kings, and mark the exact spot where
   David and Solomon rest in solitary grandeur? No, those things have
   passed from human recollection, and we know not where the great and
   mighty of the past are buried; but God knoweth, for death and Hades are
   open before the Lord.

   And again, further, not only does he know the place where they were
   buried, but he is cognizant of the history of all their bodies after
   sepulture or after death. It has often been asked by the infidel, "How
   can the body of man be restored, when it may have been eaten by the
   cannibal, or devoured by wild beasts?" Our simple reply is, that God
   can track every atom of it if he pleases. We do not think it necessary
   to resurrection that he should do so, but if he so willed it, he could
   bring every atom of every body that hath ever died: although it hath
   passed through the most complicated machinery of nature, and become
   entangled in its passage with plants and beasts, yea, and with the
   bodies of other men, God hath it still within the range of his
   knowledge to know where every atom is, and it is within the might of
   his Omnipotence to call every atom from its wandering, and restore it
   to its proper sphere, and rebuild the body of which it was a part. It
   is true, we could not track the dust that long since has moldered.
   Buried with exactest care, preserved with the most scrupulous
   reverence, years passed away, and the body of the monarch, which had
   long slept well guarded and protected, was at last reached by the
   careless hand. The coffin had moldered, and the metal was broken for
   the sake of its own value; a handful of dust was discovered, the last
   relics of one who was master of many nations. That dust by sacrilegious
   hand was cast in the aisle of the church, or thrown into the churchyard
   and blown by the winds into the neighboring field. It was impossible
   for ever to preserve it; the greatest care was defeated; and at last
   the monarch was on a level with his slave, "alike unknowing and
   unknown." But God knows where every particle of the handful of dust has
   gone: he has marked in his book the wandering of every one of its
   atoms. He hath death so open before his view, that he can bring all
   these together, bone to bone, and clothe them with the very flesh that
   robed them in the days of yore, and make them live again. Death is open
   before the Lord.

   And as the body, so the soul when separated from the body, is before
   the Lord. We look upon the countenance of our dying friend, and on a
   sudden a mysterious change passes over his frame. "His soul has fled,"
   we say. But have we any idea of what his soul is? Can we form even a
   conjecture of what the flying of that soul may be, and what the august
   presence into which it is ushered when it is disentangled from its
   earthly coil? Is it possible for us to guess what is that state where
   Spirits without bodies, perpetually blest, behold their God? It is
   possible for us to compass some imagination of what heaven is to be,
   when bodies and souls, reunited, shall before God's throne enjoy the
   highest bliss; but I do think, that so gross are our conceptions,
   whilst we are in our bodies, that it is almost, if not quite,
   impossible for any of us to form any idea whatever as to the position
   of souls, whilst in the disembodied state, between the hour of death
   and the time of resurrection.

   "This much, and this is all, we know;

   They are supremely blest:

   Have done with sin, and care, and woe,

   And with their Saviour rest."

   But the best of the saints can tell us nothing more than this. They are
   blest, and in paradise they are reigning with their Lord. Brethren,
   these things are known to God. The separate state of the dead, the
   heaven of disembodied spirits, is within the gaze of the Most High, and
   at this hour, if so he pleased, he could reveal to us the condition of
   every man that is dead--whether he has mounted to Elysian fields, to
   dwell for ever in the sunlight of his Master's countenance, or has been
   plunged into hell, dragged down by iron chains, to wait in dreary woe
   the result of the awful trial, when "Depart ye cursed," must be the
   re-affirmation of a sentence once pronounced, and already in part
   endured. God understands the separate doom of every man's spirit before
   the great tribunal day--before the last sentence shall have been
   pronounced, death is open before the Lord.

   2. The next word, "destruction," signifies hell, or the place of the
   damned. That also is open before the Lord. Where hell is, and what its
   miseries, we know not; except "through a glass darkly," we have never
   seen the invisible things of horror. That land of terror is a land
   unknown. We have much reason to thank God that he has put it so far off
   from the habitations of living mortals, that the pains, the groans, the
   shrieks, the yells, are not to be heard here, or else earth itself
   would have become a hell, the solemn prelude and the ante-past of
   unutterable torment. God has put somewhere, far on the edge of his
   dominions, a tearful lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; into
   that he cast the rebel angels, who (though by a license they are now
   allowed to walk the earth) do carry a hell within their bosoms, and are
   by-and-by to be bound with chains, reserved in blackness and darkness
   for ever for them that kept not their first estate, but lifted the arm
   of their rebellion against God. Into that place we dare not look.
   Perhaps it would not be possible for any man to get a fair idea of the
   torments of the lost, without at once becoming mad. Reason would reel
   at such a sight of horror. One moment of listening to the shrill
   screams of spirits tortured, might forever drive us into the depths of
   despair, and make us only fit to be bound in chains whilst we lived on
   earth. Raving lunatics surely we must become. But whilst God has
   mercifully covered all these things from us, they are all known to him;
   he looks upon them; yea, it is his look that makes hell what it is. His
   eyes, full of fury, flash the lightnings that scathe his enemies; his
   lips, full of dreadful thunders, make the thunders that now Upright the
   wicked. O, could they escape the eye of God, could they shut out that
   dreary vision of the face of the incensed Majesty of heaven, then might
   hell be quenched; then might the wheels of Ixion stand still; then
   might doomed Tantalus quench his thirst and eat to his very full. But
   there, whilst they lie in their chains, they look upward, and they see
   ever that fearful vision of the Most High; the dreadful hands that
   grasp the thunderbolts, the dreadful lips that speak the thunders, and
   the fearful eyes that flash the flames that burn their souls, with
   horrors deeper than despair. Yes, hell, horrible as it is, and veiled
   in many clouds, and covered over with darkness, is naked before the
   vision of the Most High.

   There is the grand fact stated--"Hell and destruction are before the
   Lord." After this the inference seems to be easy--"How much more then
   the hearts of the children of men?"

   II. We now come to the GRAND FACT INFERRED.

   In briefly entering upon this second part I will discuss the subject
   thus: You notice there an argument--"How much more then the hearts of
   the children of men?" I will therefore begin by asking, why does it
   follow that the hearts of men are seen by God?
   Why--how--what--when--shall be four questions into which we shall
   divide what we have now to say.

   1. Why is it so clear, that "if hell and destruction are open before
   the Lord," the hearts of men must be very plainly viewed by him?

   We answer, because the hearts of men are not so extensive as the realms
   of death and torment. What is man's heart? what is man's self? Is he
   not in Scripture compared to a grasshopper? Does not God declare that
   he "takes up the isles"--whole islands full of men--"as a very little
   thing; And the nations before him are but as the drop of a bucket?" If,
   then, the all-seeing eye of God takes in at one glance the wide regions
   of death--and wide they are, wide enough to startle any man who shall
   try to range them through--if, I say, with one glance God seeth death
   and seeth hell through, with all its bottomless depths, with all its
   boundlessness of misery, surely, then, he is quite able to behold all
   the actions of the little thing called man's heart. Suppose a man so
   wise is to be able to know the wants of a nation and to remember the
   feelings of myriads of men, you can not suppose it difficult for him to
   know the actions of his own family and to understand the emotions of
   his oven household. If the man is able to stretch his arm over a great
   sphere, and to say, "I am monarch of all this," surely he shall be able
   to control the less. He who in his wisdom can walk through centuries
   shall not say that he is ignorant of the history of a year; he who can
   dive into the depths of science, and understand the history of the
   whole world from its creation, is not to be alarmed by some small
   riddle that happens at his own door. No, the God who seeth death and
   hell seeth our hearth for they are far less extensive.

   Reflect again, that they are far less aged too. Death is an ancient
   monarch; he is the only king whose dynasty stands fast. Ever since the
   days of Adam he has never been succeeded by another, and has never had
   an interregnum in his reign. His black ebon sceptre hath swept away
   generation after generation; his scythe hath mowed the fair fields of
   this earth a hundred times, and is sharp to mow us down, and when
   another crop shall succeed us he is still ready to devour the
   multitudes, and sweep the earth clean again. The regions of death are
   old domains; his pillars of black granite are ancient as the eternal
   hills. Death made his prey on earth long ere Adam was here. Those
   mighty creatures that made the deep hoary with their strength, and
   stirred the earth with their tramplings--those elder born of natures
   sons, the mighty creatures that lived here long ere Adam walked in
   Eden--death made them his prey: like a mighty hunter he speared the
   mighty lizard and laid it low, and now we dig it from the stony tomb,
   and wonder at it. He is our ancient monarch; but ancient as he is, his
   whole monarchy is in the records of God, and until death itself is
   dead, and swallowed up in victory, death shall be open before the Lord.
   How old, too, is death--old as the first sin. In that day when Satan
   tempted the angels, and led astray the third part of the stars of
   heaven, then hell was digger; then was that bottomless pit first struck
   out of solid rocks of vengeance, that it might stand a marvelous record
   of what God's wrath can do. The fires of hell are not the kindlings of
   yesterday: they are ancient flames that burned long ere Vesuvius cast
   forth its lurid flame. Long ere the first charred ashes tell upon the
   plain from earth's red volcanoes, hell's flames we're burning; for
   "Tophet is prepared of old, the pile thereof is wood and much smoke;
   the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it. If,
   then, the ancient things, these old ones, death and hell, have been
   observed by God, and if their total history is known to him, how much
   more then shall he know the history of those mere animalculae, those
   ephemera of an hour, that we call men! You are here to-day, and gone
   to-morrow; born yesterday--the next hour shall see our tomb prepared,
   and another minute shall hear, "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," and the
   falling of the clod upon the coffin lid. We are the creatures of a day,
   and know nothing. We are scarcely here; we are only living and dead.
   "Gone!" is the greatest part of our history. Scarcely have we time
   enough to tell the story, ere it comes to its finis. Surely, then, God
   may easily understand the history of a beast, when he knows the history
   of the monarchies of death and hell.

   This is the why. I need not give further arguments, though there be
   abundance deducible from the text. "How much more then the hearts of
   the children of men?"

   2. But now, how does God know the heart? I mean to what degree and to
   what extent does he understand and know that which is in man? I answer,
   Holy Scripture in divers places gives us most precise information. God
   knows the heart so well that he is said to "search" it. We all
   understand the figure of a search. There is a search-warrant out
   against some man who is supposed to be harboring a traitor in his
   house. The officer goes into the lower room, opens the door of every
   cupboard, looks into every closet, peers into every cranny, takes the
   key, descends into the cellar, turns over the coals, disturbs the wood,
   lest any one should be hidden there. Up stairs he goes: there is an old
   room that has not been open for years,--it is opened. There is a huge
   chest: the lock is forced, and it is broken open. The very top of the
   house is searched, lest upon the slates or upon the tiles some one
   should be concealed. At last, when the search has been complete, the
   officer says, "It is impossible that there can be anybody here, for,
   from the tiles to the foundation, I have searched the house thoroughly
   through; I know the very spiders well, for I have seen the house
   completely." Now, it is just so that God knows our heart. He searches
   it--searches into every nook, corner, crevice, and secret part; and the
   figure of the Lord is pushed further still. "The candle of the Lord,"
   we are told, "searches the secret parts of the belly." As when we wish
   to find something, we take a candle, and look down upon the ground with
   great care, and turn up the dust. If it is some little piece of money
   we desire to find, we light a candle and sweep the house, and search
   diligently till we find it. Even so it is with God. He searches
   Jerusalem with candles, and pulls every thing to day-light. No partial
   search, like that of Laban, when he went into Rachel's tent to look for
   his idols. She put them in the camel's furniture, and sat upon them;
   but God looks into the camel's furniture, and all. "Can any hide
   himself in secret places, that I shall not see him? saith the Lord."
   His eye searches the heart, and looks into every part of it.

   In another passage we are told that God tries the reins. That is even
   more than searching. The goldsmith when he takes gold, looks at it, and
   examines it carefully. "Ah!" says he, "but I don't understand this gold
   yet: I must try it." He thrusts it into the furnace; there coals are
   heaped upon it, and it is fused and melted, till he knows what there is
   of dross, and what there is of gold. Now, God knows to the very carat
   how much there is of sound gold in us, and how much of dross. There is
   no deceiving him. He has put our hearts into the furnace of his
   Omniscience; the furnace--his knowledge--tries us as completely as the
   goldsmith's crucible doth try the gold--how much there is of hypocrisy,
   how much of truth--how much of steam, how much of real--how much of
   ignorance, how much of knowledge--how much of devotion, how much of
   blasphemy--how much of carefulness, how much of carelessness. God knows
   the ingredients of the heart; he reduces the soul to its pristine
   metals; he divides it asunder--so much of quartz, so much of gold, so
   much of dung, of dross, of wood, of hay, of stubble, so much of gold,
   silver, and precious stones. "The Lord trieth the hearts and searcheth
   the reins of the children of men."

   Here is another description of God's knowledge of the heart. In one
   place of Sacred Writ--(it will be well if you set your children to find
   out these places at home)--God is said to ponder the heart. Now, you
   know, the Latin word ponder means weigh. The Lord weighs the heart. Old
   Master Quarles has got a picture of a great one putting a heart into
   one scale, and then putting the law, the Bible, into the other scale,
   to weigh it. This is what God does with men's hearts. They are often
   great, puffed-up, blown-out things, and people say, "What a
   great-hearted man that is!" But God does not judge by the appearance of
   a man's great heart nor the outside appearance of a good heart; but he
   puts it in the scales and weighs it--puts his own Word in one scale and
   the heart in the other. He knows the exact weight--knows whether we
   have grace in the heart, which makes us good weight, or only pretence
   in the heart, which makes us weigh light weight when put into the
   scale. He searches the heart in every possible way, he puts it into the
   fire, and then thrusts it into the balances. Oh, might not God say of
   many of you, "I have searched your heart, and I have found vanity
   therein? Reprobate silver shall men call you; for God has put you in
   the furnace and rejected you." And then he might conclude his verdict
   by saying, "Mene, mene, tekel--thou art weighed in the balances and
   found wanting." This, then, is the answer to the question, How?

   The next question was, What? What is it that God sees in man's heart?
   God sees in man's heart a great deal more than we think of God sees,
   and has seen in out hearts, lust, and blasphemy, and murder, and
   adultery, and malice and wrath, and all uncharitableness. The heart
   never can be painted too black, unless you daub it with something
   blacker than the devil himself. It is as base as it can be. You have
   never committed murder, but yet you have had murder in your heart; you
   may never have stained your hands with lusts and the aspersions of
   uncleanness, but still it is in the heart. Have you never imagined an
   evil thing? Has your soul never for a moment doted on a pleasure which
   you were too chaste to indulge in, but which for a moment you surveyed
   with at least some little complacency and delight? Has not imagination
   often pictured, even to the solitary monk in his cell, greater vice
   than men in public life have ever dreamed of? And may not even the
   divine in his closet be conscious that blasphemies, and murders, and
   lusts of the vilest class, can find a ready harbor even in the heart
   which he hopes is dedicated to God? Oh! beloved, it is a sight that no
   human eye could endure: the sight of a heart really laid bare before
   one's own inspection would startle us almost into insanity: but God
   sees the heart in all its bestial sensuousness, in all its wanderings
   and rebellions, in all its high mindedness and pride; God has searched
   and knows it altogether.

   God sees all the heart's imaginations, and what they are let us not
   presume to tell. O children of God, these have made you cry and groan
   full many a time, and though the worldling groans not over them, yet he
   hath them. Oh, what a filthy stye of Stygian imaginations is the heart;
   all full of every thing that is hideous, when it once begins to dance
   and make carnival and revelry concerning sin. But God sees the heart's
   imaginations.

   Again, God sees the heart's devices. You, perhaps, O sinner, have
   determined to curse God; you have not done so, but you intend to do it.
   He knows your devices--reads them all. You perhaps will not be
   permitted to run into the excess of riotousness into which you purpose
   to go; but your very purpose is now undergoing the inspection of the
   Most High. There is never a design forged in the fires of the heart,
   before it is beaten on the anvil of resolve, that is not known, and
   seen, and noted by Jehovah our God.

   He knows, next, the resolves of the heart. He knows, O sinner, how many
   times you have resolved to repent, and have resolved and re-resolved,
   and then have continued the same. He knows, O thou that hast been sick,
   how thou didst resolve to seek God, but how thou didst despise thine
   own resolution, when good health had put thee beyond the temporary
   danger. Thy resolves have been filed in heaven, and thy broken
   promises, and thy vows despised, shall be brought out in their order as
   swift witnesses for thy condemnation. All these things are known of
   God. We have often had very clear proof of God's knowing what is in
   man's heart, even in the ministry. Some months ago, whilst standing
   here preaching, I deliberately pointed to a man in the midst of the
   crowd, and said these words--"There is a man sitting there that is a
   shoemaker, keeps his shop open on Sunday, had his shop open last
   Sabbath morning, took ninepence, and -there was fourpence profit out of
   it. His soul is sold to Satan for fourpence." A City Missionary, when
   going round the West end of the town, met with a poor man, of whom he
   asked this question: "Do you know Mr. Spurgeon?" He found him reading a
   sermon. "Yes," he said, "I have every reason to know him; I have been
   to hear him, and under God's grace I have become a new man. "But," said
   he, "shall I tell you how it was? I went to the Music Hall, and took my
   seat in the middle of the place, and the man looked at me as if he knew
   me, and deliberately told the congregation that I was a shoemaker, and
   that I sold shoes on a Sunday; and I did, sir. But, sir, I should not
   have minded that; but he said I took ninepence the Sunday before, and
   that there was fourpence profit; and so I did take ninepence, and
   fourpence was just the profit, and how he should know that I'm sure I
   can not tell. It struck me it was God had spoken to my soul through
   him; and I shut my shop last Sunday, and was afraid to open it and go
   there, lest he should split about me again." I could tell as many as a
   dozen authentic stories of cases that have happened in this Hall, where
   I have deliberately pointed at some body, without the slightest
   knowledge of the person, or ever having in the least degree any inkling
   or idea that what I said was right, except that I believed I was moved
   thereto by the Spirit; and so striking has been the description, that
   the persons have gone away and said, "Come, see a man that told me all
   things that ever I did: he was sent of God to my soul, beyond a doubt,
   or else he could not have painted my case so clearly."

   And not only so, but we have known cases in which the thoughts of men
   have been revealed from the pulpit. I have sometimes seen persons nudge
   with their elbows, because they have got a smart hit, and I have heard
   them say, when they went out, "That is just what I said to you when I
   went in at the door." "Ah!" says the other, "I was thinking of the very
   thing he said, and he told me of it." Now, if God thus proves his own
   Omniscience by helping his poor, ignorant servant, to state the very
   thing, thought and done, when he did not know it, then it must remain
   decisively proved that God does know everything that is secret, because
   we see he tells it to men, and enables them to tell it to others. Oh,
   ye may endeavor as much as ye can to hide your faults from God, but
   beyond a doubt he shall discover you. He discovers you this day. His
   Word is "a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart," and
   "pierces to the dividing asunder of the joints and of the marrow;" and
   in that last day, when the book shall be opened, and he shall give to
   every man his sentence, then shall it be seen how exact, how careful,
   how precious, how personal was God's knowledge of the heart of every
   man whom he had made.

   4. And now the last question: When? When does God see us? The answer
   is, he sees us everywhere and in every place. O foolish man, who thinks
   to hide himself from the Most High! It is night! no human eye sees
   thee; the curtain is drawn, and thou art hidden. There are his eyes
   lowering at thee through the gloom. It is a far-off country; no one
   knows thee; parents and friends have been left behind, restraints are
   cast off. There is a Father near thee, who looks upon thee even now. It
   is a lone spot, and if the deed be done, no tongue shall tell it. There
   is a tongue in heaven that shall tell it; yea, the beam out of the
   wall, and the stones in the field, shall raise up themselves as
   witnesses against thee. Canst thou hide thyself anywhere where God
   shall not detect thee? Is not this whole world like a glass hive,
   wherein we put our bees? and does not God stand and see all our motions
   when we think we are hidden? Ah, it is but a glass hiding-place. He
   looketh from heaven, and through stone walls and rocks; yea, to the
   very centre itself, does his eye pierce, and in the thickest darkness
   he beholds our deeds.

   Come, then, let me make a personal application of the matter, and I
   have done. If this be true, hypocrite, what a fool thou art! If God can
   read the heart, O man, what a sorry, sorry thing thy fair pretense must
   be! Ah! ah! ah! what a change will come over some of you! This world is
   a masquerade, and ye, many of you, wear the mask of religion. Ye dance
   your giddy hours, and men think you to be the saints of God. How
   changed will you be, when, at the door of eternity, you must drop the
   visor, and must announce the theatricals in which you live! How you
   will blush when the paint is washed from off your cheek--when you stand
   before God naked to your own shame, a hypocrite, unclean, diseased,
   covered up before with the gew-gaws and the trickery of pretended
   formality in religion, but now standing there, base, vile, and hideous!
   There is many a man that bears about him a cancer that would make one
   sick to see. Oh, how shall hypocrites look when their cancerous hearts
   are laid bare! Deacon! how you will tremble when your old heart is torn
   open, and your vile pretences rent away! Minister! how black you will
   look when your surplice is off, and when your grand pretensions are
   cast to the dogs! How will you tremble! There will be no sermonizing
   others then. You yourself will be preached to, and the sermon shall be
   from that text, "Depart ye cursed." O brethren, above all things shun
   hypocrisy. If ye mean to be damned, make up your minds to it, and be
   damned like honest men; but do not, I beseech you, pretend to go to
   heaven while all the time you are going to hell. If ye mean to make
   your abodes in torment forever, then serve the devil, and do not be
   ashamed of it; stand it right out, and let the world know what you are.
   But oh! never put on the cloak of religion. I beseech you, do not add
   to your eternal misery being a wolf in sheep's clothing. Show the
   cloven foot; do not hide it. If you mean to go to hell, say so. "If God
   be God, serve him. If Baal be God, serve him." Do not serve Baal and
   then pretend to be serving God.

   One other practical conclusion. If God sees and knows everything, how
   this ought to make you tremble--you that have lived in sin for many
   years! I have known a man who was once stopped from an act of sin by
   the fact of there being a cat in the room. He could not bear even the
   eyes of that poor creature to see him. Oh, I would ye could carry about
   with you the recollection of those eyes that are always on you.
   Swearer! could you swear if you could see God's eye looking at you?
   Thief! drunkard! harlot! could ye indulge in your sins, if ye saw his
   eyes on you? Oh, methinks they would startle you and bid you pause,
   before ye did in God's own sight rebel against his law. There is a
   story told of the American War, that one of the prisoners taken by the
   Americans was subjected to a torture of the most refined character. He
   says, "I was put into a narrow dungeon; I was comfortably provided for
   with all I needed; but there was a round slit in the wall, and through
   that, both night and day, a soldier always looked at me." He says, "I
   could not rest, I could not eat nor drink, nor do anything in comfort,
   because there was always that eye--an eye that seemed never to be
   turned away, and never shut--always following me round that little
   apartment. Nothing ever hidden from it." Now take home that figure.
   Recollect that is your position; you are shut in by the narrow walls of
   time, when ye eat, and when ye drink, when ye rise, and when ye lie
   upon your beds; when ye walk the streets, or when ye sit at home, that
   eye is always fixed upon you. Go home now and sin against God, if ye
   dare; go home now and break his laws to his face, and despise him, and
   set him at nought! Rush on your own destruction; dash yourselves
   against the buckler of Jehovah, and destroy your selves upon his own
   sword! Nay, rather, "turn ye, turn ye." Turn ye, ye that have followed
   the ways of sin, turn ye to Christ, and live; and then the same
   Omniscience which is now your horror, shall be your pleasure. Sinner!
   if thou now dost pray, he seeth thee; if thou now dost weep he seeth
   thee. "When he was yet a great way off his father saw him, and ran, and
   fell on his neck and kissed him." It shall be even so with thee, if now
   thou turnest to God and dost believe in his Son Jesus Christ.
     __________________________________________________________________

                          The Work of the Holy Spirit

   A Sermon

   (No. 178)

   Delivered on Thursday Evening, November 5, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

   "Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect
   by the flesh?"--Galatians 3:3.

   YES, we are just so foolish. Folly is bound up not only in the heart of
   a child, but in the heart of even a child of God; and though the rod
   may be said to bring folly out of a child, it will take many a
   repetition of the rod of affliction upon the shoulders of a Christian
   before that folly is taken out of him. I suppose we are all of us very
   sound as a matter of theory upon this point. If any should ask us how
   we hope to have our salvation worked in us, we should without the
   slightest hesitation aver our belief that salvation is of the Lord
   alone, and we should declare that, as the Holy Spirit first of all
   commenced our piety in us, we look alone to his might to continue and
   to preserve, and at last to perfect the sacred work. I say we are sound
   enough on that point as a matter of theory, but we are all of us very
   heretical and unsound as a matter of practice; for alas! you will not
   find a Christian who does not have to mourn over his self-righteous
   tendencies; you will not discover a believer who has not at certain
   periods in his life, to groan because the spirit of self-confidence has
   risen in his heart, and prevented him from feeling the absolute
   necessity of the Holy Spirit--has led him to put his confidence in the
   mere strength of nature, the strength of good intentions, the strength
   of strong resolutions, instead of relying upon the might of God the
   Holy Spirit alone. This one thing I know, brethren, that whilst as a
   preacher I can tell you all, that the Holy Spirit must work all our
   works in us, and that without him we can do nothing, yet as a man I
   find myself tempted to deny my own preachings, not in my words, but to
   deny them in fact by endeavoring to do deeds without looking first to
   the Holy Spirit. Whilst I should never be unsound in the didactic part
   of it, yet in that part which concerns the working of it out, in common
   with all that love the Lord Jesus, but who are still subject to the
   infirmities of flesh and blood, I have to groan that I repeatedly find
   myself, having begun in the Spirit, seeking to be made perfect in the
   flesh. Yes, we are just as foolish as that; and my brethren, it is well
   for us if we have a consciousness that we are foolish, for when a man
   is foolish and knows it, there is the hope that he will one day be
   wise: to know one's-self to be foolish is to stand upon the doorstep of
   the temple of wisdom; to understand the wrongness of any position is
   half way towards amending it; to be quite sure that our self-confidence
   is a heinous sin and folly, and an offense towards God, and to have
   that thought burned into us by God's Holy Spirit, is going a great
   length towards the absolute casting our self-confidence away, and the
   bringing of our souls in practice, as well as in theory, to rely wholly
   upon the power of God's Holy Spirit.

   This evening, however, I shall run away from my text somewhat. Having
   just in a few words endeavored to explain the meaning of the whole
   sentence, I intend only this evening to dwell upon the doctrine which
   incidentally the apostle teaches us. He teaches us that we begin in the
   Spirit--"Having begun in the Spirit" I have already illustrated the
   whole text sufficiently for our understanding if God the Holy Spirit
   shall enlighten us; and I shall now, I say, confine myself to the
   thought that Christians begin in the Spirit; that the early part of
   Christianity is of God's Spirit, and of God's Spirit only, while it is
   equally true that all the way through we must lean upon the same power
   and depend upon the same strength. And I have selected this text for
   this reason: we have a very large influx of young believers, month
   after month--week after week I may say, for every week we receive
   additions to the church to a considerable number, and month after month
   these hands baptize into a profession of faith of the Lord Jesus many
   of those who are yet young in the faith of the Gospel. Now I am
   astonished to find those persons that thus come before me so well
   instructed in the doctrines of grace and so sound in all the truths of
   the covenant, insomuch that I may think it my boast and glory, in the
   name of Jesus, that I know not that we have any members, whom we have
   received into the church, who do not give their full assent and consent
   unto all the doctrines of the Christian religion, commonly called
   Calvinistic doctrines Those which men are wont to laugh at as being
   high doctrinal points, are those which they most readily receive,
   believe, and rejoice in. I find, however, that the greatest deficiency
   lies in this point, forgetfulness of the work of the Holy Spirit. I
   find them very easily remembering the work of God the Father; they do
   not deny the great doctrine of election; they can see clearly the great
   sentence of justification passed by the Father upon the elect through
   the vicarious sacrifice and perfect righteousness of Jesus; and they
   are not backward in understanding the work of Jesus either: they can
   see how Christ was the substitute for his people and stood in their
   room, place and stead; nor do they for one moment impugn any doctrine
   concerning God's Spirit; but they are not clear upon the point: they
   can talk upon the other points better than they can upon those which
   more particularly concern the blessed work of that all adorable person
   of the Godhead, God the Holy Spirit. I thought, therefore, that I would
   just preach as simply as ever I could upon the work of the Holy Spirit,
   and begin at the beginning; hoping on succeeding evening, at different
   times, as God the Holy Spirit shall guide me, to enter more fully into
   the subject of the work of the Spirit from the beginning even to the
   end. But let me say, it is no use your expecting me to preach a course
   of sermons. I know a great deal better than that. I don't believe God
   the Holy Spirit ever intended men to publish three months before hand,
   lists of sermons that they were going to preach; because there always
   will arise changes in Providence, and different states of mind both in
   the preacher and the hearer, and he will be a very wise man who has got
   an Old Moore's Almanack correct enough to let him know what would be
   the best sort of sermon to preach three months ahead. He had better
   leave it to his God to give him in the same hour what he shall speak,
   and look for his sermons, as the Israelites looked for the manna, day
   by day. However, we now commence by endeavoring to narrate the
   different points of the Spirit's work in the beginning of salvation.

   And first, let me start by asserting that THE COMMENCEMENT OF SALVATION
   IS THE HOLY SPIRIT'S WORK. Salvation is not begun in the soul by the
   means of grace apart from the Holy Spirit. No man in the world is at
   liberty to neglect the means that God has appointed. If a house be
   builded for prayer, that man must expect no blessing who neglects to
   tread its floor. If a pulpit be erected for the ministration of the
   Word, no man must expect (although we do sometimes get more than we
   expect) to be saved except by the hearing of the Word. If the Bible be
   printed in our own native language, and we can read it, he who
   neglecteth Holy Scripture. and ceaseth from its study, has lost one
   great and grand opportunity of being blessed. There are many means of
   grace, and let us speak as highly of them as ever we can; we would be
   far from depreciating them; they are of the highest value; blessed are
   the people who have them; happy is the nation which is blessed with the
   means of grace. But my brethren, no man was ever saved by the means of
   grace apart from the Holy Spirit. You may hear the sermons of the man
   whom God delighteth to honor; ye may select from all your puritanical
   divines the writings of the man whom God did bless with a double
   portion of his Holy Spirit; ye may attend every meeting for prayer; ye
   may turn over the leaves of this blessed book; but in all this, there
   is no life for the soul apart from the breath of the Divine Spirit. Use
   these means, we exhort you to use them, and use them diligently: but
   recollect that in none of these means is there.anything that can
   benefit you unless God the Holy Spirit shall own and crown them. These
   are like the conduit pipes of the market place; when the fountain-head
   floweth with water then they are full, and we do derive a blessing from
   them; but if the stream be stayed, if the fountain head doth cease to
   give forth its current, then these are wells without water, clouds
   without rain; and ye may go to ordinances as an Arab turns to his skin
   bottle when it is dry, and with your parched lips ye may suck the wind
   and drink the whirlwind, but receive neither comfort, nor blessing, nor
   instruction, from the means of grace.

   Nor is the salvation of any sinner commenced in him by a minister or by
   a priest, God forgive the man that ever called himself a priest, or
   suffered anyone else to call him so since the days of our Lord Jesus.
   The other morning at family prayer, I read the case of King Uzziah,
   who, having the kingly office, must needs thrust himself into the
   tabernacle of the Lord, and take the place of the priests. You remember
   how the priests withstood him, and said, "This is not thy portion, O
   Uzziah;" and you remember how he seized the censer and would burn
   incense as a priest before the Lord God; and whilst they yet spake, lo!
   the leprosy did rise in his face and he went out a leper, as white as
   snow, from the house of God. Ah! my brethren, it is no mean offense
   against God for any man to call himself a priest; not but that all the
   saints have a priestly office through Christ Jesus; but when any man
   putteth to the idea a speciality as applicable to himself above his
   fellows, and claimeth to be a priest among men, he committeth a sin
   before God, which, even though it be a sin of ignorance, is indeed
   great and grievous, and leadeth unto divers great and deadly errors,
   the guilt of which must lie partly upon the head of the man who gave
   foot-hold for those errors by allowing the title to be applied to
   himself. Well, there is no man--call him priest if you like, by way of
   ill courtesy--that can begin the work with us--no, not in the use of
   the ceremony. The Papist may tell us, and the Papist masked,--the devil
   in white, the Puseyite,--may tell us that grace begins in the heart at
   the dropping of the water upon the child's brow; but he telleth a lie,
   a lie before God, that hath not even so much as the shadow of truth to
   justify the liar. There is no power in man, though he were ordained by
   one who could most assuredly claim succession from the apostles--though
   he were endowed with miraculous gifts, though he were the apostle Paul
   himself--if he did assert that he had in himself power to convert,
   power to regenerate, let him be accursed, for he hath denied the truth
   and Paul himself would have declared him anathema, maranatha, for
   having departed from the everlasting gospel, one cardinal point of
   which is--regeneration, the work of God the Holy Spirit; the new birth,
   a thing that is from above.

   And, my brethren, it is quite certain that no man ever begins the new
   birth himself. The work of salvation never was commenced by any man.
   God the Holy Spirit must commence it. Now, the reasons why no man ever
   commenced the work of grace in his own heart, is very plain and
   palpable. First, because he cannot; secondly, because he won't. The
   best reason of all is, because he cannot--he is dead. Well the dead may
   be made alive, but the dead cannot make themselves alive, for the dead
   can do nothing. Besides, the new thing to be created as yet hath no
   being. The uncreated cannot create. "Nay," but you say, "that man can
   create." Yes, can hell create heaven? Then sin may create grace. What!
   will you tell me that fallen human nature, that has come almost to a
   level with the brutes, is competent to rival God; that it can emulate
   the divinity in working as great marvels, and in imparting as divine a
   life as even God himself can give? It cannot. Besides, it is a
   creation; we are created anew in Christ Jesus. Let any man create a
   fly, and afterwards let him create a new heart in himself; until he
   hath done the less he cannot do the greater. Besides, no man will. If
   any man could convert himself, there is no man that would. If any man
   saith he would, if that be true, he is already converted; for the will
   to be converted is in great part conversion. The will to love God, the
   desire to be in unison with Christ, is not to be found in any man who
   hath not already been brought to be reconciled with God through the
   death of his Son. There may be a false desire, a desire grounded upon a
   misrepresentation of the truth; but a true desire after true salvation
   by the true Spirit, is a certain index that the salvation already is
   there in the germ and in the bud, and only needs time and grace to
   develope itself. But certain it is, that man neither can nor will,
   being on the one hand utterly impotent and dead, and on the other hand
   utterly depraved and unwilling; hating the change when he sees it in
   others, and most of all despising it in himself. Be certain, therefore,
   that God the Holy Spirit must begin, since none else can do so.

   And now, my brethren, I must just enter into the subject very briefly,
   by showing what the Holy Spirit does in the beginning. Permit me to say
   that in describing the work, the true work of salvation in the soul,
   you must not expect me to exhibit any critical nicety of judgment. We
   have heard of an assembly of divines, who once debated whether men did
   repent first or believe first; and after a long discussion, some one
   wiser than the rest suggested another question, whether in the new-born
   child the lungs did first heave, or the blood did first circulate.
   "Now," said he, "when you shall ascertain the one, you may be able to
   ascertain the other." You shall not know which cometh first; they are,
   very likely, begotten in us at the same moment. We are not able, when
   we mention these things in order, exactly to declare and testify that
   these do all happen according to the order in which we mention them;
   but we only, according to the judgment of men, according to our own
   experience, seek now to set forth what is the usual way of acting with
   God the Holy Spirit in the work of salvation.

   The first thing, then, that God the Holy Spirit doth in the soul is, to
   regenerate it. We must always learn to distinguish between regeneration
   and conversion. A man may be converted a great many times in his life,
   but regenerated only once. Conversion is a thing which is caused by
   regeneration, but regeneration is the very first act of God the Spirit
   in the soul. "What," say you, "does regeneration come before conviction
   of sin?" most certainly; there could be no conviction in the dead
   sinner. Now, regeneration quickens the sinner, and makes him live. He
   is not competent to have true spiritual conviction worked in him until,
   first of all he has received life. It is true that one of the earliest
   developments of life is conviction of sin; but before any man can see
   his need of a Saviour he must be a living man; before he can really, I
   mean, in a spiritual position, in a saving, effectual manner,
   understand his own deep depravity, he must have eyes with which to see
   the depravity, he must have ears with which to hear the sentence of the
   law, he must have been quickened and made alive; otherwise he could not
   be capable of feeling, or seeing, or discerning at all. I believe,
   then, the first thing the Spirit does is this--he finds the sinner dead
   in sin, just where Adam left him; he breathes into him a divine
   influence. The sinner knows nothing about how it is done, nor do any of
   us understand it. "Thou understandest not the wind--it bloweth where it
   listeth;" but we see its effects. Now, none of us can tell how the Holy
   Spirit works in men. I doubt not there have been some who have sat in
   these pews, and in the middle of a sermon or in prayer, or
   singing--they knew not how it was--the Spirit of God was in their
   hearts; he had entered into their souls; they were no longer dead in
   sin, no longer without thought, without hope, without spiritual
   capacity, but they had begun to live. And I believe this work of
   regeneration, when it is done effectually--and God the Spirit would not
   do it without doing it effectually--is done mysteriously, often
   suddenly, and it is done in divers manners; but still it hath always
   this mark about it--that the man although he may not understand how it
   is done, feels that something is done. The what, the how, he doth not
   know; but he knows that something is done; and he now begins to think
   thoughts he never thought before; he begins to feel as he never felt
   before; he is brought into a new state, there is a change wrought in
   him--as if a dead post standing in the street were on a sudden to find
   itself possessed of a soul, and did hear the sound of the passing
   carriages, and listen to the words of the foot-passengers; there is
   something quite new about it. The fact is, the man has got a spirit; he
   never had one before; he was nothing but a body and a soul; but now,
   God has breathed into him the third great principle, the new life, the
   Spirit, and he has become a spiritual man. Now, he is not only capable
   of mental exercise, but of spiritual exercise; as, having a soul
   before, he could repent, he could believe, as a mere mental exercise;
   he could think thoughts of God, and have some desires after him; but he
   could not have one spiritual thought, nor one spiritual wish or desire,
   for he had no powers that could educe these things; but now, in
   regeneration, he has got something given to him, and being given, you
   soon see its effects. The man begins to feel that he is a sinner; why
   did he not feel that before? Ah, my brethren, he could not, he was not
   in a state to feel; he was a dead sinner; and though he used to tell
   you, and tell God, by way of compliment, that he was a sinner, he did
   not know anything about it. He said he was a sinner; yes, but he talked
   about being a sinner just as the blind man talks about the stars that
   be has never seen, as he talks about the light, the existence of which
   he would not know unless he were told of it; but now it is a deep
   reality. You may laugh at him, ye who have not been regenerated; but
   now he has got something that really puts him beyond your laughter. He
   begins to feel the exceeding weight and evil of transgression; his
   heart trembles, his very flesh quivers--in some cases the whole frame
   is affected. The man is sick by day and night; his flesh creepeth on
   his bones for fear; he cannot eat, his appetite fails him. He cannot
   bear the sound of melody and mirth; all his animal spirits are dried
   up. He cannot rejoice; he is unhappy, he is miserable. downcast,
   distressed; in some cases, almost ready to go mad; though in the
   majority of cases it takes a lighter phase, and there are the gentle
   whispers of the Spirit; but even then, the pangs and pains caused by
   regeneration, while the new life discovers the sin and evil of the past
   condition of the man are things that are not to be well described or
   mentioned without tears. This is all the work of the Spirit.

   And having brought the soul thus far, the next thing the Holy Spirit
   doth is, to teach the soul that it is utterly incapable of saving
   itself. It knew that before, mayhap, if the man sat under a Gospel
   ministry; but he only knew it with the ear, and understood it with the
   mind. Now, it has become part of his very life; he feels it; it has
   entered into his soul, and he knows it to be true. Once he thought he
   would be good, and thought that would save him; the Holy Spirit just
   knocks the brains out of that thought. "Then," he says, "I will try
   ceremonies. and see whether I cannot gain merit so;" God the Holy
   Spirit shoots the arrow right through the heart of that thought, and it
   falls dead before him, and he cannot bear the sight of the carcase, so
   that, like Abraham said of Sarah, he exclaims, "Bury the dead out of my
   sight." Though once he loved it dearly, now he hates the sight thereof.
   He thought once that he could believe; he had an Arminian notion in his
   head, that he could believe when he liked, and repent when he liked.
   Now, God the Spirit has brought him in such a condition, that he says,
   "I can do nothing." He begins to discover his own death, now that he is
   made alive; he did not know anything about it before. He now finds that
   he has no hand of faith to lift, though the minister tells him to do
   it. He now discovers, when he is bidden to pray, that he would, but
   cannot pray. He now finds that he is powerless, and he dies in the hand
   of God like clay in the hand of the potter, and is made to cry out, "O
   Lord, my God, unless thou save me, I am damned to all eternity; for I
   cannot lift a finger in this matter until thou first of all givest me
   strength." And if you urge him to do anything, he longs to be doing,
   but he is so afraid that it should only be fleshly doings, and not the
   doings of the Spirit, that he meditates, and stops, and stays, until he
   groans and cries; and feeling that these groans and cries are the real
   work of the Spirit, and prove that he has spiritual life, he then
   begins in right earnest to look to Jesus Christ the Saviour. But mark,
   all these things are by the Spirit, and none of them can ever be
   produced in the soul of any man or woman, apart from the divine
   influence of God the Holy Ghost.

   This being done, the soul being now weaned from all confidence, and
   despairing and brought to its last standing place, yea, laid prostrate
   on the ground, the rope being about its neck, and the ashes and
   sackcloth on its head; God the Holy Ghost next applies the blood of
   Jesus to the soul, gives the soul the grace of faith whereby it lays
   hold of Jesus, and gives it an anointing of holy consolation and
   unction of assurance, whereby, casting itself wholly on the blood and
   righteousness of Jesus, it receiveth joy, knoweth itself to be saved,
   and rejoiceth in pardon. But mark, that is the work of the Spirit. Some
   preachers will tell their people, "Believe, only believe." Yes, it is
   right they should tell them so; but they should remember it is also
   right to tell them that even this must be the work of the Spirit; for
   though we say, "Only believe," that is the greatest only in the world;
   and what some men say is so easy is just what those who want to believe
   find to be the hardest thing in all the world. It is simple enough for
   a man that hath the Spirit in him to believe, when he hath the written
   Word before him and the witness of the Spirit in him; that is easy
   enough. But for the poor, tried sinner, who cannot see anything in the
   Word of God but thunder and threatening--for him to believe--ah my
   brethren, it is not such a little matter as some make it to be. It
   needs the fullness of the power of God's Spirit to bring any man to
   such faith as that.

   Well, when the sinner hath thus believed, then the Holy Spirit bringeth
   all the precious things to him. There is the blood of Jesus; that can
   never save my soul, unless God the Spirit takes that blood, and
   sprinkles it upon my conscience. There is the perfect spotless
   righteousness of Jesus; it is a robe that will fit me and adorn me from
   head to foot, but it is no use to me till I have put it on; and I
   cannot put it on myself; God the Holy Spirit must put the robe of
   Jesus' righteousness on me. There is the covenant of adoption, whereby
   God gives me the privileges of a son; but I cannot rejoice in my
   adoption until I receive the spirit of adoption whereby I may be able
   to cry, "Abba, Father." So, beloved, you see--I might enlarge, but my
   time fails me--you see that every point that is brought out in the
   experience of the new-born Christian, every point in that part of
   salvation which we may call its beginning in the soul, has to do with
   God the Holy Spirit. There is no step that can be taken without him,
   there is nothing which can be accomplished aright without him; yea,
   though ye had the best of means, the rightest of ceremonies, the most
   orthodox of truths, and though ye did exercise, your minds upon all
   these things, and though the blood of Jesus Christ were shed for you,
   and God himself had ordained you from before the foundations of the
   world to be saved, yet still there must be that one link always
   inserted in the golden chain of the plan of salvation; for without that
   it were all incomplete. You must be quickened by the Spirit; you must
   be called out of darkness into light; you must be made a new creature
   in Christ Jesus.

   Now, I wonder how many of you know anything about this. That is the
   practical part of it. Now my hearer, dost thou understand this?
   Perhaps, sir, thou art one exceeding wise, and thou turnest on thy heel
   with a sneer, and thou sayest "Supernaturalism in one of its phases;
   these Methodists are always talking about supernatural things." You are
   very wise, exceeding so, doubtless; but it seemeth to me that Nicodemus
   of old had gotten as far as you, and you have gotten no farther than
   he; for he asked "How could a man be born again when he is old?" And
   though every Sunday-school child has had a smile at the expense of
   Nicodemus's ignorance, you are not wiser. And yet you are a Rabbi, sir,
   and you would teach us, would you? And you would teach us about these
   things, and yet you sneer about supernaturalism. Well, the day may
   come--I pray it may come to you before the day of your death and your
   doom--when the Christ of the supernaturalists will be the only Christ
   for you; when you shall come into the floods of death, where you shall
   need something more than nature, then you will be crying for a work
   that is supernatural within your hearts; and it may be that then, when
   you first of all awake to know that your wisdom was but one of the
   methods of madness, you may perhaps have to cry in vain, having for
   your only answer, "I called, and ye refused; I stretched out my hands,
   and no man regarded; I also will mock at your calamity, and laugh when
   your fear cometh."

   I hear another of you say, "Well, sir, I know nothing of this work of
   God the Holy Spirit, in my heart; I am just as good as other people, I
   never make a profession of religion; it is very rarely that I go into a
   place of worship at all, but I am as good as the saints, any of them:
   look at some of them--very fine fellows certainly." Stop, now, religion
   is a thing between yourself and your Maker, and you have nothing to do
   with those very fine fellows you have spoken of. Suppose I make a
   confession that a large number of those who are called saints deserve a
   great deal more to be called sinners double-dyed, and then
   white-washed,--suppose I make a confession of that, what has that to do
   with you? Your religion must be for yourself, and it must be between
   you and your God. If all the world were hypocrites, that would not
   exonerate you before your God. When you came before the Master, if you
   were still at enmity to him, could you venture to plead such an excuse
   as this--"All the world was full of hypocrites?" "Well," he would say,
   "what had that to do with you? so much the more reason why you should
   have been a honest man. If you say the church was thus drifting away
   upon the quicksands, through the evil conduct and folly of the members
   thereof, so much the more reason why you should have helped to make it
   sound, if you thought you could have done so." Another cries, "Well, I
   do not see that I need it; I am as moral a man as I can be; I never
   break the Sabbath; I am one of the most punctillious of Christians; I
   always go to church twice a Sabbath; I hear a thoroughly evangelical
   minister, and you would not find fault with him." Or perhaps says
   another, "I go to a Baptist chapel, I am always found there, I am
   scrupulously correct in my conduct; I am a good father, a good husband;
   I do not know that any man can find fault with me in business." Well
   certainly that is very good, and if you will be so good to-morrow
   morning as to go into Saint Paul's and wash one of those statues till
   you make it alive, then you will be saved by your morality; but since
   you, even you, are dead in trespasses and sins, without the Spirit you
   may wash yourself never so clean, but you cannot wash life into you any
   more than those statues, by all your washing, could be made to walk, or
   think, or breathe. You must be quickened by the Holy Spirit, for you
   are dead in trespasses and sins.

   Yes, my comely maiden, thou that art everything excellent; thou that
   art not to be blamed in aught; thou that art affectionate, tender,
   kind, and dutiful; whose very life seems to be so pure, that all who
   see thee think thou seemest an angel; even thou, except thou be born
   again, canst not see the kingdom of God; the golden gate of heaven must
   grind upon its hinges with a doleful sound and shut thee out for ever,
   unless thou art the subject of a divine change, for this knows no
   exception. And, O ye vilest of the vile, ye who have wandered farthest
   from the paths of rectitude, "ye must be born again," ye must be
   quickened by a divine life; and it is comforting for you to recollect,
   that the very same power which can awaken the moral man, which can save
   the man of rectitude and honesty, is able to work in you, is able to
   change you; to turn the lion to a lamb, the raven to a dove.

   O my hearers, ask yourselves, are you the subjects of this change? And
   if you be, rejoice with joy unspeakable, for happy is that mother's
   child. and full of glory, that can say, "I am born of God;" blessed is
   that man: God and the holy angels call him blessed who hath received
   the quickening of the Spirit, and is born of God. For him there may be
   many troubles, but there is "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of
   glory" to counterbalance all his woe; for him there may be wars and
   fightings; but let him tarry, there are trumpets of victory, there are
   better wreaths than the laurels of conquerors, there is a crown of
   immortal glory, there is bliss unfading, there is acceptance in the
   breast of God for aye, and perpetual fellowship with Jehovah. But oh!
   if thou be not born again this night I can but tremble for thee, and
   lift my heart in prayer to God, and pray for thee, that he may now by
   his Divine Spirit make thee alive, give thee to know thy need of him,
   and then direct thee to the cross of Jesus. But if thou knowest thy
   need of a Saviour tonight, if thou art this night conscious of thy
   death in sin, hear me preach the gospel and I have done. The Lord Jesus
   Christ died for you. Dost thou know thyself to be guilty, not as the
   hypocrite pretendeth to know it, but dost thou know it consciously,
   sensitively, dost thou weep over it? Dost thou lament it? Dost thou
   feel that thou canst not save thyself? Art thou sick of all fleshly
   ways of saving? Canst thou say to-night, "Unless God shall put out the
   hand of his mercy, I know I deserve to be lost for ever, and I am?"
   Then, as the Lord my God liveth, before whom I stand, my Master bought
   you with his blood, and those whom he bought with blood he will have;
   from the fangs of the lion and the jaws of the bear will he pluck them.
   He will save thee, for thou art a part of his bloody purchase; he has
   taken thy sins upon his heal; he suffered in thy room and place, he has
   been punished for thee; thou shalt not die; "thy sins, which are many,
   are all forgiven," and I am the Master's glad herald to tell thee to
   night what his Word tells thee also, that thou mayest rejoice in the
   fullness of faith, for "Christ Jesus came into the world to save
   sinners," and "this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all
   acceptation"

   May the Lord now be pleased to add his blessing for Jesus' sake.
     __________________________________________________________________

                              The Great Reservoir

   A Sermon

   (No. 179)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, February 21, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of
   life."--Proverbs 4:23.

   WF I SHOULD VAINLY ATTEMPT to fashion my discourse after lofty models,
   I should this morning compare the human heart to the ancient city of
   Thebes, out of whose hundred gates multitudes of warriors were wont to
   march. As was the city, such were her armies, as was her inward
   strength, such were they who came forth of her. I might then urge the
   necessity of keeping the heart, because it is the metropolis of our
   manhood, the citadel and armory of our humanity. Let the chief fortress
   surrender to the enemy, and the occupation of the rest must be an easy
   task. Let the principal stronghold be possessed by evil, the whole land
   must be overrun thereby. Instead, however, of doing this, I shall
   attempt what possibly I may be able to perform, by a humble metaphor
   and a simple figure, which will be easily understood; I shall endeavor
   to set forth the wise man's doctrine, that our life issues from the
   heart, and thus I shall labor to show the absolute necessity of keeping
   the heart with all diligence.

   You have seen the great reservoirs provided by our water companies, in
   which the water which is to supply hundreds of streets and thousands of
   houses is kept. Now, the heart is just the reservoir of man, and our
   life is allowed to flow in its proper season. That life may flow
   through different pipes--the mouth, the hand, the eye; but still all
   the issues of hand, of eye, of lip, derive their source from the great
   fountain and central reservoir, the heart; and hence there is no
   difficulty in showing the great necessity that exists for keeping this
   reservoir, the heart, in a proper state and condition, since otherwise
   that which flows through the pipes must be touted and corrupt. May the
   Holy Spirit now direct our meditations.

   Mere moralists very often forget the heart, and deal exclusively with
   the lesser powers. Some of them say, "If a man's life be wrong, it is
   better to alter the principles upon which his conduct is modeled: we
   had better adopt another scheme of living; society must be re-modeled,
   so that man may have an opportunity for the display of virtues, and
   less temptation to indulge in vice." It is as if, when the reservoir
   was filled with poisonous or polluted fluid, some sage counsellor
   should propose that all the piping had better be taken up, and fresh
   pipes laid down, so that the water might run through fresh channels;
   but who does not perceive that it would be all in vain, if the
   fountain-head were polluted, however good the channels. So in vain the
   rules by which men hope to fashion their lives; in vain the regimen by
   which we seek to constrain ourselves to the semblance of goodness,
   unless the heart be right, the very best scheme of life shall fall to
   the ground, and fail to effect its design. Others say, "Well, if the
   life be wrong, it would be better to set the understanding right: you
   must inform man's judgment, educate him, teach him better, and when his
   head is well informed, then his life will be improved. Now,
   understanding is, if I may use such a figure, the stopcock which
   controls the emotions, lets them flow on, or stops them; and it is as
   if some very wise man, when a reservoir had been poisoned, proposed
   that there should be a new person employed to turn the water off or on,
   in hope that the whole difficulty would thus be obviated. If we
   followed his advice, if we found the wisest man in the world to have
   control of the fountain, Mr. Understanding would still be incapable of
   supplying us with healthy streams, until we had first of all purged the
   cistern whence they flowed. The Arminian divine, too, sometimes
   suggests another way of improving man's life. He deals with the will.
   He says, the will must first of all be conquered, and if the will be
   right, then every thing will be in order. Now, will is like the great
   engine which forces the water out of the fountain-head along the pipes,
   so that it is made to flow into our dwellings. The learned counsellor
   proposes that there should be a new steam-engine employed to force the
   water along the pipes. "If," says he, "we had the proper machinery for
   forcing the fluid, then all would be well." No, sir, if the stream be
   poisonous, you may have axles to turn on diamonds, and you may have a
   machine that is made of gold, and a force as potent as Omnipotence, but
   even then you have not accomplished your purpose until you have
   cleansed the polluted fountain, and purged the issues of life which
   flow therefrom. The wise man in our text seems to say, "Beware of
   misapplying your energies, be careful to begin in the right place." It
   is very necessary the understanding should be right; it is quite
   needful the will should have its proper predominance; it is very
   necessary that you should keep every part of man in a healthy
   condition; "but," says he, "if you want to promote true holiness, you
   must begin with the heart, for out of it are the issues of life; and
   when you have purged it, when you have made its waters pure and limpid,
   then shall the current flow and bless the inhabitants with clear water;
   but not till then." Here let us pause and ask the solemn and vital
   question, "Is my heart right in the sight of God?" For unless the inner
   man has been renewed by the grace of God, through the Holy Spirit, our
   heart is full of rottenness, filth, and abominations. And if so, here
   must all our cleansing begin, if it be real and satisfactory. Unrenewed
   men, I beseech you ponder the words of an ancient Christian which I
   here repeat in thine ear:--"It is no matter what is the sign, though an
   angel, that hangs without, if the devil and sin dwell therein. New
   trimmings upon an old garment will not make it new, only give it a new
   appearance; and truly it is no good husbandry to bestow a great deal of
   cost in mending up an old suit, that will soon drop to tatters and
   rags, when a little more might purchase a new one that is lasting. And
   is it not better to labor to get a new heart, that all thou dost may be
   accepted, and thou saved, than to lose all the pains thou takest in
   religion, and thyself also for want of it?"

   Now, ye who love the Lord, let me take you to the reservoir of your
   heart, and let, me urge upon you the great necessity of keeping the
   heart right, if you would have the stream of your life happy for
   yourselves and beneficial to others.

   I. First, keep the heart full. However pure the water may be in the
   central reservoir, it will not be possible for the company to provide
   us with an abundant supply of water, unless the reservoir itself be
   full. An empty fountain will most assuredly beget empty pipes; and let
   the machinery be never so accurate, let every thing else be well
   ordered, yet if that reservoir be dry, we may wait in vain for any of
   the water that we require. Now, you know many people--(you are sure to
   meet with them in your own society, and your own circle; for I know of
   no one so happy as to be without such acquaintances)--whose lives are
   just dry, good-for-nothing emptiness. They never accomplish anything;
   they have no mental force; they have no moral power; what they say,
   nobody thinks of noticing; what they do is scarcely ever imitated. We
   have known fathers whose moral force has been so despicable, that even
   their children have scarcely been able to imitate them. Though
   imitation was strong enough in them, yet have they unconsciously felt,
   even in their childhood, that their father was, after all, but a child
   like themselves, and had not grown to be a man. Do you not know many
   people, who if they were to espouse a cause, and it were entrusted to
   them, would most certainly pilot it to shipwreck. Failure would be the
   total result. You could not use them as clerks in your office, without
   feeling certain that your business would be nearly murdered. If you
   were to employ them to manage a concern for you, you would be sure they
   would manage to spend all the money, but could never produce a doit. If
   they were placed in comfortable circumstances for a few months, they
   would go on carelessly till all was gone. They are just the flats,
   preyed on by the sharpers in the world; they have no manly strength, no
   power at all. See these people in religion: it does not matter much
   what are their doctrinal sentiments, it is quite certain they will
   never affect the minds of others. Put them in the pulpit: they are the
   slaves of the deacons, or else the, are over-ridden by the church; they
   never have an opinion of their own, can not come out with a thing; they
   have not the heart to say, "Such a thing is, and I know it is." These
   men just live on, but as far as any utility to the world is concerned,
   they might almost as well never have been created, except it were to be
   fed upon by other people. Now, some say that this is the fault of men's
   heads: "Such a one," they say, "could not get on; he had a small head;
   it was clean impossible for him to prosper, his head was small, he
   could not do anything; he had not enough force." Now, that may be true;
   but I know what was truer still--he had got a small heart and that
   heart was empty. For, mark you, a man's force in the world, other
   things being equal, is just in the ratio of the force and strength of
   his heart. A full-hearted man is always a powerful man: if he be
   erroneous, then he is powerful for error; if the thing is in his heart,
   he is sure to make it notorious, even though it may be a downright
   falsehood. Let a man be never so ignorant, still if his heart be full
   of love to a cause, he becomes a powerful man for that object, because
   he has got heart-power, heart-force. A man may be deficient in many of
   the advantages of education, in many of those niceties which are so
   much looked upon in society; but once give him a good strong heart,
   that beats hard, and there is no mistake about his power. Let him have
   a heart that is right full up to the brim with an object, and that man
   will do the thing, or else he will die gloriously defeated, and will
   glory in his defeat. HEART IS POWER. It is the emptiness of men's
   hearts that makes them so feeble. Men do not feel what they are at.
   Now, the man in business that goes heart and soul into his business, is
   more likely to prosper than anybody else. That is the preacher we want,
   the man that has a full soul. Let him have a head--the more he knows
   the better; but, after all, give him a big heart; and when his heart
   beats, if his heart be full, it will, under God, either make the hearts
   of his congregation beat after him; or else make them conscious that he
   is laboring hard to compel them to follow. O! if we had more heart in
   our Master's service, how much more labor we could endure. You are a
   Sunday-school teacher, young man, and you are complaining that you can
   not get on in the Sunday-school. Sir, the service-pipe would give out
   plenty of water if the heart were full. Perhaps you do not love your
   work. O, strive to love your work more, and then when your heart is
   full, you will go on well enough. "O," saith the preacher, "I am weary
   of my work in preaching; I have little success; I find it a hard toil."
   The answer to that question is, "Your heart is not full of it, for if
   you loved preaching, you would breathe preaching, feed upon preaching,
   and find a compulsion upon you to follow preaching; and your heart
   being full of the thing, you would be happy in the employment. O for a
   heart that is full, and deep, and broad! Find the man that hath such a
   soul as that, and that is the man from whom the living waters shall
   flow, to make the world glad with their refreshing streams.

   Learn, then, the necessity of keeping the heart full; and let the
   necessity make you ask this question--"But how can I keep my heart
   full? How can my emotions be strong? How can I keep my desires burning
   and my zeal inflamed?" Christian! there is one text which will explain
   all this. "All my springs are in thee," said David. If thou hast all
   thy springs in God, thy heart will be full enough. If thou dost go to
   the foot of Calvary, there will thy heart be bathed in love and
   gratitude. If thou dost frequent the vale of retirement, and there talk
   with thy God, it is there that thy heart shall be full of calm resolve.
   If thou goest out with thy Master to the hill of Olivet, and dost with
   him look down upon a wicked Jerusalem, and weep over it with him, then
   will thy heart be full of love for never-dying souls. If thou dost
   continually draw thine impulse, thy life, the whole of thy being from
   the Holy Spirit, without whom thou canst do nothing; and if thou dost
   live in close communion with Christ, there will be no fear of thy
   having a dry heart. He who lives without prayer--he who lives with
   little prayer--he who seldom reads the Word--he who seldom looks up to
   heaven for a fresh influence from on high--he will be the man whose
   heart will become dry and barren; but he who calls in secret on his
   God--who spends much time in holy retirement--who delights to meditate
   on the words of the Most High--whose soul is given up to Christ--who
   delights in his fullness, rejoices in his all-sufficiency, prays for
   his second coming, and delights in the thought of his glorious
   advent--such a man, I say, must have an overflowing heart; and as his
   heart is, such will his life be. It will be a full life; it will be a
   life that will speak from the sepulcher, and wake the echoes of the
   future. "Keep thine heart with all diligence," and entreat the Holy
   Spirit to keep it full; for, otherwise, the issues of thy life will be
   feeble, shallow, and superficial; and thou mayest as well not have
   lived at all.

   2. Secondly, it would be of little use for our water companies to keep
   their reservoirs full, if they did not also keep them pure. I remember
   to have read a complaint in the newspaper of a certain provincial town,
   that a tradesman had been frequently supplied with fish from the water
   company, large eels having crept down the pipe, and sometimes creatures
   a little more loathsome. We have known such a thing as water companies
   supplying us with solids when they ought to have given us nothing but
   pure crystal. Now, no one likes that. The reservoir should be kept pure
   and clean; and unless the water comes from a pure spring, and is not
   impregnated with deleterious substances, however full the reservoir may
   be, the company will fail of satisfying or of benefiting its customers.
   Now it is essential for us to do with our hearts as the company must do
   with its reservoir. We must keep our hearts pure; for if the heart be
   not pure, the life can not be pure. It is quite impossible that it
   should be so. You see a man whose whole conversation is impure and
   unholy; when he speaks he lards his language with oaths; his mind is
   low and groveling; none but the things of unrighteousness are sweet to
   him, for he has no soul above the kennel and the dunghill. You meet
   with another man who understands enough to avoid violating the
   decencies of life; but still, at the same time he likes filthiness; any
   low joke, anything that will in some way stir unholy thoughts is just
   the thing that he desires. For the ways of God he has no relish; in
   God's house he finds no pleasure, in his Word no delight. What is the
   cause of this? Say some, it is because of his family
   connections--because of the situation in which he stands--because of
   his early education, and all that. No, no; the simple answer to that is
   the answer we gave to the other inquiry; the heart is not right; for,
   if the heart were pure, the life would be pure too. The unclean stream
   betrays the fountain. A valuable book of German parables, by old
   Christian Scriver, contains the following homely metaphor:--"A drink
   was brought to Gotthold, which tasted of the vessel in which it had
   been contained; and this led him to observe. We have here an emblem of
   our thoughts, words, and works. Our heart is defiled by sin, and hence
   a taint if sinfulness cleaves unfortunately to everything we take in
   hand; and although, from the force of habit, this may be imperceptible
   to us, it does not escape the eye of the omniscient, holy, and
   righteous God." Whence come our carnality, covetuousness, pride, sloth
   and unbelief? Are they not all to be traced to the corruption of our
   hearts? When the hands of a clock move in an irregular manner, and when
   the bell strikes the wrong hour, be assured there is something wrong
   within. O how needful that the main-spring of our motives be in proper
   order, and the wheels in a right condition.

   Ah! Christian keep thy heart pure. Thou sayest, "How can I do this?"
   Well, there was of old a stream of Marah, to which the thirsty pilgrims
   in the desert came to drink; and when they came to taste of it, it was
   so brackish that though their tongues were like torches, and the roofs
   of their mouths were parched with heat, yet they could not drink of
   that bitter water. Do you remember the remedy which Moses prescribed?
   It is the remedy which we prescribe to you this morning. He took a
   certain tree, and he cast it into the waters, and they became sweet and
   clear. Your heart is by nature like Marah's water, bitter and impure.
   There is a certain tree, you know its name, that tree on which the
   Saviour hung, the cross. Take that tree, put it into your heart, and
   though it were even more impure than it is, that sweet cross, applied
   by the Holy Spirit, would soon transform it into its own nature, and
   make it pure. Christ Jesus in the heart is the sweet purification. He
   is made unto us sanctification. Elijah cast salt into the waters; but
   we must cast the blood of Jesus there. Once let us know and love Jesus,
   once let his cross become the object of our adoration and the theme of
   our delight, the heart will beam its cleansing, and the life will
   become pure also. Oh! that we all did learn the sacred lesson of fixing
   the cross in the heart! Christian man! love thy Saviour more; cry to
   the Holy Spirit that thou mayest have more affection for Jesus; and
   then, how ever gainful may be thy sin, thou wilt say with the poet,

   "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."

   The cross in the heart is the purifier of the soul; it purges and it
   cleanses the chambers of the mind. Christian! keep thy heart pure, "for
   out of it are the issues of life."

   3. In the third place, there is one thing to which our water companies
   need never pay much attention; that is to say, if their water be pure,
   and the reservoir be full, they need not care to keep it peaceable and
   quiet, for let it be stirred to a storm, we should receive our water in
   the same condition as usual. It is not so, however, with the heart.
   Unless the heart be kept peaceable, the life will not be happy. If calm
   doth not reign over that inner lake within the soul which feeds the
   rivers of our life, the rivers themselves will always be in storm. Our
   outward acts will always tell that they were born in tempests, by
   rolling in tempests themselves. Let us just understand this, first,
   with regard to ourselves. We all desire to lead a joyous life; the
   bright eye and the elastic foot are things which we each of us desire;
   to carry about a contented mind is that to which most men are
   continually aspiring. Let us all remember, that the only way to keep
   our life peaceful and happy is to keep the heart at rest; for come
   poverty, come wealth, come honor, come shame, come plenty, or come
   scarcity, if the heart be quiet there will be happiness anywhere. But
   whatever the sunshine and the brightness, if the heart be troubled the
   whole life must be troubled too. There is a sweet story told in one of
   the German martyrologies well worth both my telling and your
   remembering. A holy martyr who had been kept for a long time in prison,
   and had there exhibited, to the wonderment of all who saw him, the
   strongest constancy and patience, was at last, upon the day of
   execution, brought out, and tied to the stake preparatory to the
   lighting of the fire. While in this position he craved permission to
   speak once more to the Judge, who, according to the Swiss custom, was
   required to be also present at the execution. After repeatedly
   refusing, the judge at last came forward, when the peasant addressed
   him thus: You have this day condemned me to death. Now, I freely admit
   that I am a poor sinner, but positively deny that I am a heretic,
   because from my heart I believe and confess all that is contained in
   the Apostles' Creed (which he thereupon repeated from beginning to
   end). Now, then, sir, he proceeded to say, I have but one last request
   to make, which is, that you will approach and place your hand, first
   upon my breast and then upon your own, and afterwards frankly and
   truthfully declare, before this assembled multitude, which of the two,
   mine or yours, is beating most violently with fear and anxiety. For my
   part, I quit the world with alacrity and joy, to go and be with Christ,
   in whom I have always believed; what your feelings are at this moment
   is best known to yourself. The judge could make no answer, and
   commanded them instantly to light the pile. It was evident, however,
   from his looks, that he was more afraid than the martyr."

   Now, keep your heart right. Do not let it smite you. The Holy Spirit
   says of David, "David's heart smote him." The smiting of the heart is
   more painful to a good man than the rough blows of the fist. It is a
   blow that can be felt; it is iron that enters into the soul. Keep your
   heart in good temper. Do not let that get fighting with you. Seek that
   the peace of God which passeth all understanding, may keep your heart
   and mind through Christ Jesus. Bend your knee at night, and with a full
   confession of sin, express your faith in Christ, then you may "dread
   the grave as little as your bed." Rise in the morning and give your
   heart to God, and put the sweet angels of perfect love and holy faith
   therein, and you may go into the world, and were it full of lions and
   of tigers you would no more need to dread it than Daniel when he was
   cast into the lion's den. Keep the heart peaceable and your life will
   be happy.

   Remember, in the second place, that it is just the same with regard to
   other men. I should hope we all wish to lead quiet lives, and as much
   as lieth in us to live peaceably with all men. There is a particular
   breed of men--I do not know where they come from, but they are mixed up
   now with the English race and to be met with here and there--men who
   seem to be born for no other reason whatever but to fight--always
   quarreling, and never pleased. They say that all Englishmen are a
   little that way--that we are never happy unless we have something to
   grumble at, and that the worst thing that ever could be done with us
   would be to give us some entertainment at which we could not grumble,
   because we should be mortally offended, because we had not the
   opportunity of displaying our English propensities. I do not know
   whether that is true of all of us, but it is of some. You can not sit
   with them in a room but they introduce a topic upon which you are quite
   certain to disagree with them. You could not walk with them half a mile
   along the public streets but they would be sure to make an observation
   against every body and every thing they saw. They talk about ministers:
   one man's doctrine is too high, another's is too low; one man they
   think is a great deal too effeminate and precise, another they say is
   so vulgar they would not hear him at all. They say of another man that
   they do not think he attends to visiting his people; of another, that
   he visits so much that he never prepares for the pulpit. No one can be
   right for them.

   Why is this? Whence arises this continual snarling? The heart must
   again supply the answer, they are morose and sullen in the inward
   parts, and hence their speech betrayeth them. They have not had their
   hearts brought to feel that God hath made of one blood all nations that
   dwell upon the face of the earth, or if they have felt that, they have
   never been brought to spell in their hearts--"By this shall all men
   know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another." Whichever may
   have been put there of the other ten, the eleventh commandment was
   never written there. "A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love
   one another." That they forgot. Oh! dear Christian people, seek to have
   your hearts full of love, and if you have had little hearts till now
   that could not hold love enough for more than your own denomination,
   get your hearts enlarged, so that you may have enough to send out
   service-pipes to all God's people throughout the habitable globe; so
   that whenever you meet a man who is a true-born heir of heaven, he has
   nothing to do but to turn to the tap, and out of your loving heart will
   begin to flow issues of true, fervent, unconstrained, willing, living
   love. Keep thine heart peaceable, that thy life may be so; for out of
   the heart are the issues of life.

   How is this to be done? We reply again, we must ask the Holy Spirit to
   pacify the heart. No voice but that which on Galilee lake said to the
   storm "Be still," can ever lay the troubled waters of a stormy heart.
   No strength but Omnipotence can still the tempest of human nature. Cry
   out mightily unto him. He still sleeps in the vessel with his church.
   Ask him to awake, lest your piety should perish in the waters of
   contention. Cry unto him that he may give your heart peace and
   happiness. Then shall your life be peaceful; spend ye it where ye may,
   in trouble or in joy.

   4. A little further. When the water-works company have gathered an
   abundance of water in the reservoir, there is one thing they must
   always attend to, and that is, they must take care they do not attempt
   too much, or otherwise they will fail. Suppose they lay on a great main
   pipe in one place to serve one city, and another main pipe to serve
   another, and the supply which was intended to fill one channel is
   diverted into a score of streams, what would be the result? Why nothing
   would be done well, but everyone would have cause to complain. Now,
   man's heart is after all so little, that there is only one great
   direction in which its living water can ever flow; and my fourth piece
   of advice to you from this text is, Keep your heart undivided. Suppose
   you see a lake, and there are twenty or thirty streamlets running from
   it: why, there will not be one strong river in the whole country; there
   will be a number of little brooks which will be dried up in the summer,
   and will be temporary torrents in the winter. They will every one of
   them be useless for any great purposes, because there is not water
   enough in the lake to feed more than one great stream. Now, a man's
   heart has only enough life in it to pursue one object fully. Ye must
   not give half your love to Christ, and the other half to the world. No
   man can serve God and mammon because there is not enough life in the
   heart to serve the two. Alas! many people try this, and they fail both
   ways. I have known a man who has tried to let some of his heart run
   into the world, and another part he allowed to drip into the church,
   and the effect has been this: when he came into the church he was
   suspected of hypocrisy. "Why," they said, "if he were truly with us,
   could he have done yesterday what he did, and then come and profess so
   much to-day?" The church looks upon him as a suspicious one: or if he
   deceive them they feel he is not of much use to them, because they have
   not got all his heart. What is the effect of his conduct in the world?
   Why, his religion is a fetter to him there. The world will not have
   him, and the church will not have him; he wants to go between the two,
   and both despise him. I never saw anybody try to walk on both sides of
   the street but a drunken man: he tried it, and it was very awkward work
   indeed; but I have seen many people in a moral point of view try to
   walk on both sides of the street, and I thought there was some kind of
   intoxication in them, or else they would have given it up as a very
   foolish thing. Now, if I thought this world and the pleasures thereof
   worth my seeking, I would just seek them and go after them, and I would
   not pretend to be religious; but if Christ be Christ, and if God be
   God, let us give our whole hearts to him, and not go shares with the
   world. Many a church member manages to walk on both sides of the street
   in the following manner: His sun is very low indeed--it has not much
   light, not much heat, and is come almost to its setting. Now sinking
   suns cast long shadows, and this man stands on the world's side of the
   street, and casts a long shadow right across the road, to the opposite
   side of the wall just across the pavement. Ay, it is all we get with
   many of you. You come and you take the sacramental bread and wine; you
   are capsized; you join the church; and what we get is just your shadow;
   there is your substance on the other side of the street, after all.
   What is the good of the empty chrysalis of a man? And yet many of our
   church members are little better. They just do as the snake does that
   leaves its slough behind. They give us their slough, their skin, the
   chrysalis case in which life once was, and then they go themselves
   hither and thither after their own wanton wills; they give us the
   outward, and then give the world the inward. O how foolish this,
   Christian! Thy master gave himself wholly for thee; give thyself
   unreservedly to him. Keep not back part of the price. Make a full
   surrender of every motion of thy heart; labor to have but one object,
   and one aim. And for this purpose give God the keeping of thine heart.
   Cry out for more of the divine influences of the Holy Spirit, that so
   when thy soul is preserved and protected by him, it may be directed
   into one channel, and one only, that thy life may run deep and pure,
   and clear and peaceful; its only banks being God's will, its only
   channel the love of Christ and a desire to please him. Thus wrote
   Spencer in days long gone by: "Indeed, by nature, man's heart is a very
   divided, broken thing, scattered and parceled out, a piece to this
   creature, and a piece to that lust. One while this vanity hires him (as
   Leah did Jacob of Rachel), anon when he hath done some drudgery for
   that, he lets out himself to another: thus divided is man and his
   affections. Now the elect, whom God hath decreed to be vessels of
   honor, consecrated for his holy use and service, he throws into the
   fire of his word, that being there softened and melted, he may by his
   transforming Spirit cast them anew, as it were, into a holy oneness; so
   that he who before was divided from God, and lost among the creatures,
   and his lusts, that shared him among them, now, his heart is gathered
   into God from them all; it looks with a single eye on God, and acts for
   him in all that he doth: if therefore thou wouldest know whether thy
   heart be sincere, inquire whether it be thus made anew."

   5. Now, my last point is rather a strange one perhaps. Once upon a
   time, when one of our kings came back from a captivity, old historians
   tell us that there were fountains in Cheapside that did run with wine.
   So bounteous was the king, and so glad the people, that instead of
   water, they made wine flow free to everybody. There is a way of making
   our life so rich, so full, so blessed to our fellow men, that the
   metaphor may be applicable to us, and men may say, that our life flows
   with wine when other men's lives flow with water. Ye have known some
   such men. There was a Howard. John Howard's life was not like our poor
   common lives; he was so benevolent, his sympathy with the race so
   self-denying, that the streams of his life were like generous wine. You
   have known another, an eminent saint, one who lived very near to Jesus:
   when you talked yourself, you felt your conversation was poor watery
   stuff; but when he talked to you, there was an unction and a savor
   about his words, a solidity, and a strength about his utterances, which
   you could appreciate, though you could not attain unto it. You have
   sometimes said, "I wish my words were as full, as sweet, as mellow, and
   as unctuous as the words of such an one! Oh! I wish my actions were
   just as rich, had as deep a color, and as pure a taste as the acts of
   so-and-so. All I can do seems but little and empty when compared with
   his high attainments. Oh, that I could do more! Oh, that I could send
   streams of pure gold into every house, instead of my poor dross," Well,
   Christian, this should teach thee to keep thine heart full of rich
   things. Never, never neglect the Word of God; that will make thy heart
   rich with precept, rich with understanding; and then thy conversation,
   when it flows from thy mouth, will be like thine heart, rich, unctuous,
   and savory. Make thy heart full of rich, generous love, and then the
   stream that flows from thy hand will be just as rich and generous as
   thine heart. Above all, get Jesus to live in thine heart, and then out
   of thy belly shall flow rivers of living water, more rich, more
   satisfying than the water of the well of Sychar of which Jacob drank.
   Oh! go, Christians, to the great mine of riches, and cry unto the Holy
   Spirit to make thy heart rich unto salvation. So shall thy life and
   conversation be a boon to thy fellows; and when they see thee, thy face
   shall be as the angel of God. Thou shalt wash thy feet in butter and
   thy steps in oil; they that sit in the gate shall rise up when they see
   thee, and men shall do thee reverence.

   But one single sentence, and we have done. Some of your hearts are not
   worth keeping. The sooner you get rid of them the better. They are
   hearts of stone. Do you feel today that you have a stony heart? Go
   home, and I pray the Lord hear my desire that thy polluted heart may be
   removed. Cry unto God and say, "Take away my heart of stone, and give
   me a heart of flesh;" for a stony heart is an impure heart, a divided
   heart, an unpeaceful heart. It is a heart that is poor and
   poverty-stricken, a heart that is void of all goodness, and thou canst
   neither bless thyself nor others, if thy heart be such. O Lord Jesus!
   wilt thou be pleased this day to renew many hearts? Wilt thou break the
   rock in pieces, and put flesh instead of stone, and thou shalt have the
   glory, world without end!
     __________________________________________________________________

                             How To Keep the Heart

   A Sermon

   (No. 180)

   Delivered on Sabbath Evening, February 21, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

   "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your
   hearts and minds, through Christ Jesus."--Philippians 4:7.

   IT IS REMARKABLE, that when we find an exhortation given to God's
   people in one part of the Holy Scripture, we almost invariably find the
   very thing which they are exhorted to do guaranteed to them, and
   provided for them, in some other part of the same blessed volume. This
   morning, my text was, "Keep the heart with all diligence, for out of it
   are the issues of life." Now, this evening we have the promise upon
   which we must rest, if we desire to fulfill the precept:--"The peace of
   God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds,
   through Christ Jesus."

   This evening we shall use another figure, distinct from the one used in
   the morning, of the reservoir. We shall use the figure of a fortress,
   which is to be kept. And the promise saith that it shall be kept--kept
   by "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, through Christ
   Jesus."

   Inasmuch as the heart is the most important part of man--for out of it
   are the issues of life--it would be natural to expect that Satan, when
   he intended to do mischief to manhood, would be sure to make his
   strongest and most perpetual attacks upon the heart. What we might have
   guessed in wisdom, is certainly true in experience; for although Satan
   will tempt and try us in every way, though every gate of the town of
   Mansoul may be battered, though, against every part of the walls
   thereof he will be sure to bring out his great guns, yet the place
   against which he levels his deadliest malice, and his most furious
   strength, is the heart. Into the heart, already of itself evil enough,
   he thrusts the seeds of every evil thing, and doth his utmost to make
   it a den of unclean birds, a garden of poisonous trees, a river flowing
   with destructive water. Hence, again, arises the second necessity that
   we should be doubly cautious in keeping the heart with all diligence;
   for if, on the one hand, it be the most important, and, on the other
   hand, Satan, knowing this, makes his most furious and determined
   attacks against it, then, with double force the exhortation comes,
   "Keep thy heart with all diligence." And the promise also becomes
   doubly sweet, from the very fact of the double danger--the promise
   which says, "The peace of God shall keep your hearts and minds through
   Christ Jesus our Lord."

   We shall notice, first of all, that which keeps the heart and mind.
   Secondly, we shall note how to obtain it--for we are to understand this
   promise as connected with certain precepts which come before it. And
   then, when we have had this, we shall try to show how it is true that
   the peace of God does keep the mind free from the attacks of Satan, or
   delivers it from those attacks when they are made.

   I. First, then, beloved, the preservation which God in this promise
   confers upon the saints, is "THE PEACE OF GOD WHICH PASSETH ALL
   UNDERSTANDING," to keep us through Jesus Christ. It is called PEACE;
   and we are to understand this in a double sense. There is a peace of
   God which exists between the child of God, and God his Judge, a peace
   which may be truly said to pass all understanding. Jesus Christ has
   offered so all-sufficient a satisfaction for all the claims of injured
   justice, that now God hath no fault to find with his children. "He
   seeth no sin in Jacob, nor iniquity in Israel;" nor is he angry with
   them on account of their sins--a peace unbroken, and unspeakable being
   established by the atonement which Christ hath made on their behalf.

   Hence flows a peace experienced in the conscience, which is the second
   part of this peace of God: for, when the conscience sees that God is
   satisfied, and is no longer at war with it, then it also becomes
   satisfied with man; and conscience, which was wont to be a great
   disturber of the peace of the heart, now gives its verdict of
   acquittal, and the heart sleeps in the arms of conscience, finds a
   quiet resting-place there. Against the child of God conscience brings
   no accusation, or if it brings the accusation, it is but a gentle
   one--a gentle chiding of a loving friend, who hints that we have done
   amiss; and that we had better change, but doth not afterward thunder in
   our ears the threat of a penalty. Conscience knows full well that peace
   is made betwixt the soul and God, and, therefore, it does not hint that
   there is anything else but joy and peace to be looked forward to by the
   believer. Do we understand anything of this double peace? Let us pause
   here, and ask ourselves a question upon this doctrinal part of the
   matter--Let us make it an experimental question with our own
   hearts:--"Come, my soul, art thou at peace with God? Hast thou seen thy
   pardon signed and sealed with the Redeemer's blood? Come, answer this,
   my heart; hast thou cast thy sins upon the head of Christ, and hast
   thou seen them all washed away in the crimson streams of blood? Canst
   thou feel that now there is a lasting peace between thyself and God, so
   that, come what may, God shall not be angry with thee--shall not
   condemn thee shall not consume thee in his wrath, nor crush thee in his
   hot displeasure? If it be so, then, my heart, thou canst scarcely need
   to stop and ask the second question--Is my conscience at peace? For, if
   my heart condemn me not, God is greater than my heart, and doth know
   all things; if my conscience bears witness with me, that I am a
   partaker of the precious grace of salvation, then happy am I! I am one
   of those to whom God hath given the peace which passeth all
   understanding. Now, why is this called "the peace of God?" We suppose
   it is because it comes from God--because it was planned by God--because
   God gave his Son to make the peace--because God gives his Spirit to
   give the peace in the conscience--because, indeed, it is God himself in
   the soul, reconciled to man, whose is the peace. And while it is true
   that this man shall have the peace--even the Man-Christ, yet we know it
   is because he was the God-Christ that he was our peace. And hence we
   may clearly perceive how Godhead is mixed up with the peace which we
   enjoy with our Maker, and with our conscience.

   Then we are told that it is "the peace of God which passeth all
   understanding." What does he mean by this? He means such a peace, that
   the understanding can never understand it, can never attain to it. The
   understanding of mere carnal man can never comprehend this peace. He
   who tries with a philosophic look to discover the secret of the
   Christian's peace, finds himself in a maze. "I know not how it is, nor
   why it is," saith he; "I see these men hunted through the earth; I turn
   the pages of history, and I find them hunted to their graves. They
   wandered about in sheepskins and goat skins, destitute, afflicted, and
   tormented; yet, I also see upon the Christian's brow a calm serenity. I
   can not understand this; I do not know what it is. I know that I
   myself, even in my merriest moments, am disturbed; that when my
   enjoyments run the highest, still there are waves of doubt and fear
   across my mind. Then why is this? How is it that the Christian can
   attain a rest so calm, so peaceful, and so quiet?" Understanding can
   never get to that peace which the Christian hath attained. The
   philosopher may teach us much; he can never give us rules whereby to
   reach the peace that Christians have in their conscience. Diogenes may
   tell us to do without everything, and may live in his tub, and then
   think himself happier than Alexander, and that he enjoys peace; but we
   look upon the poor creature after all, and though we may be astonished
   at his courage, yet we are obliged to despise his folly. We do not
   believe that even when he had dispensed with everything, he possessed a
   quiet of mind, a total and entire peace, such as the true believer can
   enjoy. We find the greatest philosophers of old laying down maxims for
   life, which they thought would certainly promote happiness. We find
   that they were not always able to practise them themselves, and many of
   their disciples, when they labored hard to put them in execution, found
   themselves encumbered with impossible rules to accomplish impossible
   objects. But the Christian man does with faith what a man can never do
   himself. While the poor understanding is climbing up the craigs, faith
   stands on the summit; while the poor understanding is getting into a
   calm atmosphere, faith flies aloft and mounts higher than the storm,
   and then looks down on the valley, and smiles while the tempest blows
   beneath its feet. Faith goes further than understanding, and the peace
   which the Christian enjoys is one which the worldling can not
   comprehend, and can not himself attain. "The peace of God, which
   passeth all understanding."

   And this peace is said to "keep the mind through Christ Jesus." Without
   Christ Jesus this peace would not exist; without Christ Jesus this
   peace, even where it has existed, can not be maintained. Daily visits
   from the Saviour, continual lookings by the eye of faith to him who
   bled upon the cross, continual drawings from his ever-flowing fountain,
   make this peace broad, and long, and enduring. But take Jesus Christ,
   the channel of our peace away, and it fades and dies, and droops, and
   comes to naught. A Christian hath no peace with God except through the
   atonement of his Lord Jesus Christ.

   I have thus gone over what some will call the dry doctrinal part of the
   subject--"The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep
   your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." I can not show you what
   that peace is, if you have never felt it; but yet I think I could tell
   you where to look for it, for I have sometimes seen it. I have seen the
   Christian man in the depths of poverty, when he lived from hand to
   mouth, and scarcely knew where he should find the next meal, still with
   his mind unruffled, calm, and quiet. If he had been as rich as an
   Indian prince, yet could he not have had less care; if he had been told
   that his bread should always come to his door, and the stream which ran
   hard by should never dry--if he had been quite sure that ravens would
   bring him bread and meat in the morning, and again in the evening, he
   would not have been one whit more calm. There is his neighbor on the
   other side of the street not half so poor, but wearied from morning to
   night, working his fingers to the bone, bringing himself to the grave
   with anxiety; but this poor good man, after having industriously
   labored, though he found he had gained little with all his toil, yet
   hath sanctified his little by prayer, and hath thanked his Father for
   what he had; and though he doth not know whether he will have more,
   still he trusted in God, and declared that his faith should not fail
   him, though providence should run to a lower ebb than he had ever seen.
   There is "the peace of God which passeth all understanding." I have
   seen that peace, too, in the case of those who have lost their friends.
   There is a widow--her much-loved husband lies in the coffin; she is
   soon to part with him. Parted with him she has before: but now, of his
   poor clay-cold corpse--even of that she has to be bereaved. She looks
   upon it for the last time, and her heart is heavy. For herself and her
   children, she thinks how they shall be provided for. That broad tree
   that once sheltered them from the sunbeam has been cut down. Now, she
   thinks there is a broad heaven above her head, and her Maker is her
   husband; the fatherless children are left with God for their father,
   and the widow is trusting in him. With tears in her eyes she still
   looks up, and she says, "Lord, thou hast given and thou hast taken
   away, blessed be thy name." Her husband is carried to the tomb; she
   doth not smile, but though she weeps, there is a calm composure on her
   brow, and she tells you she would not have it otherwise, even if she
   could, for Jehovah's will is right. There, again, is "the peace of God
   that passeth all understanding." Picture another man. There is Martin
   Luther standing up in the midst of the Diet of Worms; there are the
   kings and the princes, and there are the bloodhounds of Rome with their
   tongues thirsting for his blood--there is Martin rising in the morning
   as comfortable as possible, and he goes to the Diet, and delivers
   himself of the truth, solemnly declares that the things which he has
   spoken are the things which he believes, and God helping him he will
   stand by them till the last. There is his life in his hands; they have
   him entirely in their power. The smell of John Huss's corpse has not
   yet passed away, and he recollects that princes before this have
   violated their words; but there he stands, calm and quiet; he fears no
   man, for he has naught to fear; "the peace of God which passeth all
   understanding" keeps his heart and mind through Jesus Christ. There is
   an other scene: there is John Bradford in Newgate. He is to be burned
   the next morning in Smithfield, and he swings himself on the bedpost in
   very glee, and delights, for to-morrow is his wedding-day; and he says
   to another, "Fine shining we shall make to-morrow, when the flame is
   kindled." And he smiles and laughs, and enjoys the very thought that he
   is about to wear the blood-red crown of martyrdom. Is Bradford mad? Ah,
   no; but he has got the peace of God that passeth all understanding. But
   perhaps the most beautiful, as well as the most common illustration of
   this sweet peace, is the dying bed of the believer. Oh, brethren, you
   have seen this sometimes that calm, quiet serenity; you have said,
   Lord, let us die with him. It has been so good to be in that solitary
   chamber where all was quiet and so still, all the world shut out, and
   heaven shut in, and the poor heart nearing its God, and far away from
   all its past burdens and griefs--now nearing the portals of eternal
   bliss. And ye have said, "How is this? Is not death a black and grim
   thing? Are not the terrors of the grave things which make the strong
   man tremble?" Oh yes, they are; but, then, this one has the "peace of
   God which passeth all understanding." However, if you want to know
   about this, you must be a child of God, and possess it yourselves; and
   when you have once felt it, when you can stand calm amid the
   bewildering cry, confident of victory, when you can sing in the midst
   of the storm, when you can smile when surrounded by adversity, and can
   trust your God, be your way never so rough, ne'er so stormy; when you
   can always repose confidence in the wisdom and goodness of Jehovah,
   then it is you will have "the peace of God which passeth all
   understanding."

   II. Thus we have discussed the first point, what is this peace? Now the
   second thing was, HOW IS THIS PEACE TO BE OBTAINED? You will note that
   although this is a promise, it hath precepts preceding, and it is only
   by the practice of the precepts that we can get the promise. Turn now
   to the fourth verse, and you will see the first rule and regulation for
   getting peace. Christian, would you enjoy "the peace of God which
   passeth all understanding?"

   The first thing you have to do is to "rejoice evermore." The man who
   never rejoices, but who is always sorrowing, and groaning, and crying,
   who forgets his God, who forgets the fullness of Jehovah, and is always
   murmuring concerning the trials of the road and the infirmities of the
   flesh, that man will lose the prospect of enjoying a peace that passeth
   all understanding. Cultivate, my friends, a cheerful disposition;
   endeavor, as much as lieth in you, always to bear a smile about with
   you; recollect that this is as much a command of God as that one which
   says, "Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart." "Rejoice
   evermore," is one of Godly commands; and it is your duty, as well as
   your privilege, to try and practice it. Not to rejoice, remember, is a
   sin. To rejoice is a duty, and such a duty that the richest fruits and
   the best rewards are appended to it. Rejoice always, and then the peace
   of God shall keep your hearts and minds. Many of us, by giving way to
   disastrous doubts, spoil our peace. It is as I once remember to have
   heard a woman say, when I was passing down a lane; a child stood crying
   at the door, and I heard her calling out, "Ah, you are crying for
   nothing; I will give you something to cry for." Brethren, it is often
   so with God's children. They get crying for nothing. They have a
   miserable disposition, or a turn of mind always making miseries for
   themselves, and thus they have something to cry for. Their peace is
   disturbed, some sad trouble comes, God hides his face, and then they
   lose their peace. But keep on singing even when the sun does not keep
   on shining; keep a song for all weathers; get a joy that will stand
   clouds and storms; and then, when you know how always to rejoice, you
   shall have this peace.

   The next precept is, "Let your moderation be known unto all men." If
   you would have peace of mind, be moderate. Merchant, you can not push
   that speculation too far, and then have peace of mind. Young man, you
   can not be so fast in trying to rise in the world, and yet have the
   peace of God which passeth all understanding. You must be moderate, and
   when you have got a moderation in your desires, then you shall have
   peace. Sir, you with the red cheek, you must be moderate in your anger.
   You must not be quite so fast in flying into a passion with your
   fellows, and not quite so long in getting cool again; because the angry
   man can not have peace in his conscience. Be moderate in that; let your
   vengeance stay itself; for if you give way to wrath, if you are angry,
   "be ye angry and sin not." Be moderate in this; be moderate in all
   things which thou undertakes, Christian; moderate in your expectations.
   Blessed is he who expects little, for he shall have but little
   disappointment. Remember never to set thy desires very high. He that
   has aspirations to the moon, will be disappointed if he only reaches
   half as high; whereas, if he had aspired lower, he would be agreeably
   disappointed when he found himself mounting higher than he first
   expected. Keep moderation, whatsoever you do, in all things, but in
   your desires after God; and so shall you obey the second precept, and
   get the glimpse of this promise, "The peace of God shall keep your
   hearts and minds through Jesus Christ."

   The last precept that you have to obey is, "be careful for nothing, but
   in every thing by prayer and supplication make known your requests unto
   God." You can not have peace unless you turn your troubles up. You have
   no place in which to pour your troubles except the ear of God. If you
   tell them to your friends, you but put your troubles out a moment, and
   they will return again. If you tell them to God, you put your troubles
   into the grave; they will never rise again when you have committed them
   to him. If you roll your burden anywhere else it will roll back again,
   just like the stone of Sysiphus; but just roll your burden unto God,
   and you have rolled it into a great deep, out of which it will never by
   any possibility rise. Cast your troubles where you have cast your sins;
   you have cast your sins into the depth of the sea, there cast your
   troubles also. Never keep a trouble half an hour on your own mind
   before you tell it to God. As soon as the trouble comes, quick, the
   first thing, tell it to your father. Remember, that the longer you take
   telling your trouble to God, the more your peace will be impaired. The
   longer the frost lasts, the more likely the ponds will be frozen. Your
   frost will last till you go to the sun; and when you go to God - the
   sun, then your frost will soon become a thaw, and your troubles will
   melt away. But do not be long, because the longer you are in waiting,
   the longer will your trouble be in thawing afterwards. Wait a long time
   till your troubles gets frozen thick and firm, and it will take many a
   day of prayer to get your trouble thawed again. Away to the throne as
   quick as ever you can. Do as the child did, when he ran and told his
   mother as soon as his little trouble happened to him; run and tell your
   Father the first moment you are in affliction. Do this in every thing,
   in every little thing--"in every thing by prayer and supplication make
   known your wants unto God." Take your husband's head-ache, take your
   children's sicknesses, take all things, little family troubles as well
   as great commercial trials--take them all to God; pour them all out at
   once. And so by an obedient practice of this command in every thing
   making known your wants unto God, you shall preserve that peace "which
   shall keep your heart and mind through Jesus Christ."

   These, then, are the precepts. May God the Holy Spirit enable us to
   obey them, and we shall then have the continual peace of God.

   III. Now, the third thing, was to show HOW THE PEACE, which I attempted
   to describe in the first place, KEEPS THE HEART. You will clearly see
   how this peace will keep the heart full. That man who has continued
   peace with God, will not have an empty heart. He feels that God has
   done so much for him that he must love his God. The eternal basis of
   his peace lays in divine election--the solid pillars of his peace, the
   incarnation of Christ, his righteousness, his death-- the climax of his
   peace, the heaven hereafter where his joy and his peace shall be
   consummated; all these are subjects for grateful reflection, and will,
   when meditated upon, cause more love. Now, where much love is, there is
   a large heart and a full one. Keep, then, this peace with God, and thou
   wilt keep thy heart full to the brim. And, remember, that in proportion
   to the fullness of thine heart will be the fullness of thy life. Be
   empty-hearted and thy life will be a meager, skeleton existence. Be
   full-hearted, and thy life will be full, fleshy, gigantic, strong, a
   thing that will tell upon the world. Keep, then, thy peace with God
   firm within thee. Keep thou close to this, that Jesus Christ hath made
   peace between thee and God. And keep thy conscience still; then shall
   thy heart be full and thy soul strong to do thy Master's work. Keep thy
   peace with God. This will keep thy heart pure. Thou wilt say if
   temptation comes, "What dost thou offer me? Thou offerest me pleasure;
   lo! I have got it. Thou offerest me gold; lo! I have got it; all things
   are mine, the gift of God; I have a city that hands have not made, a
   house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' I will not barter
   this for your poor gold." "I will give you honor," saith Satan. "I have
   honor enough," says the peaceful heart; "God will honor me in the last
   great day of his account." "I will give thee everything that thou canst
   desire," saith Satan. "I have everything that I can desire," says the
   Christian.

   "I nothing want on earth;

   Happy in my Saviour's love,

   I am at peace with God."

   Avaunt, then, Satan! While I am at peace with God, I am a match for all
   thy temptations. Thou offerest me silver; I have gold. Thou bringest
   before me the riches of the earth; I have something more substantial
   than these. Avaunt, tempter of human kind! Avaunt, thou fiend! Your
   temptations and blandishments are lost on one who has peace with God.
   This peace, too, will keep the heart undivided. He who has peace with
   God will set his whole heart on God. "Oh!" says he, "why should I go to
   seek anything else on earth, now that I have found my rest in God? As
   the bird by wandering, so should I be if I went elsewhere. I have found
   a fountain; why should I go and drink at the broken cistern that will
   hold no water? I lean on the arm of my beloved; why should I rest on
   the arm of another? I know that religion is a thing worth my following;
   why should I leave the pure snows of Lebanon to follow something else?
   I know and feel that religion is rich when it brings forth to me a
   hundredfold the fruits of peace; why should I go and sow elsewhere? I
   will be like the maiden Ruth, I will stop in the fields of Boaz. Here
   will I ever stay and never wander."

   Again, this peace keeps the heart rich. My hearers will notice that I
   am passing over the heads of the mornings discourse, and showing how
   this peace fulfills the requisites that we thought necessary in the
   morning. Peace with God keeps the heart rich. The man who doubts and is
   distressed has got a poor heart; it is a heart that has nothing in it.
   But when a man has peace with God, his heart is rich. If I am at peace
   with God I am enabled to go where I can get riches. The throne is the
   place where God gives riches. If I am at peace with him, then I can
   have access with boldness. Meditation is a great and another field of
   enrichment. When my heart is at peace with God, then I can enjoy
   meditation; but if I have not peace with God, then I can not meditate
   profitably; for "the birds come down on the sacrifice," and I can not
   drive them away, except my soul is at peace with God. Hearing the word
   is another way of getting rich. If my mind is disturbed I can not hear
   the word with profit. If I have to bring my family into the chapel; if
   I have to bring my business, my ships, or my horses, I can not hear.
   When I have cows, and dogs, and horses in the pew, I can not hear the
   Gospel preached. When I have got a whole week's business, and a ledger
   on my heart, I can not hear then; but when I have peace, peace
   concerning all things, and rest in my Fathers will, then I can hear
   with pleasure, and every word of the gospel is profitable to me; for my
   mouth is empty, and I can fill it with the heavenly treasures of his
   Word. So you see the peace of God is a soul-enriching thing. And
   because it keeps the heart rich, thus it is it keeps the heart and mind
   through Jesus Christ our Lord. I need hardly say that the peace of God
   fulfills the only other requisite which I did not mention, because it
   was unnecessary to do so. It keeps the heart always peaceable. Of
   course, peace makes it full of peace--peace like a river, and
   righteousness like the waves of the sea.

   Now, then, brother and sister, it is of the first importance that you
   keep your heart aright. You can not keep your heart right but by one
   way. That one way is by getting, maintaining, and enjoying peace of God
   to your own conscience. I beseech you then, you that are professors of
   religion, do not let this night pass over your heads till you have a
   confident assurance that you are now the possessor of the peace of God.
   For let me tell you, if you go out to the world next Monday morning
   without first having peace with God in your own conscience, you will
   not be able to keep your heart during the week. If this night, ere you
   rest, you could say that with God as well as all the world you are at
   peace, you may go out to-morrow, and whatever your business, I am not
   afraid for you. You are more than a match for all the temptations to
   false doctrine, to false living, or to false speech that may meet you.
   For he that has peace with God is armed cap-a-pie; he is covered from
   head to foot in a panoply. The arrow may fly against it, but it can not
   pierce it, for peace with God is a mail so strong that the broad sword
   of Satan itself may be broken in twain ere it can pierce the flesh. O!
   take care that you are at peace with God; for if you are not, you ride
   forth to to-morrow's fight unarmed, naked; and God help the man that is
   unarmed when he has to fight with hell and earth. O, be not foolish,
   but "put on the whole armor of God," and then be confident for you need
   not fear.

   As for the rest of you, you can not have peace with God, because "there
   is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." How shall I address you. As
   I said this morning, I can not exhort you to keep your hearts. My best
   advice to you is, to get rid of your hearts, and as soon as you can, to
   get new ones. Your prayer should be, "Lord, take away my stony heart,
   and give me a heart of flesh." But though I can not address you from
   this text, I may address you from another. Though your heart is bad,
   there is another heart that is good; and the goodness of that heart is
   a ground of exhortation to you. You remember Christ said, "Come unto me
   all ye that are weary and heavy laden;" and then his argument would
   come to this, "for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest
   to your souls." Your heart is proud, and high, and black, and lustful;
   but look at Christ's heart, it is meek and lowly. There is your
   encouragement. Do you feel to-night your sin? Christ is meek; if you
   come to him he will not spurn you. Do you feel your insignificance and
   worthlessness? Christ is lowly; he will not despise you. If Christ's
   heart were like your heart, you would be damned to a certainty. But
   Christ's heart is not as your heart, nor his ways like your ways. I can
   see no hope for you when I look into your hearts, but I can see plenty
   of hope when I look into Christ's heart.

   O, think of his blessed heart; and if you go home to-night sad and
   sorrowful, under a sense of sin, when you go to your chamber, shut to
   your door--you need not be afraid--and talk to that heart so meek and
   lowly; and though your words be ungrammatical, and your sentences
   incoherent, he will hear and answer you from heaven, his dwelling
   place; and when he hears, he will forgive and accept, for his own
   name's sake.
     __________________________________________________________________

                             Particular Redemption

   A Sermon

   (No. 181)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, February 28, 1858 by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to
   minister, and to give His life a ransom for many."--Matthew 20:28.

   WHEN first it was my duty to occupy this pulpit, and preach in this
   hall, my congregation assumed the appearance of an irregular mass of
   persons collected from all the streets of this city to listen to the
   Word. Twas then simply an evangelist, preaching to many who had not
   heard the Gospel before. By the grace of God, the most blessed change
   has taken place; and now, instead of having an irregular multitude
   gathered together, my congregation is as fixed as that of any minister
   in the whole city of London. I can from this pulpit observe the
   countenance of my friends, who have occupied the same places, as nearly
   as possible, for these many months; and I have the privilege and the
   pleasure of knowing that a very large proportion, certainly
   three-fourths of the persons who meet together here, are not persons
   who stray hither from curiosity, but are my regular and constant
   hearers. And observe, that my character also has been changed. From
   being an evangelist, it is now my business to become your pastor. You
   were once a motley group assembled to listen to me, but now we are
   bound together by the ties of love; through association we have grown
   to love and respect each other, and now you have become the sheep of my
   pasture, and members of my flock; and I have now the privilege of
   assuming the position of a pastor in this place, as well as in the
   chapel where I labour in the evening. I think, then, it will strike the
   judgment of every person, that as both the congregation and office have
   now changed, the teaching itself should in some measure suffer a
   difference. It has been my wont to address you from the simple truths
   of the Gospel; I have very seldom, in this place, attempted to dive
   into the deep things of God. A text which I have thought suitable for
   my congregation in the evening, I should not have made the subject of
   discussion in this place in the morning. There are many high and
   mysterious doctrines which I have often taken the opportunity of
   handling in my own place, that I have not taken the liberty of
   introducing here, regarding you as a company of people casually
   gathered together to hear the Word. But now, since the circumstances
   are changed, the teaching will be changed also. I shall not now simply
   confine myself to the doctrine of faith, or the teaching of believer's
   baptism; I shall not stay upon the surface of matters, but shall
   venture, as God shall guide me, to enter into those things that lie at
   the basis of the religion that we hold so dear. I shall not blush to
   preach before you the doctrine of God's Divine Sovereignty; I shall not
   stagger to preach in the most unreserved and unguarded manner the
   doctrine of election. I shall not be afraid to propound the great truth
   of the final perseverance of the saints; I shall not withhold that
   undoubted truth of Scripture, the effectual calling of God's elect; I
   shall endeavour, as God shall help me, to keep back nothing from you
   who have become my flock. Seeing that many of you have now "tasted that
   the Lord is gracious," we will endeavour to go through the whole system
   of the doctrines of grace, that saints may be edified and built up in
   their most holy faith.

   I begin this morning with the doctrine of Redemption. "He gave his life
   a ransom for many."

   The doctrine of Redemption is one of the most important doctrines of
   the system of faith. A mistake on this point will inevitably lead to a
   mistake through the entire system of our belief.

   Now, you are aware that there are different theories of Redemption. All
   Christians hold that Christ died to redeem, but all Christians do not
   teach the same redemption. We differ as to the nature of atonement, and
   as to the design of redemption. For instance, the Arminian holds that
   Christ, when He died, did not die with an intent to save any particular
   person; and they teach that Christ's death does not in itself secure,
   beyond doubt, the salvation of any one man living. They believe that
   Christ died to make the salvation of all men possible, or that by the
   doing of something else, any man who pleases may attain unto eternal
   life; consequently, they are obliged to hold that if man's will would
   not give way and voluntarily surrender to grace, then Christ's
   atonement would be unavailing. They hold that there was no
   particularity and speciality in the death of Christ. Christ died,
   according to them, as much for Judas in Hell as for Peter who mounted
   to Heaven. They believe that for those who are consigned to eternal
   fire, there was a true and real a redemption made as for those who now
   stand before the throne of the Most High. Now, we believe no such
   thing. We hold that Christ, when He died, had an object in view, and
   that object will most assuredly, and beyond a doubt, be accomplished.
   We measure the design of Christ's death by the effect of it. If any one
   asks us, "What did Christ design to do by His death?" we answer that
   question by asking him another--"What has Christ done, or what will
   Christ do by His death?" For we declare that the measure of the effect
   of Christ's love, is the measure of the design of it. We cannot so
   belie our reason as to think that the intention of Almighty God could
   be frustrated, or that the design of so great a thing as the atonement,
   can by any way whatever, be missed of. We hold--we are not afraid to
   say that we believe--that Christ came into this world with the
   intention of saving "a multitude which no man can number;" and we
   believe that as the result of this, every person for whom He died must,
   beyond the shadow of a doubt, be cleansed from sin, and stand, washed
   in blood, before the Father's throne. We do not believe that Christ
   made any effectual atonement for those who are for ever damned; we dare
   not think that the blood of Christ was ever shed with the intention of
   saving those whom God foreknew never could be saved, and some of whom
   were even in Hell when Christ, according to some men's account, died to
   save them.

   I have thus just stated our theory of redemption, and hinted at the
   differences which exist between two great parties in the professing
   church. It shall be now my endeavour to show the greatness of the
   redemption of Christ Jesus; and by so doing, I hope to be enabled by
   God's Spirit, to bring out the whole of the great system of redemption,
   so that it may be understood by us all, even if all of us cannot
   receive it. For you must bear this in mind, that some of you, perhaps,
   may be ready to dispute things which I assert; but you will remember
   that this is nothing to me; I shall at all times teach those things
   which I hold to be true, without let or hindrance from any man
   breathing. You have the like liberty to do the same in your own places,
   and to preach your own views in your own assemblies, as I claim the
   right to preach mine, fully, and without hesitation.

   Christ Jesus "gave his life a ransom for many;" and by that ransom He
   wrought out for us a great redemption. I shall endeavour to show the
   greatness of this redemption, measuring it in five ways. We shall note
   its greatness, first of all from the heinousness of our own guilt, from
   which He has delivered us; secondly, we shall measure His redemption by
   the sternness of divine justice; thirdly, we shall measure it by the
   price which He paid, the pangs which He endured; then we shall
   endeavour to magnify it, by noting the deliverance which He actually
   wrought out; and we shall close by noticing the vast number for whom
   this redemption is made, who in our text are described as "many."

   I. First, then we shall see that the redemption of Christ was no little
   thing, if we do but measure it, first by OUR OWN SINS. My brethren, for
   a moment look at the hole of the pit whence ye were digged, and the
   quarry whence you were hewn. Ye, who have been washed, and cleansed,
   and sanctified, pause for a moment, and look back at the former state
   of your ignorance; the sins in which you indulged, the crimes into
   which you were hurried, the continual rebellion against God in which it
   was your habit to live. One sin can ruin a soul for ever; it is not in
   the power of the human mind to grasp the infinity of evil that
   slumbereth in the bowels of one solitary sin. There is a very infinity
   of guilt couched in one transgression against the majesty of Heaven.
   If, then, you and I had sinned but once, nothing but an atonement
   infinite in value could ever have washed away the sin and made
   satisfaction for it. But has it been once that you and I have
   transgressed? Nay, my brethren, our iniquities are more in number than
   the hairs of our head; they have mightily prevailed against us. We
   might as well attempt to number the sands upon the sea-shore, or count
   the drops which in their aggregate do make the ocean, as attempt to
   count the transgressions which have marked our lives. Let us go back to
   our childhood. How early we began to sin! How we disobeyed our parents,
   and even then learned to make our mouth the house of lies! In our
   childhood, how full of wantonness and waywardness we were! Headstrong
   and giddy, we preferred our own way, and burst through all restraint
   which godly parents put upon us. Nor did our youth sober us. Wildly we
   dashed, many of us, into the very midst of the dance of sin. We became
   leaders in iniquity; we not only sinned ourselves, but we taught others
   to sin. And as for your manhood, ye that have entered upon the prime of
   life, ye may be more outwardly sober, ye may be somewhat free from the
   dissipation of your youth; but how little has the man become bettered!
   Unless the sovereign grace of God hath renewed us, we are now no better
   than we were when we began; and even if it has operated, we have still
   sins to repent of, for we all lay our mouths in the dust, and cast
   ashes on our head, and cry, "Unclean! Unclean!" And oh! ye that lean
   wearily on your staff, the support of your old age, have ye not sins
   still clinging to your garments? Are your lives as white as the snowy
   hairs that crown your head? Do you not still feel that transgression
   besmears the skirts of your robe, and mars its spotlessness? How often
   are you now plunged into the ditch, till your own clothes do abhor you!
   Cast your eyes over the sixty, the seventy, the eighty years, during
   which God hath spared your lives; and can ye for a moment think it
   possible, that ye can number up your innumerable transgressions, or
   compute the weight of the crimes which you have committed? O ye stars
   of Heaven! the astronomers may measure your distance and tell your
   height, but O ye sins of mankind! ye surpass all thought. O ye lofty
   mountains! the home of the tempest, the birthplace of the storm! man
   may climb your summits and stand wonderingly upon your snows; but ye
   hills of sin! ye tower higher than our thoughts; ye chasms of
   transgressions! ye are deeper than our imagination dares to dive. Do
   you accuse me of slandering human nature? It is because you know it
   not. If God had once manifested your heart to yourself, you would bear
   me witness, that so far from exaggerating, my poor words fail to
   describe the desperateness of our evil. Oh! if we could each of us look
   into our hearts today--if our eyes could be turned within, so as to see
   the iniquity that is graven as with the point of the diamond upon our
   stony hearts, we should then say to the minister, that however he may
   depict the desperateness of guilt, yet can he not by any means surpass
   it. How great then, beloved, must be the ransom of Christ, when He
   saved us from all these sins! The men for whom Jesus died, however
   great their sin, when they believe, are justified from all their
   transgressions. Though they may have indulged in every vice and every
   lust which Satan could suggest, and which human nature could perform,
   yet once believing, all their guilt is washed away. Year after year may
   have coated them with blackness, till their sin hath become of double
   dye; but in one moment of faith, one triumphant moment of confidence in
   Christ, the great redemption takes away the guilt of numerous years.
   Nay, more, if it were possible for all the sins that men have done, in
   thought, or word, or deed, since worlds were made, or time began, to
   meet on one poor head--the great redemption is all-sufficient to take
   all these sins away, and wash the sinner whiter than the driven snow.

   Oh! who shall measure the heights of the Saviour's all-sufficiency?
   First, tell how high is sin, and, then, remember that as Noah's flood
   prevailed over the tops of earth's mountains, so the flood of Christ's
   redemption prevails over the tops of the mountains of our sins. In
   Heaven's courts there are today men that once were murderers, and
   thieves, and drunkards, and whoremongers, and blasphemers, and
   persecutors; but they have been washed--they have been sanctified. Ask
   them whence the brightness of their robes hath come, and where their
   purity hath been achieved, and they, with united breath, tell you that
   they have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the
   Lamb. O ye troubled consciences! O ye weary and heavy-laden ones! O ye
   that are groaning on account of sin! the great redemption now
   proclaimed to you is all-sufficient for your wants; and though your
   numerous sins exceed the stars that deck the sky, here is an atonement
   made for them all--a river which can overflow the whole of them, and
   carry them away from you for ever.

   This, then, is the first measure of the atonement--the greatness of our
   guilt.

   II. Now, secondly, we must measure the great redemption BY THE
   STERNNESS OF DIVINE JUSTICE. "God is love," always loving; but my next
   proposition does not at all interfere with this assertion. God is
   sternly just, inflexibly severe in His dealings with mankind. The God
   of the Bible is not the God of some men's imagination, Who thinks so
   little of sin that He passes it by without demanding any punishment for
   it. He is not the God of the men who imagine that our transgressions
   are such little things, such mere peccadilloes that the God of Heaven
   winks at them, and suffers them to die forgotten. No; Jehovah, Israel's
   God, hath declared concerning Himself, "The Lord thy God is a jealous
   God." It is His own declaration, "I will by no means clear the guilty."
   "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Learn ye, my friends, to look
   upon God as being as severe in His justice as if He were not loving,
   and yet as loving as if He were not severe. His love does not diminish
   His justice, nor does His justice, in the least degree, make warfare
   upon His love. The two things are sweetly linked together in the
   atonement of Christ. But, mark, we can never understand the fullness of
   the atonement till we have first grasped the Scriptural truth of God's
   immense justice. There was never an ill word spoken, nor an ill thought
   conceived, nor an evil deed done, for which God will not have
   punishment from some one or another. He will either have satisfaction
   from you, or else from Christ. If you have no atonement to bring
   through Christ, you must for ever lie paying the debt which you never
   can pay, in eternal misery; for as surely as God is God, He will sooner
   lose His Godhead than suffer one sin to go unpunished, or one particle
   of rebellion unrevenged. You may say that this character of God is
   cold, and stern, and severe. I cannot help what you say of it; it is
   nevertheless true. Such is the God of the Bible; and though we repeat
   it is true that He is love, it is no more true that He is love than
   that He is full of justice, for every good thing meets in God, and is
   carried to perfection, whilst love reaches to consummate loveliness,
   justice reaches to the sternness of inflexibility in Him. He has no
   bend, no warp in His character; no attribute so predominates as to cast
   a shadow upon the other. Love hath its full sway, and justice hath no
   narrower limit than His love. Oh! then, beloved, think how great must
   have been the substitution of Christ, when it satisfied God for all the
   sins of His people. For man's sin God demands eternal punishment; and
   God hath prepared a Hell into which He casts those who die impenitent.
   Oh! my brethren, can ye think what must have been the greatness of the
   atonement which was the substitution for all this agony which God would
   have cast upon us, if He had not poured it upon Christ. Look! look!
   look with solemn eye through the shades that part us from the world of
   spirits, and see that house of misery which men call Hell! Ye cannot
   endure the spectacle. Remember that in that place there are spirits for
   ever paying their debt to divine justice; but though some of them have
   been for these four thousand years sweltering in the flame, they are no
   nearer a discharge than when they began; and when ten thousand times
   ten thousand years shall have rolled away, they will no more have made
   satisfaction to God for their guilt than they have done up till now.
   And now can you grasp the thought of the greatness of your Saviour's
   mediation when He paid your debt, and paid it all at once; so that
   there now remaineth not one farthing of debt owing from Christ's people
   to their God, except a debt of love. To justice the believer oweth
   nothing; though he owed originally so much that eternity would not have
   been long enough to suffice for the paying of it, yet, in one moment
   Christ did pay it all, so that the man who believeth is entirely
   justified from all guilt, and set free from all punishment, through
   what Jesus hath done. Think ye, then, how great His atonement if He
   hath done all this.

   I must just pause here, and utter another sentence. There are times
   when God the Holy Spirit shows to men the sternness of justice in their
   own consciences. There is a man here today who has just been cut to the
   heart with a sense of sin. He was once a free man, a libertine, in
   bondage to none; but now the arrow of the Lord sticks fast in his
   heart, and he has come under a bondage worse than that of Egypt. I see
   him today, he tells me that his guilt haunts him everywhere. The Negro
   slave, guided by the pole star, may escape the cruel ties of his master
   and reach another land where he may be free; but this man feels that if
   he were to wander the wide world over he could not escape from guilt.
   He that hath been bound by many irons, can yet find a file that can
   unbind him and set him at liberty; but this man tells you that he has
   tried prayers and tears and good works, but cannot escape the gyves
   from his wrist; he feels as a lost sinner still, and emancipation, do
   what he may, seems to him impossible. The captive in the dungeon is
   sometimes free in thought, though not in body; through his dungeon
   walls his spirit leaps, and flies to the stars, free as the eagle that
   is no man's slave. But this man is a slave in his thoughts; he cannot
   think one bright, one happy thought. His soul is cast down within him;
   the iron has entered into his spirit, and he is sorely afflicted. The
   captive sometimes forgets his slavery in sleep, but this man cannot
   sleep; by night he dreams of hell, by day he seems to feel it; he bears
   a burning furnace of flame within his heart, and do what he may he
   cannot quench it. He has been confirmed, he has been baptized, he takes
   the sacrament, he attends a church or he frequents a chapel, he regards
   every rubric and obeys every canon, but the fire burns still. He gives
   his money to the poor, he is ready to give his body to be burned, he
   feeds the hungry, he visits the sick, he clothes the naked, but the
   fire burns still, and do what he may he cannot quench it. O, ye sons of
   weariness and woe, this that you feel is God's justice in full pursuit
   of you, and happy are you that you feel this, for now to you I preach
   this glorious Gospel of the blessed God. You are the man for whom Jesus
   Christ has died; for you He has satisfied stern justice; and now all
   you have to do to obtain peace of conscience, is just to say to your
   adversary who pursues you, "Look you there! Christ died for me; my good
   works would not stop you, my tears would not appease you: look you
   there! There stands the cross; there hangs the bleeding God! Hark to
   His death-shriek! See Him die! Art thou not satisfied now?" And when
   thou hast done that, thou shalt have the peace of God which passeth all
   understanding, which shall keep thy heart and mind through Jesus Christ
   thy Lord; and then shalt thou know the greatness of His atonement.

   III. In the third place, we may measure the greatness of Christ's
   Redemption by THE PRICE HE PAID. It is impossible for us to know how
   great were the pangs of our Saviour; but yet some glimpse of them will
   afford us a little idea of the greatness of the price He paid for us. O
   Jesus, who shall describe thine agony?

   "Come, all ye springs,

   Dwell in my head and eyes; come, clouds and rain!

   My grief hath need of all the wat'ry things,

   That nature hath produc'd. Let ev'ry vein

   Suck up a river to supply mine eyes,

   My weary weeping eyes; too dry for me,

   Unless they get new conduits, new supplies,

   To bear them out, and with my state agree."

   O Jesus! thou wast a sufferer from thy birth, a man of sorrows and
   grief's acquaintance. Thy sufferings fell on thee in one perpetual
   shower, until the last dread hour of darkness. Then not in a shower,
   but in a cloud, a torrent, a cataract of grief, thine agonies did dash
   upon thee. See Him yonder! It is a night of frost and cold; but He is
   all abroad. It is night; He sleeps not, but He is in prayer. Hark to
   His groans! Did ever man wrestle as He wrestles? Go and look in His
   face! Was ever such suffering depicted upon mortal countenance as you
   can there behold? Hear His own words: "My soul is exceeding sorrowful,
   even unto death." He rises: He is seized by traitors and is dragged
   away. Let us step to the place when just now He was engaged in agony. O
   God! and what is this we see? What is this that stains the ground? It
   is blood! Whence came it? Had He some wound which oozed afresh through
   His dire struggle? Ah! no. "He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood,
   falling down to the ground." O agonies that surpass the word by which
   we name you! O sufferings that cannot be compassed in language! What
   could ye be that thus could work upon the Saviour's blessed frame, and
   force a bloody sweat to fall from His entire body? This is the
   beginning; this is the opening of the tragedy. Follow Him mournfully,
   thou sorrowing church, to witness the consummation of it. He is hurried
   through the streets; He is dragged first to one bar and then to
   another; He is cast and condemned before the Sanhedrin; He is mocked by
   Herod; He is tried by Pilate. His sentence is pronounced--"Let Him be
   crucified!" And now the tragedy cometh to its height. His back is
   bared; He is tied to the low Roman column; the bloody scourge ploughs
   furrows on His back, and with one stream of blood His back is red--a
   crimson robe that proclaims Him emperor of misery. He is taken into the
   guard room; His eyes are bound, and then they buffet Him, and say,
   "Prophesy who it was that smote thee?" They spit into His face; they
   plait a crown of thorns, and press His temples with it; they array Him
   in a purple robe; they bow their knees, and mock Him. All silently He
   sits; He answers not a word. "When He was reviled, He reviled not
   again," but committed Himself unto Him whom He came to serve. And now
   they take Him, and with many a jeer and jibe they drive Him from the
   place, and hurry Him through the streets. Emaciated by continual
   fastings, and depressed with agony of spirit He stumbles beneath His
   cross. Daughters of Jerusalem! He faints in your streets. They raise
   Him up; they put His cross upon another's shoulders, and they urge Him
   on, perhaps with many a spear-prick, till at last He reaches the mount
   of doom. Rough soldiers seize Him, and hurl Him on His back; the
   transverse wood is laid beneath Him; His arms are stretched to reach
   the necessary distance; the nails are grasped; four hammers at one
   moment drive four nails through the tenderest parts of His body; and
   there He lies upon His own place of execution dying on His cross. It is
   not done yet. The cross is lifted by the rough soldiers. There is the
   socket prepared for it. It is dashed into its place: they fill up the
   place with earth; and there it stands.

   But see the Saviour's limbs, how they quiver! Every bone has been put
   out of joint by the dashing of the cross in that socket! How He weeps!
   How He sighs! How He sobs! Nay, more hark how at last He shrieks in
   agony, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" O sun, no wonder
   thou didst shut thine eye, and look no longer upon a deed so cruel! O
   rocks! no wonder that ye did melt and rend your hearts with sympathy,
   when your Creator died! Never man suffered as this man suffered, Even
   death itself relented, and many of those who had been in their graves
   arose and came into the city. This, however, is but the outward.
   Believe me, brethren, the inward was far worse. What our Saviour
   suffered in His body was nothing compared to what He endured in His
   soul. You cannot guess, and I cannot help you to guess, what He endured
   within. Suppose for one moment--to repeat a sentence I have often
   used--suppose a man who has passed into Hell--suppose his eternal
   torment could all be brought into one hour; and then suppose it could
   be multiplied by the number of the saved, which is a number past all
   human enumeration. Can you now think what a vast aggregate of misery
   there would have been in the sufferings of all God's people, if they
   had been punished through all eternity? And recollect that Christ had
   to suffer an equivalent for all the hells of all His redeemed. I can
   never express that thought better than by using those oft-repeated
   words: it seemed as if Hell were put into His cup; He seized it, and,
   "At one tremendous draught of love, He drank damnation dry." So that
   there was nothing left of all the pangs and miseries of Hell for His
   people ever to endure. I say not that He suffered the same, but He did
   endure an equivalent for all this, and gave God the satisfaction for
   all the sins of all His people, and consequently gave Him an equivalent
   for all their punishment. Now can ye dream, can ye guess the great
   redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ?

   IV. I shall be very brief upon the next head. The fourth way of
   measuring the Saviour's agonies is this: we must compute them by THE
   GLORIOUS DELIVERANCE WHICH HE HAS EFFECTED.

   Rise up, believer; stand up in thy place, and this day testify to the
   greatness of what the Lord hath done for thee! Let me tell it for thee.
   I will tell thy experience and mine in one breath. Once my soul was
   laden with sin; I had revolted against God, and grievously
   transgressed. The terrors of the law gat hold upon me; the pangs of
   conviction seized me. I saw myself guilty. I looked to Heaven, and I
   saw an angry God sworn to punish me; I looked beneath me and I saw a
   yawning Hell ready to devour me. I sought by good works to satisfy my
   conscience; but all in vain, I endeavoured by attending to the
   ceremonies of religion to appease the pangs that I felt within; but all
   without effect. My soul was exceeding sorrowful, almost unto death. I
   could have said with the ancient mourner, "My soul chooseth strangling
   and death rather than life." This was the great question that always
   perplexed me: "I have sinned; God must punish me; how can He be just if
   He does not? Then, since He is just, what is to become of me?" At last
   mine eyes turned to that sweet word which says, "The blood of Jesus
   Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin." I took that text to my chamber;
   I sat there and meditated. I saw one hanging on a cross. It was my Lord
   Jesus. There was the thorn-crown, and there the emblems of unequalled
   and peerless misery. I looked upon Him, and my thoughts recalled that
   word which says, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all
   acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
   Then said I within myself, "Did this man die for sinners? I am a
   sinner; then He died for me. Those He died for He will save. He died
   for sinners; I am a sinner; He died for me; He will save me." My soul
   relied upon that truth. I looked to Him, and as I "viewed the flowing
   of His soul-redeeming blood," my spirit rejoiced, for I could say,

   "Nothing in my hands I bring,

   Simply to this cross I cling;

   Naked look to Him for dress;

   Helpless come to Him for grace!

   Black, I to this fountain fly;

   Wash me, Saviour, or I die!"

   And now, believer, you shall tell the rest. The moment that you
   believed, your burden rolled from your shoulder, and you became light
   as air. Instead of darkness you had light; for the garments of
   heaviness you had the robes of praise. Who shall tell your joy since
   then? You have sung on earth hymns of Heaven, and in your peaceful soul
   you have anticipated the eternal Sabbath of the redeemed. Because you
   have believed you have entered into rest. Yes, tell it the wide world
   over; they that believe, by Jesus' death are justified from all things
   from which they could not be freed by the works of the law. Tell it in
   Heaven, that none can lay anything to the charge of Gods' elect. Tell
   it upon earth, that God's redeemed are free from sin in Jehovah's
   sight. Tell it even in Hell, that God's elect can never come there; for
   Christ hath died for them, and who is he that shall condemn them?

   V. I have hurried over that, to come to the last point, which is the
   sweetest of all. Jesus Christ, we are told in our text, came into the
   world "to give his life a ransom for many." The greatness of Christ's
   redemption may be measured by the EXTENT OF THE DESIGN OF IT. He gave
   His life "a ransom for many." I must now return to that controverted
   point again. We are often told (I mean those of us who are commonly
   nicknamed by the title of Calvinists--and we are not very much ashamed
   of that; we think that Calvin, after all, knew more about the Gospel
   than almost any man who has ever lived, uninspired), we are often told
   that we limit the atonement of Christ, because we say that Christ has
   not made a satisfaction for all men, or all men would be saved. Now,
   our reply to this is, that, on the other hand, our opponents limit it:
   we do not. The Arminians say, Christ died for all men. Ask them what
   they mean by it. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of all
   men? They say, "No, certainly not." We ask them the next question--Did
   Christ die so as to secure the salvation of any man in particular? They
   answer "No." They are obliged to admit this, if they are consistent.
   They say, "No; Christ has died that any man may be saved if"--and then
   follow certain conditions of salvation. We say, then, we will go back
   to the old statement--Christ did not die so as beyond a doubt to secure
   the salvation of anybody, did He? You must say "No;" you are obliged to
   say so, for you believe that even after a man has been pardoned, he may
   yet fall from grace, and perish. Now, who is it that limits the death
   of Christ? Why, you. You say that Christ did not die so as to
   infallibly secure the salvation of anybody. We beg your pardon, when
   you say we limit Christ's death; we say, "No, my dear sir, it is you
   that do it." We say Christ so died that He infallibly secured the
   salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ's
   death not only may be saved but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by
   any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. You are
   welcome to your atonement; you may keep it. We will never renounce ours
   for the sake of it.

   Now, beloved, when you hear any one laughing or jeering at a limited
   atonement, you may tell him this. General atonement is like a great
   wide bridge with only half an arch; it does not go across the stream:
   it only professes to go half way; it does not secure the salvation of
   anybody. Now, I had rather put my foot upon a bridge as narrow as
   Hungerford, which went all the way across, than on a bridge that was as
   wide as the world, if it did not go all the way across the stream. I am
   told it is my duty to say that all men have been redeemed, and I am
   told that there is a Scriptural warrant for it--"Who gave himself a
   ransom for all, to be testified in due time." Now, that looks like a
   very, very great argument indeed on the other side of the question. For
   instance, look here. "The whole world is gone after Him." Did all the
   world go after Christ? "Then went all Judea, and were baptized of him
   in Jordan." Was all Judea, or all Jerusalem baptized in Jordan? "Ye are
   of God, little children," and "the whole world lieth in the wicked
   one." Does "the whole world" there mean everybody? If so, how was it,
   then, that there were some who were "of God?" The words "world" and
   "all" are used in seven or eight senses in Scripture; and it is very
   rarely that "all" means all persons, taken individually. The words are
   generally used to signify that Christ has redeemed some of all
   sorts--some Jews, some Gentiles, some rich, some poor, and has not
   restricted His redemption to either Jew or Gentile.

   Leaving controversy, however, I will now answer a question. Tell me,
   then, sir, whom did Christ die for? Will you answer me a question or
   two, and I will tell you whether He died for you. Do you want a
   Saviour? Do you feel that you need a Saviour? Are you this morning
   conscious of sin? Has the Holy Spirit taught you that you are lost?
   Then Christ died for you and you will be saved. Are you this morning
   conscious that you have no hope in the world but Christ? Do you feel
   that you of yourself cannot offer an atonement that can satisfy God's
   justice? Have you given up all confidence in yourselves? And can you
   say upon your bended knees, "Lord, save, or I perish"? Christ died for
   you. If you are saying this morning, "I am as good as I ought to be; I
   can get to Heaven by my own good works," then, remember, the Scripture
   says of Jesus, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to
   repentance." So long as you are in that state I have no atonement to
   preach to you. But if this morning you feel guilty, wretched, conscious
   of your guilt, and are ready to take Christ to be your only Saviour, I
   can not only say to you that you may be saved, but what is better
   still, that you will be saved. When you are stripped of everything, but
   hope in Christ, when you are prepared to come empty-handed and take
   Christ to be your all, and to be yourself nothing at all, then you may
   look up to Christ, and you may say, "Thou dear, Thou bleeding Lamb of
   God! thy griefs were endured for me; by thy stripes I am healed, and by
   thy sufferings I am pardoned." And then see what peace of mind you will
   have; for if Christ has died for you, you cannot be lost. God will not
   punish twice for one thing. If God punished Christ for your sin, He
   will never punish you. "Payment, God's justice cannot demand, first, at
   the bleeding surety's hand, and then again at mine." We can today, if
   we believe in Christ, march to the very throne of God, stand there, and
   if it is said, "Art thou guilty?" we can say, "Yes, guilty." But if the
   question is put, "What have you to say why you should not be punished
   for your guilt?" We can answer, "Great God, Thy justice and Thy love
   are both guarantees that Thou wilt not punish us for sin; for didst
   Thou not punish Christ for sin for us? How canst Thou, then, be
   just--how canst Thou be God at all, if Thou dost punish Christ the
   substitute, and then punish man himself afterwards?" Your only question
   is, "Did Christ die for me?" And the only answer we can give is--"This
   is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ came
   into the world to save sinners." Can you write your name down among the
   sinners--not among the complimentary sinners, but among those that feel
   it, bemoan it, lament it, seek mercy on account of it? Are you a
   sinner? That felt, that known, that professed, you are now invited to
   believe that Jesus Christ died for you, because you are a sinner; and
   you are bidden to cast yourself upon this great immovable rock, and
   find eternal security in the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                Human Inability

   A Sermon

   (No. 182)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, March 7, 1858 by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw
   him."--John 6:44.

   COMING to Christ" is a very common phrase in Holy Scripture. It is used
   to express those acts of the soul wherein, leaving at once our
   self-righteousness, and our sins, we fly unto the Lord Jesus Christ,
   and receive his righteousness to be our covering, and his blood to be
   our atonement. Coming to Christ, then, embraces in it repentance,
   self-negation, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and it sums within
   itself all those things which are the necessary attendants of these
   great states of heart, such as the belief of the truth, earnestness of
   prayer to God, the submission of the soul to the precepts of God's
   gospel, and all those things which accompany the dawn of salvation in
   the soul. Coming to Christ is just the one essential thing for a
   sinner's salvation. He that cometh not to Christ, do what he may, or
   think what he may, is yet in "the gall of bitterness and in the bonds
   of iniquity." Coming to Christ is the very first effect of
   regeneration. No sooner is the soul quickened than it at once discovers
   its lost estate, is horrified thereat, looks out for a refuge, and
   believing Christ to be a suitable one, flies to him and reposes in him.
   Where there is not this coming to Christ, it is certain that there is
   as yet no quickening; where there is no quickening, the soul is dead in
   trespasses and sins, and being dead it cannot enter into the kingdom of
   heaven. We have before us now an announcement very startling, some say
   very obnoxious. Coming to Christ, though described by some people as
   being the very easiest thing in all the world, is in our text declared
   to be a thing utterly and entirely impossible to any man, unless the
   Father shall draw him to Christ. It shall be our business, then, to
   enlarge upon this declaration. We doubt not that it will always be
   offensive to carnal nature, but, nevertheless, the offending of human
   nature is sometimes the first step towards bringing it to bow itself
   before God. And if this be the effect of a painful process, we can
   forget the pain and rejoice in the glorious consequences.

   I shall endeavour this morning, first of all, to notice man's
   inability, wherein it consists. Secondly, the Father's drawings--what
   these are, and how they are exerted upon the soul. And then I shall
   conclude by noticing a sweet consolation which may be derived from this
   seemingly barren and terrible text.

   I. First, then, MAN'S INABILITY. The text says, "No man can come to me,
   except the Father which hath sent me draw him." Wherein does this
   inability lie?

   First, it does not lie in any physical defect. If in coming to Christ,
   moving the body or walking with the feet should be of any assistance,
   certainly man has all physical power to come to Christ in that sense. I
   remember to have heard a very foolish Antinomian declare, that he did
   not believe any man had the power to walk to the house of God unless
   the Father drew him. Now the man was plainly foolish, because he must
   have seen that as long as a man was alive and had legs, it was as easy
   for him to walk to the house of God as to the house of Satan. If coming
   to Christ includes the utterance of a prayer, man has no physical
   defect in that respect, if he be not dumb, he can say a prayer as
   easily as he can utter blasphemy. It is as easy for a man to sing one
   of the songs of Zion as to sing a profane and libidinous song. There is
   no lack of physical power in coming to Christ. All that can be wanted
   with regard to the bodily strength man most assuredly has, and any part
   of salvation which consists in that is totally and entirely in the
   power of man without any assistance from the Spirit of God. Nor, again,
   does this inability lie in any mental lack. I can believe this Bible to
   be true just as easily as I can believe any other book to be true. So
   far as believing on Christ is an act of the mind, I am just as able to
   believe on Christ as I am able to believe on anybody else. Let his
   statement be but true, it is idle to tell me I cannot believe it. I can
   believe the statement that Christ makes as well as I can believe the
   statement of any other person. There is no deficiency of faculty in the
   mind: it is as capable of appreciating as a mere mental act the guilt
   of sin, as it is of appreciating the guilt of assassination. It is just
   as possible for me to exercise the mental idea of seeking God, as it is
   to exercise the thought of ambition. I have all the mental strength and
   power that can possibly be needed, so far as mental power is needed in
   salvation at all. Nay, there is not any man so ignorant that he can
   plead a lack of intellect as an excuse for rejecting the gospel. The
   defect, then, does not lie either in the body, or, what we are bound to
   call, speaking theologically, the mind. It is not any lack or
   deficiency there, although it is the vitiation of the mind, the
   corruption or the ruin of it, which, after all, is the very essence of
   man's inability.

   Permit me to show you wherein this inability of man really does lie. It
   lies deep in his nature. Through the fall, and through our own sin, the
   nature of man has become so debased, and depraved, and corrupt, that it
   is impossible for him to come to Christ without the assistance of God
   the Holy Spirit. Now, in trying to exhibit how the nature of man thus
   renders him unable to come to Christ, you must allow me just to take
   this figure. You see a sheep; how willingly it feeds upon the herbage!
   You never knew a sheep sigh after carrion; it could not live on lion's
   food. Now bring me a wolf; and you ask me whether a wolf cannot eat
   grass, whether it cannot be just as docile and as domesticated as the
   sheep. I answer, no; because its nature is contrary thereunto. You say,
   "Well, it has ears and legs; can it not hear the shepherd's voice, and
   follow him whithersoever he leadeth it ?" I answer, certainly; there is
   no physical cause why it cannot do so, but its nature forbids, and
   therefore I say it cannot do so. Can it not be tamed? cannot its
   ferocity be removed? Probably it may so far be subdued that it may
   become apparently tame; but there will always be a marked distinction
   between it and the sheep, because there is a distinction in nature.
   Now, the reason why man cannot come to Christ, is not because he cannot
   come, so far as his body or his mere power of mind is concerned, but
   because his nature is so corrupt that he has neither the will nor the
   power to come to Christ unless drawn by the Spirit. But let me give you
   a better illustration. You see a mother with her babe in her arms. You
   put a knife into her hand, and tell her to stab that babe to the heart.
   She replies, and very truthfully, "I cannot." Now, so far as her bodily
   power is concerned, she can, if she pleases; there is the knife, and
   there is the child. The child cannot resist, and she has quite
   sufficient strength in her hand immediately to stab it to its heart.
   But she is quite correct when she says she cannot do it. As a mere act
   of the mind, it is quite possible she might think of such a thing as
   killing the child, and yet she says she cannot think of such a thing;
   and she does not say falsely, for her nature as a mother forbids her
   doing a thing from which her soul revolts. Simply because she is that
   child's parent she feels she cannot kill it. It is even so with a
   sinner. Coming to Christ is so obnoxious to human nature that,
   although, so far as physical and mental forces are concerned, (and
   these have but a very narrow sphere in salvation) men could come if
   they would: it is strictly correct to say that they cannot and will not
   unless the Father who hath sent Christ doth draw them. Let us enter a
   little more deeply into the subject, and try to show you wherein this
   inability of man consists, in its more minute particulars.

   I. First, it lies in the obstinacy of the human will. "Oh!" saith the
   Arminian, "men may be saved if they will." We reply, "My dear sir, we
   all believe that; but it is just the if they will that is the
   difficulty. We assert that no man will come to Christ unless he be
   drawn; nay, we do not assert it, but Christ himself declares it--"Ye
   will not come unto me that ye might have life;' and as long as that "ye
   will not come' stands on record in Holy Scripture, we shall not be
   brought to believe in any doctrine of the freedom of the human will."
   It is strange how people, when talking about free-will, talk of things
   which they do not at all understand. "Now," says one, "I believe men
   can be saved if they will." My dear sir, that is not the question at
   all. The question is, are men ever found naturally willing to submit to
   the humbling terms of the gospel of Christ? We declare, upon Scriptural
   authority, that the human will is so desperately set on mischief, so
   depraved, and so inclined to everything that is evil, and so
   disinclined to everything that is good, that without the powerful.
   supernatural, irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit, no human will
   ever be constrained towards Christ. You reply, that men sometimes are
   willing, without the help of the Holy Spirit. I answer--Did you ever
   meet with any person who was? Scores and hundreds, nay, thousands of
   Christians have I conversed with, of different opinions, young and old,
   but it has never been my lot to meet with one who could affirm that he
   came to Christ of himself, without being drawn. The universal
   confession of all true believers is this--"I know that unless Jesus
   Christ had sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God, I
   would to this very hour have been wandering far from him, at a distance
   from him, and loving that distance well." With common consent, all
   believers affirm the truth, that men will not come to Christ till the
   Father who hath sent Christ doth draw them.

   2. Again, not only is the will obstinate, but the understanding is
   darkened. Of that we have abundant Scriptural proof. I am not now
   making mere assertions, but stating doctrines authoritatively taught in
   the Holy Scriptures, and known in the conscience of every Christian
   man--that the understanding of man is so dark, that hecannot by any
   means understand the things of God until his understanding has been
   opened. Man is by nature blind within. The cross of Christ, so laden
   with glories, and glittering with attractions, never attracts him,
   because he is blind and cannot see its beauties. Talk to him of the
   wonders of the creation, show to him the many-coloured arch that spans
   the sky, let him behold the glories of a landscape, he is well able to
   see all these things; but talk to him of the wonders of the covenant of
   grace, speak to him of the security of the believer in Christ, tell him
   of the beauties of the person of the Redeemer, he is quite deaf to all
   your description; you are as one that playeth a goodly tune, it is
   true; but he regards not, he is deaf, he has no comprehension. Or, to
   return to the verse which we so specially marked in our reading, "The
   natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are
   foolishness unto him: neither can he know them because they are
   spiritually discerned;" and inasmuch as he is a natural man, it is not
   in his power to discern the things of God. "Well," says one, "I think I
   have arrived at a very tolerable judgment in matters of theology; I
   think I understand almost every point." True, that you may do in the
   letter of it; but in the spirit of it, in the true reception thereof
   into the soul, and in the actual understanding of it, it is impossible
   for you to have attained, unless you have been drawn by the Spirit. For
   as long as that Scripture stands true, that carnal men cannot receive
   spiritual things, it must be true that you have not received them,
   unless you have been renewed and made a spiritual man in Christ Jesus.
   The will, then, and the understanding, are two great doors, both
   blocked up against our coming to Christ, and until these are opened by
   the sweet influences of the Divine Spirit, they must be for ever closed
   to anything like coming to Christ.

   3. Again, the affections, which constitute a very great part of man,
   are depraved. Man, as he is, before he receives the grace of God, loves
   anything and everything above spiritual things. If ye want proof of
   this, look around you. There needs no monument to the depravity of the
   human affections. Cast your eyes everywhere--there is not a street, nor
   a house, nay, nor a heart, which doth not bear upon it sad evidence of
   this dreadful truth. Why is it that men are not found on the Sabbath
   Day universally flocking to the house of God? Why are we not more
   constantly found reading our Bibles? How is it that prayer is a duty
   almost universally neglected? Why is it that Christ Jesus is so little
   beloved? Why are even his professed followers so cold in their
   affections to him? Whence arise these things? Assuredly, dear brethren,
   we can trace them to no other source than this, the corruption and
   vitiation of the affections. We love that which we ought to hate, and
   we hate that which we ought to love. It is but human nature, fallen
   human nature, that man should love this present life better than the
   life to come. It is but the effect of the fall, that man should love
   sin better than righteousness, and the ways of this world better than
   the ways of God. And again, we repeat it, until these affections be
   renewed, and turned into a fresh channel by the gracious drawings of
   the Father, it is not possible for any man to love the Lord Jesus
   Christ.

   4. Yet once more--conscience, too, has been overpowered by the fall. I
   believe there is no more egregious mistake made by divines, than when
   they tell people that conscience is the vicegerent of God within the
   soul, and that it is one of those powers which retains its ancient
   dignity, and stands erect amidst the fall of its compeers. My brethren,
   when man fell in the garden, manhood fell entirely; there was not one
   single pillar in the temple of manhood that stood erect. It is true,
   conscience was not destroyed. The pillar was not shattered; it fell,
   and it fell in one piece, and there it lies along, the mightiest
   remnant of God's once perfect work in man. But that conscience is
   fallen, I am sure. Look at men. Who among them is the possessor of a
   "good conscience toward God," but the regenerated man? Do you imagine
   that if men's consciences always spoke loudly and clearly to them, they
   would live in the daily commission of acts, which are as opposed to the
   right as darkness to light? No, beloved; conscience can tell me that I
   am a sinner, but conscience cannot make me feel that I am one.
   Conscience may tell me that such-and-such a thing is wrong, but how
   wrong it is conscience itself does not know. Did any man s conscience,
   unenlightened by the Spirit, ever tell him that his sins deserved
   damnation? Or if conscience did do that, did it ever lead any man to
   feel an abhorrence of sin as sin? In fact, did conscience ever bring a
   man to such a self-renunciation, that he did totally abhor himself and
   all his works and come to Christ? No, conscience, although it is not
   dead, is ruined, its power is impaired, it hath not that clearness of
   eye and that strength of hand, and that thunder of voice, which it had
   before the fall; but hath ceased to a great degree, to exert its
   supremacy in the town of Mansoul. Then, beloved, it becomes necessary
   for this very reason, because conscience is depraved, that the Holy
   Spirit should step in, to show us our need of a Saviour, and draw us to
   the Lord Jesus Christ.

   "Still," says one, "as far as you have hitherto gone, it appears to me
   that you consider that the reason why men do not come to Christ is that
   they will not, rather than they cannot." True, most true. I believe the
   greatest reason of man's inability is the obstinacy of his will. That
   once overcome, I think the great stone is rolled away from the
   sepulchre, and the hardest part of the battle is already won. But allow
   me to go a little further. My text does not say,"No man will come," but
   it says, "No man can come." Now, many interpreters believe that the can
   here, is but a strong expression conveying no more meaning than the
   word will. I feel assured that this is not correct. There is in man,
   not only unwillingness to be saved, but there is a spiritual
   powerlessness to come to Christ; and this I will prove to every
   Christian at any rate. Beloved, I speak to you who have already been
   quickened by the divine grace, does not your experience teach you that
   there are times when you have a will to serve God, and yet have not the
   power? Have you not sometimes been obliged to say that you have wished
   to believe. but you have had to pray, Lord, help mine unbelief?"
   Because, although willing enough to receive God's testimony, your own
   carnal nature was too strong for you, and you felt you needed
   supernatural help. Are you able to go into your room at any hour you
   choose, and to fall upon your knees and say,"Now, it is my will that I
   should be very earnest in prayer, and that I should draw near unto God
   ?" I ask, do you find your power equal to your will? You could say,
   even at the bar of God himself, that you are sure you are not mistaken
   in your willingness; you are willing to be wrapt up in devotion, it is
   your will that your soul should not wander from a pure contemplation of
   the Lord Jesus Christ, but you find that you cannot do that, even when
   you are willing, without the help of the Spirit. Now, if the quickened
   child of God finds a spiritual inability, how much more the sinner who
   is dead in trespasses and sin? If even the advanced Christian, after
   thirty or forty years, finds himself sometimes willing and yet
   powerless--if such be his experience,--does it not seem more than
   likely that the poor sinner who has not yet believed, should find a
   need of strength as well as a want of will?

   But, again, there is another argument. If the sinner has strength to
   come to Christ, I should like to know how we are to understand those
   continual descriptions of the sinner's state which we meet with in
   God's holy Word? Now, a sinner is said to be dead in trespasses and
   sins. Will you affirm that death implies nothing more than the absence
   of a will? Surely a corpse is quite as unable as unwilling. Or again,
   do not all men see that there is a distinction between will and power:
   might not that corpse be sufficiently quickened to get a will, and yet
   be so powerless that it could not lift as much as its hand or foot?
   Have we never seen cases in which persons have been just sufficiently
   re-animated to give evidence of life, and have yet been so near death
   that they could not have performed the slightest action? Is there not a
   clear difference between the giving or the will and the giving of
   power? It is quite certain, however, that where the will is given, the
   power will follow. Make a man willing, and he shall be made powerful;
   for when God gives the will, he does not tantalize man by giving him to
   wish for that which he is unable to do; nevertheless he makes such a
   division between the will and the power, that it shall be seen that
   both things are quite distinct gifts of the Lord God.

   Then I must ask one more question: if all that were needed to make a
   man willing, do you not at once degrade the Holy Spirit? Are we not in
   the habit of giving all the glory of salvation wrought in us to God the
   Spirit? But now, if all that God the Spirit does for me is to make me
   willing to do these things for myself, am I not in a great measure a
   sharer with the Holy Spirit in the glory? and may I not boldly stand up
   and say, "It is true the Spirit gave me the will to do it, but still I
   did it myself, and therein will I glory; for if I did these things
   myself without assistance from on high, I will not cast my crown at his
   feet; it is my own crown, I earned it, and I will keep it." Inasmuch as
   the Holy Spirit is evermore in Scripture set forth as the person who
   worketh in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure, we hold it to
   be a legitimate inference that he must do something more for us than
   the mere making of us willing, and that therefore there must be another
   thing besides want of will in a sinner--there must be absolute and
   actual want of power.

   Now, before I leave this statement, let me address myself to you for a
   moment. I am often charged with preaching doctrines that may do a great
   deal of hurt. Well, I shall not deny the charge, for I am not careful
   to answer in this matter. I have my witnesses here present to prove
   that the things which I have preached have done a great deal of hurt,
   but they have not done hurt either to morality or to God's Church; the
   hurt has been on the side of Satan. There are not ones or twos but many
   hundreds who this morning rejoice that they have been brought near to
   God; from having been profane Sabbath-breakers, drunkards, or worldly
   persons, they have been brought to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ;
   and if this be any hurt may God of his infinite mercy send us a
   thousand times as much. But further, what truth is there in the world
   which will not hurt a man who chooses to make hurt of it? You who
   preach general redemption, are very fond of proclaiming the great truth
   of God's mercy to the last moment. But how dare you preach that? Many
   people make hurt of it by putting off the day of grace, and thinking
   that the last hour may do as well as the first. Why, if we never
   preached anything which man could misuse, and abuse, we must hold our
   tongues for ever. Still says one, "Well then, if I cannot save myself,
   and cannot come to Christ, I must sit still and do nothing." If men do
   say so, on their own heads shall be their doom. We have very plainly
   told you that there are many things you can do. To be found continually
   in the house of God is in your power; to study the Word of God with
   diligence is in your power; to renounce your outward sin, to forsake
   the vices in which you indulge, to make your life honest, sober, and
   righteous, is in your power. For this you need no help from the Holy
   Spirit; all this you can do yourself; but to come to Christ truly is
   not in your power, until you are renewed by the Holy Ghost. But mark
   you, your want of power is no excuse, seeing that you have no desire to
   come, and are living in wilful rebellion against God. Your want of
   power lies mainly in the obstinacy of nature. Suppose a liar says that
   it is not in his power to speak the truth, that he has been a liar so
   long, that he cannot leave it off; is that an excuse for him? Suppose a
   man who has long indulged in lust should tell you that he finds his
   lusts have so girt about him like a great iron net that he cannot get
   rid of them, would you take that as an excuse? Truly it is none at all.
   If a drunkard has become so foully a drunkard, that he finds it
   impossible to pass a public--house without stepping in, do you
   therefore excuse him? No, because his inability to reform, lies in his
   nature, which he has no desire to restrain or conquer. The thing that
   is done, and the thing that causes the thing that is done, being both
   from the root of sin, are two evils which cannot excuse each other,
   What though the Ethiopian cannot change his skin, nor the leopard his
   spots? It is because you have learned to do evil that you cannot now
   learn to do well; and instead, therefore, of letting you sit down to
   excuse yourselves, let me put a thunderbolt beneath the seat of your
   sloth, that you may be startled by it and aroused. Remember, that to
   sit still is to be damned to all eternity. Oh! that God the Holy Spirit
   might make use of this truth in a very different manner! Before I have
   done I trust I shall be enabled to show you how it is that this truth,
   which apparently condemns men and shuts them out, is, after all, the
   great truth, which has been blessed to the conversion of men.

   II. Our second point is THE FATHER'S DRAWINGS. "No man can come to me,
   except the Father which hath sent me draw him." How then does the
   Father draw men? Arminian divines generally say that God draws men by
   the preaching of the gospel. Very true; the preaching of the gospel is
   the instrument of drawing men, but there must be some thing more than
   this. Let me ask to whom did Christ address these words? Why, to the
   people of Capernaum, where he had often preached, where he had uttered
   mournfully and plaintively the woes of the law and the invitations of
   the gospel. In that city he had done many mighty works and worked many
   miracles. In fact, such teaching and such miraculous attestation had he
   given to them, that he declared that Tyre and Sidon would have repented
   long ago in sack-cloth and ashes, if they had been blessed with such
   privileges. Now, if the preaching of Christ himself did not avail to
   the enabling these men to come to Christ, it cannot be possible that
   all that was intended by the drawing of the Father was simply
   preaching. No, brethren, you must note again, he does not say no man
   can come except the minister draw him, but except the Father draw him.
   Now there is such a thing as being drawn by the gospel, and drawn by
   the minister, without being drawn by God. Clearly, it is a divine
   drawing that is meant, a drawing by the Most High God--the First Person
   of the most glorious Trinity sending out the Third Person, the Holy
   Spirit, to induce men to come to Christ. Another person turns round and
   says with a sneer, "Then do you think that Christ drags men to himself,
   seeing that they are unwilling!" I remember meeting once with a man who
   said to me, Sir, you preach that Christ takes people by the hair of
   their heads and drags them to himself" I asked him whether he could
   refer to the date of the sermon wherein I preached that extraordinary
   doctrine, for if he could, I should be very much obliged. However, he
   could not. But said I, while Christ does not drag people to himself by
   the hair of their heads, I believe that, he draws them by the heart
   quite as powerfully as your caricature would suggest. Mark that in the
   Father's drawing there is no compulsion whatever; Christ never
   compelled any man to come to him against his will. If a man be
   unwilling to be saved, Christ does not save him against his will. How,
   then, does the Holy Spirit draw him? Why, by making him willing. It is
   true he does not use "moral suasion;" he knows a nearer method of
   reaching the heart. He goes to the secret fountain of the heart, and he
   knows how, by some mysterious operation, to turn the will in an
   opposite direction, so that, as Ralph Erskine paradoxically puts it,
   the man is saved "with full consent against his will;" that is, against
   his old will he is saved. But he is saved with full consent, for he is
   made willing in the day of God's power. Do not imagine that any man
   will go to heaven kicking and struggling all the way against the hand
   that draws him. Do not conceive that any man will be plunged in the
   bath of a Saviour's blood while he is striving to run away from the
   Saviour. Oh, no. It is quite true that first of all man is unwilling to
   be saved. When the Holy Spirit hath put his influence into the heart,
   the text is fulfilled--"draw me and I will run after thee." We follow
   on while he draws us, glad to obey the voice which once we had
   despised. But the gist of the matter lies in the turning of the will.
   How that is done no flesh knoweth; it is one of those mysteries that is
   clearly perceived as a fact, but the cause of which no tongue can tell,
   and no heart can guess. The apparent way, however, in which the Holy
   Spirit operates, we can tell you. The first thing the Holy Spirit does
   when he comes into a man's heart is this: he finds him with a very good
   opinion of himself: and there is nothing which prevents a man coming to
   Christ like a good opinion of himself. Why, says man, "I don't want to
   come to Christ. I have as good a righteousness as anybody can desire. I
   feel I can walk into heaven on my own rights." The Holy Spirit lays
   bare his heart, lets him see the loathsome cancer that is there eating
   away his life, uncovers to him all the blackness and defilement of that
   sink of hell, the human heart, and then the man stands aghast. "I never
   thought I was like this. Oh! those sins I thought were little, have
   swelled out to an immense stature. What I thought was a mole-hill has
   grown into a mountain; it was but the hyssop on the wall before, but
   now it has become a cedar of Lebanon. Oh," saith the man within
   himself, "I will try and reform; I will do good deeds enough to wash
   these black deeds out." Then comes the Holy Spirit and shows him that
   he cannot do this, takes away all his fancied power and strength, so
   that the man falls down on his knees in agony, and cries, "Oh! once I
   thought I could save myself by my good works, but now I find that

   "Could my tears for ever flow,

   Could my zeal no respite know,

   All for sin could not atone,

   Thou must save and thou alone.'"

   Then the heart sinks, and the man is ready to despair. And saith he, "I
   never can be saved. Nothing can save me." Then, comes the Holy Spirit
   and shows the sinner the cross of Christ, gives him eyes anointed with
   heavenly eye-salve, and says, "Look to yonder cross. that Man died to
   save sinners; you feel that you are a sinner; he died to save you." And
   he enables the heart to believe, and to come to Christ. And when it
   comes to Christ, by this sweet drawing of the Spirit, it finds "a peace
   with God which passeth all understanding, which keeps his heart and
   mind through Jesus Christ our Lord." Now, you will plainly perceive
   that all this may be done without any compulsion. Man is as much drawn
   willingly, as if he were not drawn at all; and he comes to Christ with
   full consent, with as full a consent as if no secret influence had ever
   been exercised in his heart. But that influence must be exercised, or
   else there never has been and there never will be, any man who either
   can or will come to the Lord Jesus Christ.

   III. And, now, we gather up our ends, and conclude by trying to make a
   practical application of the doctrine; and we trust a comfortable one.
   "Well," says one, "if what this man preaches be true, what is to become
   of my religion? for do you know I have been a long while trying, and I
   do not like to hear you say a man cannot save himself. I believe he
   can, and I mean to persevere; but if I am to believe what you say, I
   must give it all up and begin again." My dear friends, it will be a
   very happy thing if you do. Do not think that I shall be at all alarmed
   if you do so. Remember, what you are doing is building your house upon
   the sand, and it is but an act of charity if I can shake it a little
   for you. Let me assure you, in God's name, if your religion has no
   better foundation than your own strength, it will not stand you at the
   bar of God. Nothing will last to eternity, but that which came from
   eternity. Unless the everlasting God has done a good work in your
   heart, all you may have done must be unravelled at the last day of
   account. It is all in vain for you to be a church-goer or chapel-goer,
   a good keeper of the Sabbath, an observer of your prayers: it is all in
   vain for you to be honest to your neighbours and reputable in your
   conversation; if you hope to be saved by these things, it is all in
   vain for you to trust in them. Go on; be as honest as you like, keep
   the Sabbath perpetually, be as holy as you can. I would not dissuade
   you from these things. God forbid; grow in them, but oh, do not trust
   in them, for if you rely upon these things you will find they will fail
   you when most you need them. And if there be anything else that you
   have found yourself able to do unassisted by divine grace, the sooner
   you can get rid of the hope that has been engendered by it the better
   for you, for it is a foul delusion to rely upon anything that flesh can
   do. A spiritual heaven must be inhabited by spiritual men, and
   preparation for it must be wrought by the Spirit of God. "Well," cries
   another, "I have been sitting under a ministry where I have been told
   that I could, at my own option, repent and believe, and the consequence
   is that I have been putting it off from day to day. I thought I could
   come one day as well as another; that I had only to say, "Lord, have
   mercy upon me,' and believe, and then I should be saved. Now you have
   taken all this hope away for me, sir; I feel amazement and horror
   taking hold upon me." Again, I say, "My dear friend, I am very glad of
   it. This was the effect which I hoped to produce. I pray that you may
   feel this a great deal more. When you have no hope of saving yourself,
   I shall have hope that God has begun to save you. As soon as you say
   "Oh, I cannot come to Christ. Lord, draw me, help me,' I shall rejoice
   over you. He who has got a will, though he has not power, has grace
   begun in his heart, and God will not leave him until the work is
   finished." But, careless sinner, learn that thy salvation now hangs in
   God's hand. Oh, remember thou art entirely in the hand of God. Thou
   hast sinned against him, and if he wills to damn thee, damned thou art.
   Thou canst not resist his will nor thwart his purpose. Thou hast
   deserved his wrath, and if he chooses to pour the full shower of that
   wrath upon thy head, thou canst do nothing to avert it. If, on the
   other hand, he chooses to save thee, he is able to save thee to the
   very uttermost. But thou liest as much in his hand as the summer's moth
   beneath thine own finger. He is the God whom thou art grieving every
   day. Doth it not make thee tremble to think that thy eternal destiny
   now hangs upon the will of him whom thou hast angered and incensed?
   Dost not this make thy knees knock together, and thy blood curdle? If
   it does so I rejoice, inasmuch as this may be the first effect of the
   Spirit's drawing in thy soul. Oh, tremble to think that the God whom
   thou hast angered, is the God upon whom thy salvation or thy
   condemnation entirely depends. Tremble and "kiss the Son lest he be
   angry and ye perish from the way while his wrath is kindled but a
   little,"

   Now, the comfortable reflection is this:--Some of you this morning are
   conscious that you are coming to Christ. Have you not begun to weep the
   penitential tear? Did not your closet witness your prayerful
   preparation for the hearing of the Word of God? And during the service
   of this morning, has not your heart said within you, "Lord, save me, or
   I perish, for save myself I cannot?" And could you not now stand up in
   your seat, and sing,

   "Oh, sovereign grace my heart subdue;

   I would be led in triumph, too,

   A willing captive of my Lord,

   To sing the triumph of his Word"?

   And have I not myself heard you say in your heart--"Jesus, Jesus, my
   whole trust Is in thee: I know that no righteousness of my own can save
   me, but only thou, O Christ--sink or swim, I cast myself on thee?" Oh,
   my brother, thou art drawn by the Father, for thou couldst not have
   come unless he had drawn thee. Sweet thought! And if he has drawn thee,
   dost thou know what is the delightful inference? Let me repeat one
   text, and may that comfort thee: "The Lord hath appeared of old unto
   me, saying, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with
   lovingkindness have I drawn thee." Yes, my poor weeping brother,
   inasmuch as thou art now coming to Christ, God has drawn thee; and
   inasmuch as he has drawn thee, it is a proof that he has loved thee
   from before the foundation of the world. Let thy heart leap within
   thee, thou art one of his. Thy name was written on the Saviour's hands
   when they were nailed to the accursed tree. Thy name glitters on the
   breast-plate of the great High Priest to-day; ay, and it was there
   before the day-star knew its place, or planets ran their round. Rejoice
   in the Lord ye that have come to Christ, and shout for joy all ye that
   have been drawn of the Father. For this is your proof, your solemn
   testimony, that you from among men have been chosen in eternal
   election, and that you shall be kept by the power of God, through
   faith, unto the salvation which is ready to be revealed.
     __________________________________________________________________

                               The Solar Eclipse

   A Sermon

   (No. 183)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, March 14th, 1858 by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "I form the light, and create darkness.'--Isaiah 45:7.

   WE ARE ALL expecting to-morrow to witness one of the greatest sights in
   the universe--the annular eclipse of the sun. It is possible that many
   of us shall have gone the way of all flesh before such a sight shall
   again be seen in this country and we are therefore looking for it with
   some degree of expectation. It is probable that hundreds and thousands
   of the human race will be attracted by it, to study for a few hours at
   least, the science of astronomy. Certain it is that our astronomers are
   making the most capital they possibly can of it by endeavouring to
   thrust it in every way under our notice, in order to induce us to make
   the sun, the moon, and the stars a little more the object of' our
   attention than they have been hitherto. Surely I need offer no apology
   whatever if religion comes forward to-day, and asks that attention
   should be drawn to her, even by the eclipse itself. Without a doubt, if
   there be sermons in stones, there must be a great sermon in the sun;
   and if there be books in the running brooks, no doubt there is many a
   huge volume to be found in a sun suffering eclipse. All things teach
   us, if we have but a mind to learn. There is nothing which we can see,
   or hear, or feel, which may not be the channels of great instruction to
   us. Let us see whether this may not lead us this morning into a train
   of thought which may, under God's blessing, be something far better to
   us than the seeing of an eclipse.

   I shall note this morning, in addressing you, that since the Lord
   creates darkness as well as light; first of all, eclipses of every kind
   are part of God's way of governing the world; in the second place, we
   shall notice that since God creates the darkness as well as the light,
   we may conclude beyond a doubt that he has a design in the eclipse--in
   the darkness as well as the light; and then, thirdly, we shall notice
   that as all things that God has created, whether they be light or
   whether they be dark, have a sermon for us, no doubt there are some
   sermons to be found in this.

   I. First of all, ECLIPSES ARE A PART OF GOD'S PLAN. In the olden times
   the ignorant people in England were frightened at an eclipse, they
   could not understand what it meant. They were quite sure that there was
   about to be a war, or a famine, or a terrible fire. They were
   absolutely certain that something fearful would happen; for they
   regarded it as being a prophecy of coming ills. They were totally at a
   loss to account for it, and knew nothing about the theory which now so
   satisfactorily sets our minds at rest. And you are aware, that till
   this day, in the East and in other parts of the world still in the
   ignorance of barbarism, an eclipse is looked upon as a very horrible
   and a very unaccountable thing. The Hindoos still believe that a great
   dragon swallows the sun, and they may be seen by thousands plunging
   into their sacred river, the Ganges, praying to the gods that they may
   set the sun at liberty, that the dragon may be compelled to disgorge
   him. Hundreds of other most stupid and absurd theories are still
   prominently believed and held in different parts of the world, and I
   believe that here amongst a very great number of us, an eclipse is
   looked upon as something contrary to the general law of nature. Now,
   beloved, all that understand anything of God's works, know very well
   that eclipses are as much a part of nature's laws as the regular
   sunshine, that an eclipse is no deviation from God's plan, but that it
   is a necessary consequence of the natural motion of the moon and the
   earth around the sun and each other, that there should at some stated
   periods be eclipses, and when we see the eclipse to-morrow, we shall
   not look upon it as a miracle or anything out of the ordinary course of
   God's providence, but we shall say it was a necessity involved in the
   very plan whereby God governs the earth.

   And now, beloved, I have only said these things to draw your attention
   to other eclipses. There are certain eclipses which happen in God's
   providence as well as in God's grace. As in nature an eclipse is part
   of God's plan, and is in fact involved in it, so we believe that in
   providence the eclipse shall sometimes overshadow the earth. I mean,
   the adversities, the wars, the famines, which sometimes fall on the
   human race, are but a part of God's divine plan of governing the earth,
   and have some beneficial object in their falling upon us.

   First, let me invite your attention to providence at large. How many
   times have we seen providence itself eclipsed with regard to the whole
   race. Behold, the Lord creates the world, and placed man upon it.
   "Increase and multiply," is his law. Man multiplies, fills the earth,
   and replenishes it. The whole earth is populated, and its valleys and
   hills rejoice with the voice of song. On a sudden comes an eclipse. God
   sends a flood of rain; he draws the plugs of the great fountains of the
   mighty deep, and lets the water burst up upon the earth. He bids his
   rain descend, not in showers, but in whole cataracts at once, and the
   earth becomes a void waste covered with water, and afterwards a dreary
   swamp covered with mud, the whole human race, with the solitary
   exception of eight persons, having been swept away. This is what I mean
   by a providential eclipse. After that God again suffers man to
   multiply, and the earth to be replenished. Year after year the earth
   laughs with harvest, and the fields are made glad with God's bounties.
   For seven years following each other there is such an abundance of
   plenty on the earth that men know not how to gather up by handfuls the
   stores which God has east. These seven years are overpassed, and lo!
   there comes an eclipse of God's bounty. There is no calf in the stall,
   the olive fails, and the fields yield no meat, all the land goes to
   Egypt to buy corn, for only in Egypt is there corn to be found. There
   is a great eclipse of God's bounty which happens to the world. But I
   need not stop to particularize the thousand instances that have
   happened in history. Nations have grown strong and mighty; anon there
   has come an eclipse of their glories, and all that has been builded has
   crumbled to the earth. Vast empires have been builded, and they have
   become great, and beneath their sway some of their people have become
   happy. Some savage conqueror from the north has descended with his
   barbarous hordes, and swept away every vestige of civilization, and the
   earth seems to have gone back hundreds of years. There has been a dark
   eclipse. Or it may have happened differently. A city is prosperous and
   rich. In one unhappy night a fire seizes upon it, and like the stubble
   before the flame, the whole city is consumed, and over the ashes of
   their houses the inhabitants sit down to weep and die. At another time
   a plague is upon the multitudes, and the pits are filled with the dead.
   Nations die and perish, and whole hosts of men are carried to their
   graves. Now, all these great eclipses of God's favour, these darkenings
   of the heavens, these sudden glooms that fall upon the human race, are
   parts of God's plan of providence. Beloved, believe me, it is God's
   providence, when his paths drop fatness, and when the valleys rejoice
   on every side. It is a part of his plan when the fields are covered
   with corn, and when there is grass for the cattle; but it is equally as
   much a part of the plan of his providence to reduce the earth to
   famine, and bring the human race to misery at certain stated seasons,
   when he sees that an eclipse is absolutely necessary for their good.

   It is just the same with you in your own private concerns. There is a
   God of providence to you. Lo, these many years has he fed you, and has
   never denied you the supply of your wants. Bread has been given to you,
   and your water has been sure. Your children have been about you. You
   have washed your feet with butter, you have rejoiced; you have stood
   fast in the ways of God, and in the ways of happiness. You have been
   able to say, "Our ways are ways of pleasant ness, and all our paths are
   peace." You have not been, of all men, the most miser able, but in some
   respects connected with your life, and blessed by God's providence, you
   have been the happiest amongst the human race; and now a dark cloud has
   fallen upon you. The sunlight of God's providence has set while it was
   yet noon. When you were rejoicing in the brightness of your light, on a
   sudden a midday-midnight has fallen upon you, to your horror and
   dismay. You are made to say, "Whence does all this evil come upon me?
   Is this also sent of God?" Most assuredly it is. Your penury, your
   sickness, your bereavement, your contempt, all these things are as much
   ordained for you, and settled in the path of providence, as your
   wealth, your comfort, and your joy. Think not that God has changed. It
   involves no change of the sun when an eclipse overshadows it. The sun
   has not moved from its predestined spot. There standeth it, fixed and
   secure; or if it be true that it moveth, still it moveth with such
   regularity that to us it seemeth still. Beloved, so it is with God. It
   may be that his purposes are moving onward to some great and distant
   goal, which yet we cannot see, circling around himself in some greater
   circle than human knowledge yet can guess; but this is certain, that,
   so far as we are concerned, God is the same, and of his years there is
   no end, and from his fixed and settled path he hath not swerved. His
   glory is undimmed, even when eye cannot see it. His love is just as
   bright, even when the shinings of it are concealed. He hath not moved
   to the right hand nor to the left. With the Father of lights there is
   no variableness, neither the shadow of turning. He abideth fast and
   fixed, though all things pass away. Let me confide then in him.
   Eclipses in providence, like eclipses in nature, are but a part of his
   own grand plan, and necessarily involved in it.

   I suppose that it is impossible that the earth should revolve around
   the sun, and that the moon should spin continually round the earth, in
   the same plane of their orbit, without there being eclipses. Since God
   has made the ellipse, or the circle, the great rule of nature, it is
   impossible but that eclipses should occur. Now, did you ever notice
   that in providence the circle is God's rule still. The earth is here
   to-day; it will be in the same place this day next year; it will go
   round the circle; it gets no further. It is just so in providence. God
   began the circle of his providence in Eden. That is where he will end.
   There was a paradise on earth, when God began his providential dealings
   with mankind; there will be a paradise at the end. It is the same with
   your providence. Naked came ye forth from your mother's womb, and naked
   must ye return to the earth. It is a circle. Where God has begun, there
   will he end; and as God has taken the rule of the circle in providence,
   as well as in nature, eclipses must be sure to occur. Moving in the pre
   destined orbit of divine wisdom, the eclipse is absolutely and
   imperatively necessary in God's plan of government. Troubles must come;
   afflictions must befall; it must, needs be that for a season ye should
   be in heaviness, through manifold temptations.

   But I have said, that eclipses must also occur in grace, and it is so.
   God's rule in grace is still the circle. Man was originally pure and
   holy; that is what God's grace will make him at last, He was pure when
   he was made by God in the garden. That is what God shall make him, when
   he comes to fashion him like unto his own glorious image, and present
   him complete in heaven. We begin our piety by denying the world, by
   being full of love to God; we often decline in grace, and God will
   bring us back to the state in which we were when we first began, so
   that we shall rejoice in none but Christ, and give our hearts to him as
   we did at first. Hence, there must be an eclipse in grace, because even
   there the circle seems to be the rule of God's gracious government.

   Now beloved, you are in the eclipse some of you to-day. I hear you
   crying, "Oh that it were with me as in months past, when the candle of
   the Lord shone round about me! I looked for light, but lo, darkness
   came; for peace, but behold, trouble. I said in my soul, my mountain
   standeth firm, I shall never be moved. Lord, thou didst hide thy face,
   and I am troubled. I sink in deep mire where there is no standing. All
   thy waves and thy billows have gone over me. It was but yesterday that
   I could read my title clear; to-day my evidences are bedimmed, and my
   hopes clouded. Yesterday I could climb to Pisgah's top and view the
   landscape o'er, and count the fields that were flowing with milk and
   honey, and rejoice with confidence in my future inheritance. To-day my
   spirit sees no heaven, it has no hopes, but many fears; no joys, but
   much distress;" and you are apt to say, dear friends, "Is this a part
   of God's plan with me? Can this be the way in which God would bring me
   to heaven?" Yes, it is even so. The eclipse of your faith, the darkness
   of your minds, the fainting of your hopes, all these things are but the
   parts of God's plan for making you ripe for the great inheritance into
   which you shall soon enter. These trials are but waves that wash you on
   to the rocks; they are but winds that waft your ship the more swiftly
   towards the desired haven. As David says in the psalm, so might I say
   to you, "So he bringeth them to their desired haven." By honour and
   dishonour, by evil report and by good report, by plenty and by poverty,
   by joy and by distress, by persecution and by comforts, by all these
   things is the life of your soul, and by each of these are you helped to
   hold on your way, and to be brought at last to the great goal and haven
   of your hopes. Oh! think not, Christian, that your sorrows are out of
   God's plan; they are necessary parts of it; and inasmuch as he will
   bring many heirs of God unto glory, it is necessary that through much
   tribulation he should bring them thither.

   I have thus tried to bring out the first truth, that the eclipse is a
   part of God's government, and that our temporal afflictions, and our
   own sorrows of heart, are but a part of that grand scheme. Permit me to
   trespass on your patience one minute more, when I notice, that in God's
   great plan of grace to the world, it is just the same. Sometimes we see
   a mighty reformation worked in the church. God raises up men who lead
   the van of the armies of Jehovah. See! error flies before them like
   shadows before the sunlight. Behold! the strongest towers of the enemy
   are tottering to their fall. The shout of a King is heard in the midst,
   and the saints of the Lord take courage, that their great and final
   victory at last is come. A few more years and those reformers are dead,
   and their mantle has not fallen upon any. After great mountains come
   deep valleys. The sons of great men are often small and drivelling; so
   there cometh a poor lukewarm church. After the Philadelphian, state of
   love, there comes the Laodicean state of lukewarmness. The church
   sinks! and in proportion as she sinks the enemy advances. Victory!
   victory! victory! shout the hosts of hell; and pushing on their course,
   they drive back the Lord's host, and the world trembles as in the
   balances, for victory seems to be on the side of the enemy. Again there
   comes another time of refreshing, another Pentecost; some other leader
   is raised up of God. Another mighty judge is brought into Israel, to
   drive out the Hittites and the Amorites that have invaded God's Canaan.

   Once more, the world rejoices and the creature that hath toiled so
   long, hopeth to be delivered from its bondage--alas! it sinks again.
   The rising hath its ebb, the summer hath its winter, and the joyous
   time hath its season of despondency to follow it; but, beloved, all
   this is a part of God's plan. Do you see how God governs the ocean?
   When he means to produce a flood-tide, he does not make the water come
   marching straight up upon the shore, but as you stand there you are
   absolutely certain that the sand will be covered, and that the flood
   will dash against the cliff at the foot of which you are standing. But
   you see a wave come marching up, and then it returns again, and then
   another wave, then it dies and rolls back and another follows it. Now,
   it is even so in the church of God. The day must be, when the knowledge
   of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. But this
   must be accomplished by different waves, by up-growing and decrease, by
   multiplying and by division. It must be by triumph and by victory, by
   conquest and by defeat, that at last God's great purpose shall ripen,
   and the world shall become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ.
   Think not then that eclipses of our holy religion, or the failure of
   great men in the midst of us, or the decline of piety, is at all apart
   from God's plan; it is involved in it, and as God's great purpose
   moving in the circle to bring forth another gracious purpose on earth
   must be accomplished, so beloved, an eclipse must necessarily follow,
   being involved in God's very way of governing the world in his grace.

   II. But, secondly, EVERYTHING THAT GOD DOES HAS A DESIGN. When God
   creates light he has a reason for it, and when he creates darkness he
   has a reason for it too. God does not always tell us his reason; he
   always has one, We call him a sovereign God, because sometimes he acts
   from reasons which are beyond our knowledge; but he is never an
   unreasoning God. It is according to the counsel of his will that he
   works; not according to his will, but according to the counsel of his
   will, to show you that there is a reason, a wisdom and counsel in
   everything that he does. Now I cannot tell you what is God's design in
   eclipsing the sun to-morrow; we can see many gracious purposes answered
   by it in our minds, but I do not know of what use it is to the world.
   It may be that if there never were an eclipse some great change might
   happen in the atmosphere, something far beyond the reach of all
   philosophical knowledge at present, but which may yet be discovered. It
   may be that the eclipse, like the tornado and the hurricane, has its
   virtue in operating upon this lower world in some mysterious way, but
   that we know not. However, we are not left in any darkness about other
   kind of eclipses; we are quite certain that providential eclipses, and
   gracious eclipses, have both of them their reasons. When God sends a
   providential eclipse he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the
   children of men for nought. When pestilence stalks through the land and
   sweeps away its myriads, think not that God has done an unthought-of
   act without an intention in it. When war, with its blood-red sword,
   sweeps the nations and lays the mother bleeding with her child, imagine
   not that this cometh in vain; God hath some design in all these things,
   and permit me to tell you what I believe to be God's design, when he
   sends troubles into the world, and when he sends troubles upon us. It
   is this, it is to draw our attention to himself. Well, said an old
   divine," Nobody ever looks at the sun except when he is in an eclipse."
   You never thought about the sun yesterday; you will all of you be
   staring at him to-morrow. Pieces of smoked glass, telescopes, and all
   kinds of inventions down to a pail of water, will be used in order to
   look at the sun. Why don't you look at him when he is shining brightly?
   There is nothing interesting in that, because it is an ordinary object.
   Now do you not notice, that when everything goes well with the world
   they never think about God? People always get religious when they get
   into trouble. The churches were fuller in London when we had the
   cholera here, than they had been for many a long day. There were more
   ministers went to see sick people in those times than had ever been
   known before. People that never read their Bible, never prayed, never
   thought of going to God's house, were hurrying off to a place of
   worship, or reading their Bibles, or pretending at least to pray,
   though, afterwards, when it went away, they forgot all about it; yet
   they did think a little of it when they were in trouble. "Surely in
   trouble they will seek the Lord; in the day of their distress they will
   seek me early." Doubtless, we should entirely forget God, if it were
   not for some of those eclipses which now and then happen. God would not
   have his name remembered on earth at all by the race of man if he did
   not make them recollect his name, when he scourged it into them with
   his rod. Famine, pestilence, the sword, the flood, all these must come
   upon us to be terrible remembrancers, to make us think of the dread
   King who holds the thunders in his hand, and keeps the lightnings in
   his power. Doubtless, this is God's great design in his afflictive
   providences, to make us think of him. But there is another design. Some
   times troublous times tend to prepare the world for something better
   afterwards. War is an awful thing; but I doubt not, it purges the moral
   atmosphere, just as a hurricane sweeps away a pestilence. It is a
   fearful thing to hear of famine, or to hear of plague; but each of
   these things has some effect upon the human race. An evil generally
   goes to make room for a greater good. Men may bewail the fire of
   London, but it was the greatest blessing God could have sent to London.
   It burnt down a set of old houses that were placed so close together
   that it was impossible for them to be without the plague; and when
   these old things had been burnt down, there was then room for a
   healthier action; and there has been less plague, and less disease ever
   since. Many of the troubles that come to the great wide world, are
   meant to be like axes, to cut down some deadly upas tree, and lay it
   level with the ground. That tree, when it stood, scattered greater
   evil, though it scattered it gradually, than the injury which God sent
   on a sudden, did inflict, though it was more apparent to the mind,
   having come all at once. Ah, my hearer, God has sent thee providential
   trouble. Thou art not his child; thou dost not fear his name nor love
   him. Thou art saying, "Why has this trouble happened to me?" God has a
   gracious design in it. There are many men that are brought to Christ by
   trouble. Many a sinner has sought the Saviour on his sick bed who never
   would have sought him anywhere else. Many a merchant whose trade has
   prospered, has lived without God; he has been glad to find the Saviour
   when his house has tottered into bankruptcy. We have known many a
   person who could afford to despise God while the stream flowed smoothly
   on, but that same man has been compelled to bow his knee, and seek
   peace through the blood of Christ, when he has come into the whirlpool
   of distress, and the whirlwind of trouble hath got hold upon him. There
   is a story told, that in the olden times, Artaxerxes and another great
   king were engaged in a furious fight. In the middle of the battle a
   sudden eclipse happened, and such was the horror of all the warriors,
   that they made peace there and then. Oh, if an eclipse of trouble
   should induce you to ground arms and seek to be reconciled unto God!
   Sinner, you are fighting against God, lifting the arm of your rebellion
   against him. Happy shall you be if that trouble which is now fallen
   upon you should lead you to throw down the weapons of your rebellion,
   and fly to the arms of God and say, "Lord have mercy upon me a sinner."
   It will be the best thing that thou hast ever had. Thy trouble will be
   far better to thee than joys could have been, if thy sorrows shall
   induce thee to fly to Jesus who can make peace through the blood of his
   cross. May this be the happy result of thine own troubles and sorrows.

   But furthermore, eclipses of grace have also their end and design. The
   Christian asks why it is that God does not seem to favour him in his
   conscience as much as he did aforetime. "Why is it that I have not more
   faith? Why have the promises lost their sweetness? Why has the Word of
   God seemed to fail in its power in operating upon my soul? Why has God
   hidden his face from me?" Christian, it is that thou mayest begin to
   search thyself, and say, "Show me wherefore thou contendest with me."
   God's people are afflicted in order that they may not go astray.
   "Before I was afflicted," said the Psalmist, "I went astray, but now
   have I kept thy Word." Leave a Christian alone, and he becomes like a
   piece of iron covered with rust; he loses all his brightness. Take the
   file of affliction, and once more the brightness becomes apparent.
   Christians without trouble would be like oysters without the sickness;
   they would not have produced pearls. The pearl oyster would have no
   pearl unless some disease had fallen upon it; and were it not that
   trouble lights upon the Christian, he would live without producing the
   pearl of a holy and contented piety. God's rods are improvers; when
   they are laid upon us they always mend us. God scarifies the Christian,
   that he may cleanse him of his weeds; he ploughs him deep that he may
   turn up the subsoil to the air, that the influence of the Divine Spirit
   may rest upon him. He puts us into the crucible and into the furnace,
   that the heat may burn away our dross, and may consume all our
   impurities. He sends us into the deep waters, that they may be like a
   sacred baptism to us, and may help in sanctifying us, by delivering us
   from our pride, our lust, our worldliness, and our conceit. Happy is
   the man who understands this --who knows that all things work together
   for good to them that love God, and believes that even an eclipse of
   God's countenance hath its end and design, in making him perfectly
   conformed to the image of Christ Jesus the Lord.

   III. And now not to detain you longer, I have got a sermon or two more
   to preach to you from the eclipse. To-morrow, Christians, if you will
   just remember what I am about to say you will learn a useful lesson.
   What is that which will hide the sun from us to-morrow? It is the
   ungrateful moon. She has borrowed all her light from the sun month
   after month; she would be a black blot, if the sun did not shine upon
   her, and now see all the return she makes is, she goes impudently
   before his face and prevents his light from shining upon us. Do you
   know anything at all like that in your own history? Have you not a
   great many comforts which you enjoy upon earth that are just like the
   moon? They borrow all their light from the sun. They would be no
   comforts to you unless God shone in them and they reflected back the
   light from his countenance. What is your husband, your wife; what are
   your children, your friends, your house, your home? What are all these
   but moons that borrow their light from the sun? Oh how ungrateful it is
   when we let our comforts get before our God; no wonder that we get an
   eclipse when we put these things that God gave to be our comforts into
   God's own throne and make them our idols. Oh! if our children take half
   of our hearts, if our friends take away our souls from Jesus, if like
   it was with Solomon, the wife leads the heart astray, if our goods, our
   house, our lands become the object of our life, if we set our
   affections upon them instead of setting them upon the things above, no
   wonder that there is an eclipse. Oh ungrateful heart that allows these
   moons of comfort to hide the sun. Old Master Brookes very prettily
   says, the husband gives his wife rings which she wears upon her finger
   as remembrances of his love. Suppose a wife should be so foolish as to
   love her jewels better than her husband, suppose she should set her
   heart more upon his love-tokens than upon his person, oh, what marvel
   if he should then take the rings and the jewels away that she might
   again love him. It is even so with us; God loves his children and he
   gives us strong faith and gives us joy and comfort, and then if we
   begin to set our hearts upon these more than upon him, he will come and
   take them away, for saith he, "I must have all thy love. I gave thee
   these to win thy love, not to rob me of it, and inasmuch as thou dost
   divert thine heart into them, instead of allowing thy love to flow in
   one channel towards me; I will stop up the channel of thy comfort, that
   thy heart may cleave to me, and to me alone.' Oh. for a heart that is
   like Anacreon's lyre, that would sing of love alone, that whatever
   subject you tried to bring to it, it would not resound with anything
   save love! Oh, that our hearts were like that towards God, so that when
   we tried to sing of comforts and of mercies, our hearts would only sing
   of God! Oh, that every string were made so divine, that it would never
   trill to any finger but the finger of the chief player upon my stringed
   instruments, the Lord Jesus Christ! Oh, that we had a heart like
   David's harp, that none but David could play; a soul that none but
   Jesus could make glad and cause to rejoice! Take care Christian, lest
   thy comforts like the moon eclipse thy sun. That is a sermon for thee,
   remember it, and be wise from it.

   And let the Christian recollect another sermon. Let him take his child
   out, and when he takes him outside the door, and he sees the sun begin
   to grow dark and all things fade away, and a strange colour coming over
   the landscape, the child will begin to cry and say, "Father the sun is
   going out, he is dying; we shall never have any light again." And as
   gradually the black moon creeps over the sun's broad surface and there
   remains only a solitary streak of light, the tears run down the child's
   eyes as he says, "The sun is nearly quenched; God has blown it out, it
   will never shine upon us again. We shall have to live in darkness;" and
   he would begin to weep for sorrow of heart. You would touch your child
   on the head, and say, "No, my little boy, the sun has not gone out; it
   is only the moon passing across its face; it will shine bright enough
   presently." And your boy would soon believe you; and as he saw the
   light returning, he would feel thankful, and would believe what you had
   said, that the sun was always the same. Now, you will be like a child
   to-morrow. When you get into trouble you will be saying, "God has
   changed." Then let God's Word speak to you as unto children, and let it
   say, "No, he has not changed; with him is no variableness, neither
   shadow of a turning."

   "My soul through many changes goes,

   His love no variation knows."

   And now, last of all, a total eclipse is one of the most terrific and
   grand sights that ever will be seen. We shall not see the eclipse here
   in all its majestic terror, but when the eclipse of the sun is total it
   is sublime. Travellers have given us some records of their own
   experience. When the sun has been setting far away, the mountains
   seemed to be covered with darkness, except upon their summits, where
   there was just a streak of light, when all below was swathed in
   darkness. The heavens grew darker and darker and darker, until at last
   it became as black as night, and here and there the stars might be seen
   shining, but beside them there was no light, and nothing could be
   discerned. I was thinking that if on a sudden the sun should set in
   ten-fold darkness, and never should rise again, what a horrid world
   this would be! If to-morrow the sun should actually die out, and never
   shine any more, what a fearful world this would be to live in! And then
   the thought strikes me--;Are there not some men, and are there not some
   here, who will one day have a total eclipse of all their comforts?
   Thank God, whatever eclipse happens to a Christian, it is never a total
   eclipse: there is always a ring of comfort left; there is always a
   crescent of love and mercy to shine upon him. But mark thee, sinner,
   when thou comest to die, bright though thy joys be now, and fair thy
   prospects, thou wilt suffer a total eclipse. Soon shall your sun set,
   and set in everlasting night. A few more months, and your gaiety shall
   be over; your dreams of pleasure shall be dissipated by the terrible
   wailing of the judgment-trump; a few more months, and this gay dance of
   revelry on earth shall all have passed away; and that passed away,
   remember, you have nothing to expect in the world to come but "a
   certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation." Can you
   guess what the Saviour meant, when he said "outer darkness, where there
   is wailing and gnashing of teeth?" Can any tell except those eclipsed
   spirits that have been these many years writhing in the torments of
   eternal judgement; can any tell what is meant by that "Outer darkness
   !" It is darkness so thick, that hope, which lives anywhere, cannot
   dart even a feeble ray through its impenetrable gloom; it is a darkness
   so black that you have no candle of your own fancy, no fair imagination
   to illuminate. A horror thicker than the darkness of Egypt, a darkness
   that may be felt will get hold upon the spirit. "Depart, ye cursed,"
   shall roll, like volumes of cloud and darkness over the accursed
   spirit. "Cursed, cursed, cursed," pronounced by the Sacred Trinity
   thrice, shall come, come like a three-fold ocean of unutterable depth,
   and shall in its caverns hide the soul beyond the reach of hope.

   I am but talking in simile and figure of a matter which none of us can
   thoroughly understand, but which each of us must know, unless we are
   saved by grace. My fellow-sinner, hast thou to-day any hope that when
   death shall come thou shalt be found in Christ? If thou hast none,
   beware and tremble; if thou hast any, take care it is "a good hope
   through grace." If thou hast no hope, but art seeking one, hear me
   while I tell thee the way of salvation. Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
   became man; he lived in this world, he suffered and he died; and the
   object of his death was this--that all who believe may be saved. What
   you are required to believe is simply this. Christ Jesus came into the
   world to save sinners: do you feel that you are a sinner? If so, he
   came to save you. All you have to do--and that grace makes you do--is
   to believe that he came to save sinners, and therefore came to save
   you. Mark, he did not come to save all; he came to save sinners. All
   men who can claim the title of sinners, Christ came to save. If you are
   too good to be a sinner, then you have no part in this matter; if you
   are too proud to confess that you are a sinner, then this has nothing
   to do with you; but if with a humble heart, with a penitential lip, you
   can say, "Lord, have mercy upon me a sinner," then Christ was punished
   for your sins, and you cannot be punished for them. Christ has died
   instead of you; believe on him, and you may go your way rejoicing that
   you are saved now, and shall be saved eternally. May God the Holy
   Spirit first teach you that you are a sinner, then lead you to believe
   that Christ died for sinners and then apply the promise, so that you
   may see that he died for you; and that done, you may "rejoice in hope
   of the glory of God," and your sun shall never set in an eclipse, but
   shall set on earth to rise with tenfold splendour in the upper sphere
   where it shall never know a cloud, a setting, or an eclipse.
     __________________________________________________________________

                              The Glorious Gospel

   A Sermon

   (No. 184)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, March 21, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "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."--1
   Timothy 1:15.

   I  SUPPOSE that the message delivered by God's servants to the people
   must always be called "the burden of the Lord." When the old prophets
   came forth from their Master, they had such dooms, and threatenings,
   and lamentations, and woe to preach, that their countenances were wan
   with sorrow, and their hearts heavy within them. They usually commenced
   their discourses by announcing, "The burden of the Lord, the burden of
   the Lord." But now, our message is no heavy one. No threatening and no
   thunders compose the theme of the gospel minister. All is mercy; love
   is the sum and substance of our gospel--love undeserved; love to the
   very chief of sinners. But it is still a burden to us. So far as the
   matter of our preaching is concerned, it is our joy and our delight to
   preach it; but if others feel as I feel now, they will all acknowledge
   it to be a hard matter to preach the gospel. For now I am sore vexed,
   and my heart is troubled, not concerning what I have to preach, but how
   I shall preach it. What if so good a message should fail because of so
   ill an ambassador? What if my hearers should reject this saying which
   is worthy of all acceptation, because I may announce it with lack of
   earnestness? Surely--surely such a supposition is enough to draw the
   tears to the eyes of any man! But may God in his mercy prevent a
   consummation so fearfully to be dreaded; and, however I may now preach,
   may this Word of God commend itself to every man's conscience; and may
   many of you now gathered together, who have never as yet find to Jesus
   for refuge, by the simple preaching of the Word, now be persuaded to
   come in, that you may taste and see that the Lord is good.

   Our text is one that pride would never prompt a man to select. It is
   quite impossible to flourish about it, it is so simple. Human nature is
   apt to cry, "Well I cannot preach upon that text--it is too plain;
   there is no mystery in it; I cannot show my learning: it is just a
   plain, common-sense announcement--I scarcely would wish to take it, for
   it lowers the man, however much it may exalt the Master." So, expect
   nothing but the text from me this morning, and the simplest possible
   explanation of it.

   We shall have two heads: first there is the text; then there is a
   double commendation appended to the text--"This is a faithful saying,
   and worthy of all acceptation."

   II. First, there is THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE TEXT--"Jesus Christ came
   into the world to save sinners." In that there are three things very
   prominent. There is the Saviour, there is the sinner, and there is the
   salvation.

   1. There is first of all, the Saviour. And in explaining the Christian
   religion, this is where we must begin. The person of the Saviour is the
   foundation-stone of our hope. Upon that person depends the usefulness
   of our gospel. Should someone arise and preach a Saviour, who was man,
   he would be unworthy of our hopes, and the salvation preached would be
   inadequate to what we need. Should another preach salvation by an
   angel, our sins are so heavy that an angelic atonement would have been
   insufficient; and therefore his gospel totters to the ground. I repeat
   it, upon the person of the Saviour rests the whole of the salvation. If
   he be not able, if he be not commissioned to perform the work, then
   indeed, the work itself is worthless to us, and falls short of its
   design. But, men and brethren, when we preach the gospel, we need not
   stop and stammer. We have to show you this day such a Saviour that
   earth and heaven could not show his fellow. He is one so loving, so
   great, so mighty, and so well adapted to all our needs, that it is
   evident enough that he was prepared of old to meet our deepest wants.
   We know that Jesus Christ who came into the world to save sinners was
   God; and that long before his descent to this lower world, he was
   adored by angels as the Son of the Highest. When we preach the Saviour
   to you, we tell you that although Jesus Christ was the Son of man, bone
   of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, yet was he eternally the Son of
   God, and hath in himself all the attributes which constitute perfect
   Godhead. What more of a Saviour can any man want than God? Is not he
   who made the heavens able to purge the soul? If he of old stretched the
   curtains of the skies, and made the earth, that man should dwell upon
   it, is he not able to rescue a sinner from the destruction that is to
   come? When we tell you he is God, we have at once declared his
   omnipotence and his infinity; and when these two things work together,
   what can be impossible? Let God undertake a work, it cannot meet with
   failure. Let him enter into an enterprise, and it is sure of its
   accomplishment. Since, then, Christ Jesus the man was also Christ Jesus
   the God, in announcing the Saviour, we have the fullest confidence that
   we are offering you something that is worthy of all acceptation.

   The name given to Christ suggests something concerning his person. He
   is called in our text, "Christ Jesus." The two words mean, the
   "Anointed Saviour."-The Anointed Saviour "came into the world to save
   sinners."

   Pause here, my soul, and read this o'er again:--He is the anointed
   Saviour. God the Father from before all worlds anointed Christ to the
   office of a Saviour of men; and, therefore, when I behold my Redeemer
   coming from heaven to redeem man from sin, I note that he does not come
   unsent, or uncommissioned. He has his Father's authority to back him in
   his work. Hence, there are two immutable things whereon our soul may
   rest,--there is the person of Christ, divine in itself; there is the
   anointing from on high, giving to him the stamp of a commission
   received from Jehovah his Father. O sinner, what greater Saviour dost
   thou want than he whom God anointed? What more canst thou require than
   the eternal Son of God to be thy ransom, and the anointing of the
   Father to be the ratification of the treaty?

   Yet we have not fully described the parson of the Redeemer, until we
   have noted that He was man. We read that he came into the world; by
   which coming into the world we do not understand his usual coming. for
   he often came into the world before. We read in Scripture, "I will go
   down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the
   cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know." In fact, he
   is always here. The goings of God are to be seen in the sanctuary; both
   in providence and in nature they are to be seen most visibly. Does not
   God visit the earth when he makes the tempest his chariot, and rides
   upon the wings of the wind? But this visitation was different from all
   these. Christ came into the world in the sense of the fullest and most
   complete union with human nature. Oh, sinner, when we preach a Divine
   Saviour, perhaps the name of God is so terrible to thee, that thou
   canst scarcely think the Saviour is adapted to thee. But hear thou
   again the old story. Although Christ was the Son of God he left his
   highest throne in glory and stooped to the manger. There he is, an
   infant of a span long. See, he grows from boyhood up to manhood, and he
   come. forth into the world to preach and suffer! See him as he groans
   under the yoke of oppression; he is mocked and despised; his visage
   more marred than that of any other man, and his form more than the sons
   of men! See him in the garden, as he sweats drops of blood! See him in
   Pilate's chamber, in which he is scourged and his shoulders run with
   gore! On the bloody tree behold him! See him dying with agony too
   exquisite to be imagined, much less to be described! Behold him in the
   silent tomb! See him at last bursting the bonds of death, and rising
   the third day, and afterwards ascending up on high, "leading captivity
   captive!" Sinner, thou hast now the Saviour before thee, plainly
   manifested. He who was called Jesus of Nazareth, who died upon the
   cross, who had his superscription written, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of
   the Jews," this man was the Son of God, the brightness of his Father's
   glory, and the express image of his Father, "begotten by his Father
   before all worlds, begotten not made, being of one substance with the
   Father." He "thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made
   himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and
   was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man,
   he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of
   the cross." Oh, could I bring him before you, could I now bring him
   here to show you his hands and his side, if ye could now, like Thomas,
   put your fingers in the holes of the nails and thrust your hand into
   his side, methinks you would not be faithless, but believing. This much
   I know, if there be anything that can make men believe under the hand
   of God's most Holy Spirit, it is a true picture of the person of
   Christ. Seeing is believing in his case. A true view of Christ, a
   right-looking at him, will most assuredly beget faith in the soul. Oh,
   I doubt not if ye knew our Master, some of you who are now doubting,
   and fearing, and trembling, would say, "Oh, I can trust him; a person
   so divine, and yet so human, ordained and anointed of God, must be
   worthy of my faith I can trust him; nay more, if I had a hundred souls
   I could trust him with them all. or, if I stood accountable for all the
   sins of all mankind, and were myself the very reservoir and sink of
   this world's infamy, I could trust him even then--for such a Saviour
   must be "able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him."
   This, then, is the person of the Saviour.

   2. Now. the second point is the sinner. If we had never heard this
   passage before, or any of similar import, I can suppose that the most
   breathless silence would reign over this place if for the first time I
   should commence to read them in your hearing, "This is a faithful
   saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the
   world to save--" I know how you would thrust foreward your heads. I
   know how you would put your hand against your ear, and look as if you
   would hear with the eye as well as with the ear, to know for whom the
   Saviour died. Every heart would say, whom did he come to save? And if
   we had never heard the message before, how would our hearts palpitate
   with fear lest the character described should be one unto which it
   would be impossible for us to attain! Oh, how pleasant it is to hear
   again that one word which describes the character of those Christ came
   to save:--"He came into the world to save sinners." Monarch, there is
   here no distinction; princes, he hath not singled you out to be the
   objects of his love; but beggars and the poor shall taste his grace. Ye
   learned men, ye masters of Israel, Christ does not say he came
   specially to save you; the unlearned and illiterate peasant is equally
   welcome to his grace. Jew, with all thy pedigree of honor, thou art not
   justified more than the Gentile. Men of Britain, with all your
   civilization and your freedom, Christ does not say he came to save you:
   he names not you as the distinguishing class who are the objects of his
   love--no, and ye that have good works, and reckon yourselves saints
   among men, he doth not distinguish you either. The one simple title,
   large and broad as humanity itself, is simply this;--"Jesus Christ came
   into the world to save sinners." Now, mark, we are to understand this
   in a general sense when we read it,¨~ viz.¨~, that all whom Jesus came
   to save are sinners. but if any man asks, may I infer from this that I
   am saved; we must then put another question to him. To begin then, with
   the general sense:--"Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."
   The men whom Christ came to save were by nature sinners, nothing less
   and nothing more than sinners. I have often said that Christ came into
   the world to save awakened sinners. It is quite true; so he did. But
   those sinners were not awakened sinners when he came to save them--they
   were nothing but "sinners dead in trespasses and sins" when he came to
   them. It is a common notion that we are to preach that Christ died to
   save what are called sensible sinners. Now that is true, but they were
   not sensible sinners when Christ died to save them. He makes them
   sensible or feeling sinners as the effect of his death. Those he died
   for are described, without any adjective to diminish the breadth of it,
   as being sinners, and simply sinners, without any badge of merit or
   mark of goodness which could distinguish them above their fellows.
   Sinners! Now, the term includes some of all kinds of sinners. There are
   some men whose sins appear but little. Trained up religiously, and
   educated in a moral way, they do not dash into the deeps of sin; they
   are content to coast along the shores of vice--they do not launch out
   into the depths. Now, Christ hath died for such as these, for many of
   these have been brought to know and love him. Let no man think, because
   he is a less sinner than others, that therefore there is less hope for
   him. Strange it is that some have often thought that. "If I had been a
   blasphemer," says one, "or injurious, I could have had more hope;
   though I know I have sinned greatly in my own eyes yet so little have I
   erred in the eye of the world, that I can scarcely think myself
   included." Oh, say not so. It says, "Sinners." If thou canst put
   thyself in that catalogue, whether it be at the top or at the bottom,
   thou art still within it; and the truth still holds good that those
   Jesus came to save were originally sinners, and thou being such, thou
   hast no reason to believe that thou art shut out. Again, Christ died to
   save sinners of an opposite sort. We have some men whom we dare not
   describe; it would be a shame to speak of the things which are done by
   them in private. There have been men who have invented vices of which
   the devil himself was ignorant until they invented them. There have
   been men so bestial that the very dog was a more honorable creature
   than they. We have heard of beings whose crimes have been more
   diabolical, more detestable, than any action ascribed even to the devil
   himself. Yet my text does not shut out these. Have we not met with
   blasphemers so profane that they could not speak without an oath?
   Blasphemy, which at first was something terrible to them, has now
   become so common that they would curse themselves before they said
   their prayers, and swear when they were singing God's praises. It has
   come to be part of their meat and drink, a thing so natural to them
   that the very sinfulness of it does not shock them, they so continually
   do it. As for God's laws, they delight to know them for the mere sake
   of breaking them. Tell them of a new vice and you will please them.
   They have become like that Roman emperor whose parasites could never
   please him better than by inventing some new crime--men who have gone
   head over ears in the Stygian gulf of hellish sin--men, who not content
   with fouling their feet while walking through the mire have lifted up
   the trap-door with which we seal down depravity, and have dived into
   the very kennel--rebelling in the very filth of human iniquity. But
   there is nothing in my text which can exclude even these. Many of these
   shall yet be washed in the Saviour's blood, and be made partakers of
   the Saviour's love.

   Nor does this text make a distinction as to the age of sinners. I see
   many among you here whose hairs if they were the color of your
   character would be the very reverse of what they are; ye have become
   white without, but ye are blackened all within with sin. Ye have added
   layer to layer of crime; and, now, if one were to dig down through the
   various deposits of numerous years, he would discover stony relics of
   youthful sins, hidden down in the depths of your rocky hearts. Where
   once all was tender, everything has become sere and hardened. You have
   gone far into sin. If you were to be converted now, would it not,
   indeed, be a wonder of grace? For the old oak to be bent, oh, how hard!
   Now, that it has grown so rugged and tough, can it be bent? Can the
   Great Husbandman train it? Can he graft on so old and so rough a stem
   something that shall bring forth heavenly fruit? Ah, he can, for age is
   not mentioned in the text, and many of the most ancient of men have
   proved the love of Jesus in their latest years. "But," says one, "my
   sin has had peculiar aggravations connected with it. I have sinned
   against light and against knowledge. I have trampled on a mother's
   prayers; I have despised a father's tears. Warnings given to me have
   been neglected. On my sick bed God himself has rebuked me. My resolves
   have been frequent and as frequently forgotten. As for my guilt, it is
   not to be measured by any ordinary standard. My little grimes are
   greater than other men's deepest iniquities, for I have sinned against
   the light, against the prickings of conscience, and against everything
   that should have taught me better. "Well, my friend, I do not see that
   thou art shut out here; my text makes no distinction but just
   this;--"Sinners!" And as far as my text is concerned there is no limit
   whatever: I must deal with the text as it stands; and even for you I
   cannot consent to limit it; it says, "Christ Jesus came into the world
   to save sinners." There have been men of your sort saved; why, then,
   should you not be saved? There have been the grossest blackguards, and
   the vilest thieves, and the most debauched harlots saved; then, why not
   you, even if you be such as they are? Sinners a hundred years old have
   been saved; we have instance on record of such cases; then, why not
   you? If from one of God's instances we may generally infer a rule, and
   moreover, we have his own Word to back us, where lives the man who is
   so wickedly arrogant as to shut himself out, and close the door of
   mercy in his own face? No, beloved, the text says "Sinner;" and why
   should it not include you and me within its list? "Jesus Christ came
   into the world to save sinners."

   But I said, and I must return to it if any-one wishes to make a
   particular application of the text to his own case it is necessary he
   should read this text in another way. Every man in this place must not
   infer that Christ came to save him. Those whom Christ came to save were
   sinners; but Christ will not save all sinners. There are some sinners
   who undoubtedly will be lost, because they reject Christ. They despise
   him; they will not repent; they choose their own self-righteousness;
   they do not turn to Christ, they will have none of his ways and none of
   his love. For such sinners, there is no promise of mercy, for there
   remains no other way of salvation. Despise Christ, and you despise your
   own mercy. Turn away from him, and you have proved that in his blood
   there is no efficacy for you. Despise him, and die doing so, die
   without giving your soul into his hands, and you have given a most
   awful proof that though the blood of Christ was mighty, yet never was
   it applied to you, never was it sprinkled on your hearts to the taking
   away of your sins. If, then, I want to know did Christ so die for me
   that I may now believe in him, and feel myself to be a saved man, I
   must answer this question;--Do I feel to-day that I am a sinner? Not,
   do I say so, as a compliment, but do I feel it? In my inmost soul is
   that a truth printed in great capitals of burning fire--I am a sinner?
   Then, if it be so, Christ died for me. I am included in his special
   purpose. The covenant of grace includes my name in the ancient roll of
   eternal election. there my person is recorded, and I shall, without a
   doubt, be saved, if now, feeling myself to be a sinner, I cast myself
   upon that simple truth, believing it and trusting in it to be my sheet
   anchor in every time of trouble Come, man and brother, are you not
   prepared to trust in him. Are not many of you able to say that you feel
   yourself sinners? Oh, I beseech you, whoever you are, believe this
   great truth which is worthy of all acceptation--Christ Jesus came to
   save you, I know your doubts, I know your fears, for I have suffered
   them myself; and the only way whereby I can keep my hopes alive is just
   this:--I am brought every day to the cross; I believe that to my dying
   hour I shall never have any hope but this--

   "Nothing in my hands I bring;

   Simply to thy cross I cling."

   And my only reason at this hour for believing Jesus Christ is my
   Redeemer is just this:--I know that I am a sinner: this I feel, and
   over this I mourn; and though I mourn it much, when Satan tells me that
   I cannot be the Lord's, I draw from my very mourning the comfortable
   inference, that inasmuch as he has made me feel I am lost, he would not
   have done this if he had not intended to save me; and inasmuch as he
   has given me to see that I belong to that great class of characters
   whom he came to save, I infer from that, beyond a doubt, that he will
   save me. Oh, can you do the same, ye sin stricken, weary, sad, and
   disappointed souls, to whom the world has become an empty thing? Ye
   weary spirits who have gone your round of pleasure, now exhausted with
   satiety, or even with disease, are longing to be rid of it--oh, ye
   spirits that are looking for something better than this mad world can
   ever give you here, I preach to you the blessed Gospel of the blessed
   God:--Jesus Christ the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered
   under Pontius Pilate, was crucified; dead and buried, and raised again
   the third day to save you--even you, for he came into the world to save
   sinners.

   3. And, now, very briefly, the third point: What is meant by saving
   sinners? "Christ came to save sinners." Brethren, if you want a picture
   to show you what is meant by being saved, let me give it to you here.
   There is a poor wretch who has lived many a year in the grossest sin;
   so inured to sin has he become, that the Ethiopian might sooner change
   his skin than he could learn to do well. Drunkenness, and vice, and
   folly have cast their iron net about him, and he has become loathsome
   and unable to escape from his loathsomeness. Do you see him? He is
   tottering onwards to his ruin. From childhood to youth, from youth to
   manhood, he has sinned right on, and now he is going towards his last
   days. The pit of hell is flaring across his path, flinging its
   frightful rays immediately before his face, and yet he sees it not: he
   still goes on in his wickedness, despising God and hating his own
   salvation. Leave him there. A few years have and now hear another
   story. Do you see that spirit yonder--foremost among the ranks most
   sweetly singing the praises of God? Do you mark it robed in white, an
   emblem of its purity? Do you see it as it casts its crown before the
   feet of Jesus, and acknowledges him the Lord of all? Hark! do you hear
   it as it sings the sweetest song that ever charmed Paradise itself?
   Listen to it, its song is this:--

   "I, the chief of sinners am,

   But Jesus died for me."

   "Unto him that loved me, and washed me from my sins in his blood, unto
   him be glory and honor, and majesty, and power, and dominion, world
   without end." And who is that whose song thus emulates the seraph's
   strains The same person who a little while ago was so frightfully
   depraved, the selfsame man! But he has been washed, he has been
   sanctified, he has been justified. If you ask me, then, what is meant
   by salvation, I tell you that it reaches all the way from that poor,
   desperately fallen piece of humanity, to that high-soaring spirit up
   yonder, praising God. That is to be saved--to have our old thoughts
   made into new ones, to have our old habits broken off, and to have new
   habits given; to have our old sins pardoned, and to have righteousness
   imputed; to have peace in the conscience, peace to man, and peace with
   God; to have the spotless robe of imputed righteousness cast about our
   loins, and ourselves healed and cleansed. To be saved is to be rescued
   from the gulf of perdition; to be raised to the throne of heaven; to be
   delivered from the wrath and curse! and the thunders of an angry God,
   and brought to feel and taste the love, the approval, and applause of
   Jehovah, our Father and our Friend. And all this Christ gives to
   sinners. When I preach this simple gospel, I have nothing to do with
   those who will not call themselves sinners. If you must be canonized,
   if you claim a saintly perfection of your own, I have nothing to do
   with you. My gospel is to sinners, and sinners alone; and the whole of
   this salvation, so broad and brilliant, and unspeakably precious, and
   everlastingly secure, is addressed this day to the outcast, to the
   offscouring--in one word, it is addressed to sinners.

   Now, I think I have announced the truth of the text. Certainly, no man
   can misunderstand me unless he does so intentionally:--"Christ Jesus
   came to save sinners."

   II. And, now, I have but little to do, but yet I have the hardest
   work--THE DOUBLE COMMENDATION of the text. First, "it is a faithful
   saying; that is a commendation to the doubter: secondly, it is worthy
   of all acceptation; "that is a commendation to the careless--nay, to
   the anxious, too.

   1. First, "it is a faithful saying;" that is a commendation to the
   doubter. Oh, the devil, as soon as he finds men under the sound of the
   word of God, slips along through the crowd, and he whispers in one
   heart, "Don't believe it!" and in another, "Laugh at it!" and in
   another, "Away with it!" And when he finds a person for whom the
   message was intended--one who feels himself a sinner, he is generally
   doubly in earnest, that he may not believe it at all. I know what Satan
   said to you, poor friend, over there. He said, "Don't believe it--it's
   too good to be true." Let me answer the devil by God's own words: "This
   is a faithful saying." It is good, and it is as true as it is good. It
   is too good to be true if God had not himself said it; but, inasmuch as
   he said it, it is not too good to be true. I will tell thee why thou
   thickest it to too good to be true, it is because thou measurest God's
   corn by thine own bushel. Please to remember, that his ways are not as
   thy ways, nor his thoughts as thy thoughts; for as the heavens are high
   above the earth, so are his ways high above thy ways, and his thoughts
   above thy thoughts. Why, thou thinkest that if any man had offended
   thee, thou couldst not have forgiven him. Ay, but God is not a man: he
   can forgive where thou canst not; and where thou wouldst take thy
   brother by the throat, God would forgive him seventy times seven. Thou
   dost not know Jesus, or else thou wouldest believe him. We think that
   we are honoring God when we think great thoughts of our sin. Let us
   recollect, that while we ought to think very greatly of our own sin, we
   dishonor God if we think our sin greater than his grace. God's grace is
   infinitely greater than the greatest of our crimes. There is but one
   exception that he has ever made, and a penitent cannot be included in
   that. I beseech you, therefore, get better thoughts of him. Think how
   good he is, and how great he is; and when you know this to be a true
   saying, I hope you will thrust Satan away from you, and not think it
   too good to be true I know what he will say to you next;--"Well, if it
   is true, it is not true to you: it is true to all the world, but not to
   you. Christ died to save sinners; it is true you are a sinner, but you
   are not included in it." Tell the devil he is a liar to his face. There
   is no way of answering him except by straightforward language. We do
   not believe in the individuality of the existence of the devil, as
   Martin Luther did. When the devil came to him, he served him as he did
   other impostors; he turned him out of doors, with a good hard saying.
   Tell him on the authority of Christ himself, that he is a liar. Christ
   says, he came to save sinners; the devil says he did not. He says,
   virtually, he did not, for he declares that he did not come to save
   you, and you feel that you are a sinner. Tell him he is a liar, and
   send him about his business. At any rate, never put his testimony in
   comparison with that of Christ. He looks today on thee from Calvary's
   cross with those same dear tearful eyes that once wept over Jerusalem.
   He looks on thee my brother, my sister, and says through these lips of
   mine, "I came into the world to save sinners." Sinner! wilt thou not
   believe on him, and trust thy soul in his hands? Wilt thou not
   say,--"Sweet Lord Jesus, thou shalt be our confidence henceforth! For
   thee all other hopes I resign, thou art, thou ever shalt be mine.' "
   Come, poor timid one, I must endeavor to re-assure you, by repeating
   again this text:--"Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."
   It is a true saying, I cannot have you reject it You say you cannot
   believe it. Let me ask you, "Do you not believe the Bible?" "Yes," you
   say, "every word of it." Then, this is one word of it--"Jesus came into
   the world to save sinners." I charge thee by thy honesty--as thou
   sayest, "I believe the Bible," believe this. There it stands. Dost thou
   believe Jesus Christ? Come, answer me Dost thou think he lieth? Would a
   God of Truth stoop to deceit? "No," thou sayest, "whatever God says, I
   believe." It is God that says it to thee, then, in his own book. He
   died to save sinners.-Come, once again. Dost thou not believe facts?
   Did not Jesus Christ rise from the dead? Does not that prove his gospel
   to be authentic? If, then, the gospel be authentic, the whole of what
   Christ declares to be the gospel must be true. I charge thee, as thou
   believest his resurrection, believe that he died for sinners, and cast
   thyself upon this truth. Once again. Wilt thou deny the testimony of
   all the saints in heaven and of all the saints on earth? Ask every one
   of them, and they will tell you this is true--he died to save sinners.
   I, as one of the least of his servants, must bear my testimony. When
   Jesus came to save me, I protest he found nothing good in me. I know of
   a surety, that there was nothing in me to recommend me to Christ; and
   if he loved me, he loved me because he would do so; for there was
   nothing loveable, nothing that he could desire in me. What I am, I am
   by his grace; he made me what I am. But a sinner he found me at first,
   and his own sovereign love was the only reason for his choice. Ask all
   the people of God, and they will all say the same.

   But you say you are too great a sinner. Why. you are not greater than
   some in heaven already. You say that you are the greatest sinner that
   ever lived. I say you are mistaken. The greatest sinner died some years
   ago and went to heaven. My text says so:--"Of whom I am chief" So, you
   see, the chief one has been saved before you; and if the chief one has
   been saved, why should you not be? There are the sinners standing in a
   line, and I see one starting out from the ranks, and he says, "Make
   way, make way; I stand at the head of you, I am the chief of sinners.
   give me the lowest place; let me take the lowest room." "No," cries
   another, "not you; I am a greater sinner than you." Then the apostle
   Paul comes, and says: "I challenge you all, Manasseh and Magdalene, I
   challenge you. I will have the lowest place. I was a blasphemer, a
   persecutor, and injurious, but I have obtained mercy, that in me first
   God might show his long-suffering." Now, if Christ has saved the
   greatest sinner that ever lived, oh, sinner, great as you may be, you
   cannot be greater than the greatest, and he is able to save you. Oh, I
   beseech you by the myriads of witnesses around the throne, and by the
   thousands of witnesses on earth, by Jesus Christ, the witness on
   Calvary, by the blood of sprinkling that is a witness even now, by God
   himself, and by his Word which is faithful, I beseech you believe this
   faithful saying, that "Jesus Christ came into the world to save
   sinners."

   2. And, now, to close. The second commendation of the text is to the
   careless and to the anxious too To the careless one this text is worthy
   of all acceptation. Oh, man, thou scornest it. I saw thee curl thy lip
   in derision. The story was badly told, and therefore thou didst scorn
   it. Thou saidst in thine heart, "What is that to me? If this be what
   the man preaches, I care not to hear it: if this be the gospel it is
   nothing." Ah, sir, it is something, though thou knowest it not. It is
   worthy of thy acceptation: the thing I have preached, however poor the
   way in which it is preached, is well worthy of thy attention I care not
   what orator may lecture to you, he can never have a subject greater
   than mine. Damosthenes himself, might stand here, or Cicero, his later
   compeer, they could never have a weightier subject. Though a child
   should tell you of it, the subject might well excuse him, for it is so
   important. Man it is not your house that is in danger, it is not your
   body only, it is your soul I beseech you, by eternity, by its dreadful
   terrors, by the horrors of hell, by that fearful word,
   "Eternity--Eternity," I beseech thee as a man, thy brother, one who
   loves thee, and who would fain snatch thee from the burning, I beseech
   thee do not despise thine own mercies; for this is worthy of thee, man,
   worthy of all thy attention, and worthy of thy heartiest acceptation.
   Art thou wise? This is more worthy than thy wisdom. Art thou rich? This
   is worthier than all thy wealth. Art thou famous? This is worthier than
   all thy honor. Art thou princely? This is worthier than thine ancestry,
   or than all thy goodly heritage. The thing I preach is the worthiest
   thing under heaven, because it will last thee when an things else fade
   away. It will stand by thee when thou hast to stand alone. In the hour
   of death it will plead for thee when thou hast to answer the summons of
   justice at God's bar. And it shall be thine eternal consolation through
   never ending ages. It is worthy of thy acceptation.

   And, now, dost thou feel anxious? Is thy heart sad? Dost thou say, "I
   desire to be saved. Can I trust to this gospel? Is it strong enough to
   bear me? I am an elephantine sinner; will not its pillars crumble like
   leaves beneath my weight of sin?" "I the chief of sinners am;" will its
   portals be wide enough to receive me? My spirit is diseased with sin;
   can this medicine cure it? Yes, it is worthy of you: it is equal to
   your disease, it is equal to your wants, it is all-sufficient for your
   demands. If I had a half-gospel to preach, or a defective one, I would
   not preach it earnestly; but I have one that is worthy of all
   acceptation. "But, sir I have been a thief, a whoremonger, a drunkard."
   It is worthy of thee, for he came to save sinners, and thou art one.
   "But, sir, I have been a blasphemer." It does not exclude even thee; it
   is worthy of thy acceptation. But, mark, it is worthy of all the
   acceptation you can give it. You may not only accept it in your head
   but in your heart; you may press it to your soul and call it all in an,
   you may feed on it, and live on it. And if you live for it, and suffer
   for it, and die for it, it is worthy of all.

   I must let you go now; but my spirit feels as if it would linger here.
   Strange it should be that many men should not care for their own souls,
   when your minister this day cares for you. What matters it to me
   whether men be lost or saved? Shall I be any the better for your
   salvation? Assuredly there is little gain there. And yet I feel more
   for you, many of you, than you feel for yourselves. Oh, strange
   hardening of the heart, that a man should not care for his men
   salvation, that he should, without a thought, reject the most precious
   truth. Stay, sinner stay, ere thou turnest from thine own mercy--stay,
   once more--perhaps this shall be thy last warning, or worse, it may be
   the last warning thou shalt ever feel. Thou feelest it now. Oh I
   beseech thee quench not the Spirit. Go not forth from this place to
   talk with idle gossip on thy way home. Go not forth to forget what
   manner of man thou art. But hasten to thy home; seek thy chamber; shut
   to the door; fall on thy face by thy bedside; confess thy sin; cry unto
   Jesus, tell him thou art a wretch undone without his sovereign grace,
   tell him thou has heard this morning that he came to save sinners, and
   that the thought of such a love as that hath made thee lay down the
   weapons of thy rebellion, and that thou art desirous to be his. There
   on thy face plead with him, and say unto him, "Lord save me, or I
   perish."

   The Lord bless you all for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                               The Great Revival

   A Sermon

   (No. 185)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, March 28th, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations;
   and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our
   God."--Isaiah 52:10.

   WHEN THE HEROES of old prepared for the fight they put on their armour;
   but when God prepares for battle he makes bare his arm. Man has to look
   two ways--to his own defence, as well as to the offence of his enemy;
   God hath but one direction in which to cast his eye--the overthrow of
   his foeman, and he disregards all measures of defence, and scorns all
   armour. He makes bare his arm in the sight of all the people. When men
   would do their work in earnest, too, they sometimes strip themselves,
   like that warrior of old, who, when he went to battle with the Turks,
   would never fight them except with the bare arm. "Such things as they,"
   said he, "I need not fear; they have more reason to fear my bare arm
   than I their scimitar." Men feel that they are prepared for a work when
   they have cast away their cumbrous garments. And so the prophet
   represents the Lord as laying aside for awhile the garments of his
   dignity, and making bare his arm, that he may do his work in earnest,
   and accomplish his purpose for the establishment of his church.

   Now, leaving the figure, which is a very great one, I would remind you
   that its meaning is fully carried out, whenever God is pleased to send
   a great revival of religion. My heart is glad within me this day, for I
   am the bearer of good tidings. My soul has been made exceedingly full
   of happiness, by the tidings of a great revival of religion throughout
   the United States. Some hundred years, or more, ago, it pleased the
   Lord to send one of the most marvellous religious awakenings that was
   ever known; the whole of the United States seemed shaken from end to
   end with enthusiasm for hearing the Word of God; and now, after the
   lapse of a century, the like has occurred again. The monetary pressure
   has at length departed; but it has left behind it the wreck of many
   mighty fortunes. Many men, who were once princes, have now become
   beggars, and in America. more than in England, men have learned the
   instability of all human things. The minds of men, thus weaned from the
   earth by terrible and unexpected panic, seem prepared to receive
   tidings from a better land, and to turn their exertions in a heavenly
   direction. You will be told by any one--who is conversant with the
   present state of America, that wherever you go there are the most
   remarkable signs that religion is progressing with majestic strides.
   The great revival, as it is now called, has become the common market
   talk of merchants; it is the theme of every newspaper; even the secular
   press remark it, for it has become so astonishing that all ranks and
   classes of men seem to have been affected by it. Apparently without any
   cause whatever, fear has taken hold of the hearts of men; a thrill
   seems to be shot through every breast at once; and it is affirmed by
   men of good repute, that there are, at this time, towns in New England
   where you could not, even if you searched, find one solitary
   unconverted person. So marvellous--I had almost said, so
   miraculous--has been the sudden and instantaneous spread of religion
   throughout the great empire, that it is scarcely possible for us to
   believe the half of it, even though it should be told us. Now, as you
   are aware, I have at all times been peculiarly jealous and suspicious
   of revivals. Whenever I see a man who is called a revivalist, I always
   set him down for a cipher. I would scorn the taking of such a title as
   that to myself. If God pleases to make use of a man for the promoting
   of a revival, well and good; but for any man to assume the title and
   office of a revivalist, and go about the country, believing that
   wherever he goes he is the vessel of mercy appointed to convey a
   revival of religion, is, I think, an assumption far too arrogant for
   any man who has the slightest degree of modesty. And again, there are a
   large number of revivals, which occur every now and then in our towns,
   and sometimes in our city, which I believe to be spurious and
   worthless. I have heard of the people crowding in the morning, the
   afternoon, and the evening, to hear some noted revivalist, and under
   his preaching some have screamed, have shrieked, have fallen down on
   the floor, have rolled themselves in convulsions, and afterwards, when
   he has set a form for penitents, employing one or two decoy ducks to
   run out from the rest and make a confession of sin, hundreds have come
   forward, impressed by that one sermon, and declared that they were,
   there and then, turned from the error of their ways; and it was only
   last week I saw a record of a certain place, in our own country, giving
   an account, that on such a day, under the preaching of the Rev. Mr.
   So-and-so, seventeen persons were thoroughly sanctified, twenty-eight
   were convinced of sin, and twenty-nine received the blessing of
   justification. Then comes the next day, so many more; the following
   day, so many more; and afterwards they are all cast up together, making
   a grand total of some hundreds, who have been blessed during three
   services, under the ministry of Mr. So-and-so. All that I call farce!
   There may be something very good in it; but the outside looks to me to
   be so rotten, that I should scarcely trust myself to think that the
   good within comes to any very great amount. When people go to work to
   calculate so exactly by arithmetic, it always strikes me they have
   mistaken what they are at. We may easily say that so many were added to
   the church on a certain occasion, but to take a separate census of the
   convinced, the justified, and the sanctified, is absurd. You will,
   therefore, be surprised at finding me speaking of revival; but you
   will, perhaps, not be quite so surprised when I endeavour to explain
   what I mean by an earnest and intense desire, which I feel in my heart,
   that God would be pleased to send throughout this country a revival
   like that which has just commenced in America, and which, we trust,
   will long continue there.

   I should endeavour to mark, in the first place, the cause of every
   revival of true religion; secondly,the consequences of such revival;
   then, thirdly, I shall give a caution or two, that we make not mistakes
   in this matter, and conceive that to be God's work which is only man's;
   and then I shall conclude by making an exhortation to all my brethren
   in the faith of Christ, to labour and pray for a revival of religion in
   the midst of our churches.

   I. First, then, THE CAUSE: OF A TRUE REVIVAL. The mere worldly man does
   not understand a revival; he cannot make it out. Why is it, that a
   sudden fit of godliness, as he would call it, a kind of sacred
   epidemic, should seize upon a mass of people all at once? What can be
   the cause of it? It frequently occurs in the absence of all great
   evangelists; it cannot be traced to any particular means. There have
   been no special agencies used in order to bring it about--no machinery
   supplied, no societies established; and yet it has come, just like a
   heavenly hurricane, sweeping everything before it. It has rushed across
   the land, and of it men have said, "The wind bloweth, where it listeth;
   we hear the sound thereof, but we cannot tell whence it cometh or
   whither it goeth." What is then, the cause? Our answer is, If a revival
   be true and real, it is caused by the Holy Spirit, and by him alone.
   When Peter stood up on the day of Pentecost, and preached that
   memorable sermon by which three thousand persons were converted, can we
   attribute the remarkable success of his ministry to anything else but
   the ministry of the Holy Spirit? I read the notes of Peter's discourse;
   it was certainly very simple; it was a plain narration of facts; it was
   certainly very bold, very cutting, and pointed, and personal, for he
   did not blush to tell them that they had put to death the Lord of life
   and glory, and were guilty of his blood; but on the mere surface of the
   thing, I should be apt to say that I had read many a sermon far more
   likely to be effective than Peter's; and I believe there have been many
   preachers who have lived, whose sermons when read would have been far
   more notable and far more regarded, at least by the critic, than the
   sermon of Peter. It seems to have been exceedingly simple and suitable,
   and extremely earnest, but none of these things are so eminently
   remarkable as to be the cause of such extraordinary success.

   What, then, was the reason? And we reply, once more, the same word
   which the Holy Spirit blesses to the conversion of one, he might, if he
   pleased, bless to the conversion of a thousand: and I am persuaded that
   the meanest preacher in Christendom might come into this pulpit this
   morning, and preach the most simple sermon, in the most uneducated
   style, and the Holy Spirit, if so he willed it, might bless that sermon
   to the conversion of every man, woman, and child, within this place:
   for his arm is not shortened, his power is not straitened, and as long
   as he is Omnipotent, it is ours to believe that he can do whatsoever
   seemeth him good. Do not imagine, when you hear of a sermon being made
   useful, that it was the sermon itself that did the work. Conceive not,
   because a certain preacher may have been greatly blessed in the
   conversion of souls, that there is anything in the preacher. God forbid
   that any preacher should arrogate such a thing to himself. Any other
   preacher, blessed in the same manner, would be as useful, and any other
   sermon, provided it be truthful and earnest, might be as much blessed
   as that particular sermon which has become notable by reason of the
   multitudes who by it have been brought to Christ. The Spirit of God,
   when he pleaseth, blows upon the sons of men. He finds a people hard
   and careless; he casts a desire into their minds--he sows it broadcast
   in their spirits--a thought towards the house of the Lord, and
   straightway, they know not why, they flock in multitudes to hear the
   Word preached. He casts the seed, the same seed, into the preacher's
   mind, and he knows not how, but he feels more earnest than he did
   before. When he goes to his pulpit, he goes to it as to a solemn
   sacrifice, and there he preaches, believing that great things will be
   the effect of his ministry. The time of prayer cometh round; Christians
   are found meeting together in large numbers; they cannot tell what it
   is that influences them, but they feel they must go up to the house of
   the Lord to pray. There are earnest prayers lifted up; there are
   earnest sermons preached, and there are earnest hearers. Then God the
   Almighty One is pleased to, soften hard hearts, and subdue the
   stout-hearted, and bring them to know the truth. The only real cause
   is, his Spirit working in the minds of men.

   But while this is the only actual cause, yet there are instrumental
   causes; and the main instrumental cause of a great revival must be the
   bold, faithful, fearless preaching of the truth as it is in Jesus. Why,
   brethren, we want every now and then a reformation. One reformation
   will never serve the church; she need's continually to be wound up, and
   set a-going afresh; for her works run down, and she does not act as she
   used to do. The bold, bald doctrines that Luther brought out, began to
   be a little modified, until layer after layer was deposited upon them,
   and at last the old rocky truth was covered up, and there grew upon the
   superficial subsoil an abundance of green and flowery errors, that
   looked fair and beautiful, but were in no way whatever related to the
   truth, except as they were the products of its decay. Then there came
   bold men who brought the truth out again, and said, "Clear away this
   rubbish; let the blast light upon these deceitful beauties; we want
   them not; bring out the old truth once more!" And it came out. But the
   tendency of the church perpetually is, to be covering up its own naked
   simplicity, forgetting that the truth is never so beautiful as when it
   stands in its own unadorned, God-given glory. And now, at this time, we
   want to have the old truths restored to their places. The subtleties
   and the refinements of the preacher must be laid aside. We must give up
   the grand distinctions of the school-men, and all the lettered
   technicalities of men who have studied theology as a system, but have
   not felt the power of it in their hearts; and when the good old truth
   is once more preached by men whose lips are touched as with a live coal
   from off the altar, this shall be the instrument, in the hand of the
   Spirit, for bringing about a great and thorough revival of religion in
   the land.

   But added to this, there must be the earnest prayers of the church. All
   in vain the most indefatigable ministry, unless the church waters the
   seed sown, with her abundant tears. Every revival has been commenced
   and attended by a large amount of prayer. In the city of New York at
   the present moment, there is not, I believe, one single hour of the
   day, wherein Christians are not gathered together for prayer. One
   church opens its doors from five o'clock till six, for prayer; another
   church opens from six to seven, and summons its praying men to offer
   the sacrifice of supplication. Six o'clock is past, and men are gone to
   their labour. Another class find it then convenient--such as those,
   perhaps, who go to business at eight or nine-and from seven to eight
   there is another prayer meeting. From eight to nine there is another,
   in another part of the city, and what is most marvellous, at high noon,
   from twelve to one, in the midst of the city of New York, there is held
   a prayer meeting in a large room, which is crammed to the doors every
   day, with hundreds standing outside. This prayer meeting is made up of
   merchants of the city, who can spare a quarter of an hour to go in and
   say a word of prayer, and then leave again; and then a fresh company
   come in to fill up the ranks, so that it is supposed that many hundreds
   assemble in that one place for prayer during the appointed hour. This
   is the explanation of the revival. If this were done in London-if we
   for once would outvie old Rome, who kept her monks in her sanctuaries,
   always at prayer, both by night and by day,--if we together could keep
   up one golden chain of prayer, link after link of holy brotherhood
   being joined together in supplication, then might we expect an abundant
   outpouring of the Divine Spirit from the Lord our God. The Holy Spirit,
   as the actual agent--the Word preached, and the prayers of the people,
   as the instruments--and we have thus explained the cause of a true
   revival of religion.

   II. But now what are THE CONSEQUENCES OF A REVIVAL OF RELIGION? Why,
   the consequences are everything that our hearts could desire for the
   church's good. When the revival of religion comes into a nation, the
   minister begins to be warmed. It is said that in America the most
   sleepy preachers have begun to wake up; they have warmed themselves at
   the general fire, and men who could not preach without notes, and could
   not preach with them to any purpose at all, have found it in their
   hearts to speak right out, and speak with all their might to the
   people. When there comes a revival, the minister all of a sudden finds
   that the usual forms and conventionalities of the pulpit are not
   exactly suitable to the times. He breaks through one hedge; then he
   finds himself in an awkward position, and he has to break through
   another. He finds himself perhaps on a Sunday morning, though a Doctor
   of Divinity, actually telling an anecdote--lowering the dignity of the
   pulpit by actually using a simile or metaphor--sometimes perhaps
   accidentally making his people smile, and what is also a great sin in
   these solid theologians, now and then dropping a tear. He does not
   exactly know how it is, but the people catch up his words. "I must have
   something good for them," he says. He just burns that old lot of
   sermons; or he puts them under the bed, and gets some new ones, or gets
   none at all, but just gets his text, and begins to cry, "Men and
   brethren, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."
   The old deacons say, "What is the matter with our minister?" The old
   ladies, who have heard him for many years, and slept in the front of
   the gallery so regularly, begin to rouse, and say, "I wonder what has
   happened to him; how can it be?" Why, he preaches like a man on fire.
   The tear runs over at his eye; his soul is full of love for souls."
   They cannot make it out; they have often said he was dull and dreary
   and drowsy. How is it all this is changed? Why, it is the revival. The
   revival has touched the minister; the sun, shining so brightly, has
   melted some of the snow on the mountain-top, and it is running down in
   fertilizing streams, to bless the valleys; and the people down below
   are refreshed by the ministrations of the man of God who has awakened
   himself up from his sleep, and finds himself, like another Elijah, made
   strong for forty days of labour. Well, then, directly after that the
   revival begins to touch the people at large. The congregation was once
   numbered by the empty seats, rather than by the full ones. But on a
   sudden--the minister does not understand it--he finds the people coming
   to hear him. He never was popular, never hoped to be. All at once he
   wakes up and finds himself famous, so far as a large congregation can
   make him so. There are the people, and how they listen! They are all
   awake, all in earnest; they lean their heads forward, they put their
   hands to their ears. His voice is feeble; they try to help him; they
   are doing anything so that they may hear the Word of Life. And then the
   members of the church open their eyes and see the chapel full, and they
   say, "How has this come about? We ought to pray." A prayer-meeting is
   summoned. There had been five or six in the vestry: now there are five
   or six hundred, and they turn into the chapel. And Oh! how they pray!
   That old stager, who used to pray for twenty minutes, finds it now
   convenient to confine himself to five; and that good old man, who
   always used to repeat the same form of prayer when he stood up, and
   talked about the horse that rushed into the battle, and the oil from
   vessel to vessel, and all that, leaves all these things at home, and
   just prays, "O Lord, save sinners, for Jesus Christ's sake." And there
   are sobs and groans heard in the prayer meetings. It is evident that
   not one, but all, are praying; the whole mass seems moved to
   supplication. How is this again? Why, it Is just the effect of the
   revival, for when the revival truly comes, the minister and the
   congregation and the church will receive good by it.

   But it does not end here. The members of the church grow more solemn,
   more serious. Family duties are better attended to; the home circle is
   brought under better culture. Those who could not spare time for family
   prayer, find they can do so now; those who had no opportunity for
   teaching their children, now dare not go a day without doing it; for
   they hear that there are children converted in the Sunday school. There
   are twice as many in the Sunday school now as there used to be; and,
   what is wonderful, the little children meet together to pray; their
   little hearts are touched, and many of them show signs of a work of
   grace begun; and fathers and mothers think they must try what they can
   do for their families: if God is blessing little children, why should
   he not bless theirs?

   And then, when you see the members of the church going up to the house
   of God, you mark with what a steady and sober air they go. Perhaps they
   talk on the way, but they talk of Jesus; and if they whisper together
   at the gates of the sanctuary, it is no longer idle gossip; it is no
   remark about, "how do you like the preacher? What did you think of him?
   Did you notice So-and-so?" Oh, no! "I pray the Lord that he might bless
   the word of his servant, that he might send an unction from on high,
   that the dying flame may be kindled, and that where there is life, it
   may be promoted and strengthened, and receive fresh vigour." This is
   their whole conversation.

   And then comes the great result. There is an inquirers' meeting held:
   the good brother who presides over it is astonished; he never saw so
   many coming in his life before. "Why," says he, "there is a hundred, at
   least, come to confess what the Lord has done for their souls! Here are
   fifty come all at once to say that under such a sermon they were
   brought to the knowledge of the truth. Who hath begotten me these? How
   hath it come about? How can it be? Is not the Lord a great God that
   hath wrought such a work as this?" And then the converts who are thus
   brought into the church, if the revival continues, are very earnest
   ones. You never saw such a people. The outsiders call them fanatics. It
   is a blessed fanaticism. Others say, they are nothing but enthusiasts.
   It is a heavenly enthusiasm. Everything that is done is done with such
   spirit. If they sing, it is like the crashing thunder; if they pray, it
   is like the swift, sharp flash of lightning, lighting up the darkness
   of the cold hearted, and making them for a moment feel that there is
   something in prayer. When the minister preaches, he preaches like a
   Boanerges, and when the church is gathered together, it is with a
   hearty good will. When they give, they give with enlarged liberality;
   when they visit the sick, they do it with gentleness, meekness, and
   love. Everything is done with a single eye to God's glory; not of men,
   but by the power of God. Oh! that we might see such a revival as this!

   But, blessed be God, it does not end here. The revival of the church
   then touches the rest of society. Men, who do not come forward and
   profess religion, are more punctual in attending the means of grace.
   Men that used to swear, give it up; they find it is not suitable for
   the times. Men that profaned the Sabbath, and that despised God, find
   it will not do; they give it all up. Times get changed; morality
   prevails; the lower ranks are affected. They buy a sermon where they
   used to buy some penny tract of nonsense. The higher orders are also
   touched; they too are brought to hear the word. Her ladyship, in her
   carriage, who never would have thought of going to so mean a place as a
   conventicle, does not now care where she goes so long as she is
   blessed. She wants to hear the truth; and a drayman pulls his horses up
   by the side of her ladyship's pair of grays, and they both go in and
   bend together before the throne of sovereign grace. All classes are
   affected. Even the senate feels it; the statesman himself is surprised
   at it, and wonders what all these things mean. Even the monarch on the
   throne feels she has become the monarch of a people better than she
   knew before, and that God is doing something in her realms past all her
   thought--that a great King is swaying a better sceptre and exerting a
   better influence than even her excellent example. Nor does it even end
   there. Heaven is filled. One by one the converts die, and heaven gets
   fuller; the harps of heaven are louder, the songs of angels are
   inspired with new melody, for they rejoice to see the sons of men
   prostrate before the throne. The universe is made glad: it is God's own
   summer; it is the universal spring. The time of the singing of birds is
   come; the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. Oh! that God might
   send us such a revival of religion as this!

   I thank God, that we, as a people, have had great cause to thank him
   that we had great measure of revival of this kind, but nothing compared
   with what we desire. I have heard of revivals, where twenties, and
   thirties, and forties, and fifties, were gathered in; but, tell it to
   the honour of our God, there is never a month passes, but our baptismal
   pool is opened, and never a communion Sabbath, but we receive many into
   the fold of the Lord. As many as three hundred in one year have we
   added to the church, and still the cry is, "They come! they come!" and
   were but our new sanctuary built, I am persuaded, that in six months
   from its erection, instead of having twelve hundred members, I should
   be the pastor of at least two thousand. For I believe there are many of
   you who attend this hall in the morning, who find it quite impossible
   to crowd into the chapel in the evening, and are only waiting and
   anxious, that you may tell to me and to the brethren, what God has done
   for your souls. This I know, the Lord hath been very gracious to us,
   and to him be the honour of it. But we want more. Our souls are
   greedy--covetous for God. Oh! that we might be all converted!

   "We long to see the churches full,

   That all the chosen race,

   May with one voice, and heart, and tongue,

   Sing his redeeming grace."

   And we have to thank God, too, that it has not ended there; for we had
   last Sabbath evening, Exeter Hall full, Westminster Abbey full, and
   this place full too; and though we may not altogether agree in
   sentiment with all that preach, yet God bless them all! So long as
   Christ is preached, I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice; and I would to
   God that every large building in London were crowded too, and that
   every man who preached the Word were followed by tens of thousands, who
   would hear the truth. May that day soon come! and there is one heart
   which will rejoice in such a day more than any of you--a heart that
   shall always beat the highest when it sees God glorified, though our
   own honour should decrease.

   III. Now we shall have to turn to the third point, which was A CAUTION.
   When Christmas Evans preached in Wales, during a time of revival, he
   used to make the people dance; the congregation were so excited under
   his ministry that they positively danced. Now I do not believe that
   dancing was the work of the Spirit. Their being stirred in their hearts
   might be the Holy Spirit's work, but the Holy Spirit does not care to
   make people dance under sermons; no good comes of it. Now and then
   among our Methodist friends there is a great break out, and we hear of
   a young woman in the middle of a sermon getting on the top of a form
   and turning round and round in ecstacy, till she falls down in a
   fainting fit, and they cry, "Glory be to God." Now we do not believe
   that is the work of the Spirit; we believe it is ridiculous nonsense,
   and nothing more. In the old revivals in America a hundred years ago,
   commonly called "the great awakening," there were many strange things,
   such as continual shrieks and screams, and knockings, and twitchings,
   under the services. We cannot call that the work of the Spirit. Even
   the great Whitfield's revival at Cambuslang, one of the greatest and
   most remarkable revivals that were ever known, was attended by some
   things that we cannot but regard as superstitious wonders. People were
   so excited, that they did not know what they did. Now, if in any
   revival you see any of these strange contortions of the body, always
   distinguish between things that differ. The Holy Spirit's work is with
   the mind, not with the body in that way. It is not the will of God that
   such things should disgrace the proceedings. I believe that such things
   are the result of Satanic malice. The devil sees that there is a great
   deal of good doing; "Now," says he, "I'll spoil it all. I'll put my
   hoof in there, and do a world of mischief. There are souls being
   converted; I will let them get so excited that they will do ludicrous
   things, and then it will all be brought into contempt." Now, if you see
   any of these strange things arising look out. There is that old
   Apollyon busy, trying to mar the work. Put such vagaries down as soon
   as you can, for where the Spirit works, he never works against his own
   precept, and his precept is, "Let all things be done decently and in
   order." It is neither decent nor orderly for people to dance under the
   sermon, nor howl, nor scream, while the gospel is being preached to
   them, and therefore it is not the Spirit's work at all, but mere human
   excitement.

   And again, remember that you must always distinguish between man and
   men in the work of revival. While, during a revival of religion, a very
   large number of people will be really converted, there will be a very
   considerable portion who will be merely excited with animal excitement,
   and whose conversion will not be genuine. Always expect that, and do
   not be surprised if you see it. It is but a law of the mind that men
   should imitate one another, and it seems but reasonable, that when one
   person is truly converted, there should be a kind of desire to imitate
   it in another, who yet is not a possessor of true and sovereign grace.
   Be not discouraged, then, if you should meet with this in the midst of
   a revival. It is no proof that it is not a true revival; it is only a
   proof that it is not true in that particular case.

   I must say, once more, that if God should send us a great revival of
   religion, it will be our duty not to relax the bonds of discipline.
   Some churches, when they increase very largely, are apt to take people
   into their number by wholesale, without due and proper examination. We
   ought to be just as strict in the paroxysms of a revival as in the
   cooler times of a gradual increase, and if the Lord sends his Spirit
   like a hurricane, it is ours to deal with skill with the sails, lest
   the hurricane should wreck us by driving us upon some fell rock that
   may do us serious injury. Take care, ye that are officers in the
   church, when ye see the people stirred up, that ye exercise still a
   holy caution, lest the church become lowered in its standard of piety
   by the admission of persons not truly saved.

   IV. With these words of caution, I shall now gather up my strength, and
   with all my might labour to stir you up to seek of God a great revival
   of religion throughout the length and breadth of this land.

   Men, brethren and fathers, the Lord God hath sent us a blessing. One
   blessing is the earnest of many. Drops precede the April showers. The
   mercies which he has already bestowed upon us are but the forerunners
   and the preludes of something greater and better yet to come. He has
   given us the former, let us seek of him the latter rain, that his grace
   may be multiplied among us, and his glory may be increased. There are
   some of you to whom I address myself this morning who stand in the way
   of any revival of religion. I would affectionately admonish you, and
   beseech you, not to impede the Lord's own work. There be some of you,
   perhaps, here present to-day who are not consistent in your living. And
   yet you are professors of religion; you take the sacramental cup into
   your hand and drink its sacred wine, but still you live as worldlings
   live, and are as carnal and as covetous as they. Oh, my brother, you
   are a serious drawback to the church's increase. God will never bless
   an unholy people, and in proportion to our unholiness, he will withhold
   the blessing from us. Tell me of a church that is inconsistent, you
   shall tell me of a church that is unblest. God will first sweep the
   house before be will come to dwell in it. He will have his church pure
   before he will bless it with all the blessings of his grace. Remember
   that, ye inconsistent ones, and turn unto God, and ask to be rendered
   holy. There are others of you that are so cold-hearted, that you stand
   in the way of all progress. You are a skid upon the wheels of the
   church. It cannot move for you. If we would be earnest, you put your
   cold band on everything that is bold and daring. You are not prudent
   and zealous; if you were so, we would bless God for giving you that
   prudence, which is a jewel for which we ought ever to thank God, if we
   have a prudent man among us. But there are some of you to whom I
   allude, who are prudent, but you are cold. You have no earnestness, you
   do not labour for Christ, you do not serve him with all your strength.
   And there are others of you who are imprudent enough to push others on,
   but never go forward yourselves. O ye Laodiceans, ye that are neither
   hot nor cold, remember what the Lord hath said of you--"So then,
   because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my
   mouth." And so will he do with you. Take heed, take heed, you are not
   only hurting yourselves, but you are injuring the church. And then
   there are others of you who are such sticklers for order, so given to
   everything that has been, that you do not care for any revival, for
   fear we should hurt you. You would not have the church repaired, lest
   we should touch one piece of the venerable moss that coats it. You
   would not cleanse your own garment, because there is ancient dirt upon
   it. You think that because a thing is ancient, therefore it must be
   venerable. You are lovers of the antique. You would not have a road
   mended, because your grandfather drove his waggon along the rut that is
   there. "Let it always be there," you say; "Let it always be knee-deep."
   Did not your grandfather go through it when it was knee deep with mud,
   and why should not you do the same? It was good enough for him, and it
   is good enough for you. You always have taken an easy seat in the
   chapel. You never saw a revival; you do not want to see it. You believe
   it is all nonsense, and that it is not to be desired. You look back;
   you find no precedent for it. Doctor So-and-so did not talk about it.
   Your venerable minister who is dead did not talk so, you say; therefore
   it is not needed. We need not tell you it is scriptural; that you do
   not care for. It is not orderly, you say. We need not tell you the
   thing is right; you care more about the thing being ancient than being
   good. Ah, you will have to get out of the way now, it isn't any good;
   you may try to stop us, but we will run over you if you do not get out
   of the way. With a little warning we shall have to run over your
   prejudices and incur your anger. But your prejudices must not, cannot,
   restrain us. The chain may be never so rusty with age, and ever so
   stamped with authority, the prisoner is always happy to break it, and
   however your fetters may shackle us, we will dash them in pieces if
   they stand in the way of the progress of the kingdom of Christ.

   Having thus spoken to those who hinder, I want to speak to you who love
   Jesus with all your hearts, and want to promote it. Dear friends, I
   beseech you remember that men are dying around you by thousands. Will
   you let your eye follow them into the world of shades? Myriads of them
   die without God, without Christ, without hope. My brother, does not
   their fearful fate awake your sympathy. You believe, from Scriptural
   warrant, that those who die without faith go to that place where "their
   worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched." Believing this, is not
   your soul stirred within you in pity for their fate? Look around you
   to-day. You see a vast host gathered together, professedly for the
   service of God. You know also how many there are here who fear him not,
   but are strangers to themselves and strangers to the cross. What! Do
   you know yourself what a solemn thing it is to be under the curse, and
   will you not pray and labour for those around you that are under the
   curse to-day? Remember your Master's cross. He died for sinners; will
   not you weep for them?

   "Did Christ o'er sinners weep;

   And shall your cheek be dry?"

   Did he give his whole life for them, and will not you stir up your life
   to wrestle with God, that his purposes may be accomplished on their
   behalf? You have unconverted children--do you not want them saved? You
   have brothers, husbands, wives, fathers, that are this day in the gall
   of bitterness, and in the bonds of iniquity; do you not want a revival,
   even if it were only for their sakes? Behold, how much of robbery, of
   murder, of crime, stains this poor land. Do you not want a revival of
   religion, if it were merely for quenching the flames of crime? See how
   God's name every day is blasphemed. Mark how, this day, trades are
   carried on, as if it were man's day, and not God's. Mark how multitudes
   are going the downward course, merry on their way to destruction. Do
   you not feel for them? Are your hearts hard and stolid? Has your soul
   become steeled? Has it become frozen like an iceberg? O sun of
   righteousness arise, and melt the icy heart, and make us all feel how
   fearful it is for immortal souls to perish; for men to be hurried into
   eternity without God, and without hope. Oh, will you not now, from this
   time forth, begin to pray that God may send forth his Word and save
   them, that his own name may be glorified?

   As for you that fear not God, see how much ado we are making about you.
   Your souls are worth more than you think for. O that ye would believe
   in Christ, to the salvation of your souls!
     __________________________________________________________________

                        The Form and Spirit of Religion

   A Sermon

   (No. 186)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, April 4, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto
   us, that, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of
   our enemies."--1 Samuel 4:3.

   THESE MEN made a great mistake: what they wanted was the Lord in their
   midst; whereas they imagined that the symbol of God's presence, the ark
   of the covenant, would be amply sufficient to bestow upon them the
   assistance which they required in the day of battle. As is man, such
   must his religion be. Now, man is a compound being. To speak correctly,
   man is a spiritual being: he hath within him a soul, a substance far
   beyond the bounds of matter. But man is also made up of a body as well
   as a soul. He is not pure spirit; his spirit is incarnate in flesh and
   blood. Now, such is our religion. The religion of God is, as to its
   vitality, purely spiritual--always so; but since man is made of flesh
   as well as of spirit, it seemed necessary that his religion should have
   something of the outward, external, and material, in which to embody
   the spiritual, or else man would not have been able to lay hold upon
   it. This was especially the case under the old dispensation. The
   religion of the Jew is really a heavenly and spiritual thing; a thing
   of thought, a thing that concerns the mind and spirit; but the Jew was
   untaught; he was but a babe, unable to understand spiritual things
   unless he saw them pictured out to him, or, (to repeat what I have just
   said) unless he saw them embodied in some outward type and symbol: and
   therefore God was pleased to give the Jew a great number of ceremonies,
   which were to his religion what the body is to man's soul. The Jewish
   religion taught the doctrine of the atonement, but the Jew could not
   understand it, and therefore God gave him a lamb to be slain every
   morning and every evening, and he gave him a goat over which the sins
   of the people were to be confessed, and which was to be driven into the
   depths of the wilderness, to show the great doctrine of a substitute
   and atonement through him. The Jewish religion teaches, as one of its
   prominent doctrines, the unity of the Godhead; but the Jew was ever apt
   to forget that there was but one God; and God, to teach him that, would
   have but one temple, and but one altar upon which the sacrifice might
   rightly be offered. So that the idea of the one God was (as I have
   already said) made incarnate in the fact that there was but one temple,
   but one altar, and but one great high priest. And mark, this is true of
   our religion--Christianity: not true to so full an extent as of
   Judaism--for the religion of the Jew had a gross and heavy body--but
   our religion has a body transparent, and having but little of
   materialism in it. If you ask me what I would call the materialism of
   our religion, the embodiment of the spiritual part of that in which we
   trust and hope, I would point, first of all, to the two ordinances of
   the Lord, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. I would point you next to the
   services of God's house, to the Sabbath day, to the outward ritual of
   our worship: I would point you to our solemn song, to our sacred
   service of prayer; and I would point you also--and I think I am right
   in so doing--to the form of sound words, which we ever desire to hold
   fast and firm, as containing that creed which it is necessary for men
   to believe if they would hold the truth as it is in Jesus. Our
   religion, then, has an outward form even to this day; for the Apostle
   Paul, when he spoke of professing Christians, spoke of some who had "a
   form of godliness, but denied the power thereof." So that it is still
   true, though I confess not to the same extent as it was in the days of
   Moses, that religion must have a body, that the spiritual thing may
   come out palpably before our vision, and that we may see it.

   Now, three points this morning inferred from our narrative. The first
   point is this--that the outward form of religion is to be carefully and
   reverently observed. But my second and most important head is this--you
   will notice that the very men who have the least of the spirit of
   religion are the most superstitiously observant of the form of it; just
   as you find the people here, who did not care for God, had a very
   superstitious regard for that chest called the ark of the covenant. And
   then, my third point will be, that those who trust in the outward form
   of religion, apart from the spirit of it, are fearfully deceived, and
   the result of their deception must be of the most fatal character. The
   first point I feel is necessary, lest I should lead any to despise the
   form of religion, while endeavoring to insist upon the absolute
   necessity of attending in the first place to the spirit of it.

   I. In the first place then, THE FORM OF RELIGION IS TO BE REVERENTLY
   OBSERVED. This ark of the covenant was with the Jew the most sacred
   instrument of his religion. There were many other things which he held
   holy: but this ark always stood in the most holy place, and it was
   rendered doubly sacred, because, between the outstretched wings of
   those cherubic figures that rested upon the mercy-seat, there was
   usually to be seen a bright light, called the Shekinah, which
   manifested that Jehovah, the God of Israel, who dwelt between the
   cherubims, was there. And, indeed, they had great reason in the days of
   Samuel to reverence this ark, for you will recollect that when Moses
   went to war with the Midianites, a great slaughter of that people was
   occasioned by the fact that Eleazar, the high priest, with a silver
   trumpet, stood in the forefront of the battle, bearing in his hands the
   holy instruments of the law--that is , the ark; and it was by the
   presence of this ark that the victory was achieved. It was by this ark,
   too, that the river Jordan was dried up. When the tribes came to it,
   there was no ford, but the priests put the staves of the ark upon their
   shoulders, and they marched with solemn pace down to the waters' edge,
   and before the presence of the ark the waters receded, so that the
   people went through dry-shod. And when then had landed in the promised
   country, you remember it was by this ark that the walls of Jericho fell
   flat to the ground; for the priests, blowing the trumpets and carrying
   the ark, went before, when they compassed the city seven days, and at
   last, by the power of the ark, or rather by the power of that God who
   dwelt within the ark, the walls of Jericho fell flat down, and every
   man went straight up to the slaughter. These people, therefore, thought
   if they could once get the ark, it would be all right, and they would
   be sure to triumph; and, while I shall have in the second head, to
   insist upon it that they were wrong in superstitiously imputing
   strength to the poor chest, yet the ark was to be reverently observed,
   for it was the outward symbol of a high spiritual truth, and it was
   never to be treated with any indignity.

   It is quite certain, in the first place, that the form of religion must
   never be altered. You remember that this ark was made by Moses,
   according to the pattern that God had given him in the mount. Now, the
   outward forms of our religion, if they be correct, are made by God. His
   two great ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are sent for us
   from on high. I dare not alter either of them. I should think it is a
   high sin and treason against heaven, if, believing that baptism
   signifieth immersion, and immersion only, I should pretend to
   administer it by sprinkling; or, believing that baptism appertaineth to
   believers only, I should consider myself a criminal in the sight of God
   if I should give it to any but those who believe. Even so with the
   Lord's Supper. Believing that it consists of bread and wine, I hold it
   to be highly blasphemous in the Church of Rome to withhold the cup from
   the people; and knowing that this ordinance was intended for the Lord's
   people only, I consider it an act of high treason against the Majesty
   of Heaven, when any are admitted to the Lord's Supper who have not made
   a profession of their faith and of their repentance, and who do not
   declare themselves to be the true children of God. And with regard to
   the doctrines of the Gospel, no alteration must be allowed here. I know
   that forms of doctrine are very little, compared with the spirit and
   the heart; but still we must not alter even the form of it. It has
   often been said, that we ought not to have a strict religion. I believe
   that is just the very thing we ought to have: a religion that is of
   such a cast that it does not know how to alter; a religion that comes
   from the Infallible Head of the Church, that is, Jesus Christ our Lord,
   and which to the latest time is to be like the Law and the
   Prophets--not on jot or tittle of it must fail while the earth
   endureth. The men who think that we may alter this and alter that, and
   still maintain the spirit of religion, have some truth on their side;
   but let them remember, that while the spirit of religion may be
   maintained in the midst of many errors, yet every error tends to weaken
   our spirituality. And, beside that, have no right to consider the
   effect upon ourselves merely. Whatever form of religion God has
   ordained, it is ours to practise without the slightest alteration; and
   to alter any one of the ordinances of God is an act of dire
   profanation; however reasonable that alteration may seem to be, it is
   treason against high heaven, and is not to be permitted in the Church
   of Christ. "Hold fast the form of sound words," said Paul, "which thou
   hast heard of me;" or, as I remember to have said before, while the
   form of religion is not power, yet unless the form be carefully
   observed, it is not easy to maintain the power. It is like an egg-shell
   enclosing the egg; there is no life in the shell, but you must take
   care you do not crack it, or else you may destroy the life within. The
   ordinances and doctrines of our faith are only the shell of
   religion--they are not the life; but we must take care that we do not
   hurt so much as the outward shell, for if we do, we may endanger the
   life within; though that may manage to live, it must be weakened by any
   injury done to the outward form thereof.

   And as the form must not be altered, so it must not be despised. These
   Philistines despised the ark. They took it and set it in their idol
   temple, and the result was that their idol god, Dagon, was broken in
   pieces. They then sent it through their cities, and they were smitten
   with emerods. And then, being afraid to put it within walls, they set
   it in the open country, and they were invaded with mice, so that
   everything was eaten up. God would not have any dishonour put even upon
   the outward form of his religion; he would have men reverently take
   care that they did no dishonour even to his ark; it might be nothing
   but gopher-wood, but because, between the wings of those cherubim God
   had dwelt, the ark was to be held sacred, and God would not have it
   dishonoured. Take care, ye that despise God, lest ye despise his
   outward ordinances. To laugh at the Sabbath, to despise the ordinances
   of God's House, to neglect the means of grace, to call the outward form
   of religion a vain thing--all this is highly offensive in the sight of
   God. He will have us remember that while the form is not the life, yet
   the form is to be respected for the sake of the life which it contains;
   the body is to be venerated for the sake of the inward soul; and as I
   would have no man maim my body, even though in maiming it he might not
   be able to wound my soul, so God would have no man maim the outward
   parts of religion, although it is true no man can touch the real
   vitality of it.

   Yet one more remark, and that a very solemn one. As the outward form is
   neither to be altered nor despised, so neither is it to be intruded
   upon by unworthy persons. You remember that this ark of the covenant,
   after it was brought back from the land of the Philistines, was set in
   the field of Joshua the Bethshemite, and the Bethshemites took off the
   lid, and looked into the ark of the Lord, and, for this, the Lord
   "smote of that people fifty-thousand and three-score and ten men; and
   the people lamented because the Lord had smitten many of the people
   with a great slaughter." These Bethshemites had no intention whatever
   of dishonouring the ark. They had a vain curiosity to look within, and
   the sight of those marvellous tables of stone struck them with death;
   for the law, when it is not covered by the mercy-seat, is death to any
   man, and it was death to them. Now, you will easily remember how very
   solemn a penalty is attached to any man's intruding into the outward
   form of religion when he is not called to do so. Let me quote this
   awful passage: "He" (speaking of the Lord's Supper) "that eateth and
   drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not
   discerning the Lord's body." How frightful an announcement is that! A
   curse is pronounced upon the man who dares to touch even the outward
   form of religion, unless he hath the power of it; and we know there is
   nothing which excites God's holy anger more swiftly than a man's
   attending to the ordinances of his house and making an outward
   profession of being in Christ, while he has no part nor lot in the
   matter. Oh, take heed. The outward ordinances of Christ are not the
   vitality of religion, but nevertheless they are so solemnly important,
   that we must neither alter nor despise them, nor rush into them without
   being invited; for if we do so, the curse of God must light upon us for
   having despised the holy thing of the Most High God of Israel.

   And now, before I close this first head, let me remark, that the
   outward things of God are to be diligently cared for and loved. We have
   in our reading had two instances of that. There was holy Eli: he knew
   very well that the ark of God was not God; he understood that it was
   but the outward sign of the inward and spiritual; yet when the ark of
   God was taken, mark the poor old man's trouble: his heart broke, and
   then he fell down and broke his neck. Then there was that nameless
   woman. Her husband was the priest who attended to this very ark, but he
   was a man whose character I cannot describe better than by saying that
   he was a son of Belial. It is hard for a woman to believe religion if
   she has a minister for a husband who is profane and wicked. This
   woman's husband not only committed wrongs against God, but against her.
   He was a filthy and unclean person, who polluted the very courts of the
   Lord's house with his fornications; and yet she had such faith in her
   God, that she knew how to love the religion which her husband, by his
   awful character, brought into disrepute. She knew how to distinguish
   between the man and his duty, between the priest and the priesthood,
   between the officer and the office. I do wonder at her. I am sure there
   is nothing that staggers our faith like seeing a minister walking
   inconsistently; but this man was the chief minister, and her own
   husband, living in known sin, and a sin which came home to her, because
   he sinned against her. I am sure it was wonderful that she believed at
   all; but so strong was her faith and attachment to her religion, that
   though, like Eli, she knew that the ark was not God, that the form was
   not the inward thing, yet the form itself was so precious to her, that
   the pangs of child-birth were hurried on prematurely and in the midst
   of her pain, this still was uppermost--that the ark of the Lord was
   taken. It was in vain to cheer her with the news that her child was
   born; it was an idle tale to her, and she rejoiced not in it. She lay
   in a swoon; but at last, opening her eyes, and remembering that her
   husband was dead, and that therefore, according to Jewish usage, it was
   her duty to give the child a name, she faintly opened her lips before
   she died, and said, "Call his name Inglorious (Ichabod) for the glory
   is departed;" and then she added this reason for it: she did not say,
   "because my husband is dead," though she loved him; she did not say,
   "because my father-in-law, Eli, is dead" or "because my nation has been
   defeated," but she added that all-significant reason, "because the ark
   of the Lord was taken;" and she died. Oh, I would to God that we all
   loved God's house, and loved the ways of God, and the ordinances of God
   as much as she did. While we attach no superstitious importance to the
   outward ceremony, I wish we thought as much of holy things, because of
   the Holy One of Israel. as did Eli, and this nameless, but noble woman.

   Thus I have preached upon the first head, and no ceremonialist here, I
   am sure, can differ from me, for they must all say it is true. Even the
   Puseyite will confess that this is just what he believes--that
   ceremonies ought to be carefully observed. But I shall not agree with
   Mr. Puseyite in the second head.

   II. Now, it is a notorious fact, that THE VERY MEN WHO HAVE THE LEAST
   IDEA OF WHAT SPIRITUAL RELIGION IS, ARE THE MEN WHO PAY THE MOST
   SUPERSTITIOUS ATTENTION TO OUTWARD FORMS. We refer you again to this
   instance. These people would neither repent, nor pray, nor seek God and
   his prophets; yet they sought out this ark and trusted in it with
   superstitious veneration. Now, in every country where there had been
   any religion at all that is true, the great fact has come out very
   plainly, that the people who don't know anything about true religion,
   have always been the most careful about the forms. Do you want to know
   the man who used to swallow widows' houses, and devour the patrimonies
   of the fatherless? Do you want to know the hypocrites, the deceivers,
   in the days of Christ? Why, they were the Pharisees, who "for a show
   made long prayers;" they were the men who gave alms to the poor in the
   corners of the street--the men that tithed the anise, and the mint, and
   the cummin, and forgot the weightier matters of the law, such as
   justice and righteousness. If you wanted to find the seducer, the
   unjust judge, the liar, the perjured man, in the days of Christ, you
   had only to ask for the man who had fasted thrice in the week, and gave
   tithes of all he possessed. These Pharisees would do any wicked action,
   and never stick at it; yet if in drinking wine a small gnat should have
   fallen in and been swallowed with it, they would have considered
   themselves defiled, because their law did not allow them to eat a
   creature from which the blood had not been withdrawn. Thus they
   strained at the gnat, thus getting the reputation of being very
   religious, and swallowed the camel, hump and all. You smile; but what
   they did in their day is done now. You know the Romanists; did you ever
   know one of them who would not think it to be a very high offence
   against the Majesty of Heaven, if he were to eat any meat on Good
   Friday? Do you know anyone of them who did not think it necessary to
   keep Lent with strict punctilious observance? Notice how carefully they
   go to their places of worship on the Sabbath morning, how diligently
   they observe that sacred rite of crossing their foreheads with holy
   water. How necessary is it, that the holy water and everything else of
   the same kind, should be tenderly cared for. And do not the same
   persons in their own countries keep their theatres open on the Sabbath
   day? Do you not find the very men, who are so solemnly observant of
   their religion in the morning, forgetting it all in the evening;
   thinking no more of the Sabbath, which they call holy, than if it were
   any other day, but making it more a day of merriment than any day of
   the week? Look again at our Church of England; God be thanked that
   there are so many true Evangelical men in the midst of it; but there
   are certain sections there to whom my remarks will apply. Do you want
   to know the men who know nothing at all about the new birth, who do not
   know what it is to be justified by faith, who have not a spark of
   religion? Do you know where to find them? They are the men that never
   said their creed without turning their heads the right way, that never
   said the name of Jesus without bowing their heads most reverently; they
   are the men who always take care that the church should be builded so
   as to be a goodly edifice, in order that the parishioners going there
   may see the glory of God in the glory of his house; they are the people
   who mark every red letter day, who take care that every rubric is
   attended to, who think that holly on Christmas is a most heavenly
   thing, and a few flowers upon the altar almost equal to the Lily of the
   Valley and the Rose of Sharon. These are the gentlemen who could no
   more preach without a cassock than they could live without a head. Of
   course they have not any religion at all, and because the inner life is
   clean gone, evaporated, dissipated, they have to be so extremely
   particular that they observe the outward form of it. I know many
   Evangelical Churchmen (and they are generally precise enough) that
   would break through every form. I could point you out this morning some
   two or three clergymen of the Church of England who are heretical
   enough to be sitting here and listening to the words of one who is a
   Dissenter, and of course a Schismatic, but who would no more think of
   calling me a Schismatic than they would think of flying, and would give
   me the right hand of fellowship with all their hearts. I believe that
   many of them would forget the rubrics if they could, and, if it were in
   their power, would cut their catechism all to pieces, and turn half of
   their church prayer-book out of doors. And these are the men that have
   most religion; they care least about the form but they have most of the
   grace within; they have more true religion, more evangelism, more of
   the grace of God in their hearts, than fifty of their Puseyite
   brethren.

   But let me come to Dissenters, for we are just as bad. I must deal with
   all alike. We have among us a certain class of people, a sort of
   dissenting Puseyites, Where the Puseyite thinks it necessary to keep
   Good Friday and Easter Sunday, these good brethren take as much care to
   keep holy day the wrong way, as the others the right way. They think it
   would be a grievous sin to go to chapel on Good Friday, and they are
   solemnly in earnest that they should never break the law of the church
   not to observe holy days. To them it is a very sacred thing that they
   should always be found in their chapel twice on the Sunday; they think
   it highly necessary that they should have their children baptized, or
   that they should be baptized themselves, and that they should take the
   Lord's Supper. That is all well and good; but alas! we must confess it,
   there are some among us who, if they are orthodox in their opinions and
   precise in their outward practice, are quite content to be utterly
   destitute of the power of religion. I must deal faithfully with all. I
   know in all our dissenting denominations there are to be found many
   self-righteous persons, who have not any religion at all, but who are
   the most precise people in all the world to stick up for the outward
   form of it. Do you not know some old member of the church here and
   there? Well, you say, if anybody in the church is a hypocrite, I should
   say old So-and-so is one. If you were to propose any alteration in
   anything, oh! how these gentlemen would bristle up; how they would draw
   their swords. They! they love every nail in the chapel door, they would
   not have a different colour for the pulpit for the world. They will
   have everything strictly observed. Their whole salvation seems to
   depend upon the rightness of the form. Oh no, not they; they could not
   think of altering may of the forms of their church. You know it is
   quite as easy for a man to trust in ceremonials, when the are severely
   simple, as for a man to rely upon them with they are gorgeous and
   superb. A man may as much trust in the simple ordinance of immersion
   and the breaking of bread, as another may trust in the high mass and in
   the prayers of priests. We man have Rome in Dissent, and Rome in the
   Church of England, and Rome anywhere; for wherever there is a trust in
   ceremonies, there is the essence of Popery, there is anti-Christ and
   the man of sin. Oh! take heed of this any of you who have been relying
   upon your ceremonies. This is just the truth, that the more zeal for
   ceremonies, generally the less power of vital godliness within. But
   now, how is it that the man who would not eat anything but salt-fish on
   Good Friday, cheats his neighbour on Saturday? How is it that the man
   who never would by any means go to anything but an orthodox
   sixteen-ounces-to-the-pound Baptist Chapel, can be found committing
   acts of injustice in his daily business, and perhaps more filthy deeds
   still? I will tell you, the man feels he must have some righteousness
   or other, and when he knows himself to be a good-for-nothing rascal, he
   feels he has not got a moral righteousness, and therefore he tries to
   get a ceremonial one. Mark the man that drinks and swears, that commits
   all kinds of iniquity, and you will very often find him (I have known
   such cases) the most superstitiously reverent man that can be found. He
   would not go inside a place of worship without taking off his hat
   immediately. He will curse and swear outside, perhaps, and it never
   pricks his conscience; but to walk up the aisle of a church with his
   hat on--oh! how frightful. He feels, if he did so, he would be lost for
   ever. He would not forget to tithe the mint, anise, and cummin, but all
   the while the weightier matters of the law are left totally unregarded.
   Another reason is, because a religion of ceremonies is so much easier
   than true religion. To say Ava Maria and Pater Nosters is easy enough;
   you may soon get it over, and it does not check the conscience much. To
   go to chapel twice on the Sunday--there is nothing very hard in that.
   It is not half so hard as turning to the Lord with full purpose of
   heart. It is not half so hard as breaking off one's sin by
   righteousness, and putting one's trust in Christ Jesus alone.
   Therefore, because the thing is so easy, people like it better. Again
   it is so complimentary. When the Romanist beasts his back, and flogs
   his flesh, why is it that he likes that better than the simple gospel,
   "Believe and live?" Why, because it just flatters his pride. He thinks
   he is beating the devil out of himself, but he is in reality beating
   him in--the devil of pride is coming in. He whispers, "Ah! you are a
   good man to have flogged yourself like that! you will carry yourself to
   heaven by the merit of your wounds and bruises." Poor human nature
   always like that. In fact, the more exacting a religion is, the better
   people like it. The more religion ties you up, and binds you, if it
   does not touch the heart, the better people like to carry it out.
   Hindooism has its great hold upon the people, because they can get a
   great stock of merit by walking with spikes in their shoes; or rolling
   themselves many thousands of miles, or drinking the filthy waters of
   the Ganges, or offering themselves to die. All these things please
   human nature. "Believe and live" is too humbling; to trust alone in
   Christ casts down man's high looks; therefore man says, "Away with it!"
   and he turns to anything rather than to Christ.

   Besides, there is another reason. Men always like the religion of
   ceremonies, because it does not need the giving up of their favourite
   sins. "Why", says a man, "if all that is needed for me to be saved, is
   to have the Sacrament given me by the priest when I come to die, what a
   delightful religion that is! I can drink, swear, and do just as I like.
   I have nothing to do but to get greased at last with holy oil, and off
   I go to heaven with all my sins about me." Says another, "We can have
   all our gaieties and frivolities, all the pomp of life and the pride of
   flesh; all that we need is to get confirmed; then, afterwards,
   sometimes to go to church, take a handsomely bound prayer-book and
   Bible, be very attentive and observant, and the bishop will no doubt
   set us all right." This just suits many men, because there is no
   trouble about it. They can keep on with their gaieties and with their
   sins, and yet they believe they can go to heaven with them. Men do not
   like that old-fashioned gospel which tells them that sin and the sinner
   must part, or else they must be damned. They do not like to be told
   that without holiness no man shall see the Lord, and that old-fashioned
   text, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,"
   will never be palatable to human nature. Human nature does not mind
   what you tell it to do, so long as you do not tell it what to believe.
   You may tell it to observe this, that, and the other, and the man will
   do it, and thank you , and the harder it is, the better he will like
   you; but once tell him, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save
   sinners. Believe on him and thou shalt be saved," his pride is all up
   at once; he cannot endure it, and he hates the man that preaches it to
   him, and drives the very thought of the gospel from his soul.

   III. And now, in the last place, it is mine to warn you that TO TRUST
   IN CEREMONIES IS A MOST DECEITFUL THING, AND WILL END IN THE MOST
   TERIFFIC CONSEQUENCES. When these people had got the ark into the camp,
   they shouted for joy , because they thought themselves quite safe; but,
   alas, they met with a greater defeat than before. Only four thousand
   men had been killed in the first battle, but in the second, thirty
   thousand footmen of Israel fell down dead. How vain are the hopes that
   men build upon their good works, and ceremonial observances! How
   frightful is that delusion which teaches for the gospel a thing which
   is not "the gospel," nor "another gospel;" but it is a thing that would
   pervert the gospel of Christ. My hearer, let me ask thee solemnly, what
   is thy ground of hope? Dost thou rely on baptism? O man, how foolish
   art thou! What can a few drops of water, put upon an infant's forehead,
   do? Some lying hypocrites tell us that children are regenerated by
   drops of water. What kind of regeneration is that? We have seen people
   hanged that were regenerated in this fashion. There have been men that
   have lived all their lives whoremongers, adulterers, thieves, and
   murderers, who have been regenerated in their baptism by that kind of
   regeneration. Oh, be not deceived by a regeneration so absurd, so
   palpable even to flesh and blood, as one of the lying wonders that have
   come from hell itself. But mayhap thou sayest, "Sir, I rely upon my
   baptism, in after life." Ah, my friends, what can washing in water do?
   As the Lord liveth, if thou trusteth in baptism thou trusteth in a
   thing that will fail thee at last. For what is washing in water, unless
   it is preceded by faith and repentance? We baptize you, not in order to
   wash away your sins, but because we believe they are washed away
   beforehand; and if we did not think you believed so, we would not admit
   you to participation in that ordinance. But if you will pervert this to
   your own destruction, by trusting in it, take heed; you are warned this
   morning. For as "circumcision availeth nothing, nor uncircumcision, but
   a new creature," so baptism availeth nothing.

   I may have some here who are saying within themselves, "Well, if I do
   not go to heaven, nobody will, for I have been brought up to my church
   as regularly as possible; I was regularly confirmed; my godfathers and
   godmothers stood for me in my childhood, and all after the right
   fashion. I have come here, it is true, but it is about the first
   offence I ever committed, coming into this Schismatic conventicle; if
   it please God to forgive, I will never do so again. I always go to
   church, and I have no doubt that by taking the Sacrament and saying my
   prayers I shall go to heaven." Ah! you are awfully deceived, for unless
   you are born again you must come back to the old standard after
   all--unless you are in blessed union with the Lamb, unless you have
   found repentance for sin, unless you have true living faith in the Lord
   Jesus, you may keep all these things, you may observe every jot and
   tittle, but the gates of heaven must be shut in your face, and "depart
   from me, I never knew you," must be your doom, even though you reply,
   "Thou hast eaten and drunk in our streets, and we have listened to thy
   voice." No, my friends, be ye Presbyterians, Episcopalians, or
   Dissenters, it matters not, ye have your ceremonies; and there are some
   among us that rely upon them. This one truth cuts at the root of us
   all. If this be our hope, it is a foul delusion. We just have faith in
   Jesus, we must have the new heart and the right spirit; no outward
   forms can make us clean. The leprosy lies deep within; and unless there
   be an inward work, no outward work can ever satisfy God, and give us an
   entrance into Paradise.

   But before I close, there is one thing I want you to notice, and that
   is, that this ark not only could not give victory to Israel, but it
   could not preserve the lives of the priests themselves who carried it.
   This is a fatal blow to all who trust in the forms of religion. What
   would the Romanist think, if I should tell him that his outward forms
   can never save him; and how would he grind his teeth if I were to tell
   him, as I do, that the outward forms can never save his priest, for his
   priest and he must be lost together unless they have some better trust
   than this! But we have even in Protestant churches too much
   priestcraft. People say, "Well, if the Gospel does not save me, I am
   confident of the salvation of my minister." Rest assured that he that
   serveth at God's altar is no more secure from destruction, unless he
   hath a living faith in Christ, than you yourselves. Hophni and Phinehas
   are slain, and so must every priest be if he relies on ceremonies
   himself or teaches others to do so. I cannot imagine a more frightful
   death-bed than that of a man who has been a priest--I mean a man who
   has taught others to trust in ceremonies. When he is buried, it will be
   said of him that he died in sure and certain hope of a blessed
   resurrection; but oh! the moment after death, when he opens his eyes to
   see his delusion! while he was on earth he was fool enough to think
   that drops of water could save him, that a piece of bread and a cup of
   wine could renew his heart, and save his soul, but when he gets into
   another world he will lose this folly, and then will the thought flash
   upon him, like a lightning flash, writhing his soul with misery--Ah! I
   am destitute of the one thing needful; I had no love to Christ, I never
   had that repentance which needed not to be repented of; I never fled to
   Jesus, and now I know that that hymn is true--

   "Not all the outward forms on earth,

   Nor rites that God has given,

   Nor will of man, nor blood, nor birth,

   Can raise the soul to heaven."

   Oh! how frightful then afterwards to meet his parishioners, to see
   those to whom he had preached, and to be howled at through the pit by
   men whom he was the instrument of destroying, by telling them to trust
   in a rotten foundation. Let me free myself from any such fear as that.
   As the Lord my God liveth before whom I stand this day--man, woman, my
   brother, my sister, in the race of Adam, if thou reliest on anything
   short of the blood of Jesus Christ, thou trustest in a lie; and if thy
   salvation ends in anything short of a thorough change of heart, if it
   makes thee anything less than a new creature in Christ Jesus, the bed
   is shorter than a man can stretch himself upon it, thou hast a religion
   which is not equal to the necessities of thy case, and when thou
   needest it most, it will reel beneath thy feet and leave thee without a
   standing place whereon to rest, overwhelmed with dismay and overcome by
   dispair.

   Now, before I send you away, let me make this last remark. I hear one
   say, "Sir, I renounce all trust in good works and ceremonies. Tell me
   how can I be saved?" The way is simply this. Our sins deserve
   punishment; God must and will punish sin; Jesus Christ came into this
   world and was punished in the room, place, and stead of all that
   believe on him. Your business, then, this morning is to make this
   inquiry, Do I want a Saviour? Do I feel that I want him? And my
   business, if you answer that question aright is to say, Believe on the
   Lord Jesus Christ with all thy heart, and thou shalt be saved.

   Al! there is one in heaven to-day, I firmly believe, who was always a
   worshipper in this place, and at New Park Street--a young man who was
   led here to listen to the gospel, and was converted to God; and last
   Sabbath morning was caught away to heaven in the burning house at
   Bloomsbury--one of those young men who was taken out of the ruins, one
   who had been brought to a knowledge of the truth here. It is stated in
   some of the papers, that his mother was far from a religious woman, and
   was somewhat given to drink; he had to struggle with some temptation
   and opposition, but he was enabled to hold on his way, and then, in
   such an hour as he thought not, the Son of Man came for him, and caught
   him to himself in the midst of flames and crashing timbers and the
   uprising of smoke. Oh! I may have one here, that, ere another Sabbath
   morning comes, may be launched into eternity, if not by the same
   deplorable process, yet in as hasty a manner; and as my soul rejoices
   over that young man, to think that God should have honoured me in
   bringing him to Christ before he took him up to heaven, I must lament
   that there are any of you in a peril so frightful, as to be living
   without God, without Christ, without a hope of heaven; to have death
   hanging over you, and yet not to tremble at it. Oh! this morning I
   beseech you, close with Christ. "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye
   perish from the way, while his wrath is kindled but a little: for
   blessed are all they that put their trust in him."
     __________________________________________________________________

                                   Providence

   A Sermon

   (No. 187)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, April 11, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered."--Matthew 10:30.

   DURING THIS WEEK my mind has been much directed to the subject of
   Providence, and you will not wonder when I relate a portion of one
   day's story. I was engaged to preach last Wednesday at Halifax, where
   there was a heavy snow storm. Preparations had been made for a
   congregation of 8000 persons, and a huge wooden structure had been
   erected. I considered that owing to the severe weather, few persons
   could possibly assemble, and I looked forward to the dreary task of
   addressing an insignificant handful of people in a vast place. However,
   when I arrived, I found from 5000 to 6000 people gathered together to
   hear the Word; and a more substantial looking place it has not been my
   lot to see. It certainly was a huge uncomely building, but,
   nevertheless, it seemed well adapted to answer the purpose. We met
   together in the afternoon and worshipped God, and again in the evening,
   and we separated to our homes, or rather, we were about to separate,
   and all this while the kind providence of God was watching over us.
   Immediately in front of me there was a huge gallery, which looked an
   exceedingly massive structure, capable of holding 2000 persons. This,
   in the afternoon, was crowded, and it seemed to stand as firm as a
   rock. Again in the evening there it stood, and neither moved nor shook.
   But mark the provident hand of God: in the evening, when the people
   were about to retire, and when there was scarcely more than a hundred
   persons there, a huge beam gave way, and down came a portion of the
   flooring of the gallery with a fearful crash. Several persons were
   precipitated with the planks, but still the good hand of God watched
   over us, and only two persons were severely injured with broken legs,
   which it is trusted will be re-set without the necessity of amputation.
   Now, had this happened any earlier, not only must many more have been
   injured, but there are a thousand chances to one, as we say, that a
   panic must necessarily have ensued similar to that which we still
   remember, and deplore as having occurred in this place. Had such a
   thing occurred, and had I been the unhappy preacher on the occasion, I
   feel certain that I should never have been able to occupy the pulpit
   again. Such was the effect of the first calamity, that I marvel that I
   ever survived. No human tongue can possibly tell what I experienced.
   The Lord, however, graciously preserved us; the fewness of the people
   in the gallery prevented any such catastrophe, and thus a most fearful
   accident was averted. But we have a more marvellous providence still to
   record. Overloaded by the immense weight of snow which fell upon it,
   and beaten by a heavy wind, the entire building fell with an enormous
   crash three hours after we had left it, splitting the huge timbers into
   shivers, and rendering very much of the material utterly useless for
   any future building. Now mark this--had the snow begun three hours
   earlier, the building must have fallen upon us, and how few of us would
   have escaped we cannot guess. But mark another thing. All day long it
   thawed so fast, that the snow as it fell seemed to leave a mass, not of
   white snow, but of snow and water together. This ran through the roof
   upon us, to our considerable annoyance, and I was almost ready to
   complain that we had hard dealing from God's providence. But if it had
   been a frost instead of a thaw, you can easily perceive that the place
   must have fallen several hours beforehand, and then your minister, and
   the greater part of his congregation, would probably have been in the
   other world. Some there may be who deny providence altogether. I cannot
   conceive that there were any partakers of the scene who could have done
   so. This I know, if I had been an unbeliever to this day in the
   doctrine of the supervision and wise care of God, I must have been a
   believer in it at this hour. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us
   exalt his name together; he hath been very gracious unto us, and
   remembered us for good.

   Now, when we look abroad into the world we see, as we think, such
   abundant proofs that there is a God, that we are apt to treat a man who
   denies the existence of a God with very little respect or patience. We
   believe him to be wilfully blind, for we see God's name so legible upon
   the very surface of creation, that we cannot have patience with him if
   he dares to deny the existence of a Creator. And in the matter of
   salvation: we have each of us seen in our own salvation such positive
   marks of the Lord's dealings with us, that we are apt to be somewhat
   censorious and harsh towards any who propound a doctrine which would
   teach salvation apart from God. And I think we shall be very apt this
   morning to think hardly of the man, who, having seen and heard of such
   a providence as that which I have just related, could fail to see God's
   hand. It seems to me that the hand of God in providence is as clear as
   in creation; and whilst I am sure that if saved at all I must be saved
   by God, I feel equally certain that every matter which concerns all of
   us in daily life, bears upon itself the evident trace of being the
   handiwork of Jehovah, our God. We must, if we would be true believers
   in God, and would avoid all atheism, give unto him the kingship in the
   three kingdoms of creation, grace, and providence. It is in the last,
   however, that I think we are the most apt to forget him; we may easily
   see God in creation if we be at all enlightened, and if saved, we
   cannot avoid confessing that salvation is of the Lord alone. The very
   way in which we are saved, and the effect of grace in our hearts,
   always compels us to feel that God is just. But providence is such a
   chequered thing, and you and I are so prone to misjudge God and to come
   to rash conclusions concerning his dealings with us, that perhaps this
   is the greatest stronghold of our natural Atheism--a doubt of God's
   dealings with us in the arrangements of outward affairs. This morning I
   shall not be able to go deeply into the subject, but very heartily can
   I enter into it, after being so great a partaker of his wonder-working
   power.

   From the text I shall draw one or two points. First of all, the text
   says, "the very hairs of our head are all numbered." From this I shall
   infer the minuteness of providence. Again, inasmuch as it is said of
   believers that the hairs of their head are all numbered, I shall infer
   the kind consideration, the generous care, which God exercises over
   Christians. And then, from the text, and from our Saviour's reason for
   uttering these words, I shall draw a practical conclusion of what
   should be the spirit and temper of the men who believe this truth--that
   the very hairs of their head are all numbered.

   I. First, then, our text very clearly teaches us THE MINUTENESS OF
   PROVIDENCE. Every man can see providence in great things; it is very
   seldom that you find any person denying that when an avalanche falls
   from the summit of the Alps, the hand, the terrible hand of God is
   there. There are very few men who do not feel that God is present in
   the whirlwind, and in the storm. Most men will acknowledge that the
   earthquake, the hurricane, the devastation of war, and the ravages of
   pestilence, come from the hand of God. We find most men very willing to
   confess that God is God of the hills, but they forget that he is also
   Lord of the valleys. They will grant that he deals with great masses,
   but not with individuals; with seas in the bulk, but not with drops.
   Most men forget, however, that the fact which they believe of
   providence being in great things involves a providence in the little,
   for it were an inconsistent belief that the mass were in God's hand,
   whilst the atom was left to chance; it is indeed a belief that
   contradicts itself; we must believe all chance or else all God. We must
   have all ordained and arranged, or else we must have everything left to
   the wild whirlwind of chance and accident. But I believe that it is in
   little things that we fail to see God; therefore, it is to the little
   things that I call your attention this morning.

   I believe my text means literally what it says. "The very hairs of your
   head are all numbered." God's wisdom and knowledge are so great, that
   he even knows the number of the hairs upon our head. His providence
   descends to the minute particles of dust in the summer gale; he numbers
   the gnats in the sunshine, and the fishes in the sea. While it
   certainly doth control the massive orbs that shine in heaven, it doth
   not blush to deal with the drop that trickleth from the eye.

   Now, I shall want you to notice, how little circumstances of daily
   life, when we come to put them all together, evidently betray their
   origin. I will take a Scripture history, and show how the little events
   must have been of God, as well as the great results. When Joseph was
   sent into Egypt by his brethren, in order to provide for them against a
   day of famine, we all agree with Joseph's declaration, "It was God that
   sent me hither." But now, if we notice each of the little ways through
   which this great result was brought to pass, we shall see God in each
   of them. One day, Joseph's brethren are gone out with the sheep; Jacob
   wants to send to them. Why does he send Joseph? He was his darling son;
   he loved him better than all his brethren. Why does he send him away?
   He sends him, however. Then why should it have happened at that
   particular time, that Jacob should want to send at all? However, he did
   want to send, and he did send Joseph. A mere accident you will say, but
   quite necessary as the basement of the structure. Joseph goes; his
   brethren are in want of pasture, and therefore leave Shechem, where
   Joseph expected to find them, and journey on to Dothan. Why go to
   Dothan? Was not the whole land before them? However Joseph goes there;
   he arrives at Dothan just when they are thinking of him and his dreams,
   and they put him into a pit. As they are about to eat bread, some
   Ishmaelites came by. Why did they come there at all? Why did they come
   at that particular time? Why were they going to Egypt? Why might they
   not have been going any other way? Why was it that the Ishmaelites
   wanted to buy slaves? Why might they not have been trading in some
   other commodity? However, Joseph is sold; but he is not disposed of on
   the road to Egypt, he is taken to the land. Why is it that Potiphar is
   to buy him? Why is it that Potiphar has a wife, at all? Why is it again
   that Potiphar's wife should be so full of lust? Why should Joseph get
   into prison? How is it that the baker and the butler should offend
   their master? All chance, as the world has it, but every link necessary
   to make the chain. They do both offend their master; they are both put
   into prison. How is it that they both dream? How is it that Joseph
   interprets the dreams? How is it that the butler forgets him? Why, just
   because if he had recollected him, it would have spoiled it all. Why is
   it Pharaoh dreams? How can dreams be under the arrangement of God's
   providence? However, Pharaoh does dream; the butler then thinks of
   Joseph; Joseph is brought out of prison and taken before Pharaoh. But
   take away any of those simple circumstances, break any one of the links
   of the chain, and the whole of the design is scattered to the winds.
   You cannot get the machine to work; if any of the minute cogs of the
   wheels are taken away, everything is disarranged. I think it seems very
   clear to any man who will dissect not only that, but any other history
   he likes to fix upon, that there must be a God in the little accidents
   and dealings of daily life, as well as in the great results that tell
   upon the page of history, and are recounted in our songs. God is to be
   seen in little things.

   We will now notice, in the minutiae of providence, how punctual
   providence always is. You will never wonder more at providence, than
   when you consider how well God keeps time with himself. To return to
   our history--how is it that the Ishmaelites should come by just at that
   time? How many thousand chances there were that their journey might
   have been taken just before! There certainly was no special train to
   call at that station at that particular time, so that Joseph's brethren
   might arrange to go and call him. No such thing. And yet if there had
   been all this arrangement, it could not have happened better. You know
   Reuben intended to fetch Joseph out of the pit half an hour later, and
   "the child was not." God had these Ishmaelites ready: you do not know
   how he may have sped them on their journey, or delayed them, so as to
   bring them on the spot punctually at the identical moment.

   To give another instance, there was a poor woman whose son had been
   raised from the dead by Elisha; she, however, had left her country at
   the time of famine, and had lost her estate. She wanted to get it back;
   God determined that she should have it. How was it to be done? The king
   sends for Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, and he talks to him: he tells
   him one instance about a woman who had had a child raised from the
   dead. How strange! in comes the woman herself. My lord, this is the
   woman; she comes to obtain her suit. Her desire is granted, just
   because at the very moment the king's mind is interested concerning
   her. All chance, was it not? Nothing but chance? So fools say; but
   those who read Bibles, and those who have judgment, say there is
   something more than chance in such a coalition of circumstances. It
   could not be a mere coincidence, as men sometimes say; there must be
   God here, for it is harder to think that there is not God than that
   there is. And whilst a belief in God may be said by some to involve a
   great stretch of faith, the putting him out of such things as this,
   would involve an infinitely greater amount of credulity. No, there was
   God there.

   There is another instance that I remember in the New Testament history.
   Paul goes into the temple, and the Jews rush upon him in a moment to
   kill him. They drag him out of the temple, and the doors are shut
   against him. They are just in the very act of killing him, and what is
   to become of poor Paul's life? Five minutes longer and Paul will be
   dead, when up comes the chief captain and delivers him. How was it that
   the chief captain knew of it? Very probably some young man of the crowd
   who knew Paul and loved him, ran to tell him. But why was it that the
   chief captain was at home? How was it that the ruler was able to come
   on a moment's emergency? How was it that he did come at all? It was
   only just a Hebrew, a man that was good for nothing, being killed. How
   was it that he came, and when he came the streets were full; there was
   a mob about Jerusalem? How did he come to the right street? How did he
   come at the exact nick of time? Say, "It is all chance!" I laugh at
   you; it is providence. If there be anything in the world that is plain
   to any man that thinks, it is plain that God

   "Overrules all mortal things,

   And manages our mean affairs."

   But mark, that the running of the youth, and his arrival at the precise
   time, and the coming of the chief governor at the precise time, just
   proved the punctuality of Divine providence; and if God has a design
   that a thing shall happen at twelve, if you have appointed it for
   eleven, it shall not happen till twelve; and if he means it to be
   delayed till one, it is in vain that you propose any earlier or any
   later. God's punctuality in providence is always sure, and very often
   apparent.

   Nor is it only in the minutes of time that we get an idea of the
   minuteness of providence, but it is in the use of little things. A
   sparrow has turned the fate of an empire. You remember the old story of
   Mohammed flying from his pursuers. He enters a cave, and a sparrow
   chirps at the entrance, and flies away as the pursuers pass. "Oh," say
   they, "there is no fear that Mohammed is there, otherwise the bird
   would have gone a long while ago;" and the imposter's life is saved by
   a sparrow. We think, perhaps, that God directs the motions of the
   leviathan, and guides him in the sea, when he makes the deep to be
   hoary. Will we please to recollect, that the guidance of a minnow in
   its tiny pool, is as much in the hand of providence as the motion of
   the great serpent in the depths. You see the birds congregate in the
   autumn, ready for their flight across the purple sea. They fly hither
   and thither in strange confusion. The believer in providence holds that
   the wing of every bird has stamped upon it the place where it shall
   fly, and fly with never such vagaries of its own wild will, it cannot
   diverge so much as the millionth part of an inch from its predestinated
   track. It may whirl about, above, beneath,--east, west, north,
   south--wherever it pleases; still, it is all according to the
   providential hand of God. And although we see it not, it may be, that
   if that swallow did not take the precise track which it does take,
   something a little greater might be affected thereby; and again,
   something a little greater still might be affected, until at last a
   great thing would be involved in a little. Blessed is that man who
   seeth God in trifles! It is there that it is the hardest to see him;
   but he who believes that God is there, may go from the little
   providence up to the God of providence. Rest assured, when the fish in
   the sea take their migration, they have a captain and a leader, as well
   as the stars; for he who marshals the stars in their courses, and
   guides the planets in their march, is the master of the fly, and wings
   the bat, and guides the minnow, and doth not despise the tiniest of his
   creatures. You say there is predestination in the path of the earth;
   you believe that in the shining of the sun there is the ordinance of
   God; there is as much his ordinance in the creeping of an insect or in
   the glimmering of a glow-worm in the darkness. In nothing is there
   chance, but in everything there is a God. All things live and move in
   him, and have their being; nor could they live or move otherwise; for
   God hath so ordained them.

   I hear one say, "Well, sir, you seem to be a fatalist!" No, far from
   it. There is just this difference between fate and providence. Fate is
   blind; providence has eyes. Fate is blind, a thing that must be; it is
   just an arrow shot from a bow, that must fly onward, but hath no
   target. Not so, providence; providence is full of eyes. There is a
   design in everything, and an end to be answered; all things are working
   together, and working together for good. They are not done because they
   must be done, but they are done because there is some reason for it. It
   is not only that the thing is, because it must be; but the thing is,
   because it is right it should be. God hath not arbitrarily marked out
   the world's history; he had an eye to the great architecture of
   perfection, when he marked all the aisles of history, and placed all
   the pillars of events in the building of time.

   There is another thing that we have to recollect also, which will
   strike us perhaps more than the smallness of things. The minuteness of
   providence may be seen in the fact, that even the thoughts of men are
   under God's hand. Now, thoughts are things which generally escape our
   attention, when we speak of providence. But how much may depend upon a
   thought! Oftentimes a monarch has had a thought which has cost a nation
   many a bloody battle. Sometimes a good man has had a thought, which has
   been the means of rescuing multitudes from hell, and bearing thousands
   safely to heaven. Beyond a doubt, every imagination, every passing
   thought, every conception, that is only born to die, is under the hand
   of God. And in turning over the page of history, you will often be
   struck, when you see how great a thing has been brought about by an
   idle word. Depend upon it, then, that the will of man, the thought of
   man, the desire of man, that every purpose of man, is immediately under
   the hand of God. Take an instance--Jesus Christ is to be born at
   Bethlehem; his mother is living at Nazareth: he will be born there to a
   dead certainty. No, not so. Caesar takes a whim into his head. All the
   world shall be taxed, and he will have all of them go to their own
   city. What necessity for that? Stupid idea of Caesar's! If he had had a
   parliament, they would have voted against him. They would have said,
   "Why make all the people go to their own peculiar city to the census?
   Take the census where they live; that will be abundantly sufficient."
   "No," says he, "it is my will, and Caesar cannot be opposed." Some
   think Caesar mad. God knows what he means to do with Caesar. Mary,
   great with child, must take a laborious journey to Bethlehem; and there
   is her child born in a manger. We should not have had the prophecy
   fulfilled, that Christ should be born at Bethlehem, and our very faith
   in the Messiah might have been shaken, if it had not been for that whim
   of Caesar's. So that even the will of man; the tyranny, the despotism
   of the tyrant, is in the hand of God, and he turneth it whithersoever
   he pleaseth, to work his own will.

   Gathering up all our heads into one short statement, it is our firm
   belief that he who wings an angel guides a sparrow. We believe that he
   who supports the dignity of his throne amidst the splendors of heaven
   maintains it also in the depths of the dark sea. We believe that there
   is nothing above, beneath, around, which is not according to the
   determination of his own counsel and will; and while we are not
   fatalists, we do most truly and sternly hold the doctrine, that God
   hath decreed all things whatsoever that come to pass, and that he
   overruleth all things for his own glory and good; so that with Martin
   Luther, we can say,

   "He everywhere hath sway,

   And all things serve his might;

   His every act pure blessing is,

   His path unsullied light."

   II. The second point is, THE KIND CONSIDERATION OF GOD, IN TAKING CARE
   OF HIS PEOPLE. In reading the text, I thought, "There is better care
   taken of me than I can take care of myself." You all take care of
   yourselves to some extent, but which of you ever took so much care of
   himself as to count the hairs of his head? But God will not only
   protect our limbs, but even the excrescence of hair is to be seen
   after. And how much this excels all the care of our tenderest friends!
   Look at the mother, how careful she is. If her child has a little
   cough, she notices it: the slightest weakness is sure to be observed.
   She has watched all its motions anxiously, to see whether it walked
   right, whether all its limbs were sound, and whether it had the use of
   all its powers in perfection; but she has never thought of numbering
   the hairs of her child's head, and the absence of one or two of them
   would give her no great concern. But our God is more careful of us,
   even than a mother with her child--so careful that he numbers the hairs
   of our head. How safe are we, then, beneath the hand of God!

   However, leaving the figure, let us again notice the kind, guardian
   care, which God exerts over his people in the way of providence. I have
   often been struck with the providence of God, in keeping his people
   alive before they were converted. How many are there here who would
   have been in hell at this hour, if some special providence had not kept
   them alive till the time of their conversion! I remember mentioning
   this in company, and almost every person in the room had some
   half-miracle to tell, concerning his own deliverance before conversion.
   One gentleman, I remember, was a sporting man, who afterwards became an
   eminent Christian. He told me, that a little time before his conversion
   he was shooting, and his gun burst in four pieces, which stood upright
   in the earth as near as possible in the exact form of a square, having
   been driven nearly a foot into the ground, while he stood there
   unharmed and quite safe, having scarcely felt the shock. I was noticing
   in Hervey's works, one day, a very pretty thought on this subject. He
   says, "Two persons who had been hunting together in the day, slept
   together the following night. One of them was renewing the pursuit in
   his dream, and, having run the whole circle of the chase, came at last
   to the fall of the stag; upon this he cries out with a determined
   ardor, I'll kill him, I'll kill him; and immediately feels for the
   knife which he carried in his pocket. His companion happening to awake,
   and observing what passed, leaped from the bed. Being secure from
   danger, and the moon shining in the room, he stood to view the event,
   when, to his inexpressible surprise, the infatuated sportsman gave
   several deadly stabs in the very place where a moment before the throat
   and the life of his friend lay.--This I mention, as a proof, that
   nothing hinders us, even from being assassins of others, or murderers
   of ourselves, amidst the mad sallies of sleep, only the preventing care
   of our Heavenly Father."

   How wonderful the providence of God with regard to Christian people, in
   keeping them out of temptation. I have often noticed this fact, and I
   believe you are able to confirm it, that there are times when if a
   temptation should come you would be overtaken by it; but the temptation
   does not come. And at other times, when the temptation comes, you have
   supernatural strength to resist it. Yes! the best Christian in the
   world will tell you, that such is still the strength of his lust, that
   there are moments when if the object were presented to him, he would
   certainly fall into the commission of a foul sin; but then the object
   is not there, or there is no opportunity of committing the sin. At
   another time, when we are called to go through a burning fiery furnace
   of temptation, we have no desire towards the peculiar sin, in fact we
   feel an aversion to it, or are even incapable of it. Strange it is, but
   many a man's character has been saved by providence. The best man that
   ever lived, little knows how much he owes for preservation to the
   providence as well as to the grace of God.

   How marvellously too has providence arranged all our places. I cannot
   but recur to my own personal history, for, after all, we are obliged to
   speak more of what we know of ourselves as matters of fact than of
   others. I shall always regard the fact of my being here to-day as a
   remarkable instance of providence. I should not have occupied this hall
   probably, and been blessed of God in preaching to multitudes if it had
   not been for what I considered an untoward accident. I should have been
   at this time studying in College, instead of preaching here, but for a
   singular circumstance which happened. I had agreed to go to College:
   the tutor had come to see me, and I went to see him at the house of a
   mutual friend; I was shown by the servant into one drawing-room in the
   house, he was shown into another. He sat and waited for me for two
   hours; I sat and waited for him two hours. He could wait no longer, and
   went away thinking I had not treated him well; I went away and thought
   that he had not treated me well. As I went away this text came into my
   mind, "Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not." So I
   wrote to say that I must positively decline, I was happy enough amongst
   my own country people, and got on very well in preaching, and I did not
   care to go to College. I have now had four years of labor. But,
   speaking after the manner of men, those who have been saved during that
   time would not have been saved, by my instrumentality at any rate, if
   it had not been for the remarkable providence turning the whole tenour
   of my thoughts, and putting things into a new track. You have often had
   strange accidents like that. When you have resolved to do a thing, you
   could not do it any how; it was quite impossible. God turned you
   another way, and proved that providence is indeed the master of all
   human events.

   And how good, too, has God been in providence to some of you, in
   providing your daily bread. It is remarkable how a little poverty makes
   a person believe in providence, especially if he is helped through it.
   If a person has to live from hand to mouth, when day by day the manna
   falls, he begins to think there is a providence then. The gentleman who
   sows his broad acres, reaps his wheat and puts it into his barn, or
   takes his regular income, gets on so nicely that he can do without
   providence; he does not care a bit about it. The rents of his houses
   all come in, and his money in the Three per Cents is quite safe--what
   does he want with providence? But the poor man who has to work at day
   labor, and sometimes runs very short, and just then happens to meet
   with somebody who gives him precisely what he wants, he exclaims,
   "Well, I know there is a providence--I cannot help believing it; these
   things could not have come by chance."

   III. And now, in conclusion, brethren and sisters, if these things be
   so, if the hairs of our head are all numbered, and if providence
   provides for his people all things necessary for this life, and
   godliness, and arranges everything with infinite and unerring wisdom,
   what manner of persons ought we to be?

   In the first place, we ought to be a bold race of people. What have we
   to fear? Another man looks up, and if he sees a lightning-flash, he
   trembles at its mysterious power. We believe it has its predestined
   path. We may stand and contemplate it; although we would not
   presumptuously expose ourselves to it, yet can we confide in our God in
   the midst of the storm. We are out at sea, the waves are dashing
   against the ship, she reels to and fro; other men shake, because they
   think this is all chance; we, however, see an order in the waves, and
   hear a music in the winds. It is for us to be peaceful and calm. To
   other men the tempest is a fearful thing; we believe that the tempest
   is in the hand of God. Why should we shake? Why should we quiver? In
   all convulsions of the world, in all temporal distress and danger, it
   is for us to stand calm and collected, looking boldly on. Our
   confidence should be very much the same, in comparison with the man who
   is not a believer in providence, as the confidence of some learned
   surgeon, who, when he is going through an operation, sees something
   very marvellous, but yet never shudders at it, while the ignorant
   peasant, who has never seen any thing so wonderful, is alarmed and
   fearful, and even thinks that evil spirits are at work. We are to
   say--let others say what they please--"I know God is here, and I am his
   child, and this is all working for my good; therefore will not I fear,
   though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into
   the midst of the sea."

   Especially may I address this remark to timid people. There are some of
   you who are frightened at every little thing. Oh! if you could but
   believe that God manages all, why, you would not be screaming because
   your husband is not home when there is a little thunder and lightning,
   or because there is a mouse in the parlour, or because there is a great
   tree blown down in the garden. There is no necessity you should believe
   that your brother-in-law, who has gone to Australia was wrecked,
   because there was a storm when he was at sea. There is no need for you
   to imagine, that your son in the army was necessarily killed, because
   he happened to be before Lucknow; or, if you think the thing necessary,
   still, as a believer in God's providence, you should just stand and say
   that God has done it, and it is yours to resign all things into his
   hands.

   I may say to those of you also who have been bereaved--if you believe
   in providence you may grieve; but your grief must not be excessive. I
   remember at a funeral of a friend hearing a pretty parable which I have
   told before, and will tell again. There was much weeping on account of
   the loss of a loved one, and the minister put it thus. He said,
   "Suppose you are a gardener employed by another; it is not your garden,
   but you are called upon to tend it, and you have your wages paid you.
   You have taken great care with a certain number of roses; you have
   trained them up, and there they are, blooming in their beauty. You
   pride yourself upon them. You come one morning into the garden, and you
   find that the best rose has been taken away. You are angry: you go to
   your fellow-servants, and charge them with having taken the rose. They
   will declare that they had nothing at all to do with it; and one says,
   "I saw the master walking here this morning; I think he took it." Is
   the gardener angry then? No, at once he says, "I am happy that my rose
   should have been so fair as to attract the attention of the master. It
   is his own: he hath taken it; let him do what seemeth him good."

   It is even so with your friends. They wither not by chance; the grave
   is not filled by accident; men die according to God's will. Your child
   is gone, but the Master took it; your husband is gone, your wife is
   buried,--the Master took them; thank him that he let you have the
   pleasure of caring for them and tending them while they were here, and
   thank him that as he gave, he himself has taken away. If others had
   done it, you would have had cause to be angry; but the Lord has done
   it. Can you, then, murmur? Will you not say--

   "Thee at all times will I bless;

   Having thee I all possess;

   How can I bereaved be,

   Since I cannot part with thee."

   And pardon me when I say, finally, that I think this doctrine, if fully
   believed, ought to keep us always in an equable frame of mind. One of
   the things we most want is, to have our equilibrium always kept up.
   Sometimes we are elated. If I ever find myself elated I know what is
   coming. I know that I shall be depressed in a very few hours. If the
   balance goes too much up, it is sure to come down again. The happiest
   state of mind is to be always on the equilibrium. If good things come,
   thank God for them; but do not set your heart upon them. If good things
   go, thank God that he has taken them himself, and still bless his name.
   Bear all. He who feels that everything cometh to pass according to
   God's will, hath a great main-stay to his soul. He need not be shaken
   to and fro by every wind that bloweth; for he is fast bound, so that he
   need not move. This is an anchor cast into the sea. While the other
   ships are drifting far away, he can ride calmly through.

   Strive, dear friends, to believe this, and maintain as the consequence
   of it, that continual calm and peace which renders life so happy. Do
   not get fearing ills that may come to-morrow; either they will not
   come, or else they will bring good with them. If you have evils to-day,
   do not multiply them by fearing those of to-morrow. "Sufficient unto
   the day is the evil thereof." Oh, I would to God, that some of you who
   are full of carking care and anxiety, could be delivered from it by a
   belief in providence; and when you once get into that quiet frame,
   which this doctrine engenders, you will be prepared for those higher
   exercises of communion and fellowship with Christ, to which distracting
   care is ever a fearful detriment, if not an entire preventive.

   But as for you who fear not God, remember, the stones of the field are
   in league against you; the heavens cry to the earth and the earth
   answereth to the heavens, for vengeance upon you on account of your
   sins. For you there is nothing good, everything is in rebellion against
   you. Oh that God might bring you into peace with him, and then you
   would be at rest with all beside. "Seek first the kingdom of God and
   his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." The
   Lord bless you in this, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                             The Redeemer's Prayer

   A Sermon

   (No. 188)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, April 18th, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me
   where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me:
   for thou lovedst me before the foundations of the world."--John 17:24.

   WHEN the High Priest of old entered into the most holy place, he
   kindled the incense in his censer, and waving it before him, he
   perfumed the air with its sweet fragrance, and veiled the mercy seat
   with the denseness of its smoke. Thus was it written concerning him,
   "He shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the
   altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten
   small, and bring it within the vail: and he shall put the incense upon
   the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the
   mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not." Even so our
   Lord Jesus Christ, when he would once for all enter within the vail
   with his own blood to make an atonement for sin, did first offer strong
   crying and prayers. In this 17th chapter of John, we have, as it were,
   the smoking of the Saviour's pontifical center. He prayed for the
   people for whom he was about to die, and ere he sprinkled them with his
   blood, he did sanctify them with his supplications. This prayer
   therefore stands pre-eminent in Holy Writ as the Lord's Prayer--the
   special and peculiar prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ; and "if," as an
   old divine hath it, "it be lawful to prefer one Scripture above
   another, we may say, though all be gold, yet this is a pearl in the
   gold; though all be like the heavens, this is as the sun and stars." Or
   if one part of Scripture be more dear to the believer than any other,
   it must be this which contains his Master's last prayer before he
   entered through the rent vail of his own crucified body. How sweet it
   is to see that not himself, but his people, constituted the staple of
   his prayer! He did pray for himself--he said, "Father, glorify thou
   me!" but while he had one prayer for himself, he had many for his
   people. Continually did he pray for them--"father, sanctify them!"
   "Father, keep them!" "Father, make them one!" And then he concluded his
   supplication with, "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given
   me, be with me where I am." Melancthon well said there was never a more
   excellent, more holy, more fruitful, and more affectionate voice ever
   heard in heaven or in earth, than this prayer.

   We shall first notice the style of the prayer; secondly, the persons
   interested in it; and thirdly, the great petitions offered--the last
   head constituting the main part of our discourse.

   I. First, notice THE STYLE OF THE PRAYER--it is singular: it is,
   "Father, I will". Now, I cannot but conceive that there is something
   more in the expression, "I will" than a mere wish.It seems to one, that
   when Jesus said "I will," although perhaps it might not be proper to
   say that he made a demand, yet we may say that he pleaded with
   authority, asking for that which he knew to be his own, and uttering an
   "I will" as potent as any fiat that ever sprang from the lips of the
   Almighty "Father, I will." It is an unusual thing to find Jesus Christ
   saying to God, "I will" You know that before the mountains were brought
   forth, it was said of Christ, "in the volume of the book it is written
   of me, I delight to do thy will, O God." and we find whilst he was on
   earth, that he never mentioned his own will, that he expressly
   declared, "I came not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent
   me." It is true you do hear him when addressing men, saying "I will,"
   for he saith, "I will, be thou clean;" but in his prayers to his Father
   he prayed with all humility;

   "With sighs and groans he offered up,

   His humble suit below."

   "I will," therefore, seems to be an exception to the rule; but we must
   remember that Christ was now in an exceptional condition. He had never
   been before where he was now. He was now come to the end of his work;
   he could say, "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do,"
   and therefore, looking forward to the time when the sacrifice would be
   complete and he should ascend on high, he sees that his work is done,
   and takes his own will back again and saith, "Father, I will."

   Now, mark, that such a prayer as this would be totally unbecoming in
   our lips. We are never to say, "Father, I will." Our prayer is to be,
   "Not my will, but thine be done." We are to mention our wishes, but our
   wills are to subside into the will of God. We are to feel that whilst
   it is ours to desire, it is God's to will. But how pleasant, I repeat,
   it is to find the Saviour pleading with such authority as this, for
   this puts the stamp of certainty upon his prayer. Whatsoever he has
   asked for in that chapter he shall have beyond a doubt. At other times,
   when he pleaded as a Mediator, in his humility he was eminently
   successful in his intercessions; how much more shall his prayer prevail
   now that he takes to himself his great power, and with authority cries,
   "Father, I will." I love that opening to the prayer, it is a blessed
   guarantee of its fulfillment, rendering it so sure that we may now look
   upon Christ's prayer as a promise which shall be assuredly fulfilled.

   II. Thus much concerning the style of the prayer; and now we NOTICE THE
   PERSONS FOR WHOM HE PRAYED, "Father, I will that they also, whom thou
   hast given me, be with me where I am." This was not an universal
   prayer. It was a prayer including within it a certain class and portion
   of mankind, who are designated as "those whom the Father had given
   him." Now we are taught to believe that God the Father did, from before
   the foundation of the world, give unto his Son Jesus Christ a number
   whom no man can number, who were to be the reward of his death, the
   purchase of the travail of his soul; who were to be infallibly brought
   unto everlasting glory by the merits of his passion, and the power of
   his resurrection. These are the people here referred to. Sometimes in
   Scripture they are called the elect, because when the Father gave them
   to Christ he chose them out from among men. At other times they are
   called the beloved, because God's love was set upon them of old. They
   are called Israel; for like Israel of old, they are a chosen people, a
   royal generation. They are called God's inheritance, for they are
   especially dear to God's heart; and as a man careth for his inheritance
   and his portion, so the Lord careth especially for them.

   Let me not be misunderstood. The people whom Christ here prays for, are
   those whom God the Father out of his own free love and sovereign good
   pleasure ordained unto eternal life, and who, in order that his design
   might be accomplished, were given into the hands of Christ the
   Mediator, by him to be redeemed, sanctified, and perfected, and by him
   to be glorified everlastingly. These people, and none others, are the
   object of our Saviour's prayer. It is not for me to defend the
   doctrine; it is Scriptural, that is my only defense. It is not for me
   to vindicate God from any profane charge of partiality or injustice. If
   there be any wicked enough to impute this to him, let them settle the
   matter with their Maker. Let the thing formed, if it have arrogance
   enough, say to him that formed it, "Why hast thou made me thus?" I am
   not God's apologist, he needs no defender. "Who art thou, O man, that
   repliest against God? Hath he not, like the potter, power over the
   clay, to make one vessel to honor, and another to dishonor?" Instead of
   disputing, let us enquire who are these people? Do we belong to them?
   Oh! let each heart now put the solemn query, "Am I included in that
   happy throng whom God the Father gave to Christ?" Beloved, I cannot
   tell you by the mere hearing of your names; but if I know your
   character, I can tell you decisively--or rather, you will need no
   telling, for the Holy Spirit will bear witness in your hearts that you
   are amongst the number. Answer this question--Have you given yourselves
   to Christ? Have you been brought, by the constraining power of his own
   free love, to make a voluntary surrender of yourself to him? Have you
   said, "O Lord other lords have had dominion over me; but now I reject
   them, and I give myself up to thee.

   'Other refuge have I none;

   Hangs my helpless soul on thee;'

   and as I have no other refuge, so I have no other Lord. Little am I
   worth, but such as I am, I give all I have and all I am to thee. It is
   true, I was never worth thy purchasing, but since thou hast bought me,
   thou shalt have me. Lord, I make a full surrender of myself to thee."
   Well, soul, if thou hast done this, if thou hast given thyself to
   Christ, it is but the result of that ancient grant made by Jehovah to
   his son long ere the worlds were made. And, once again, canst thou feel
   to-day that thou art Christ's? If thou canst not remember the time when
   he sought thee and brought thee to himself, yet canst thou say with the
   spouse "I am my beloved's?" Can you now from your inmost soul say, Whom
   have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire
   beside thee! If so, trouble not your minds about election, there is
   nothing troublesome in election to you. He that believes is elected, he
   who is given to Christ now, was given to Christ from before the
   foundation of the world. You need not dispute divine decrees, but sit
   down and draw honey out of this rock, and wine out of this flinty rock.
   Oh, it is a hard, hard doctrine to a man who has no interest in it, but
   when a man has once a title to it, then it is like the rock in the
   wilderness, it streams with refreshing water whereat myriads may drink
   and never thirst again. Well does the Church of England say of that
   doctrine, "is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly
   persons." And though it be like the Tarpeian rock, whence many a
   malefactor has been dashed to pieces in presumption, yet it is like
   Pisgah, from whose lofty summit the spires of heaven may be seen in the
   distance. Again, I say, be not cast down, neither let your hearts be
   disconsolate. If you be given to Christ now, you are among the happy
   number for whom he intercedes above, and you shall be gathered amongst
   the glorious throng, to be with him where he is, and to behold his
   glory.

   III. I very briefly pass over these two points, because I desire to
   dwell upon the third, which is, THE PETITIONS WHICH THE Saviour OFFERS.

   Christ prayed, if I understand his prayer, for three things--things
   which constitute Heaven's greatest joy, Heaven's sweetest employment,
   and Heaven's highest privilege.

   1. The first great thing he prayed for, is that which is heaven's
   greatest joy--"Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me,
   be with me where I am." If you notice, every word in the sentence is
   necessary to its fullness. He does not say--"I pray that those, whom
   thou hast given me, may be where I am;" but, "with me where I am." And
   he does not only pray that they might be with him, but that they might
   be with him in the same place where he is. And mark! he did not say he
   wished his people to be in heaven, but with him in heaven, because that
   makes heaven heaven. It is the very pith and marrow of heaven to be
   with Christ. Heaven without Christ would be but an empty place it would
   lose its happiness, it would be a harp without strings; and where would
   be the music?--a sea without water, a very pool of Tantalus. He prayed
   then that we might be with Christ--that is our companionship, with him
   where he is--that is our position. It seems as if he would tell us,
   that heaven is both a condition and a state--in the company of Christ,
   and in the place where Christ is.

   I might, if I expose, enlarge very much on these points, but I just
   throw out the raw material of a few thoughts, that will furnish you
   with topics of meditation in the afternoon. Let us now pause and think
   how sweet this prayer is, by contrasting it with our attainments on
   earth. "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with
   me where I am." Ah! brothers and sisters, we know a little of what it
   is to be with Christ. There are some happy moments, sweet pauses
   between the din of the continued battles of this wearied life there are
   some soft times, like couches of rest, wherein we do repose. There are
   hour when our Master comes to us, and makes us, or ever we are aware,
   like the chariots of Amminadib. It is true, we have not been caught up
   to the third heaven, like Paul, to hear words which it is unlawful for
   us to utter; but we have sometimes thought that the third heavens have
   come down to us. Sometimes I have said within myself, "Well, if this be
   not heaven, it is next door to it" and we have thought that we were
   dwelling in the suburbs of the celestial city. You were in that land
   which Bunyan calls the land Beulah. You were so near to heaven, that
   the angels did flit across the stream and bring you sweet bunches of
   myrrh, and bundles of frankincense, which grow in the beds of spices on
   the hills, and you pressed these to your heart and said with the
   spouse, "A bundle of myrrh, is my well beloved unto me. he shall lie
   all night betwixt my breasts," for I am ravished with his love and
   filled with his delights He hath made himself near to me, he hath
   unveiled his countenance and manifested all his love. But, beloved,
   while this gives us a foretaste of heaven, we may nevertheless use our
   state on earth as a complete contrast to the state of the glorified
   above. For here, when we see our Master, it is but at a distance. We
   are sometimes we think in his company, but still we cannot help feeling
   that there is a great gulf fixed between us, even when we come the
   nearest to him. We talk, you know, about laying our head upon his
   bosom, and sitting at his feet; but alas! we find it after all to be
   very metaphorical, compared with the reality which we shall enjoy
   above. We have seen his face, we trust we have sometimes looked into
   his heart, and tasted that he is gracious, but still long nights of
   darkness lay between us. We have cried again and again with the bride,
   "Oh, that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my
   mother! when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I
   should not be despised. I would lead thee, and bring thee into my
   mother's house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of
   spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate." We were with him but still
   he was in an upper-room of the house, and we below; we were with him
   but still we felt that we were absent from him, even when we were the
   nearest to him.

   Again, even the sweetest visits from Christ, how short they are! Christ
   comes and goes very much like an angel; his visits are few and far
   between with the most of us, and oh! so short--alas, too short for
   bliss. One moment our eyes see him, and we rejoice with joy unspeakable
   and full of glory, but again a little time and we do not see him, our
   beloved withdraws himself from us; like a roe or a young hart he leaps
   over the mountain of division; he is gone back to the land of spices,
   and feeds no more among the lilies.

   "If to-day he deigns to bless us

   With a sense of pardoned sin,

   He to-morrow may distress us,

   Make us feel the plague within"

   Oh, how sweet the prospect of the time when we shall not see him at a
   distance, but face to face. There is a sermon in those words, "face to
   face." And then we shall not see him for a little time, but

   "Millions of years our wondering eyes,

   Shall o'er our Saviour's beauties rove;

   And myriad ages we'll adore,

   The wonders of his love."

   Oh, if it is sweet to see him now and then, how sweet to gaze on that
   blessed face for aye, and never have a cloud rolling between, and never
   have to turn one's eyes away to look on a world of weariness and woe!
   Blest days! when shall ye come, when our companionship with Christ
   shall be close and uninterrupted?

   And let us remark, again, that when we get a glimpse of Christ, many
   step in to interfere. We have our hours of contemplation, when we do
   draw near to Jesus, but alas! how the world steps in and interrupts
   even our most quiet moments--the shop, the field, the child, the wife,
   the head, perhaps the very heart, all these are interlopers between
   ourselves and Jesus. Christ loves quiet; he will not talk to our souls
   in the busy market place, but he says, "Come, my love, into the
   vineyard, get thee away into the villages, there will I show thee my
   love." But when we go to the villages, behold the Philistine is there,
   the Canaanite has invaded the land. When we would be free from all
   thought except thought of Jesus, the wandering band of Bedouin thoughts
   come upon us, and they take away our treasures, and spoil our tents. We
   are like Abraham with his sacrifice; we lay out the pieces ready for
   the burning, but foul birds come to feast on the sacrifice which we
   desire to keep for our God and for him alone. We have to do as Abraham
   did; "When the birds came down upon the sacrifice, Abraham drove them
   away." But in heaven there shall be no interruption, no weeping eyes
   shall make us for a moment pause in our vision, no earthly joys, no
   sensual delights, shall create a discord in our melody; there shall we
   have no fields to till, no garment to spin, no wearied limb, no dark
   distress, no burning thirst, no pangs of hunger, no weepings of
   bereavement; we shall have nought to do or think upon, but for ever to
   gaze upon that Sun of Righteousness, with eyes that cannot be blinded,
   and with a heart that can never be weary; to lie in those arms for
   ever; throughout a whole eternity to be pressed to his bosom, to feel
   the beatings of his ever faithful heart; to drink his love; to be
   satisfied for ever with his favor, and full with the goodness of the
   Lord! Oh! if we have only to die to get to such delights as
   these,--death is gain, it is swallowed up in victory.

   Nor must we turn away from the sweet thought, that we are to be with
   Christ where he is, until we have remembered, that though we often draw
   near to Jesus on earth, yet the most we ever have of him, is but a sip
   of the well. We sometimes come to the wells of Elim and the seventy
   palm trees, but when sitting beneath the palm trees, we feel that it is
   just like an oasis; to-morrow we shall have to be treading the burning
   sands, with the scorching sky above us. One day we sit down and we
   drink from the sweet soft spring, to-morrow we know that we have to be
   standing with parched lips over Marah's fount, and crying, "Alas, alas!
   it is bitter; I cannot drink thereof" But oh, in heaven, we shall do
   what holy Rutherford says, we shall put the well head to our lips and
   drink right on from that well that never can be drained, we shall drink
   to our souls utmost full. Ay, as much of Jesus as the finite can hold
   of infinity shall the believer receive. We shall not then see him for
   the twinkling of an eye and then lose him, but we shall see him ever.
   We shall not eat of manna that shall be like a small round thing, a
   coriander seed, but the manna whereof we feed shall be mountains, the
   broad hills of food, there we shall have rivers of delight, and oceans
   of ecstatic joy. Oh, it is very hard for us to tell, with all that we
   can guess of heaven, how large, how deep, how high, how broad it is.
   When Israel ate of that one fair branch which came from Esheol, they
   guessed what the clusters of Canaan must be; and when they tasted the
   honey they guessed the sweetness. But I warrant no man in all that
   host, had any idea of how full that land was of fertility and
   sweetness; how the very brooks ran with honey, and the very rocks did
   teem with fatness. Nor can any of us who have lived the nearest to our
   Master, form more than the faintest guess of what it is to be with
   Jesus where he is.

   Now all that is wanted to help my feeble description of being with
   Jesus, is this--if you have faith in Christ, just think over this fact,
   that in a few more months you will know more about it than the wisest
   mortal ere can tell. A few more rolling suns, and you and I shall be in
   heaven. Go on, O Time! with thy swiftest pinions fly! A few more years,
   and I shall see his face. O canst thou say, my hearer, "I shall see his
   face?" Come, thou gray-headed one, nearing the goal of life, canst thou
   with confidence say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth?" If thou canst
   say that, it will fill thy soul with joy. I can never think of it
   without being moved to tears. To think that this head shall wear a
   crown; that these poor fingers shall strike the harp-strings of
   everlasting song; that this poor lip, which now faintly tells the
   wonders of redeeming grace, shall join with cherubim and seraphim, and
   rival them in melody. Is it not too good to be true? Does it not seem
   sometimes as if the very greatness of the thought overwhelmed our
   faith? But true it is, and though too great for us to receive it, it is
   not too great for God to give. We shall be with him where he is. Yes,
   John; thou laidst thy head upon thy Saviour's bosom once, and I have
   ofttimes envied thee; but I shall have thy place by-and-bye. Yes, Mary;
   it was thy sweet delight to sit at thy Master's feet, while Martha was
   cumbered with her much serving. I too, am too much cumbered with this
   world; but I shall leave my Martha's cares in the tomb and sit to hear
   thy Master's voice. Yes, O spouse, thou didst ask to be kissed with the
   kisses of his lips, and what thou askedst for poor humanity shall yet
   see. And the poorest, meanest, and most illiterate of you, who have
   trusted in Jesus, shall yet put your lip to the lip of your Saviour,
   not as Judas did, but with a true "Hail, Master!" you shall kiss him.
   And then, wrapped in the beams of his love, as a dim star is eclipsed
   in the sunlight, so shall you sink into the sweet forgetfulness of
   ecstacy, which is the best description we can give of the joys of the
   redeemed. "Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me, be with me
   where I am." That is heaven's sweetest joy,--to be with Christ.

   2. And now the next prayer is, "that they may behold my glory which
   thou hast given me." This is heaven's sweetest employment. I doubt not
   there are many joys in heaven which will amplify the grand joy with
   which are have just started; I feel confident that the meeting of
   departed friends, the society of apostles, prophets priests, and
   martyrs, will amplify the joy of the redeemed. But still the sun that
   will give them the greatest light to their joy, will be the fact that
   they are with Jesus Christ and behold his face. And now there may be
   other employments in heaven, but that mentioned in the text is the
   chief one, "That they may behold my glory." O for the tongue of angel-O
   for the lip of Cherubim! for one moment to depict the mighty scenes
   which the Christian shall behold when he seeth the glory of his Master,
   Jesus Christ! Let us pass as in a panorama before your eyes the great
   scenes of glory which you shall behold after death. The moment the soul
   departs from this body, it will behold the glory of Christ. The glory
   of his person will he the first thing that will arrest our attention.
   There will he sit in the midst of the throne, and our eyes will first
   be caught with the glory of his appearance. Perhaps we shall be struck
   with astonishment. Is this the visage that was more marred than that of
   any man? Are these the hands that once rude iron tore? Is that the head
   that once was crowned with thorns. Oh, how shall our admiration rise,
   and rise, and rise to the very highest pitch, when we shall see him who
   was--

   "The weary man, and full of woes

   The humble man before his foes,"

   now King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. What! are those fire-darting eyes
   the very eyes that once wept over Jerusalem? Are those feet shod with
   sandals of light; the feet that once were torn by the flinty acres of
   the Holy Land? Is that the man, who scarred and bruised was carried to
   his tomb? Yes, tis he. And that shall absorb our thoughts--the godhead
   and the manhood of Christ; the wondrous feet that he is God over all
   blessed for ever, and yet man, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh.
   And when for an instant we have noted this, I doubt not the next glory
   we shall see will be the glory of his enthronement. Oh, how will the
   Christian stop at the foot of his Master's throne and look upward, and
   if there could be tears in heaven, tears of rich delight will roll down
   his cheeks when he looks and sees the man enthroned. "Oh," saith he "I
   often used to sing on earth Crown him! crown him! crown him! King of
   Kings, and Lord of Lords!" And now I see him, up those hills of
   glorious light, my soul doth not dare to climb. There, there he sits!
   Dark with unsufferable light his skirts appear. Millions of angels bow
   themselves around him. The redeemed before his throne prostrate
   themselves with rapture. Ah! we shall not deliberate many moments but
   taking our crowns in our hands we shall help to swell that solemn pomp,
   and casting our crowns at his feet, we shall join the everlasting song,
   "Unto him that hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in his blood,
   unto him be glory for ever and ever." Can you imagine the magnificence
   of the Saviour? Can you conceive how thrones and princes,
   principalities and powers, all wait at his beck and command? Ye cannot
   tell how well the tiara of the universe doth fit his brow, or how the
   regal purple of all worlds doth gird his shoulders; but certain it is,
   from the highest heaven to the deepest hell, he is Lord of Lords--from
   the furthest east to the remotest west, he is master of all. The songs
   of all creatures find a focus in him. He is the grand reservoir of
   praise. All the rivers run into the sea, and all the hallelujahs come
   to him, for he is Lord of all. Oh, this is heaven--it is all the heaven
   I wish, to see my Master exalted; for, this has often braced my loins
   when I have been weary, and often steeled my courage when I have been
   faint "The Lord also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name
   which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus, every knee should
   bow, both of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under
   the earth."

   And then the believer will have to wait a little while, and then he
   shall see more glorious things yet. After a few years, he will see the
   glories of the latter day. We are told in prophecy, that this world is
   to become the dominion of Christ. At present, idolatry, and bloodshed,
   and cruelty, and lusts, do reign. But the hour is coming; when this
   Augean stable shall be cleansed once and for ever, when these huge
   shambles of Aceldama shall yet become the temple of the living God. We
   believe that in these times, Christ with solemn pomp will descend from
   heaven to reign upon this earth. We cannot read our Bibles and believe
   them literally, without believing that there are bright days coming,
   when Christ shall sit upon the throne of his father David, when he
   shall hold his court on earth, and reign amongst his ancients
   gloriously. But oh, if it be so, you and I shall see it, if we belong
   to the happy number, who have put their trust in Christ. These eyes
   shall see that pompous appearance, when he shall stand in the latter
   day upon the earth. "Mine eyes shall see him, and not another's." I
   could almost weep to think, that I have lost the opportunity of seeing
   Christ on earth as crucified. I do think the twelve apostles were very
   highly favored, but when we shall see our Saviour here, and shall be
   like our head, we shall think that all deficiencies are made up in the
   eternal weight of glory. When from the center to the poles the harmony
   of this world shall all be given to his praise, these ears shall hear
   it, and when all nations shall join the shout, this tongue shall join
   the shout also. Happy men and happy women who have such a hope, so to
   behold the Saviour's glory.

   And then, after that a little pause. A thousand years shall run their
   golden cycle, and then shall come the judgment Christ, with sound of
   trumpet, in pomp terrific, shall descend from heaven--Angels shall form
   his body-guard. surrounding him on either hand. The chariots of the
   Lord are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels. The whole sky shall
   be clad with wonders. Prodigies, and miracles shall be as rife and as
   plentiful as the leaves upon the trees. The earth shall totter at the
   tramp of the Omnipotent; the pillars of the heavens shall stagger like
   drunken men, beneath the weight of the eternal splendour--heaven shall
   display itself in the sky, while on earth all men shall be assembled.
   The sea shall give up its dead; the graves shall yield their tenants
   from the cemetery, and the graveyard, and the battle-field, men shall
   start in their thousands; and every eye shall see him, and they who
   have crucified him. And while the unbelieving world shall weep and wail
   because of him, seeking to hide themselves from the face of him that
   sitteth upon the throne, believers shall come forward, and, with songs
   and choral symphonies, shall meet their Lord Then shall they be caught
   up together with the Lord in the air, and after he hath said, "Come, ye
   blessed" they shall sit upon his throne, judging the twelve tribes of
   Israel; they shall take their seats as assessors upon that awful
   judgment bench. and when at the last he shall say, "Depart, ye cursed,"
   and his left hand shall open the door of thunder, and let loose the
   flames of fire, they shall cry, Amen; and when the earth shall vanish,
   and men shall sink into their appointed doom, they gladly seeing the
   triumph of their Master, shall shout again, again, again the shout of
   victory--"Hallelujah, for the Lord God hath triumphed over all."

   And to complete the scene, when the Saviour shall ascend on high for
   the last time, his victories all completed, and death himself being
   slain, he, like a mighty conqueror about to ride through heaven's
   bright streets, shall drag at his chariot wheel hell and death. You and
   I, attendants at his side, shall shout the victor to his throne, and
   while the angels clap their bright wings and cry, "the Mediator's work
   is done," you and I

   "Louder than them all shall sing

   While heaven's resounding mansions ring,

   With shouts of sovreign grace."

   We shall behold his glory. Picture whatever splendor and magnificence
   you please if you do but conceive it rightly, you shall behold it.

   You see people in this world running through the streets a king or a
   queen ride through them. How they do climb to their house-tops to see
   some warrior return from battle. Ah! what a trifle! What is it to see a
   piece of flesh and blood though it be crowned with gold. But oh! what
   is it to see the Son of God with heaven's highest honors to attend him,
   entering within the pearly gates, while the vast universe resounds with
   "Hallelujah! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth."

   3. I must close by noticing the last point, which is this. In our
   Saviour's prayer heaven's greatest privilege is also included. Mark, we
   are not only to be with Christ and to behold his glory, but we are to
   be like Christ and to be glorified with him. Is he bright? So shall you
   be. Is he enthroned? So shall you be. Does he wear a crown? So shall
   you. Is he a priest? So shall you be a priest and a king to offer
   acceptable sacrifices for ever. Mark, that in all Christ has, a
   believer has a share. This seems to me to be the sum total, and the
   crowning of it all--to reign with Christ, to ride in his triumphal
   chariot, and have a portion of his joy; to be honored with him, to be
   accepted in him, to be glorified with him. This is heaven, this is
   heaven indeed.

   And now, how many of you are there here who have any hope that this
   shall be your lot? Well said Chrysostom, "The pains of hell are not the
   greatest part of hell; the loss of heaven is the weightiest woe of
   hell;" to lose the sight of Christ, the company of Christ, to lose the
   beholding of his glories, this must be the greatest part of the
   damnation of the lost.

   Oh, you that have not this bright hope, how is it that you can live?
   You are going through a dark world, to a darker eternity. I beseech you
   stop and pause. Consider for a moment whether it is worth while to lose
   heaven for this poor earth. What! pawn eternal glories for the pitiful
   pence of a few moments of the world's enjoyments. No, stop I beseech
   you; weigh the bargain ere you accept it. What shall it profit you to
   gain the whole world and lose your soul, and lose such a heaven as
   this?

   But as for you who have a hope, I beseech you hold it fast, live on it,
   rejoice in it--

   "A hope so much divine,

   May trials well endure,

   May purge your soul from sense and sin,

   As Christ the Lord is pure."

   Live near your Master now, so shall your evidences be bright; and when
   you come to cross the flood, you shall see him face to face, and what
   that is only they can tell who enjoy it every hour.
     __________________________________________________________________

                             The Cry Of The Heathen

   A Sermon

   (No. 189)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, April 25th, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. There stood a man of
   Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help
   us."--Acts 16:9.

   THIS WAS NO DOUBT a special vision sent of God for the direction of the
   apostle. For we are told in the next verse, that they assuredly
   gathered from this vision, that the Lord had called them to preach the
   gospel in Macedonia. And yet the vision may be very readily accounted
   for by natural causes. Men usually dream of that which is most upon
   their minds. Who would marvel that the miser should, in his restless
   sleep, be pictured to his own sight as counting over his gold? Who
   wonders that the mother's dream is often concerning her fair infant?
   Who marvels that the wife frequently dreams of shipwrecks, when, in the
   stormy night, she lies upon her bed, her last thoughts having been
   exercised concerning her husband at sea? You wonder not that the
   soldier in the trenches dreams of battle. And hence we cannot marvel
   that the apostle Paul, whose whole soul was full of his Master's cause,
   should have a vision in the night concerning a new field of labor,
   which God had intended to open up to him. You will remember that the
   apostle was, on this occasion, in a peculiar condition. He at first
   endeavored to preach the gospel in Phrygia and Galatia, but he was
   forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the Word in Asia. And "after they
   had come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit
   suffered them not." The apostle was like Abraham of old; he went forth,
   not knowing whither he went. There was a certain path which he must
   take, and when he strove to turn either to the right hand or to the
   left, the Spirit directly forbade him, and he was compelled to go on
   till he came to the sea-port of Troas. There, wearied with his journey,
   he cast himself upon his couch, and in the midst of the night a vision
   appeared unto him. A man who by his brogue and his dress was discovered
   to be a Macedonian, said to him, "Come over and help us." God sometimes
   tells men in their sleep the secret they could not discover when they
   were awake. We have heard of the preacher who, tired late on Saturday
   evening, has been unable to think of a discourse, in the middle of the
   night has dreamed it through, and on the morrow he ascended his pulpit
   and preached it. What wonder then, that the apostle Paul, specially
   directed by the Spirit of God, after an day long wearily exercising his
   mind an to the journey God intended him to take, should, after all,
   when in his sleep, have a vision from on high, teaching him where he
   should go.

   And now, beloved, having thus prefaced our discourse, we have another
   observation to make before we proceed to a full discussion of the text.
   What an instance of Divine sovereignty we have in our text! He who is
   wise can see sovereignty everywhere in the work of salvation, but how
   clearly is it present here. Bithynia must not hear the gospel; the
   apostle desires to go and preach it there; but as yet, it seems, God
   does not intend that Bithynia should be evangelised. He desires to
   tarry in Asia, and there throughout its length and breadth preach the
   gospel; but he is strictly forbidden, and the command comes to him that
   he is to go across to Europe, and there proclaim the gospel. Was not
   this sovereignty? Why was it that God shut the door in Bithynia, and
   opened it in Philippi! Was it that Philippi was more worthy, or that
   Bithynia needed it less? Assuredly not. It was of God's mercy that he
   sent the gospel at any time, and when he sent to Philippi the most
   eminent of apostles to preach it, who shall blame him? Has he not a
   right to do what he wills with his own? But we may rest quite assured,
   that his sovereignty was not an arbitrary exercise of despotic will. It
   was a sovereignty dictated by the highest wisdom; for while God rules
   all things according to his own will, yet we are expressly told, that
   he doeth it according to the counsels of his will, his will being no
   blind headstrong thing, willing for no reason whatever, but being
   always subject to his own sense of that which is the wisest, and which
   will promote his glory and his creature's profit. However, we must
   still observe, Divine sovereignty is that which casts a rich lustre
   upon grace, when we recollect that it is sovereign and free. Oh ye, of
   the race of Britain! bless the Lord, that he hath sent the gospel unto
   you; for while doubtless there is wisdom in it, remember there is also
   sovereignty in it. "He hath not dealt so with any nation. Praise ye the
   Lord." Had he willed it, had he seen fit, the gospel had this day been
   flourishing in the center of Africa, and you might at this moment have
   been destitute of the word of the gospel, living barbarians like your
   fathers, embruing your hands in blood. Unto the great, dread Sovereign,
   who ruleth as he wills on earth as in heaven, be glory for ever and
   ever.

   And now we turn to our text. "And a vision appeared to Paul in the
   night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come
   over into Macedonia, and help us." First, we shall observe, that the
   best help that can be rendered to any people is the preaching of the
   gospel. "Come over and help us," that is, preach to us. Secondly, we
   shall notice that although we have no visions or dreary in the night,
   yet, the nations on the earth are calling to the church of the living
   God, and are saying to us, "Come over to us, and help us." And then,
   thirdly, I shall conclude, by solemnly asking the question, what do you
   who love the Lord intend to say to those, who are now asking at your
   hands the help of a preached gospel?

   I. First, then, THE GREATEST HELP THAT CAN BE GIVEN TO ANY PEOPLE, IS
   THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL, and when I say this, I am uttering a truth
   which I need not guard. The gospel is a help, not in one way, but in
   every way. Those who have not the gospel stand in the greatest need of
   help; but when the gospel is carried, you carry everything within it.
   In the folds of the gospel sleepeth the manifold wisdom of God, and his
   manifold goodness also toward the sons of men. Behold, the nations of
   the earth this day are still the bond-slaves of tyrants--many lands are
   still subject to despotic dynasties, who trample men beneath their
   feet, as if men were but earthen pitchers to be broken in pieces by the
   iron wills of kings. How is liberty to be established in these lands?
   Shall the point of the bayonet bring liberty to these nations that
   still are slaves? Never, never. Iron makes our fetters, iron rivets
   them, but iron never can unloose them. We need something more potent
   than steel to carve out the liberty of mankind. Love, love of the
   Gospel, must be the ground work of liberty, and if liberty, equality,
   and fraternity, the three great words that are the world's heir loom,
   are ever to be fully known and realised, it must be by the preaching of
   the Word of Jesus. The preaching of the gospel is the terror of
   despots. If you ask what makes this land free, every candid man must
   say it is the open gospel and the unfettered preaching of the Word.
   Glasgow's motto is, "Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the
   Word." It is the coat of arms of liberty herself. Liberty flourishes by
   the preaching of the Word of God. Certain it is that wherever you find
   Protestantism, you find liberty, and wherever you leave Protestantism
   behind you, you begin to feel the yoke, and to hear the groans of the
   oppressed. It is true that Protestantism doth not in every place
   produce perfect liberty, because it is not sufficiently true to itself.
   There are still places where the slave feels the lash, while his master
   calls himself a Christian; but this is not the legitimate effect of our
   religion, but rather the effect of a delusion which hell itself did
   first invent, and which nought but the deep depravity of men could ever
   permit to stand before the face of God's sun. Yes, ye tyrants on your
   thrones, the little stone cut out of the mountain without hands shall
   yet break you in pieces! O great statue of tyranny with thy head of
   gold, and thy feet of clay, thou shalt yet totter, for this shall break
   thee in pieces, for the breaker is come out before us, and the king at
   the head of us, and who can withstand his might? What shall hold out
   against the mighty principle wherewith Christ makes men free?

   Look, brethren, too, and see how the nations of the earth are lying
   under gloomy superstition. Perhaps there is one thing in the world
   worse than kingcraft, and that is priestcraft. May God save us from two
   things--from tyrannical kings, and from priests of all sorts. Priests
   of any sort are bad, but superstitious priests are the worst of all.
   Oh, how many nations of the earth have their intellect blighted, their
   hopes blasted, their progress shipped, their whole history eclipsed of
   its glory, their state robbed of its riches, by the cursed dominancy of
   priests. Men are compelled to believe just what the priest chooses.
   Because he wears a cassock; because he has been educated in the deep
   mysteries of craftiness, he is to be lord over men's consciences, and
   consciences and hearts are to bow before him; wherever he comes his
   word is to be law, his will is to open and shut the gates of heaven,
   for he pretends that the keys of heaven and of hades are hanging at his
   girdle. How shall we deliver men from these enthralling superstitions!
   No how, but by the preaching of the gospel. You cannot make men free,
   even by governments; you cannot give them a thorough freedom by giving
   them a republic itself; for that republic must fall so long as
   priestcraft is there, for liberty and priestcraft agree as well
   together as God and devil, and no better; and until the one falls the
   other can never stand.

   But the preaching of the gospel which teaches that believers are all
   priests and kings; which lifts every one of us into the high places of
   princes and monarchs and puts every one of us on a level with pontiffs
   and priests--this is the gospel which shall yet set men free, and the
   preaching of this, and this only, is the world's great and grandest
   hope of its deliverance from the slavery of the body and the yet more
   accursed bondage of the soul.

   But, beloved, there are some nations of the earth that have never as
   yet tasted of the sweets of salvation. Large tracts of country have
   been discovered, where the people are still debased and degraded; the
   kraal of the Hottentot has not yet blossomed into a mansion, the spear
   of the New Zealander has not yet been entirely changed for a pruning
   hook. There are many places where all the joys of life and the social
   comforts and enjoyments of our being, are as yet totally unknown. Now,
   the gospel has blessings in both its hands. Wherever it goes it has the
   blessings heaven, rich and golden--it has the blessing of the earth,
   fair and silvery. They are both precious things, and while we believe
   the gospel is ordained most of all to bless man for the hereafter, yet
   the secularist himself, if he were wise, must take some interest in the
   progress of the gospel, for it is a blessing to men even ill this life.
   The great civilizer is the cross. Nothing else can make the barbarian
   into a civilized man, but the cross and the vision of Christ hanging on
   it. Blessed are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of peace, for
   where they bring the glad tidings of peace with God, they bring also
   good news of goodwill towards men,--even goodwill towards men as
   creatures here, as well as good news to them as creatures that are to
   exist for ever. My dear brethren and sisters, if you would bless the
   world, in the largest possible sense, temporarily, spiritually, and
   eternally; if you would bless the bodies and the souls of men, if you
   would bless men in their children, in their houses, if you would bless
   them in their meats and drinks and in all the necessities of life, the
   one simple means of doing all this, is just the proclamation of the
   gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that fully preached and received,
   has been proved in instances which I need not now stop to recall to
   your memories--instances abundant and recent, to be after all, the
   power of God, not only to salvation but to civilization too.

   There is yet one more point which I must mention here in which the
   gospel is the best help to man. We must remember to-day, that there are
   districts of the earth where the ground is yet red with blood. There
   are sad portions of our globe that as yet must have the name of
   Aceldama, the field of gore, there are spots where the horse-hoof is
   splashed with blood; where the very carcasses of men are the food of
   ravens and of jackalls, the mounds of Balaclava are as yet scarcely
   green, and the spots where rest the relics of our own murdered sisters
   and brothers are not covered with the memorial stone. War has ravaged
   whole districts; even in these late times the dogs of war are not yet
   muzzled. Oh! what shall we do to put an end to war? Mars, where is the
   chain that shall bind thee like Prometheus, to the rock? How shall we
   imprison thee for ever, thou cruel Moloch; how shall we for ever chain
   thee? Behold here is the great chain, that which one day is to bind the
   great serpent; it has the blood-red links of love. The gospel of Jesus
   Christ the crucified one, shall yet hush the clarion of war, and break
   the battle-bow in sunder.

   Happy are we, thrice happy, that we have a gospel which shall make men

   "Hang the useless helmet high,

   And study war no more."

   Let us spread it, then, to earth's utmost bounds; for, to repeat the
   text I quoted just now, it hath blessings in both its hands, wherever
   it goes temporarily as well as eternally, it blesses the human race.
   And when it shall have spread to its utmost limits, when all the
   habitable earth shall be covered with it then the mist that swathes our
   planet shall be rolled away, and bright, like a new-born morning star,
   this earth shall shine out with her sister stars in all her glory, and
   the angels shall once more sing, and God himself shall repeat his
   verdict--"all things are very good."

   But still, beloved, the greatest help that the gospel brings is help to
   the soul. Ah, Christian men, ye know what this means: your brothers and
   sisters are this day wandering blindfold, they know not whither. Ye
   know, for the Bible tells you that they are wending their weary way
   down to the gulf of black despair! Oh does not your heart desire that
   the blind eye should be opened, that the misguided should be directed
   on the path to heaven: would not your pity desire to snatch the fire
   brand from the flame? Do you not anxiously seek to know how you can
   lead the vicious to virtue, and the virtuous to the righteousness that
   is in Jesus Christ? Have you no desire to see God's elect ingathered,
   to see them washed, and sanctified, and perfected? Remember this is to
   be, and since it is to be it is certain that ye must send the gospel
   far and wide, for by no other means can God's elect be gathered home.
   How can they believe without a preacher? How can they preach except
   they be sent? The gospel must go throughout all lands, that the elect
   may be gathered home, and the Messiah's kingdom come. Oh! ye who love
   the souls of men, it is to you an awful thought that hell's caverns are
   filling; it is a dreary thing to you to see the broad road so crowded
   with its many travelers? You are longing and wishing that the narrow
   way might have more pilgrims, I beseech you, then, look to it, that by
   every mean. and by all means ye aid the preaching of the gospel of
   Jesus; for it is the help for which the earth calls, and the help which
   you must render to it. Come over and help us by preaching Christ's holy
   gospel. Thus have I done with the first head, may the Lord help us in
   the second.

   II. The second point is, that although not in visions of the night, yet
   EVERY DAY AND EVERY HOUR, THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH ARE SAYING, "COME
   OVER AND HELP US." Do you not know, that the loudest eloquence is
   silence? To move the heart of the right-minded, ye need not the
   declamation of the orator. The sight of silent, dumb misery is the
   highest eloquence to a tender heart. It is true, I must confess it the
   nations of the earth do not vocally ask for your help; nay, worse than
   that, if you send them the help of the gospel they will many of them
   reject it. Your missionaries have been slain,--the altars of false gods
   have been stained with their blood; but still I solemnly repeat it the
   nations of the earth are silently crying, "Come over and help us." If I
   say; a person in the street sick, faint, and dying, although he spoke
   not to me, though he asked me not to befriend him, I should think the
   weakness of his silence more potent than all the power of words. Ay,
   and if I saw him like a maniac, rejecting my help and pushing me from
   him, if I was convinced that he was really a maniac, for that very
   reason that he needed my help, I would thrust my alms upon him, I would
   willingly give him my help and assistance, and so must you do. The
   nations of the earth are dead in sin; how can they cry to you? But it
   is yours to see their misery; and let the poor, poor dumb wounds of
   this bleeding earth speak to you. It is true, earth is a maniac, and it
   puts away the only cure. But what care we for that? It is ours to
   thrust our kindness upon unwilling men, because we believe that their
   unwillingness arises from the madness of their disease. Let us take the
   poor man that has fallen among thieves. Let us pour in the oil and the
   wine, and if he doth not receive it gratefully, because he is faint, if
   he putteth his hand upon the wound, and rends away the liniment, and
   unbinds the plaster, nevertheless. let us bind him up again, and set
   him upon our own beast, and carry him to the inn. Let us pay for the
   lodging even though as yet he cannot speak to thank us; and the day
   shall come, when the wound is healed, and the burning fever is removed,
   when his brain is cool, and his reason restored, that he shall fall at
   our feet and kiss the hand that once he spurned. Unborn generations
   shall bless the men that sent the gospel, which at first their fathers
   did reject.

   And now, brethren and sisters, let me plead the cause of the dumb. No
   man of Macedonia is here to-day to say "Come over and help us," but let
   me be the heathen's spokesman, and very earnestly ask you to come and
   help him. Methinks, I will stand here as a heathen this morning, and I
   say to you as if I had not heard the gospel. "Ye Christians of Britain!
   ye highly favored ones, who know the name of Jesus and prove the power
   of the Spirit, preach the gospel to us, for we are men like yourselves.
   What though our skin be of a color less fair than your own? Yet he
   fashioneth our hearts alike. Oh tell us not, because we feed on the
   locust, and eat the serpent, that therefore we are not of your kith and
   kind! Not that which goeth into a man defileth a man.' It is true, our
   kings and princes are only fit to rank with your beggars; but oh! God
   hath made of one blood all nations that dwell upon the face of the
   earth; and from our huts and cabins we come forth to-day, and we say to
   you, We are men--we are your brothers--younger brothers, it is true--we
   have not had a double portion of the inheritance, brothers, too, whose
   fathers spent their part in riotous living, but why should the
   children's teeth be set on edge because the fathers have eaten sour
   grapes? Why must the son of man for ever bear the curse of Canaan? O
   preach the gospel to us! We are men, mother Eve is our mother, as well
   as yours; Adam, too, is the father from whose loins we sprang; and
   because we are men, the common sympathy of humanity bids you listen to
   us, when we say, Come over and help us.' Besides, we have another
   argument. We are told that unto you is the Word of this salvation
   sent,' not for yourselves, but for us, brothers, who have not heard the
   gospel and who know it not. And you have the treasure in your own land;
   and we believe you have the treasure given to you, that you may lavish
   handfuls of it out to us. We know that old Judea had the covenant and
   the oracles, and the gospel to keep for coming generations; and we
   believe that you men of Britain have the gospel, not for yourselves,
   but for us. We have heard what your Master said, Ye are the lights of
   the world;' not lights of Britain, not lights for yourselves, the
   lights of the world. Oh! bear your burning torches into the glades of
   our dark forests. come and shed your light through the dark mists of
   our idolatrous temples; let the bats of our superstition, and the owls
   of our ignorance, fly away before the sunlight of your gospel. It is
   not for yourselves you have received it, but for us. Oh! give it to us.
   Preach the gospel to us, for it is designed for us. But we have another
   argument, brethren; look at our miseries!"

   As the spokesman for my poor brethren to-day, I stand before you, and I
   remind you of the tortures to which the poor Hindoo devotee puts
   himself; I remind you of the cruelties enacted in the Chinese
   empire--the horrors of a government that is based upon idolatry. I tell
   you of the distress, the destitution, the poverty, the nakedness, the
   misery, of the Bechuanas and the Bushmen, and I speak for these, and I
   say, "Christians, you have the means of alleviating their woes by
   sending them the gospel; will you not do it?" Look at the dwellers in
   the land of the jungle and the lion. There they are; the serpent has
   grasped them in his folds, and like the boa-constrictor of their own
   forests, he is crushing their nations, until the ribs of the strong man
   snap, and the hearts of the women melt like wax. And you have the sword
   in your hands that can cut the serpent's head! Your Master bruised that
   head beneath his heel, and you must do the same. Oh! come, come, ye
   missionaries of the cross, ye ministers of Jesus, come and deliver us
   from this deadly hydra! Save us from our fearful doom! Our miseries
   invoke your aid. It is true, we cannot speak to you in gentle language,
   but there was a time when poets walked amongst us, and some of the
   light that shone in Paradise, yet gilded our darkness. and we treasured
   up a few of those faint rays, and we are hoping that the sun of
   righteousness will yet dawn upon us. Oh! come, roll away those mists;
   come, chase our night. and let us see that sacred, high, eternal noon,
   which is the daughter of the gospel following the Sun of Righteousness.

   And now, Christian men, let me speak to you as one of yourselves.
   Brethren, you and I are soldiers, soldiers of the cross, and at this
   hour worlds are rushing to the shock. The fight is thickening, and we
   are warriors! Shame upon the craven who stays from the battle. The
   trump is sounding to-day. Mohammed has waked from his sleep; the
   Moslem, with bloody hands, has sought to slay our race; the Hindoo,
   too, the meek-eyed Hindoo, his eyes have glared like the eyes of his
   tiger, and his lips have smacked with gore. The battle is raging. Not
   there alone. Popery hath aroused itself, with mighty effort it is
   endeavoring to win back this gem of the sea, this first isle of the
   ocean. Infidelity, too, is on the stir; her myrmidons are flying here
   and there. Everything is awake, except the church of God. Oh! rouse ye,
   men and brethren; rouse, now that the fight is at its fullest fury. Now
   is the time for our most desperate velour, our most earnest zeal.
   Recollect, every time you bow your knees, and say, "Our Father," you
   tell a lie at the end of that prayer, if you are not seeking to make
   his kingdom come, and his will be done in earth, as it is heaven. You
   are praying for what you do not try to get; you are insulting God by
   saying, "Thy kingdom come," with as foul a mockery, as if I should say,
   "Be warmed and be filled," to some poor dying beggar, and then refused
   to give to his needs, that he might remove his distresses.

   Recollect, too, that you cannot be Christians at all, not in the right
   sense of the word, unless you everyone of you would compass sea and
   land to make one proselyte. You must have in you the spirit of
   propagathm, desirous to will others to Christ, or else the genuine
   blood of Christianity is not in your veins. Of all things in the world
   Christianity is the most prolific, if it be true. Mohammedism of old
   had mighty power to spread itself, but not such power as Christianity
   had. The religion of Jesus began like a mustard seed, with those few
   men in an upper-room; but ere a half century had rolled away, the
   gospel was preached to every nation under heaven, and if we had
   Christianity in our hearts of the right sort--hot, burning stuff, not
   the lukewarm shams of this degenerate age, our religion ere another
   half a century will have won the day. If the Spirit of God should give
   us true diligence, in the course of another half century there would
   not be one district that would not have been trodden by the foot of the
   minister, nor one town or city which would not have been evangelized. I
   know I am not speaking without book now I am absolutely certain that
   what I am saying is a sober matter of fact. If you will just calculate
   the proportion between the four hundred, and the progress made in one
   half a century, and then begin with the three or four millions--I
   should hope there are as many as that--of true Christians in the world,
   I say, it is a little thing to believe that if they were true to their
   profession, they might, under Divine blessing, carry the gospel into
   every known part of the habitable world before half a century has
   rolled away. However, we need not be afraid we shall do it. There is no
   fear that we shall run into any fanaticism. That is the last sin this
   age will commit. We shall go on, and be as orthodox and cold as we
   always were. No enthusiasm will ever fall upon us. We shall not see any
   very great and strange developments of an enormous fanaticism at the
   present day. Do not be alarmed, brothers and sisters. All I preach that
   looks like fanaticism will not hurt this age. Ye may do what ye will;
   preach ye never so wisely, ye will never make this deaf adder hear. The
   church of this day is a great deal too deaf to do anything extravagant.
   We do a little, and think it a wonderful deal. We each give fourpence
   to send Testaments to China; we will talk of it for the next fifty
   years! We sent out one or two missionaries to India (and are they not
   one or two, compared with their needs?) it is a great thing. It is a
   fine thing for the whole Baptist denomination to raise twenty thousand
   pounds a year, when there are some men in the denomination who make as
   much money as that in the time. It is a marvellous thing that out of
   the whole lot of us we should not be able to get more than that. But
   you know I am an imprudent young man, of course,--I always shall be I
   dare say--to dare to hint that some people have a great deal too much
   money to go to heaven with. Of course it will be very wicked if I dare
   to say this morning, that to die rich is a very frightful thing; that
   there are some people who have got too much riches to allow us to have
   any sure and certain hope that they have the love of God at all; for if
   they had more of the love of God, they would not grip their money so
   tightly. They would say, "While men are damning, what is my money?
   While men are dying, what is my gold? There it goes! As much as I need,
   I have, God allows it me; as much as I shall require in my old age, as
   much as my family can demand of me, that will I have, but as for more,
   a blast and a curse would be on it if I had it. My gold and my silver
   would be cankered, for I should be guilty of the blood of men's souls,
   and then condemnation would be at my door, because I had the money
   wherewithal to send the minister to preach to them, and I would not
   give it."

   Now, I say again, there is no fear of any one becoming improvidently
   liberal. You need not be frightened that anyone here will give a
   thousand pounds this morning. We provide ample accommodation for those
   who feel inclined to do so. If anyone should be overtaken with such an
   enormous fit of generosity, we will register and remember it. But I
   fear there are no people like Barnabas now. Barnabas brought all he
   had, and put it into the treasury. "My dear friend, do not do that, do
   not be so rash." Ah! he will not do that; there is no necessity for you
   to advise him. But I do say again, if Christianity were truly in our
   hearts; if we were what we professed to be; the men of generosity whom
   we meet with now and hold up as very paragons and patterns would cease
   to be wonders, for they would be as plentiful as leaves upon the trees.
   We demand of no man that he should beggar himself; but we do demand of
   every man who makes a profession that he is a Christian, that he should
   give his fair proportion, and not be content with giving as much to the
   cause of God as his own servant. We must have it that the man who is
   rich must give richly. We know the widow's mite is precious, but the
   widow's mite has been an enormously great loss to us. O, that widow's
   mite has lost Jesus Christ many a thousand pounds. It is a very good
   thing in itself; but people with thousands a-year talk of giving a
   widow's mite. What a wicked application of what never can apply to
   them. No; in our proportion we must serve our God.

   III. Now, I come in conclusion to ask you very pointedly and plainly,
   WHAT DO YOU MEAN TO DO IN ANSWER TO THE HEATHEN'S CRY, "COME OVER AND
   HELP US?" Have I in all this congregation one man who loves sound
   doctrine, who has ability to preach, and who has a mind to go and
   preach the gospel in other lands? Because if I have, and if I have ten
   others who have a mind to give him ten pounds a year, I have an opening
   for sending him out at once. In Port Natal there are twenty Baptists,
   and those twenty Baptists are desirous of having a minister who should
   not only preach to them, but to the wild tribes around. They will raise
   him one hundred pounds, if we can manage to get the rest and send them
   out a missionary. Who can tell; he might be another Livingstone,
   perhaps a Moffat? Oh, that I had the honor of sending such an one from
   such a congregation as this! Have we no young men here this morning,
   who are ready to volunteer to go and preach the gospel in heathen
   lands? I confess, when I think of myself, I know I cannot go away. My
   calling is here. And yet I sometimes think what a lazy, feather-bed
   life it is for one to lead, to be preaching here when there are all
   these continents without the gospel. Some people think it wonderfully
   hard to preach two or three sermons a week. but I think preaching
   thirteen or fourteen is a fearfully little thing. And I think
   sometimes, "Oh, if I were somewhere rise, where there are some toils,
   some hardships to undergo! There is nothing to be done here. We cannot
   suffer, we cannot work, we cannot will crowns of martyrdom, we cannot
   will great battles here, as we could wish." Yes, young man, I say
   again, if you are ambitious--if you are ambitious to serve Christ, the
   height of your ambition should lead you to say, "I desire to preach the
   gospel among the heathen." I hope there may be come here--some one at
   least--whose heart God hath touched. What! can it be possible that I
   should this morning address some eight thousand people, and yet out of
   the whole eight thousand there is not one who can say, "Here am I, send
   me?" Is it not strange? Very probably there is not. But yet I would
   fain hope that somewhere there is one, who will write on the tablet of
   his heart, "I will go home to pray, I will go home to study, and if God
   has given me power to preach, if there be any door open in his
   providence, here am I; I will be a preacher of the gospel in foreign
   lands."

   And now, what are you resolved to do who cannot preach? Why, there are
   some of you, if you were to get up and preach, you had a great deal
   better sit down. It would not do for you to go and preach in foreign
   lands, because nobody would listen to you. I have often marvelled that
   some people should think themselves called to preach when they have no
   ability. As I tell them, "f God calls anybody to fly, he will give them
   wings, and if he calls them to preach, he will give them ability to
   preach." but if a man has not the ability to preach, I am sure he has
   not the call. Well, what will you do Says one, "I will pray earnestly
   in support of missions; I will cry to God, that great results may
   follow." Do so; and you shall have our best thanks for your prayers.
   But in doing that, you have not done very much. for recollect, that is
   what the Roman priest did for the beggar. The priest said he would not
   give him a sovereign, he would not give him a half-crown, nor would he
   give him a penny. "Holy father," said the beggar, "will you give me
   your prayers?" "Yes," said the priest, "kneel down." "No, not so," said
   the beggar; "for if your prayers had been worth a penny, you would not
   have given them to me." And when you say you will pray, but will not
   help the cause with something more substantial; though we love your
   prayers, we night say, "You would not give them if they were worth a
   penny." If you have nought else to give to Christ, ye need not be
   ashamed of saying, "Jesus, I give thee my prayers;" but if you are
   blessed in your substance, you will be lying before him, if you ask him
   to bless his cause, and do not give of your means in its support.

   Now, let each, as he is able, help this great cause; and above all let
   us all in our spheres be preachers of the gospel,

   "Seeking to tell to others round,

   What a dear Saviour we have found."

   Let me say, before the collection is made, just this word. Alas! there
   are some of you here, that are as much heathen as if you were in
   Africa. To you I proclaim the gospel, and I have done--"He that
   believeth and is baptized shall be saved, he that believeth not shall
   be damned. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, find thou shalt be saved."
     __________________________________________________________________

           The Desolations of the Lord, the Consolation of His Saints

   A Sermon

   (No. 190)

   Delivered on Wednesday Morning, April 28, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   On behalf of the Baptist Missionary Society.

   "Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in
   the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he
   breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder, he burneth the
   chariot in the fire."--Psalm 46:8-9.

   IT SEEMS THAT EVERYTHING Christlike must have a history like that of
   Christ. His beginnings were small--the manger and the stable. So with
   the beginnings of that society which we love, and which we believe to
   be the very incarnation of the Spirit of Christ. Its beginnings also
   were small; but its latter end shall doubtless greatly increase--for,
   hath not the end of Christ become exceedingly glorious? He hath
   ascended up on high; he sitteth at the right hand of God, our Father;
   and doubtless this agency which God now employeth for the conversion of
   the world, shall have its ascension, and God shall greatly magnify it.
   But as Christ was called to suffer, so must everything Christlike
   suffer with him. The Christian who is the most like his Master will
   understand the most of the meaning of that term, "fellowship with him
   in his sufferings;" and inasmuch as the Missionary Society is like
   Christ, and hath Christ's heart, and Christ's aim, it also must suffer
   like Jesus. This year we have been made to sip of that cup. The blood
   of our martyrs has been shed; our confessors have witnessed to the
   faith of the Lord Jesus; at the hands of bloodthirsty and cruel men
   they have met their fate, and again the seed of the church has been
   sown in the blood of the martyred saint.

   I felt that in addressing you this day, it would be far from me to
   offer you any advice or counsel, when I am but as the youngest among
   you all, but that I might be permitted, as sometimes the child doth
   comfort its parents, to utter some few words of consolation which might
   cheer you in the present distress, and nerve your arm for future combat
   with the great enemy of souls. And upon what subject could I address
   you, which could be more full of consolation than the present? "Come,
   behold the works of the Lord." Turn ye from man's bloodshed, and behold
   your God at work; and from the desolations of rebellion and carnage,
   and anarchy, turn your eyes here to the desolations which the Lord hath
   made in the earth. You see how, though the battle-bow still doth twang
   with the arrow, and though the spear is still imbrued in the heart's
   blood of men, yet he breaks the bow, and cuts the spear in sunder, and
   burns the chariot in the fire.

   We shall regard this text this morning, first, as a declaration of what
   has happened, and secondly, as a promise of what shall be achieved.

   I. First of all, we shall look upon it AS A DECLARATION OF WHAT HAS
   ALREADY OCCURRED. "Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations
   he hath made in the earth."

   1. And now let us commence the discussion of this part of our subject,
   by inviting you to the sad spectacle of the desolations which God in
   his providence has in different ages brought upon divers nations. As it
   is said of man, that he is full of trouble, so it is with nations; they
   also are full of sorrows, and some of them exceeding bitter. Wars have
   devastated countries; plagues have thinned our populations; all kinds
   of evil have swept athwart the most potent empires, and many of them
   have been compelled, at last, to yield to the destroying angel, and
   they slumber with the mighty dead. Doubtless there hath a wail gone up
   from the face of the earth, when the invasions of barbarians have put
   an end to the promise of civilization--when cities, renowned for the
   culture of the arts and sciences, have suddenly become sacked and
   burned--when nations that had made great advances in knowledge have
   been carried away captive, and the sun has been made to go back many a
   degree on the dial of the earth's history.

   But I beg you now turn your eyes, and read the page of history, and
   mark the various catastrophes which have happened to this world; and I
   appeal to you, as persons who have understanding, and who can trace the
   Lord's hand in these matters--have not all these things worked together
   for good? and hitherto, have not the revolutions, the destructions of
   empires, and the falls of dynasties, been eminent helps to the progress
   of the gospel? Far be it from us to lay the blood of men at God's door.
   Let us not for one moment be guilty of any thought that the sin and the
   iniquity which have brought war into the world is of God; but, at the
   same time, as firm believers in the doctrine of predestination, and as
   firmly holding the great truth of a divine providence, we must hold
   that God is the author of the darkness as well as of the light--that he
   creates the providential evil as well as the good--that while he
   sendeth the shower from on high, he also is the father of the
   devastating storm. Oh! I say, then, come and see the Lord's hand in
   "Aceldama, the field of blood." Come ye, and behold the Lord's hand in
   every shake of the pillars of the constitutions of the monarchies of
   earth. See the Lord's hand in the crumbling of every tower and the
   tumbling down of every pinnacle which had aspired to heaven. For he
   hath done it--he hath done it! God is present everywhere.

   And now, I again say, can you not see in all these things, a gracious
   as well as a terrible God? Can you not feel that everything that has
   yet happened to the world, has really been for its good? Wars,
   contusions, and tumults, are but the rough physic wherewith God will
   purge the diseased body of this earth from its innumerable ills. They
   are but a terrible tornado with which God shall sweep away the
   pestilence and fever that lurk in the moral atmosphere; they are but
   the great hammers with which he breaks in pieces the gates of brass, to
   make a way for his people; they are but the threshing wains, with which
   he doth thresh the mountains and beat them small, and make the hills as
   chaff, that Israel may rejoice in the Lord, and that the sons of Jacob
   may triumph in their God. As it hath been in the beginning, so it shall
   be even unto the end. The noise and the tumult of war in India shall
   produce good; the blood of our sisters shall be avenged, not by the
   sword, but by the gospel. On India's blood-red gods, the arm of the
   Lord shall yet be felt; the might of him that sits upon the throne
   shall be acknowledged by the very men, who, first in the fray, have
   blasphemed the God of Israel. Let us not fear, let us not tremble; the
   end of all things cometh at last, and that end shall certainly be the
   desired one, and all the wrath of man shall not frustrate the designs
   of God. The past troubles assure us for the present, and console us for
   the future. "Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolation. he
   hath made in the earth."

   2. But now, turning from this somewhat dreary subject, I must invite
   you next to look at some desolations which will ever be fair in the eye
   of the follower of Jesus--the desolations of false worship. What a
   pleasant theme! O that we had but power truly to enlarge upon it! Will
   you turn your minds back to the origin of idolatry, and tell me, if you
   can, what were the names of the first gods whom men profanely
   worshipped? Are they known? Are not their names blotted out from
   history? Or, if any of them be mentioned, are they not a by-word, a
   hissing, and a reproach? What shall we say of idolatries which are of
   later date--those which have been noted in Holy Scripture, and
   therefore handed down to infamy? Who is he that now bows before the god
   of Egypt? Hath the sacred Ibis now a worshipper? Do any prostrate
   themselves before the Nile, and drink her sweet waters, and think her a
   deity? Hath not that idolatry passed away? and are not the temple and
   the obelisk still standing--"the desolations which the Lord hath made
   in the earth?" Talk we of the gods of Philistia? Do we mention Baal and
   Dagon? Where are they? We hear their names; they are but the records of
   the past; but who is he that doth them homage? Who doth now kiss his
   hands to the queen of heaven? Who boweth himself in the grove of
   Ashtaroth, or who worshippeth the hosts of heaven, and the chariots of
   the sun? They have gone! they have gone! Jehovah still standeth, "the
   same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." One generation of idols hath
   passed away, and another cometh, and the desolations stand--memorials
   of the might of God.

   Turn ye now your eyes to Assyria, that mighty empire. Did she not sit
   alone? She said she should see no sorrow. Remember Babylon, too, who
   boasted with her. But where are they, and where are now their gods?
   With ropes about their necks they have been dragged in triumph by our
   discoverers; and now in the halls of our land, they stand as memorials
   of the ignorance of a race that is long since extinct. And then, turn
   ye to the fairer idolatries of Greece and Rome. Fine poetic conceptions
   were their gods! theirs was a grand idolatry, one that never shall be
   forgotten. Despite all its vice and lust, there was such a high mixture
   of the purest poetry in it, that the mind of man, though it will ever
   recollect it with sorrow, will still think of it with respect. But
   where are their gods? Where are the names of their gods? Are not the
   stars the last memorials of Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus? As if God would
   make his universe the monument of his destroyed enemy! Where else are
   their names to be found? Where shall we find a worshipper who adores
   their false deity? They are past, they are gone! To the moles and to
   the bats are their images cast, while many an unroofed temple, many a
   dilapidated shrine, stand as memorials of that which was, but is
   not--and is passed away for ever.

   I suppose there is scarce a kingdom of the world where you do not see
   God's handiwork in crushing his enemies. It is to the shame of the
   idolater that he worships a god that his fathers knew not. Although
   there be some hoary systems of iniquity, in most cases the system is
   still new--new compared with the giant mountains, the first-born of
   nature--new compared with these old idolatries that have long since
   died away in the clouds of forgetfulness. It seems to me to be a very
   pleasing theme for us to speak of these desolations that God has made,
   For mark this--again we say it--as it was in the beginning, it is now,
   and ever shall be. The false gods shall yet yield their sway; the
   temples shall yet be unroofed; their houses shall be burned with fire,
   and their names shall be left for a reproach. their dignity shall not
   be honored, neither shall homage be given unto their name O thou that
   fearest for the ark of the Lord, thou that tremblest at the firmness
   with which falsehood keeps its throne, look thou on these desolations
   and be of good cheer; God hath done mighty things, and he will do them
   yet again. One can never pass, even in our own country, a ruined abbey,
   or a destroyed priory, or an old broken down cathedral, without a sweet
   satisfaction. They are fair ruins, all the fairer because they are
   ruined, because their inhabitants are forgotten, because the monk no
   longer prowls our streets, because the nun, though she is here and
   there to be found, yet is no more honored, because the apostate church
   to which they belong has ceased to have power among us, as once it had.
   We will, therefore, seek to honor God, and in all our journeyings we
   will think of this text--"Come, behold the works of the Lord, what
   desolations he hath made in the earth."

   3. And now, in the next place, let me ask you to remember what
   desolations God has made with false philosophies. As for stones and
   timbers, they are things that must decay in the common course of
   nature, and one might be apt to think that some of the desolate temples
   we behold were rather the trophies of the tooth of time, than of the
   hand of God, but thought is a lasting thing: a bold philosophy that
   shapes into words the wandering thoughts which have taken possession of
   the hearts of men is an enduring thing; and how have some philosophers
   believed that they were writing books which would be read for ages!
   They believed that their philosophy most certainly was eternal, and
   that to the last day their disciples would be had in reverence. Let any
   classical student remember how many systems of philosophy have passed
   away before the progress of the kingdom of Christ. The mighty
   Stagyrite, once the great master of all minds, who even held in sway
   many a Christian spirit, at last lost his empire before a purer truth.
   But I forbear to mention these things; I would rather allude to the
   passing away of false systems of philosophy in modern times;for there
   are some of our fathers here, whose hairs have but just turned grey,
   who can remember the rise and fall of some seven or eight theories of
   infidelity. You can look back, and you can remember when it was a
   cursing obscenity with Tom Paine, having just also been the leering,
   scowling thing that Voltaire made it. You remember how it was the
   soaring, airy, speculating, scheming thing of Robert Owen; and then you
   recollect how it became the base, grovelling thing called Secularism.
   Men have trembled at that, and have thought it will last. I believe I
   shall live to see the last Secularist buried, and that at the funeral
   there will be attending the leader of some new system of infidelity,
   who, despite his hatred to God, will have to say over the tomb, out of
   very spite against the one who precedes him, "Here lies a fool, yclept
   a Secularist." You need not be afraid of these things; they live each a
   very little while. A near moon brings a new phase of the system. The
   thing that they have fashioned with the utmost diligence, and which
   they deliver with the most earnest declamation, which they think they
   have proved with the sureness of logic, which they have built, as they
   think, upon a rock, against which the gates of heaven shall not
   prevail, how soon it is crumbled to dust, and not a vestige of it is
   left--scarce a remembrance of it--but all is past away and gone. And
   even so shall it be. As it was in the beginning, it is now, and ever
   shall be. "Every tongue that riseth against thee in judgment thou shalt
   condemn." The words of the wise are like the leaves of the tree of
   life, and they fade not; but the words of the wicked are like the
   autumn leaves, all withered, soon to become skeletons, and be blown
   away by the blast, to be heard of no more.

   Planted by the rivers of water, the tree of the church still groweth,
   like a young cedar, fresh and green. But these things are like the
   heath in the desert: they see not when good cometh; from earth itself
   they fail to draw their nourishment, and heaven denies to the cursed
   thing its genial shower, and therefore soon it dies, and without a
   memorial it passeth away. Be of good cheer, beloved! It matters not
   where the enemy attack our intrenchments, they have been, and they
   shall be routed. We tell the enemies of Christ to look to the thousand
   defeats that they have suffered beforehand; we warn them of their folly
   in attacking us again. Woe unto you! woe unto you! Though ye quit
   yourselves like men, ye Philistines, ye must, ye shall be servants unto
   Israel. Woe unto you, for the voice of a king is in our midst! Your
   fathers felt our might. Remember who it was that cut Rahab and wounded
   the dragon. Your sires have trembled before us; our fathers put ten
   thousand of your sires to flight, and we will do the same with you; and
   when we have done it we will say of you, "Aha! aha! aha!" and will make
   you a byword with our children, and a proverb with our menials for
   ever.

   4. But my text has a special reference to war--the desolation of war.
   Have you not noticed how magnificently peace winneth its reprisals at
   the hand of war? Look through this country. Methinks if the angel of
   peace should go with us, as we journey through it, and stop at the
   various ancient towns where there are dismantled castles, and high
   mounds from which every vestige of a building has long been swept, the
   angel would look us in the face, and say, "I have done all this:
   warscattered my peaceful subjects, burned down my cottages, ravaged my
   temples, and laid my mansions with the dust. But I have attacked war in
   his own strongholds and I have routed him. Walk through his halls. Can
   you hear now the tramp of the warrior? Where now the sound of the
   clarion and the drum?" The sheep is feeding from the cannon's mouth,
   and the bird builds his nest where once the warrior did hang his
   helmet. As rare curiosities we dig up the swords and spears of our
   forefathers, and little do we reck that in this we are doing tribute to
   peace. For peace is the conqueror. It hath been a long duel, and much
   blood hath been shed, but peace hath been the victor. War, after all,
   has but spasmodic triumphs; and again it sinks--it dies, but peace ever
   reigneth. If she be driven from one part of the earth, yet she dwelleth
   in another; and while war, with busy hand, is piling up here a wall,
   and there a rampart, and there a tower, peace with her gentle finger,
   is covering over the castle with the mees and the ivy, and eating the
   stone from the top, and letting it lie level with the earth.

   I think this is a fine thought for the lover of peace; and who among us
   is not? Who among us ought not to be? Is not the gospel all peace? And
   do we not believe, that when the gospel is fully preached, and has its
   day, wars must cease, to the end of the earth! I therefore say, beloved
   brothers and sisters, may we not console ourselves under all the recent
   outbreaks of a most bloodthirsty and cruel massacre, in the fact, that
   God hath made desolations, even in war. He hath made desolations in the
   earth, and, as it hath been, so shall it be even unto the end. There is
   not now a rampart which shall not be sealed by peace. O ye hoary
   bastions, ye shall yet be destroyed, not by the cannon ball, but by
   something mightier still. Charged with love, this day we shoot against
   you the great guns of the gospel of Christ, and we believe that they
   shall move and shake you to your deep foundations, and ye shall
   crumble; or if ye stand, ye shall be uninhabited, except by the owl and
   the bittern. I have a fond belief that the day is coming, when Nelson,
   on the top of his monument, shall be upset, and Mr. Whitfield set
   there, or the apostle Paul. I believe that Napier, who stands in the
   square there, will lose his station. We shall say about these men,
   "They were very respectable men in the days of our forefathers, who did
   not know better than to kill one another; but we do not care for them
   now!" Up goes John Wesley where stood Napier! Away goes some one else,
   who was an earnest preacher of the gospel, to occupy the place high
   over the gate where another warrior rides upon his horse. All these
   things, the trickery of an ignorant age, the gewgaws of a people who
   loved bloodshed despite their profession of religion, must yet be
   broken up for old iron and old brass; every statue that stands in
   London shall yet be sold, and the price thereof cast at the apostles'
   feet, that they may make distribution as every man hath need. Wars must
   cease, and every place where war reigneth and hath now its glory, must
   yet pass away, and fade and wither. We give all honor to these men now,
   for these are the days of our ignorance, and God in some degree winketh
   at us; but when the gospel spreads, we shall then find that when every
   heart is full of it, it will be impossible for us to tolerate the very
   name of war; for when God has broken the bow and burned the chariot, we
   shall break the image and dash the sculpture into a thousand atoms, We
   shall think, when the trade is done, the men that did it may well be
   forgotten.

   II. I think there is enough to cheer our hearts, and nerve us all for
   the great battle of Christ. The desolations of the past should lead us
   to hope that there shall be the like, and greater, in the future. And
   now I am to look upon my text, and very briefly, AS A PROPHECY WHICH IS
   TO BE FULFILLED.

   I should only needlessly occupy your time, if I were to go over all my
   heads again, because really every person will be quite as competent as
   I am to discern how what hath been shall be in a yet higher sense. But
   we must observe once more, in noticing this as a prophecy, the figure
   of our text. It was usual, after a great battle, and especially if
   peace was then firmly established, for the conquerors to gather up the
   arms of the vanquished into one great heap, and then setting fire to it
   all, as Israel did to the spoils of Jericho, everything was consumed.
   One of these days, when Christ shall come in his glory, or when the
   kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his
   Christ--not to say anything which would look like proclaiming the
   second coming here to-day, although I most firmly believe it, and am
   sorry that we should ever have allowed, in any of our missionary
   meetings, any discussion upon a point which involves the faith of a
   great proportion of us, who hold this to be as dear and precious a
   doctrine as any other in the word of God, and we therefore think it
   unfair that we should at any time have anything said against this; when
   we meet together in the common bond of union for the spread of the
   gospel of Christ, we think it a sore thing that we should be attacked
   then; however, leaving all that, whether it be by a spiritual or a by a
   personal coming--we believe that one of these days, we shall be roused
   from our beds by one who shall say to us, "Come, behold the works of
   the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth;" and when we
   arrive at the spot appointed, it may be, as the old Ephesians brought
   out all their books and burned them in the street, we shall see our
   soldiers marching rank and file, and lay down their arms, and all that
   they have of murderous implements, piling them into one heap; and happy
   is that mother's child who shall be there to see it! But see it some
   one shall, when it shall be truly said, as the fire is kindled over all
   these things,."He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he
   burneth the chariot in the fire."

   Happy the day, when every war-horse shall be houghed, when every spear
   shall become a pruning-hook, and every sword shall be made to till the
   soil which once it stained with blood. It is of that my text
   prophecies, and my text naturally brings me to that, as the great
   climax of the gospel. This will be the last triumph of Christ, before
   death itself shall be dead, death's great jackal, war, must die also,
   and then shall there be peace on earth, and the angel shall say, "I
   have gone up and down through the earth, and the earth sitteth still
   and is at rest; I heard no tumult of war, nor noise of battle." This is
   what we hope for. Let us fight on, with diligence and earnestness.

   And now, having thus enlarged upon my text, you will permit me to offer
   a few remarks on a more practical subject.

   The question naturally arises, "Why has not this promise been more
   abundantly fulfilled in our own times" Many say, "This is divine
   sovereignty." Well, we believe divine sovereignty with all our hearts;
   it is a doctrine which we delight to dwell upon, and ever to
   acknowledge; but we cannot make divine sovereignty the great sepulcher
   for our sins. We cannot have it that everything is to be laid at the
   door of divine sovereignty. We believe there is a sovereignty that ever
   overrules the sins of the church, as well as of the world. We hold that
   in the highest and purest sense, but we do think it is a very gross
   mistake for us always to be saving, if we are defeated, "It is divine
   sovereignty." Israel of old did not say so. They looked for the
   accursed thing that was in the camp. They did not say, "Divine
   sovereignty," when they were beaten by Benjamin; but they enquired of
   the Lord. They were not content to say it was sovereignty. It was
   sovereignty, no doubt. but they desired to find another reason which,
   when discovered, might help them to remove the difficulty, and enable
   them to conquer.

   And now, beloved, there are many reasons, I think, why we do not
   prosper as we could desire in the missionary field; and permit me very
   briefly to hint at one or two. I shall mean no offense to any.

   One reason is, because we have not a thorough and entire unanimity with
   regard to the matter. Now, I know something of the Baptist
   denomination. I have wandered through every county of England, pretty
   well, and been to a great number of the churches, and I grieve to see
   that there are many of our churches still standing totally aloof from
   the missionary field. If they stood aloof from our particular society,
   I might not so much regret, if they chose to have one of their own; but
   they have not one of their own either. There is the great thing for
   which I would blame them. That they should have some objection to unite
   with those whom they think to be different from them in doctrinal
   opinions, would not only be excusable, but possibly there might be
   occasions when it would be praiseworthy; but that any of us, who hold
   strongly the doctrines of the grace of God, and who, perhaps, give
   greater prominence than others to the truth as it was taught by Calvin,
   and, as we believe, taught by Christ, should therefore have no
   missionary society, is a great and crying sin; and I really think that
   a defection of a large part of our body, however it may be caused, may
   be one reason why we have not had such an abundant blessing from God.
   For, look ye here! Ye say ye can do without them. Very well: so said
   the people to Joshua, when he led his troops to attack Ai. They said,
   "Let not all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men
   go up and smite Ai; and make not all the people to labor thither; for
   they are but few." They thought it would be unnecessary, and Joshua
   left behind him a large part, and only took with him his strong,
   able-bodied men. But, together with "the accursed thing" that Achan had
   concealed, I believe that the want of all the army of Israel was a
   part-cause of the defeat at Ai. So it is with us. Ah! if there be a
   means whereby we can get every brother who calls himself a Baptist to
   unite himself with this society, if there be any method of love, if
   there be any way of making concessions, if there be any mode or any
   means whereby we all could be bound together in the holy brotherhood as
   a denomination, I think we are each of us bound to make it. I am sure,
   as far as I am concerned, I may say that there is not to be found upon
   the surface of the world one more strongly attached to the old faith,
   as I believe it to be--the old, strong, doctrinal faith--coupled with
   the earnest preaching of the gospel to every creature; yet I find
   myself not out of place in preaching for a Baptist Mission, nor out of
   place in helping it, and throwing my whole heart into it. It seems to
   me, it was founded by ourselves: the very men who held these truths
   were the first leaders in it; and it seems to me the most strange and
   marvellous thing, that any brother should, from his love to sound
   doctrine, stand aloof from missions. I am sure it is a stab against our
   prosperity as churches at home, if we do not come forward to help the
   missions at large.

   I am just saying this, because it may reach to the ears of many of the
   brethren who are possibly not present to-day. I trust they will think
   the matter over. We do not ask them to come with us--we will be very
   glad if they will--but do let them at the very least have a society of
   their own. Let them be doing something, and do not let it be said that
   there is a Baptist existing who does not love to send the gospel to the
   utmost ends of the earth. That maniac nonsense about God doing his own
   work, and our sitting still and doing nothing, ought to have been
   buried long ago. I know not how to characterise it: it has done us
   immense damage. We know that God has accomplished his own work; but he
   always has worked and always will work with means. The men who do not
   approve of working by means, and stand by and say, "I do not sympathise
   with it," I do not wonder that God does not work with them: they do not
   deserve to be worked with, if they think so. Let us cast away that, and
   let us say, "If we can agree with these brethren who associate in
   missions we will do so; if we cannot agree with those who associate in
   one society, we will do it somehow else; but do it we will, for it is
   our anxious wish that the kingdoms of this world should become the
   kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ." But again, it is not all that,
   my brethren. It is a want of real love to missions in all our churches:
   and if this should fall scatheless and if any should say, "It is not so
   of the church of which I am a member," let it be so; I do not mean,
   when I speak generally, to include each individual. It is, I believe,
   one reason of our want of success, or of that measure of want of
   success that we have, that there is not a true love of missions in the
   churches that really help them. Many love missions; they love the cause
   of Christ; but they do not love Zion better than their own households.
   but, as far as I can judge, there are many whose attention to the
   mission field is confined to that one day in the year when the sermon
   is preached. Some of them confine that day very closely too; for the
   very smallest threepenny piece that can be discovered is appropriated
   to the collection on that occasion. They love the mission, yes, they
   do, but their love is that old sort, of which it is said, "She never
   told her love." They never tell it by any contribution, but they keep
   it very still in their hearts. We cannot think but that they do desire
   that the gospel should fly abroad, for they sing it with lusty lungs
   and with voice vociferous; but when there is aught to be dune, they
   pinch and screw--the purse-string is made half the ordinary
   circumference, and it cannot be undrawn. There is little to be given
   for Christ. Christ must take the dregs, the sweepings of their wealth.
   Ah! if our churches loved missions, if we had more of the true Spirit
   in our midst, we should find scores of our young men rising up to go
   out and preach the gospel to the heathen; and then the church, taking
   an interest in the young men who sprang from its own bowels, would
   think it its duty to maintain its missionary, and send him forth
   preaching the gospel to every creature.

   I remember Edward Irving once preached a sermon to a vast congregation,
   upon missions; I think he preached for four hours; and the object of
   the sermon was to prove that we were all wrong--that we ought to send
   out our missionaries without purse or scrip, giving them nothing!
   Edward never volunteered to go himself! If he had done so at the end of
   the sermon, we might have endorsed his philosophy. But he stayed at
   home, and did not go. Now, we are no believers in that. We think that
   if a man cannot have help, it is his business to go without it. If a
   man loves the ministry, if he can only preach Christ's gospel in
   poverty, God bless him in his poverty; if he has to be a tent maker,
   like Paul, and to work for his own living, and to go forth without
   purse or script.But as a church we cannot have that. "No, no;" we say,
   "brother, if you are going to a foreign land, and you give your life
   and health, and if you renounce the comforts of your family, we cannot
   let you go without anything. The least we can do is to provide for your
   needs." And one says, "There! though you go without purse or scrip, you
   cannot get across the sea except you have a ship, I will pay your
   passage-money." Another says, "You cannot preach to these people
   without learning the language; and while you are learning the language
   you must eat and drink. It is quite impossible that you can live by
   faith, unless you have something that you can nourish your body with:
   there is the fund to support you, that you may give all your time to
   the preaching of the word." Ah! if we did but love Christ better, my
   brothers' and sisters, if we lived nearer to the cross, if we knew more
   of the value of his blood, if we wept like him over Jerusalem, if we
   felt more what it was for souls to perish, and what it was for men to
   be saved--if we did but rejoice with Christ in the prospect of his
   seeing the travail of his soul, and being abundantly satisfied--if we
   did but delight more in the divine decree, that the kingdoms of this
   world shall be given to Christ, I am sure we should all of us find more
   ways and more means for the sending forth the gospel of Christ.

   But to conclude. Perhaps, I may say, and some of you may with tears
   confess it is true, it is a want of a revived godliness in our church
   at home which prevents our hoping for any great success abroad. Ah!
   brethren, we must till our own vineyards better, or else God will not
   make us successful in driving the plough across the broad acres of the
   continents. We want to have our brethren more earnest in prayer. Look
   at our prayer-meetings--a miserable handful of people, compared with
   the congregation. We want to have them more earnest in labor. Look at
   many of our agencies, dying for want of effective laborers, when they
   are to be found, but they are not willing to come forth. Where is the
   zeal of olden times? We are not among those that say, "The former times
   were better than now." In some respects they were, in others not so
   good; but if they were better, it is not ours to bemoan, but ours to
   labor to make these better still. We want--gathering up all things into
   one--we want the outpouring of the divine Spirit in our churches at
   home. Just as the anointing oil was first poured on Aaron's head, and
   then went to the skirts of the garment, so must the Holy Spirit be
   poured on England, and then shall it go to the utmost borders of the
   habitable earth. We want to have Penticosts at home, and then, Hedes
   and Parthians and Elamites shall hear the word. "Begin at Jerusalem,"
   is Christ's ordinance, and it is Christ's method. We must begin there;
   and as we begin there, in circles wider and wider and wider, yet the
   gospel shall spread, till, "like a sea of glory, it spreads from pole
   to pole."

   Now, dear brethren and sisters, in repairing to our homes this morning,
   let us carry away at least one thought. Let us believe firmly that
   God's purpose shall be accomplished; let us hope joyously that we may
   be the instruments of its accomplishment; and then let us labor
   prayerfully, that our wishes may be consummated. What is there that you
   can do to-day for Christ? Oh! if you love Christ, do not let this day
   pass till you have done something for him. Speak for him; give to him;
   pray for him. But let each day be spent as a mission day, and be you
   each day a missionary for Christ. Begin at home. Enlarge your charity;
   but begin first at home. Let your own houses be cared for, and then
   your own synagogues; and then, after that, you may send your
   missionaries to every part of the earth. I beg for a good collection
   to-day. It is the first time we have met together in this place, and
   there is a large number of us; if we do not give a right good
   collection to-day, we shall not save our own credit. That is a poor way
   of putting it. It will be a disgrace to us if we do not give well
   to-day; but besides that, if we save our own credit, we shall not
   approve our love to Jesus. Give as God hath given to you.
     __________________________________________________________________

                 Christ Glorified as the Builder of His Church

   A Sermon

   (No. 191)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 2, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "He shall build the temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the
   glory."--Zechariah 6:13.

   "There's music in all things, if men had ears;

   This world is but the echo of the spheres."

   HEAVEN singeth evermore. Before the throne of God, angels and redeemed
   saints extol his name. And this world is singing too; sometimes with
   the loud noise of the rolling thunder, of the boiling sea of the
   dashing cataract, and of the lowing cattle; and often with that still,
   solemn harmony, which floweth from the vast creation, when in its
   silence it praises God. Such is the song which gushes in silence from
   the mountain lifting its head to the sky, covering its face sometimes
   with the wings of mist, and at other times unveiling its snow-white
   brow before its Maker, and reflecting back his sunshine, gratefully
   thanking him for the light with which it has been made to glisten, and
   for the gladness of which it is the solitary spectator, as in its
   grandeur it looks down upon the laughing valleys. The tune to which
   heaven and earth are set, is the same. In heaven they sing, "The Lord
   be exalted; let his name be magnified for ever." And the earth singeth
   the same: "Great art thou in thy works, O Lord! and unto thee be
   glory." It would seem, therefore, a strange anomaly if the church, the
   temple of the living God, should be void of song, and we bless God that
   such an anomaly doth not exist, for "day and night they praise God in
   his temple." And while it is true the ceaseless circles of the starry
   heavens are praising him without cessation, it is also true that the
   stars of earth, the churches of the Lord Jesus Christ, are each of them
   evermore singing their hymns of praise to him. To-day, in this house,
   thousands of voices shout his name, and when the sun of to-day shall
   set, it shall rise upon another land, where Christian hearts awakened,
   shall begin to praise as we have just concluded; and when to-morrow we
   shall enter upon the business of the week, we will praise him when we
   rise, we will praise him when we retire to rest, and we will solace
   ourselves with the sweet thought, that when the link of praise here is
   covered with darkness, another golden link is sparkling in the sunshine
   in the lands where the sun is rising when it sets upon us.

   And mark how the music of the church is set to the same tune as that of
   heaven and earth--"Greet God, thou art to be magnified." Is not this
   the unanimous song of all the redeemed below? When we sing, is not this
   the sole burden of our hosannahs and hallelujahs?--"Unto him that
   liveth and sitteth upon the throne, unto him be glory, world without
   end." Now, my text is one note of the song. May God help me to
   understand, and to make you to understand it also. "He shall build the
   temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the glory." We all know that the
   Lord Jesus Christ is here alluded to, for the context runs--"Behold the
   man, whose name is the Branch"--which title is ever applied to the
   Messiah, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. "He grew up out of his place, and he
   shall build the temple of the Lord; even he shall build the temple of
   the Lord, and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his
   throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of
   peace shall be between them both."

   Now we shall notice this morning, first of all, the temple, that is the
   Church of Christ. We shall notice next, its builder--"He," that is
   Jesus, "shall build the temple." Then we shall stop a moment and pause
   to admire his glory,--"He shall bear the glory." Then we shall attempt,
   under the good hand of the Holy Spirit, to make some practical
   applications of the subject.

   I. The first point is THE TEMPLE. The temple is the church of God; and
   here let me begin by just observing, that when I use the term "church
   of God," I use it in a very different sense from that in which it is
   sometimes understood. It is usual with many Church of England people,
   to use the term "church" as specially applying to the bishops,
   archdeacons, rectors, curates, and so forth: these are said to be the
   church and the young man who becomes a pastor of any congregation is
   said to "enter the church." Now I believe that such a use of the term
   is not scriptural. I would never for one moment grant to any man that
   the ministers of the gospel constitute the church. If you speak of the
   army, the whole of the soldiers constitute it; the officers may
   sometimes be spoken of first and foremost, but still the private
   soldier is as much a part of the army as the highest officer. And it is
   so in the church of God, all Christians constitute the church. Any
   company of Christian men, gathered together in holy bonds of communion
   for the purpose of receiving God's ordinances, and preaching what they
   regard to be God's truths, is a church; and the whole of these churches
   gathered into one, in fact all the true believers in Christ scattered
   throughout the world, constitute the One true Universal Apostolic
   Church, built upon a rock, against which the gates of hell shall not
   prevail. Do not imagine, therefore, when I speak at any time of the
   church, that I mean the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London,
   and some twenty other dignitaries, and the whole host of ministers. No,
   nor when I speak of the church do I mean the deacons, the elders, and
   pastors of the Baptist denomination, or any other--I mean all them that
   love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and in truth, for these make up
   the one universal church which hath communion in itself with itself,
   not always in the outward sign, but always in the inward grace; the
   church which was elect of God before the foundation of the world, which
   was redeemed by Christ with his own precious blood, which has been
   called by his Spirit, which is preserved by his grace, and which at
   last shall be gathered in to make the church of the first-born, whose
   names are written in heaven.

   Well, now, this church is called the temple of God, and Christ is said
   to be its builder. Why is the church called the temple? I reply very
   briefly, because the temple was the place where God especially dwelt.
   It was true that he did not wholly dwell in the temple made with hands,
   of man's building, which Solomon piled upon the mount of Zion, but it
   is true that in a special sense the Infinite Majesty there held its
   tabernacle and its dwelling place. Between the wings of the
   overshadowing cherubim, there did shine the bright light of the
   Shekinah, the type, the manifestation, and the proof of the special
   presence of Jehovah, the God of Israel. It is true he is everywhere; in
   the highest heavens and in the deepest hell God is to found, but
   especially did he dwell in his temple, so that when his people prayed,
   they were bidden to turn their eye towards the temple as Daniel did,
   when he opened his window towards Jerusalem, and offered his prayer.
   Now such is the church. If you would find God, he dwelleth on every
   hill-top, and in every valley, God is everywhere in creation; but if
   you want a special display of him, if you would know what is the secret
   place of the tabernacle of the Host High, the inner chamber of
   divinity, you must go where you find the church of true believers, for
   it is here he makes his continual residence known--in the hearts of the
   humble and contrite, who tremble at his word.

   Again, the temple was the place of the clearest manifestation. He who
   would see God the best of all, must see him in his temple. I repeat, he
   was to be discovered everywhere. If you stood on Carmel's top, and
   looked towards the great sea wherein are all the ships and the great
   leviathan he had made to play therein, there might God be discovered in
   his great strength. If you turned your eye on the same hill, and looked
   toward the vale of Esdraelon there was God to be seen in every blade of
   grass, in every sheep feeding by the Stream; God was everywhere to be
   discovered; but if you would see hint it is not on Bashan, it is not on
   Sermon, it is not on Tabor; it was on Mount Zion that the Lord God
   loved to make a special display of himself. It is so with the Church.
   God is to be seen in the midst of her, her helper, her strength, her
   teacher, her guide her deliverer, her sanctifier. In holy communion--in
   the breaking of bread, and in the pouring out of wine, in holy
   baptism--in the immersion of believers into the Lord Jesus Christ, in
   the preaching of the Word, in the constant declaration of the great
   salvation of Jesus, in the lifting up of the cross, in the high
   exalting of him that died upon it, in the preaching of the Covenant, in
   the declaration of the grace of God--here is he to be seen, here is his
   name written in brighter letters and in clearer lines than elsewhere
   the wide world o'er. Hence his church is said to be his temple Oh,
   Christian people, you know this, for God dwelleth in you, and walketh
   with you; you dwell in him, and he dwells in you--"the secret of the
   Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant."
   It is your happy privilege to walk with God; he manifests himself to
   you, as he doth not unto the world; he takes you into his inner
   chamber; he manifests his love; the song of Solomon is sung in your
   courts, and nowhere else; it is not the song of the wide world, it is
   the sonnet of the inner chamber, the song of the house of wine, the
   music of the banquet. You understand this, for you have been brought
   into near acquaintance with Christ; you have been made to lean your
   head upon his bosom, you have been taught to look into his heart, and
   to see eternal thoughts of love there towards you. You know well,
   better than we can tell you, what it is to be the temple of the living
   God.

   And once more; we should fail to describe the reason why the word
   "temple" is used to picture the church, if we did not observe that the
   church is like the temple--a place of worship. There was a law passed
   by God, that no offering should be presented to him except upon the one
   altar in his temple at Jerusalem, and that law is extant to this day.
   No acceptable service can be offered to Christ except by his church.
   Only those who believe in Christ can offer songs, and prayers, and
   praises, that shall be received of God. Whatever ordinances you attend
   to, who are without Christ in your hearts, you do belie that ordinance
   and prostitute it--you do not honor God therein. Two men go up to the
   temple to pray, the one a believer the other an unbeliever. He that is
   an unbeliever may have the gifts of oratory, the mightiest fluency of
   speech, but his prayer is an abomination unto God, whilst the feeblest
   utterance of the true believer is received with smiles by him that sits
   upon the throne. Two persons go to the Master's table--the one loveth
   the ordinance in its outward sign, and reverenceth it with
   superstition, but he knows not Christ; the other believes in Jesus, and
   knows how to eat his flesh and drink his blood as a worthy partaker in
   that divine ordinance; God is honored in the one, the ordinance is
   dishonored in the other. Two persons come to holy Baptism: the one
   loves the Master, believes in his name, and trusts him; he is baptized,
   he honors Christ Another comes, perhaps an unconscious infant, one who
   is incapable of faith; or hath no faith; he dishonors God, he dishonors
   the ordinance in venturing to touch it, when he is not one of the
   church, and therefore hath no right to offer sacrifice of prayer and
   praise unto the Lord our God. There is only one altar--that is, Christ;
   and there is only one set of priests, namely, the church of God, the
   men chosen out of the world to be clothed in white robes to minister at
   his altar. and whosoever besides pretendeth to worship God, worshippeth
   him not aright. His offering is like that of Cain; God hath no respect
   to his sacrifice, for without faith it is impossible to please God. We
   care not who it is that doth the act; unless he believeth, he cannot
   will pleasure from God, nor shall his sacrifice be accepted.

   I have thus noted the reasons why the church is said to be the temple.
   As there was only one temple, so there is only one church. That one
   church is his holy place, where God dwells, where God accepts worship,
   where songs of praise are daily uttered, and the smoking incense of
   prayer continually comes up before his nostrils with acceptance.

   II. Now, we have an interesting subject in the second part of our text.
   "He shall build the temple of the Lord." CHRIST IS THE CHURCH'S ONLY
   BUILDER. Now, I shall want to make a parallel between Christ's building
   the church, and Solomon, as the builder of the first temple. When
   Solomon built the temple, the first thing he did was to obtain
   instructions with regard to the model upon which he should build it.
   Solomon was exceeding wise, but I do not think he was his own
   architect. The Lord, who had shown the pattern of the old tabernacle in
   the wilderness to Moses, doubtless showed the pattern of the temple to
   Solomon, so that the pillars, and the roof, and the floor thereof were
   all ordained of God and every one of them settled in heaven. Now,
   Christ Jesus in this is no Solomon; with this exception, that being God
   over all, blessed for ever, he was his own architect. Christ has made
   the plan of his church. You and I have made a great many plans for the
   building up of that church. The Presbyterian makes his plans extremely
   precise. He will put an elder in every corner, and the Presbytery is
   the great ground-work--the pillar and the ground of the truth, and
   right is he in so doing to an extent. The Episcopalian builds his
   temple too. He will have a bishop at the door-post, and he will have a
   priest to shut the gate. He will have everything built according to the
   model that was seen by Cranmer in the mount, if he ever was there at
   all. And those of us who are of severer discipline, and have a simpler
   style, must have Christ's church always built in the congregational
   order; every congregation distinct and separate, and governed by its
   own bishop, and deacons, and elders. But mark, Christ does not attend
   to our points of church government, for there is one part of Christ's
   church that is Episcopalian, and looks as if a bishop of the Church of
   England had ordered it; another part is Presbyterian; another, Baptist,
   another, Congregational; and yet all these styles of architecture
   somehow fused into one by the Great Architect, make that goodly
   structure which is called "the temple of Christ, the church of the
   firing God, the pillar and ground of truth." Christ must be his own
   architect. He will bring out different points of truth in different
   ways. Why, I believe that different denominations are sent on purpose
   to set out different truths. There are some of our brethren a little
   too high, they bring out better than any other people, the grand old
   truths of sovereign grace. There are some, on the other hand, a little
   too low; they bring out with great clearness the great and truthful
   doctrines of man's responsibility. So that two truths that might have
   been neglected, either the one or the other, if only one form of
   Christianity existed, are both brought out, both made resplendent, by
   the different denominations of God's people, who are alike chosen of
   God, and precious to him.

   God forbid I should say anything that would bolster up any in their
   errors; nevertheless God's people, even in error, are a precious
   people. Even when they seem to be as earthen pitchers, the work of the
   hands of the potter, they are still comparable to fine gold. Rest
   assured that the Lord hath deep designs to answer, even by the
   divisions of his church. We must not interfere with Christ's reasons,
   nor with his style of architecture. Every stone that is in the temple,
   Jesus Christ ordained should be put where it is; even those stones that
   are most contemptible and unseen, were put in their places by him.
   There is not one board of cedar, one piece of burnished pinnacle, that
   was not foreseen and pre-arranged in that eternal covenant of grace
   which was the great plan that Christ, the Almighty Architect, did draw
   for the building of the temple to his praise. Christ, then, is the only
   Architect, and he shall bear the glory, for he designed the building.

   Now, you remember that when Solomon set to work to build his temple, he
   found a mountain ready for his purpose, mount Moriah. The top of it was
   not quite broad enough, he had therefore to enlarge it, so that there
   might be room for the beautiful temple, the joy of the whole earth.
   When Jesus Christ came to build his temple, he found no mountain on
   which to build it; he had no mountain in our nature, he had to find a
   mountain in his own, and the mountain upon which he has built his
   church is the mountain of his own unchangeable affection, his own
   strong love, his own omnipotent grace and infallible truthfulness. It
   is this that constitutes the mountain upon which the church is built,
   and on this the foundation hath been digged, and the great stones laid
   in the trenches with oaths and promises and blood to make them stand
   secure, even though earth should rock and all creation suffer decay.

   Then after Solomon had his mountain ready and the foundation builded,
   the next trouble was he had no trees near at hand: there were, however,
   fine trees growing in Lebanon, but his servants had not skill enough to
   cut them down. He had therefore, to send for Hirum, king of Tyre, with
   his servants, to cut down the trees upon Lebanon, which, after being
   shaped according to the model, were to be sent by rafts or floats to
   Joppa, the port nearest to Jerusalem, and there brought a short
   distance over land for the building of the temple. He had to do the
   same with the stones of the quarry; for the different stones that were
   needed for the building had to be hewn out of the quarry by Hiram's
   servants, assisted by some of Solomon's people, who had inferior skill
   and therefore were set about the more laborious and rougher parts of
   the work. The same fact you will notice, if you will read the history
   of the building of Solomon's temple, occured with regard to the making
   of the vessels of the house. It is said that Hiram did cast them, and
   Solomon found the gold; and the moulds were made in the great plain,
   and Solomon did cast them there, with Hiram for his chief designer and
   director.

   Ah! but herein Solomon fails to be a type of Christ. Christ builds the
   temple himself. There stand the cedars of Lebanon that the Lord hath
   planted but they are not ready for the building; they are not cut down,
   nor shaped nor made into those planks of cedar, whose odoriferous
   beauty shall make glad the courts of the Lord in Paradise. No; Jesus
   Christ must cut them down with the axe of conviction; he must cut them
   up with the great saw of his law, he must plane and polish them with
   his holy gospel. And when he hath made them fit to be pillars in the
   house of the Lord, then they shall be carried across the sea to heaven;
   then shall they be placed in his temple for ever. No Hiram is needed.
   The axe is in his hand, the plane is in his hand too. He understandeth
   well that business. Was he not a carpenter on earth? And spiritually,
   he shall be the same to his church for ever and ever. It is even the
   same with the stones of the temple. We are like rough stones in the
   quarry. Behold the hole of the pit whence we were digged, and the rock
   whence we were hewn. But we were hewn out of that rock by no hand but
   Christ's. He raised up seed unto Abraham out of the stones of the pit;
   it was his own hammer that broke the rock in pieces, and his own arm of
   strength that wielded the hammer, when he dashed us from the rock of
   our sin. Though we are each of us being polished, so that we may be
   ready for the temple, yet there is nothing that polishes but Christ.
   Afflictions cannot sanctify us, except as they are used by Christ, as
   his mallet and his chisel. Our joys and our efforts cannot make us
   ready for heaven apart from the hand of Jesus who fashioneth our hearts
   aright, and prepareth us to be partakers of the inheritance of the
   saints in light.

   Thus you notice that herein Jesus Christ excels Solomon, for he
   provides all the materials. He hews them himself; he rough-casts them
   first, and then afterwards, during life, polishes them till he makes
   them ready to transport them to the hill of God, whereon his temple is
   to be built. I was thinking what a pretty figure was that floating of
   the trees of Lebanon after being hewn into planks and made ready to be
   fixed as pillars of the temple--what a fine emblem of death! Is it not
   just so with us. Here we grow, and are at length cut down, and made
   ready to become pillars of the temple. Across the stream of death, we
   are ferried by a loving hand, and brought to the port of Jerusalem
   where we are safely landed, to go no more out for ever, but to abide as
   eternal pillars in the temple of our Lord Now, you know the Tyrians
   floated these rafts; but no stranger, no foreigner shall float us
   across the stream of death. It is remarkable that Jesus Christ always
   uses expressions with regard to his people, which impute their death to
   him alone. You will recollect the expression in the Revelation--"Thrust
   in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the
   harvest of the earth is ripe." But when he begins to reap, not the
   vintage, which represents the wicked that were to be crushed, but the
   harvest which represents the godly; then it is said "He that sat upon
   the throne thrust in the sickle." He did not leave it to his angels, he
   did it himself. It is so with the bringing of those planks, and the
   moving of those stones. I say no king of Tyre and Sidon shall do it,
   Jesus Christ who is the death of death and hell's destruction, he
   himself shall pilot us across the stream, and land us safe on Canaan's
   side. "He shall build the temple of the Lord."

   Well, after these things were brought, Solomon had to employ many
   thousand workmen to put them in their proper places. You know that in
   Solomon's temple there was no sound of hammer heard, for the stones
   were made ready in the quarries, and brought all shaped and marked so
   that the masons might know the exact spot in which they were to be
   placed; so that no sound of iron was needed. All the planks and timbers
   were carried to their right places, and all the catches with which they
   were to be linked together were prepared, so that there might not even
   be the driving of a nail--everything was ready beforehand. It is the
   same with us. When we get to heaven, there will be no sanctifying us
   there, no squaring us with affliction, no hammering us with the rod, no
   making us. We must be made meet here; and blessed be his name, all that
   Christ will do beforehand. When we get there, we shall not need angels
   to put this member of the church in one place, and that member in
   another; Christ who brought the stones from the quarry and made them
   ready, shall himself place the people in their inheritance in paradise.
   For he has himself said "I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go
   away, I will come again and I will receive you unto myself" Christ
   shall be his own usher, he shall receive his people himself, he shall
   stand at the gates of heaven himself to take his own people, and to put
   them in their allotted heritage in the land of the blessed.

   I have no doubt you have read many times the story of Solomon's temple,
   and you have noticed that he overlaid all the temple with gold. He
   provided much of the substance, but his father David brought him a good
   store. Now Jesus will overlay all of us with gold, when he builds us in
   heaven. Do not imagine we shall be in heaven what we are to-day. No,
   beloved, if the cedar could see itself after it had been made into a
   pillar, it would not know itself. If you could see yourselves as you
   shall be made, you would say, " It doth not yet appear' how great we
   must be made." Nor were these pillars of cedars to be left naked and
   unadorned--though they had been fair and lovely then--they were
   overlaid with sheets of gold. So shall we be. "It is sown in dishonor,
   it is raised in glory. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a
   spiritual body," plated with pure gold: no longer what it was, but
   precious, lustrous, glorified.

   And in the temple, we understand, there was a great brazen sea in which
   the priests did wash themselves, and there were other brazen seas, in
   which they washed the lambs and bullocks when they were offered. In
   heaven there is a great laver, in which all our souls have been washed,
   "for they have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of
   the lamb." Now Christ himself prepares this sacred sea. He filled it
   with blood from his own veins. As for our prayers and praises, the
   great laver in which they are washed, was also made and filled by
   Christ; so that they with us are clean, and we offer acceptable
   sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. I say again, before I
   leave this head, there is no part of the great temple of the church,
   which was not made by Christ. There is a great deal in the church on
   earth, that Christ had nothing to do with, but there is nothing in his
   true church, and nothing especially in his glorified church, which was
   not put there by him. Therefore, we may well come to the conclusion, on
   the last head, here, he shall bear all the glory, for he was the only
   builder of it

   III. Now, what a sweet thing it is to try and GLORIFY CHRIST. I am
   happy this morning to have a subject that will magnify my Master. But
   is it not a sad thing, that when we would magnify Christ most, our
   poor, failing lips refuse to speak. Oh, if you would know my Master's
   glory, you must see it for yourselves, for like the Queen of Sheba, the
   halt can never be told you, even by those who know him most and love
   him best. Half his glory never can be told. Pause awhile, and let me
   endeavor to address to you a few loving words. Your Master, O ye saints
   of the Lord, has prepared you and will build you into his temple. Speak
   and say, he shall have all the glory. Let us note, first, that the
   glory which he shall have will be a weighty glory. Dr. Gill says, "the
   expression implies, that the glory will be a weighty one, for it said,
   he shall bear the glory." "They shall hang," says another expression,
   "upon him all the glory of his Father's house;" and in another place,
   we are told, that there is "an exceeding weight of glory," which is
   prepared for the righteous. How great then, the weight of glory which
   shall be given to Christ. Oh, think not that Christ is to be glorified
   in such humble measure, as he is on earth. The songs of heaven are
   nobler strains than ours. The hearts of the redeemed pay him loftier
   homage than we can offer. Try not to judge of the magnificence of
   Christ by the pomp of kings, or by the reverence paid to mighty men on
   earth. His glory far surpasses all the glory of this time and space.
   The honor which shall be bestowed upon him is as the brightness of the
   sun, the honors of earth are but the twinklings of a fading star.
   Before him, at this very day, principalities and powers do bow
   themselves. Ten thousand times ten thousand seraphim wait at his
   footstool. "The chariots of the Lord are twenty thousand, even
   thousands of angels," and all these wait his beck and his command. And
   as for his redeemed, how do they magnify him? never staying, never
   changing, never wearying; they raise their shout higher, and higher,
   and higher, and yet louder, and louder still, the strain is lifted up,
   and evermore it is the same. "To him that liveth and was dead and is
   alive for evermore, unto him be glory, world without end."

   And note again, that this glory is undivided glory. In the church of
   Christ in heaven, no one is glorified but Christ. He who is honored on
   earth has some one to share the honor with him, some inferior helper
   who labored with him in the work; but Christ has none. He is glorified,
   and it is all his own glory. Oh, when you get to heaven, ye children of
   God, will ye praise any but your Master? Calvinists, today you love
   John Calvin; will you praise him there? Lutheran, to-day thou dost love
   the memory of that stern reformer; wilt thou sing the song of Luther in
   heaven? Follower of Wesley, thou hast a reverence for that evangelist;
   wilt thou in heaven have a note for John Wesley? None, none, none!
   Giving up all names and all honors of men, the strain shall rise in
   undivided and unjarring unison "unto him that loved us, that washed us
   from our sins in his blood, unto him be glory for ever and ever."

   But again: he shall have all the glory; all that can be conceived, all
   that can be desired, all that can be imagined shall come to him.
   To-day, you praise him, but not as you can wish; in heaven you shall
   praise him to the summit of your desire. To-day you see him magnified,
   but you see not all things put under him; in heaven all things shall
   acknowledge his dominion. There every knee shall bow before him, and
   every tongue confess that he is Lord. He shall have all the glory.

   But to conclude on this point, this glory is continual glory. It says
   he shall bear all the glory. When shall this dominion become effete?
   When shall this promise be so fulfilled that it is put away as a worn
   out garment? Never,

   "While life, and thought, and being last,

   Or immortality endures,"

   we shall never leave off praising Christ. We think we can almost guess
   how we shall feel when we get to heaven, with regard to our Master.
   Methinks if I should ever be privileged to behold his blessed face with
   joy, I shall want nothing but to be allowed to approach his throne, and
   cast what little honor I may have before his feet, and then be there
   and ever more adore the matchless splendor of his love, the marvels of
   his might. Suppose some one entering were to say to the redeemed,
   "Suspend your songs for a moment! Ye have been praising Christ, lo,
   these six thousand years; many of you have without cessation praised
   him now these many centuries! Stop your song a moment; pause and give
   your songs to some one else for an instant." Oh, can you conceive the
   scorn with which the myriad eyes of the redeemed would smite the
   tempter? "Stop from praising him! No, never. Time may stop, for it
   shall be no more; the world may stop, for its revolutions must cease;
   the universe may stop its cycles and the movings of its world but for
   us to stop our songs--never, never!"--and it shall be said,
   "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth."
   He shall have all the glory, and he shall have it for ever; his name
   shall endure for ever; his name shall continue as long as the sun; men
   shall be blessed in him, and all generations shall call him blessed;
   therefore shall they praise him for ever and ever.

   IV. Now, in conclusion, let us just make A PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF OUR
   TEXT. Brothers and sisters, are we to-day built upon Christ? Can we
   say, that we hope that we are a part of his temple; that his handiwork
   has been exhibited upon us, and that we are built together with Christ?
   If so, listen to one word of exhortation. Let us evermore honor him.
   Oh! methinks, every beam of cedar, and every slab of gold, and every
   stone of the temple, felt honored when it was raised up to be a part of
   the fabric for Jehovah's praise. And if that cedar, that marble, could
   have been vocal in that day when the flame descended from heaven, the
   token of Jehovah's presence, the store, and the cedar, and the gold,
   and the silver, and the brass, all would have burst out into song, and
   would have said, "We praise thee, O God, for thou hast made the gold
   more than gold, and the cedar more than cedar, inasmuch as thou hast
   consecrated us to be the temple of shine indwelling." And now, will you
   not do the same? O my brothers and sisters! God has highly honored you
   to be stones in the temple of Christ. When you think of what you were,
   and what you might have been; how you might have been stones in the
   black dungeons of vengeance for ever, dark dank stones, where the mobs,
   and the greed, and the slimy thing for ever might have lived;
   disgraced, abandoned, cast away in blackness of darkness for ever--when
   you think of this, and then remember that you are stones in Jehovah's
   temple,--living stones,--oh, ye must say that ye will praise him, for
   man is more than man, now that God dwelleth in him. Daughters of
   Jerusalem, rejoice! you are more than women now. Sons of Israel,
   rejoice! for your manhood is exalted, he hath made you temples of the
   Holy Ghost--God dwelling in you and you in, him. Go out from this place
   and sing his praise; go forth to honor him, and while the dumb world
   wants you to be its mouth, go and speak for the mountain, for the hill,
   for the lake, for the river, for the oak, and for the insect; speak for
   all things; for you are to be like the temple, the seat of the worship
   of all worlds; you are to be like the priests and offerers of the
   sacrifices of all creatures.

   Let me address myself last of all to others of you. Alas! my hearers, I
   have many here who have no portion in Israel, neither any lot in Jacob.
   How many of you there are, who are not stones in the spiritual temple,
   never to be used in the building up of God's Jerusalem. Let me ask you
   one thing; it may seem a slight thing to-day to be left out of the
   muster-roll of Christ's church,--will it seem a slight thing to be left
   out, when Christ shall call for his people? When you are all assembled
   around his great white throne at last, and the books shall be opened,
   oh! how dread the suspense, while name after name is read! how dreadful
   your suspense, when it comes to the last name, and yours has been left
   out! That verse of our hymn has often impressed me very solemnly:

   "I love to meet among them now,

   Before thy gracious feet to bow,

   Though vilest of them all;

   But can I bear the piercing thought--

   What if my name should be left out,

   When thou for them shalt call?"

   Sinner conceive it! The list is read, and thy name unmentioned. Laugh
   at religion now! scoff at Christ now! now that the angels are gathering
   for the judgment; now that the trumpet sounds exceedingly loud and
   long; now that the heavens are red with fire, that the great furnace of
   hell o'erleaps its boundary, and is about to encircle thee in its
   flame; now despise religion! Ah! no. I see thee. Now thy stiff knees
   are bending, now thy bold forehead for the first time is covered with
   the hot sweat of trembling, now thine eyes that once were full of scorn
   are full of tears, thou dost lock on him whom thou didst despise, and
   thou art weeping for thy sin. sinner, it will be too late then. there
   is no cutting of the stone after it gets to Jerusalem. Where thou
   fallest there thou liest. Where judgment ends thee, there eternity
   shall leave thee. Time shall be no more when judgment comes, and when
   time is no more, change is impossible! In eternity there can be no
   change, no deliverance, no signing of acquittal. Once lost, lost for
   ever; once damned, damned to all eternity. Wilt thou choose this and
   despise Christ? or wilt thou have Christ and have heaven? I charge you
   by him that shall judge the quick and the dead, whose I am, and whom I
   serve, who is the searcher of all hearts, choose ye this day whom ye
   will serve. If sin be best serve sin, and reap its wages. If you can
   make your bed in hell, if you can endure eternal burnings, be honest
   with yourself, and look at the wages while you do the work. But if you
   would have heaven, if you would be amongst the many who shall be
   glorified with Christ, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; believe now,
   to-day "If ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the
   provocation." "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and ye perish from the
   way, when his wrath is kindled but a little." Men, brethren, and
   fathers, believe and live; cast yourself at Jesus' feet, put your trust
   in him,

   "Renounce thy works and ways with grief,

   And fly to this most sure relief;"

   giving up all you are to come to him, to be saved by him now, and saved
   eternally. O Lord, bless my weak but earnest appeal, for Christ's sake.
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                      The Sunday-School Teacher--A Steward

   A Sermon

   (No. 192)

   Delivered on Tuesday Evening, May 4, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At Bloomsbury Chapel,

   On behalf of the Sunday School Union

   "Give an account of thy stewardship."--Luke 16:2.

   WE HAVE HEARD many times in our lives, that we are all stewards to
   Almighty God. We hold it as a solemn truth of our religion, that the
   rich man is responsible for the use which he makes of his wealth; that
   the talented man must give an account to God of the interest which he
   getteth upon his talents; that every one of us, in proportion to our
   time and opportunities, must give an account for himself before
   Almighty God. But, my dear brothers and sisters, our responsibility is
   even deeper and greater than that of other men. We have the ordinary
   responsibility which falls upon all professors of religion, to give an
   account of all we have to God; but besides this, you and I have the
   extraordinary responsibilities of our official standing--you, as
   teachers for Christ in your classes; and others of us as preachers for
   him before the great congregation. The first responsibility is too
   heavy for any man to fulfill. Apart from divine grace, it is not
   possible that any man should so use all that God has given him as to be
   accepted at last with a "Well done thou good and faithful servant;" yet
   even if that were possible, it would still remain an utter
   impossibility for us fully to sustain the fearful weight of
   responsibility which rests upon us as teachers of the Word of God to
   our fellow immortals. Upon our necks there are two yokes; Sovereign
   grace can make them light and easy, but apart from that they will gall
   our shoulders; for they are, of themselves, too heavy for us to bear.
   Common responsibility is as Solomon's whip; but extraordinary
   responsibility derived from official standing when not regarded, will
   be as the scorpion of Rehoboam, its little finger shall be thicker than
   its father's loins. Woe unto the watchman who warns them not; woe unto
   the minister who fails to teach the truth; woe unto the Sabbathschool
   teacher who is unfaithful to his trust. Now, let us try to stir one
   another up, upon this seriously important matter. You will pray for me
   while I preach, that I may utter some things that may do good to all
   now present, and I will labor that God may, in answer to your prayers,
   give me words and thoughts which shall be blessed to you.

   Now, first, let me show the meaning of our being stewards then let us
   consider what kind of account we shall have to give; and lastly, let us
   notice the days of reckoning when we OUGHT to cast up our account, and
   the days of reckoning when we MUST give in our account.

   I. First, then, THE STEWARD--WHAT IS HE?

   In the first place, the steward is a servant. He is one of the greatest
   of servants; but he is only a servant. Perhaps he is the bailiff of a
   farm, and looks, to all intents and purposes, like a country farmer: he
   rides over his master's estate, and has many men under him; still he is
   only a servant, he is under authority, he is only a steward. Perhaps he
   is steward in the house of some gentleman, who employs him to see after
   the whole of his establishment, in order that he may be free from
   cares. In that capacity he is himself a master, but still he is a
   servant; for he has one over him. Let him be as proud as he pleases, he
   has little to be proud of, for the only rank he holds in life, is the
   rank of a servant, Now, the minister, and the Sunday-school teacher
   specially stand in the rank of servants. Why, we are none of us our own
   masters; we are not independent gentlemen. who may do as we please, our
   classes are not our own farms, which we may till in our own manner, and
   neglect if we please, out of which we may produce any harvest, or none
   at all, at our own discretion. No, we are nothing better than stewards,
   and we are to labor for our Master in heaven. What a strange thing it
   is to see a minister or a teacher giving himself fine airs, as if he
   were everybody in the world and might do as he pleased. Is it not an
   anomaly? How is he to talk about the sacrifices that he makes, when he
   is spending only his master's property? How is he to boast about the
   time which he expends, when his time is not his own? It is all his
   Master's. He is a servant, and therefore, do he what he may, lie only
   discharges the duty for which he is well rewarded. He has no reason to
   be proud, or to lord it over others, for whatever his power among them
   may be, he is himself neither more nor less than a servant. Let each of
   us try to recollect that henceforth "I am only a servant." If a
   superintendent puts a teacher to a class which she does not like, she
   will recollect that she is a servant. She does not allow her servants
   at home to stand up and say, they are not going to do scullerywork but
   will only wait at table; they are servants, and must do as they are
   bidden; and if we felt that we were servants, we should not object to
   do what we are told for Christ's sake: though we would not do it at the
   dictation of men yet for Christ's sake we do it as unto the Lord. We do
   not suppose that our servants will come to us at night, and expect us
   to say to them, "You have done your work very well to-day," we do not
   imagine that they will look for constant commendation. They are
   servants, and when they get their wages, that is their encomium on
   their work. They may judge they are worth their money, or else we
   should not keep them. When you do your work for Jesus, recollect you
   are only a servant. Do not expect always to have that encouragement,
   which some people are constantly crying after. If you get encouragement
   from your pastor from other teachers, from your friends, be thankful;
   but if you do not get it, go on with your work notwithstanding. You are
   a servant, and when you receive your reward, that is of grace, and not
   of debt, then you will have the highest encomium that can be passed
   upon you, the plaudit of your Lord, and eternal glow with him whose you
   are, and whom you desire to serve.

   But still while the steward is a servant, he is an honorable one. It
   does not do for the other servants in the house to tell him that he is
   a servant. He will not endure that: he knows it, and feels it he
   desires to act and work as such, but at the same time, he is an honored
   servant. Now, those who serve Christ in the office of teaching, are
   honorable men and women. I remember to have heard a very unseemly
   discussion between two persons, as to whether the minister was not
   superior to the Sabbath-school teacher. It reminded me of that talk of
   the disciples, as to who among them was the greatest. Why, we are all
   of us "the least," if we feel aright, and though we must each of us
   exalt our office as God hath given it to us, yet, I see not anywhere in
   the Bible, anything that should lead me to believe that the office of
   the preacher is more honorable than that of the teacher. It seems to
   me, that every Sunday-school teacher has a right to put "Reverend"
   before his name as much as I have, or if not, if he discharges his
   trust he certainly is a "Right Honourable." He teaches his congregation
   and preaches to his class. I may preach to more, and he to less, but
   still he is doing the same work, though in a smaller sphere. I am sure
   I can sympathies with Mr. Carey, when he said of his son Felix, who
   left the missionary work to become an ambassador, "Felix has drivelled
   into an ambassador;" meaning to say, that he was once a great person as
   a missionary, but that he had afterwards accepted a comparatively
   insignificant office. So I think we may say of the Sabbath-school
   teacher, if he gives up his work because he cannot attend to it, on
   account of his enlarged business, he drivels into a rich merchant. If
   he forsakes his teaching because he finds there is so much else to do,
   he drivels into something less than he was before; with one exception,
   if he is obliged to give up to attend to his own family, and makes that
   family his Sabbath-school class, there is no drivelling there; he
   stands in the same position as he did before. I say they who teach,
   they who seek to pluck souls as brands from the burning, are to be
   considered as honored persons, second far to him from whom they
   received their commission; but still in some sweet sense lifted up to
   become fellows with him, for he calls them his brethren and his
   friends. "The servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I have
   called you friends, for all things I have heard of my Father I have
   made known unto you."

   Only one more thought here. The steward is also a servant who has very
   great responsibility attached to his position. A sense of
   responsibility seems to a right man always a weighty thing. To do a
   thing where there is no responsibility involved at all, is a very
   slight matter, and hence we find in ordinary affairs that the labor
   which involves no trust is but poorly paid. But where there is a large
   amount of trust reposed the labor is paid in proportion. Now the work
   of the Sabbath-school teacher is one of the most responsible in the
   world. It has sometimes staggered me to think how greatly God trusts
   you and me. You remember the story of the prodigal. It finds a
   counterpart in each of us, who after long wandering in sin have come
   home to Jesus. I sometimes think that a prudent father, when the
   prodigal was restored to his house, could receive him to his heart,
   would press him to his bosom, and give him a share of all his wealth,
   but would be very slow to trust him in any matter of responsibility.
   The next market-day the old gentlemen would say, "Now John I love you
   with all my heart, but you know you ran away once, and spent your
   living riotously; I must send your elder brother to market; I cannot
   trust you with my purse: I love you; I have totally forgiven you, at
   the same time I cannot yet rely upon you." Why does not God say so to
   us? Instead of that, when he takes poor prodigals to his heart, he
   trusts us with his most precious jewels, he trusts us with immortal
   souls. He permits us to be the means of seeking his lost sheep, and
   then allows us to feed the lambs after they are gathered. He puts the
   prodigal into the most important station, and hath confidence in him.
   Then my brethren and sisters, seeing he hath been gracious enough to
   repose confidence in such unworthy persons, shall we deceive him? Oh
   no; let us earnestly labor as stewards that every part of the estate
   committed to us shall be found in good order when our Master comes;
   that every jot and tittle of our account shall be found correct when he
   sums it up in the great day of the audit before his throne. Our office
   is a very very solemn one. Some think little of it. Some take it upon
   themselves very lightly. Giddy youths are enticed into the school and
   not rendered more sober by their connection with it. Let such depart
   from us. We want none but those who are sober, none but those who
   solemnly weigh what they are doing, and who enter upon the work as a
   matter involving life or death, not as a trivial affair which concerns
   the interests of time, but an awfully solemn thing which even an angel
   would be incapable of performing, unless he had the abundant assistance
   of God the Holy Spirit. I have thus endeavored very simply to set forth
   the idea couched in the word "stewardship." We are servants highly
   honored, very responsible, and much trusted.

   II. And now, THE ACCOUNT--"Give an account of thy stewardship." Let us
   briefly think of this giving an account of our stewardship.

   Let us first notice that when we shall come to give an account of our
   stewardship before God, that account must be given in personally, by
   every one of us. While we are here, we talk in the mass; but when we
   come before God, we shall have to speak as individuals. You hear
   persons boasting about "our Sabbathschool." Many persons are wicked
   enough to call the Sabbath-school "their school," when they never see
   it by the year together. They say, "I hope our school is flourishing,"
   when they never subscribe a halfpenny, when they never give the
   teachers a word of encouragement, or even a smile, and do not know how
   many children the school contains. Yet they call it theirs. Thieves
   that they are, taking to themselves that which does not belong to them!
   Well, but we, in our measure, make the same mistake. As a ministry, we
   often talk of the doings of the "body," and what wonders have been done
   by the "denomination" Now, let us recollect, when we come before God,
   there will be no judging us in denominations, no dealing with us in
   schools and in churches, but the account must be given for each one by
   himself: So, then, thou that hast the infant class, thou wilt have to
   give thine own account. It was but the other day thou wast finding
   fault with the conduct of the senior class, and thou west told then to
   look at home. Conscience told thee so. But at last, when thou shalt
   have to stand before God, thou wilt have no account to give of the
   senior class, but of that infant class committed to thee. And you, my
   sister, you have been seven or eight years a teacher--you must give an
   account for yourself, not for that other teacher of another class, of
   whom you have often boasted, because she has been the means of bringing
   six seven children to Christ lately. Remember, her six won't be put
   with your none at all, in order to make the total at the year's end
   look respectable; but there will stand your great blank at the end of
   your labors, and there will remain the dark mark for your negligence,
   for your unpunctuality, your carelessness in your class, without the
   relief of the bright side of the diligent teacher's success. You must
   be judged each of you for yourself, not in parties, but one by one.
   This makes it terrible work, for a man to be looked at all alone. I
   have known people who could not bear to stand up in a pulpit; the very
   fact of so many eyes looking upon them seemed so horrible, but how will
   it be when we must stand up and hear our hearts read by the
   all-searching eye of God, and when the whole of our career in the
   offices which we now hold will be published before the sun, and that, I
   repeat it, without the salvo of the success of others, without any
   addition to our labors derived from the diligence of other teachers?
   Come, Mr. Steward, what is your account? Not that one, sir, not that
   one; your account. "Lord, I have brought in the account of the
   Sunday-school books." "No, not that, the account of your own class?"
   "Well, my Master, I have brought in the account of the class for the
   last twentyfive years, showing how many were converted." "No, not that;
   the account of your own class while you were its teacher." "Well, I
   have brought in the account of the class during the time I was teacher
   with So-and-so." "No, not that; the account of the class while you were
   the teacher of it alone, the account of how you taught what you taught,
   how you prayed, how earnestly you labored, how diligently you studied,
   and what you sought to do for Christ." Not the addenda of the other
   teacher who helped you in another part of the duty, but your own
   personal account alone must be brought in before God. "Give an account
   of thy stewardship." Putting it in this light, what account will some
   of you give in at the last and great day? Just let me stop a minute to
   charge your memories. What kind of account will it be? I trust a very
   large number here can humbly in their hearts say "I have done but
   little, but I did that sincerely and prayerfully; may God accept it
   through Jesus Christ!" But I fear there are some others, who, if they
   are true to their consciences, will say, "I have done but little; I did
   that little carelessly. I did it without prayer; I did it without the
   help of the Holy Spirit." Then, my brother and sister, I hope you will
   add after that, "Oh, my God, forgive me, and help me from this good
   hour to be diligent in this divine business, fervent in my spirit,
   serving the Lord." And may God bless you in that prayer! Make no
   resolve, but offer a prayer which is better far; and may you be heard
   in heaven, the dwellingplace of God.

   And note again, that while this account must be personal it must be
   exact. You will not, when you present your account before God, present
   the gross total, but every separate item. When thou givest in thine
   account of thy stewardship, it will be thus. Thou hadst so many
   children. What didst thou say to this child, and to this, and to this,
   and to the other? How often didst thou pray for that child with his
   bitter temper; for that child with his unbending obstinacy, for that
   child with its quickness, and its sweet affection; for that child, that
   sulky one; for that child, the headstrong, vicious one, that had
   learned all the evils of the street, and seemed to taint others? What
   didst thou do for each one of these? How didst thou labor for the
   conversion of every one? And to make the account still more particular
   it will run thus--What didst thou do for each child on each Sabbath?
   Thou heardest one child utter an ill word: didst thou reprove it? Thou
   sawest another child oppress a little one: didst thou deliver the less
   out of his hand and reprove him and teach both children to love each
   other? Didst thou notice the follies of each and strive to understand
   the temperament of each, so that thou shouldest fit thy discourse or
   thy prayer to each? Didst thou travail in birth for the conversion of
   each one? Didst thou agonise in prayer with God, and then didst thou
   agonise in exhortation with them, beseeching them to be reconciled to
   Christ? I believe the account will be far more minute than this, when
   God shall come to try our hearts and reins as well as our works and
   ways. My poor way of putting it does but becloud the truth which I seek
   to bring forth, but nevertheless so shall it be; a special and exact
   account shall be given. And then there shall be an account given, for
   every opportunity; not only for every child, but for every opportunity
   of doing good to the child. Did you avail yourself of that afternoon,
   when the child was in a peculiarly solemn frame because his little
   brother lay at home dead? Did you seek to send the arrows home when
   providence had made a wound in his little heart because he had lost his
   dear mother? Did you seek to turn every event which occurred in the
   school to account, whether it was joyous or the reverse? God gave you
   the opportunity, and he will at last ask you what you did with it. We
   shall many of us make but a sorry account, for we have neglected much
   that we ought to have done; and the general confession must be ours as
   teachers, "We have done those things which we ought not to have done,
   and we have left undone those things which we ought to have done."

   And then remember, again, the account will be exact as to everything
   that we did. We shall not only be examined as to how we addressed the
   school; we may have had peculiar gifts for that, and we may have done
   well; it will be, "How did you address your own class?" and not that
   alone, but "How did you study the lessons?" If thou hadst no time it
   will not be required of thee to do what thou couldst not do, but if
   thou hadst much leisure how didst thou spend it? Was it for thy
   children, for thy Master's good, that thou mightest find polished
   shafts to shoot forth from thy bow, that God might bless thee, by
   giving thee strength to send them home into the heart? And then, what
   didst thou do in thy closet? Wast thou cold and careless there? Were
   thy children forgotten, or didst thou bring them on thy heart, and in
   thine arms, and with tears and cries commend them to Christ? Ah,
   Sunday-school teachers, your closet shall be turned into the open air
   one day, and the contents of your secret chambers be published before
   the sun. Oh, ye whose cobwebbed closets witness against you; oh, ye
   against whom the beam out of the wall explaineth because your voice has
   not been heard there, against whom the very floor might bear witness,
   because it hath never felt the weight of your knees, how will you stand
   this searching test? How will you endure this day of burning, when God
   shall try you for everything you did, and everything you did not do
   which you ought to have done, in connection with the work of teaching
   your children? The account must be exact and precise, as well as
   personal. I shall not stop to enlarge upon that; your own conscience
   and judgment can enlarge upon it at home.

   Now, remember, once again, that the account must be complete. You will
   not be allowed to leave out something, you will not be allowed to add
   anything. Perhaps some of you would like to begin with to-morrow, or
   next Sabbathday, and strike out the past. No, Sunday-school teacher,
   when God says, "Give an account of thy stewardship," you will have to
   begin with the day when you first were a teacher. Ah, my God, how many
   there are who profess to preach the Word, who might well beg that thou
   wouldest let many a year of their ministry be buried in forgetfulness!
   Ah, might not some of us fall upon our knees and say "Lord, let me give
   account of my diligent years, not of my idle years?" But we must begin
   with our ordination, we must end with our death, and you must begin
   with the first hour when you sat down in your class, and you must end
   when life ends, and not till then. Does not this put a very solemn
   aspect upon your account, some of you? You are always saying, "I will
   be better to morrow." Will that blot out yesterday? "I must be more
   diligent in future." Will that redeem the lost opportunities which have
   departed in the years gone by No; if you have loitered long, and
   lingered much, you will find the hardest running of to-day will not
   make up for the loitering of yesterday. There have been some men who,
   after spending many years in sin, have been doubly diligent for Christ
   afterwards, but they have always felt that they have only done the
   day's work in the day, and they mourned over those years which the
   locusts had eaten, as gone beyond recall. Oh! catch the moments as they
   fly, Sabbath-school teachers; use the days as they come. Do not be
   talking about making up for the badness of the first part of the
   account by the brilliant character of the conclusion; you cannot do it,
   you must give an account for each day separately, for each year by
   itself; and do what you may to retrieve your losses, the losses still
   stand upon the book, and the Master will say, at last, "How came these
   here?" And, though they are all covered up in Sovereign grace, if thou
   believest in Christ Jesus, yet thou wouldest not wish to have any the
   more stains for that. Because Christ hath washed thee, thou dost not
   desire to make thyself filthy; because he hath atoned thou dost not
   desire to commit sin. No, live, my brothers and sisters, as
   Sundayschool teachers should live. Live as if your own salvation
   depended upon the strictness of your fulfilling your duty; and yet
   recollect your salvation does not depend upon that, but on your
   personal interest in the everlasting covenant, and in the
   all-prevailing blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Israel's strength
   and Redeemer.

   III. And now, though there are many other things I might say, I fear
   lest I might weary you, therefore, let me notice some occasions when it
   will be WELL for you all to give an account of your stewardship; and
   then notice when you MUST give an account of it.

   You know there is a proverb, that "short reckonings make long friends,"
   and a very true proverb it is. A man will always be at friendship with
   his conscience as long as he makes short reckonings with it. It was a
   good rule of the old Puritans, that of making frank and full confession
   of sin every night; not to leave a week's sin to be confessed on
   Saturday night, or Sabbath morning, but to recall the failures,
   imperfections, and mistakes of the day, in order that we might learn
   from one day of failure how to achieve the victory on the morrow, and
   that washing ourselves daily from our sins we might preserve the purity
   and whiteness of our garments. Brothers and sisters, do the same; make
   short reckonings. And it will be well for you every Sabbath evening, or
   at any other time, if so it pleaseth you, to make a reckoning of what
   you do on the Sabbath. I do not say this in order that you may be
   encouraged in any self-righteous congratulation that you have done
   well; because, if you make your reckoning correct, you will never have
   much cause to congratulate yourself, but always cause to mourn that you
   did your duty so ill compared with what you ought to have done. When
   the Sabbath is over and you have been twice to the house of God to
   teach your class, just sit down and try to recollect what were the
   points in which you failed. Perhaps you exhibited a hasty temper; you
   spoke to a boy too sharply when he was a little rebellious. Perhaps you
   were too complacent; you saw sin committed, and ought to have reproved
   it, and you did not do so. If you find out your own failing, that is
   half the way to a cure. Next Sabbath you can try and set it right.

   Then, there are times which Providence puts in your way, which will be
   excellent seasons for reckoning. For instance, every time a boy or girl
   leaves the school, there is an opportunity afforded you of thinking to
   yourselves, "Well, how did I deal with Betsy? How did I treat John? Did
   I give William such teaching as will help him in his future life, to
   maintain integrity in the midst of temptation, and preserve
   righteousness when he shall be subjected to imminent perils? How did I
   teach the girl? Did I so teach her that she will know her duty when she
   goes into the world? Did I strive with all my might to lead her to the
   foot of the cross?" There are many solemn questions which you may put
   concerning the child. And when you meet with any of them grown up in
   after years, you will find that a very proper season for giving an
   account of your stewardship to your conscience, by seeing whether you
   really did with that person, when a child, as you could have desired.

   Then, there is a peculiar time for casting up accounts when a child
   dies. Ah! what a host of thoughts cluster around the dying-bed of a
   child whom we have taught. Next to the father and the mother, I should
   think the Sabbath-school teacher will take the most interest in the
   dying one. You will recollect, "There lies withering the flower which
   my hand hath watered; there is an immortal soul about to pass the
   portals of eternity, whom I have taught. O God, have I taught this
   dying child the truth, or have I deceived him! Have I dealt faithfully
   with him? Have I told him of his ruin? Have I set before him how he was
   fallen in Adam and depraved in himself? Have I told him about the great
   redemption of Christ? Have I shown him the necessity of regeneration
   and the work of the Holy Spirit? or have I amused him with tales about
   the historical parts of the Bible and pieces of morality, and kept back
   the weightier matters of the law? Can I put my hand into his dying
   hand, and silently lifting my heart to heaven, can I say, "O God thou
   knowest I am clear of his blood?" Ah! that is a thing that stings the
   minister often--when he recollects that any of his congregation are
   dying. When I stand sometimes by the dying-bed of any of the ungodly in
   my congregation, it brings many a tearful thought to me. Have I been as
   earnest as I ought to have been? Did I cry to this man, "Escape for thy
   life, look not behind thee, stay not in all the plain, flee to the
   mountains! Did I pray for him, weep over him, tell him of his sin,
   preach Christ simply, plainly, boldly, to him? Was there not an
   occasion when I used lightness when I ought to have been solemn? Might
   there not have been a season when I uttered something by mistake, which
   may have been a pillow for the armhole of his conscience on which he
   might rest? Have not I helped to smooth his path to hell, instead of
   putting blocks in his way, and chains across his path that he might be
   turned out of it and led to seek the Saviour?" Ah! while we know that
   salvation is all of grace let none of us imagine we are free from the
   blood of souls, unless we warn them with diligence, unless we preach
   with faithfulness; for this same Bible which tells me that Christ shall
   see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied, tells me that if I
   warn them not, their blood, if they perish, shall be required at my
   hand.

   But now, teacher, let me tell you an occasion when you must give in
   your account. You may put off all these seasons if you like; you may
   live as carelessly as you please, but if you have a particle of heart
   in you, you will have to give an account when you are sick, and cannot
   go to your class. If your conscience is worth having--which some
   people's consciences are not, for they are dead and seared--if your
   conscience is an awakened one, when you are put out of your work, you
   will begin to think how you did it. You should read the letters of that
   holy man Rutherford. If ever there was a man who preached the gospel
   sweetly and with divine unction, I should think it must have been he;
   and yet when he was shut up in Aberdeen, and could not get out to his
   much-loved flock, he begun to say, "Ah, if the Lord will let me go out
   to preach again, I will never be such a dull drone as I was wont to be.
   I will preach with tears in mine eyes, so that the people may be
   comforted, and the sinners converted." Perhaps when you are lying ill
   in your bed-room, little Jane comes to see you, and says, "I hope you
   will soon get well, teacher;" or William, or Thomas calls and enquires
   about you every Sunday afternoon, and asks the servant to give his love
   to you, and hopes that teacher will soon come back again. Then is the
   time when I know you will be sure to cast up your account. You will
   say, "Ah, when I get back to my class, I won't teach them as I used to
   do. I will study my lesson more, I will pray more. I won't be so hot or
   so fast with them as I was wont to be. I will bear with their ill
   manners. Ah, if my Master will give me, like Hezekiah, another fifteen
   years of labor, and will give me more grace, I will strive to be
   better." You will be sure to cast up your accounts when you get sick.

   But if you do not do it then, I will tell you when you must; that is
   when you come to die. What a dreadful thing it must be to be an
   unfaithful preacher on a dying-bed. (Oh that I may be saved from that!)
   To be upon one's bed when life is over; to have had great
   opportunities, mighty congregations, and to have been so diligent about
   something else as to have neglected to preach the full and free gospel
   of our Lord Jesus Christ! methinks as I lie in my bed a-dying, I should
   see spectres and grim things in the room. One would come and stare upon
   me and say, "Ah! you are dying. Remember how many times I sat in the
   front of the gallery, and listened to you, but you never once told me
   to escape from the wrath to come; you were talking to me about
   something I did not understand; but the simple matter of the gospel you
   never preached to me, and I died in doubt and trembling. And now you
   are coming to me to the hell which I have inherited because you were
   unfaithful." And when in our grey and dying age we see the generations
   which have grown up around our pulpits, we shall think of them all. We
   shall think of the time when as striplings we first began to preach; we
   shall recollect the youths that then crowded, then the men, and then
   the grey heads that passed away. And methinks as they come on in grim
   procession, they will everyone leave a fresh curse upon our conscience
   because we were unfaithful. The death-bed of a man who has murdered his
   fellows, of some grim tyrant who has let the bloodhounds of war loose
   upon mankind, must be an awful thing. When the soldier, and the
   soldier's widow, and the murdered man of peace rise up before him; when
   the smoke of devastated countries seems to blow into his eyes and make
   them sore and red; when the blood of men hangs on his conscience like a
   great red pall; when bloody murder, the grim chamberlain, draws red
   curtains round his bed, and when he begins to approach the last end
   where the murderer must inherit his dreary doom, it must be a fearful
   time indeed. But, methinks to have murdered souls must be more awful
   still--to have distributed poison to children instead of bread, to have
   given them stones when they asked us for right food, to have taught
   them error when we ought to have taught them the truth as it is in
   Jesus, or to have spoken to them with cold listlessness when
   earnestness was needed. Oh, how your children seem to curse you, when
   you lie there and have been unfaithful to your charge. Yes, you will
   have to cast up your account then; and let me tell you, though your
   hope must all be fixed on Jesus, and that must be the consolation of
   your life and death, yet it will be very sweetest; remember when you
   come to die that you have been successful in winning souls to Christ.
   Ah! that will bring a little life into the cheek of the consumptive
   teacher, who sickens young when you remind her that there was a little
   girl who, a year before she was taken ill, kissed her hand, and said,
   "Good bye, teacher, we shall meet in heaven. Do not you recollect,
   teacher, telling me the story of Jesus on the cross, and taking me home
   one Sunday afternoon, and putting your arms around my neck, and
   kneeling down and praying that God would bless me? Oh my teacher, that
   brought me to Jesus." Yes, teacher, when you are lying on your bed,
   pale and consumptive, you will recollect that there is one up there
   beside your Saviour who will receive you into eternal habitations--that
   young spirit who has gone before you, who by your means was emancipated
   from the wickedness and bondage of a sinful world. Happy is the teacher
   who has the hope of meeting a whole band of such in heaven. Such a
   thought often cheers me. Let the world say what it will, I know when I
   die there is many a spirit that will think of me in after years as the
   man who preached the gospel to him; many a drunkard brought to Jesus,
   and many a harlot reclaimed. And to the teacher it must be the same to
   think that when he claps his wings and mounts from this lower valley of
   earth to heaven, he will see a bright spirit coming down to meet him,
   and he will hear the Spirit saying--

   "Sister spirit, come away,"

   And when he opens his eyes, he will see that the song came from the
   lips of one to whom he had been blessed as the means of conversion.
   Happy you who shall be welcomed at the gates of Paradise by your
   spiritual sons and daughters, and who shall have beside your Master's
   welcome, the welcome of those whom he hath given you to be jewels in
   your crown of glory for ever and ever.

   Now to conclude. We must all give an account to God in the day of
   judgment. That is the thing which makes death so terrible. Oh, Death,
   if thou wert all, what art thou but a pinch, and all is over! But after
   Death the judgment. This is the sting of the dragon to the ungodly. The
   last great day is come. The books are opened--men, women, and children
   are assembled. Many have come, and some on the right, and some on the
   left, have already heard the sentence. It is now your turn. Teacher!
   what account will you render? In the first place, are you in Christ
   yourself? or have you taught to others what you did not know yourself?
   Have I any such here? Doubtless, I have. for alas! there are many such
   in our schools. Oh, my friend, what wilt thou say when the Master,
   opening the book, shall ask thee, "What hadst thou to do, to declare my
   statutes?" Will you look at him and say, "Lord I taught in thy schools,
   and thou hast eaten and drunk in our streets." If you should say so, he
   will say, "Verily, I never knew you, depart from me ye cursed." Then,
   what have you to say with regard to your schools--for although our
   state at last will really be settled according to our interest in
   Christ, you will be judged by your works, as evidences. The Scripture
   always says that we are to be judged according to our works. Well,
   then, the book is opened. You hear your own name read, and you hear
   that one brief sentence--"Inasmuch as thou hast been faithful over a
   few things I will make thee a ruler over many things--enter thou into
   the joy of thy Lord!" Oh heaven of heavens! and is this the reward of
   the little trouble of teaching a few children? Oh, Master, thou givest
   ingots of gold for our grains of dust--our fragments of service thou
   rewardest with crowns and kingdoms! But he turns to others, and to you
   he says, "Inasmuch as ye did it not unto the least of these my
   brethren, ye did it not unto me. Depart from me into everlasting fire
   in hell, prepared for the devil and his angels." Which of these two
   shall be said to me? Which of these two shall be said to you? "Oh! as
   in God's sight I charge you by him who is the Judge of quick and dead,
   by the swiftness of his chariot-wheels which now are bringing him here,
   by the solemnity of his awful tribunal, by that sentence which shall
   never be reversed, judge yourselves, for then ye shall not be judged.
   Give an account of your stewardship to your conscience, and to your
   God. Confess your sins, seek his help, and begin from this hour, by his
   Holy Spirit, to undertake his work afresh; so shall ye stand before his
   face, clothed in the righteousness of your Redeemer and washed in his
   blood. Though not boasting in your works you shall be able to stand
   accepted in him, and your works shall follow when you rise from your
   labors, and you shall be among the blessed that die in the Lord.
     __________________________________________________________________

                          The World Turned Upside Down

   A Sermon

   (No. 193)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 9, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "These that have turned the world upside down are come hither
   also."--Acts 17:6.

   THIS IS JUST an old version of an oft-repeated story. When disturbances
   arise in a state, and rebellions and mutinies cause blood to be shed,
   it is still the custom to cry, "The Christians have done this." In the
   days of Jesus we know that it was laid to the charge of our blessed and
   divine Master, that he was a stirrer of sedition, whereas he himself
   had refused to be a king, when his followers would have taken him by
   force to make him one, for he said, "My kingdom is not of this world;"
   yet was he crucified under the two false charges of sedition and
   blasphemy. The same thing occurred with the Apostles. Wherever they
   went to preach the gospel, the Jews who opposed them sought to stir up
   the refuse of the city to put an end to their ministry; and then, when
   a great tumult had been made by the Jews themselves, who had taken unto
   them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company,
   and set all the city in an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason,
   and sought to bring him out to the people, then the Jews laid the
   tumult and the uproar at the door of the Apostles, saying, "These that
   have turned the world upside down are come hither also." This plan was
   followed all through the Roman empire, until Christianity became the
   state religion. There was never a calamity befel Rome, never a war
   arose, never a famine or a plague, but the vulgar multitude cried, "The
   Christians to the lions! The Christians have done this." Nero himself
   imputed the burning of Rome, of which he himself doubtless was the
   incendiary, to the Christians. The believers in Jesus were slandered as
   if they were the common sewer, into which all the filth of sin was to
   be poured; whereas, they were like Solomon's great brazen sea, which
   was full of the purest water, wherein even priests themselves might
   wash their robes. And you will remark that to this day the world still
   lays its ills at the door of the Christians. Was it not the foolish cry
   a few months ago, and are there not some weak-minded individuals who
   still believe it, that the great massacre and mutiny in India was
   caused by the missionaries. Forsooth; the men who turned the world
   upside down had gone there also; and because men broke through all the
   restraints of nature and of law, and committed deeds for which fiends
   might blush, this must be laid at the door of Christ's holy gospel, and
   the men of peace must bear on their shoulders the blame of war! Ah! we
   need not refute this: the calumny is too idle to need a refutation. Can
   it be true, that he whose gospel is love should be the fomenter of
   disturbance? Can it be fair for a moment to lay mutiny and rebellion at
   the door of the gospel, the very motto of which is, "Peace on earth,
   good will towards men?" Did not our Master say, "Render unto Caesar the
   things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's?" Did
   he not himself pay tribute though he sent to the fish of the sea, to
   get the shekel? And have not his followers at all times been a peaceful
   generation?--save only and except where the liberty of their conscience
   was touched, and then they were not the men to bow their knees to
   tyrants and kings, but with brave old Oliver they did bind their kings
   in chains, and their nobles in fetters of iron, as they will do again,
   if their liberty ever should be infringed, so that they should not have
   power to worship God as they ought.

   We believe that what these Jews said of the Apostles, was just a
   downright wilful lie. They knew better. The Apostles were not the
   disturbers of states. It is true, they preached that which would
   disturb the sinful constitution of a kingdom and which would disturb
   the evil practices of false priests, but they never meant to set men in
   an uproar. They did come to set men at arms with sin; they did draw the
   sword against iniquity; but against men as men, against kings as kings,
   they had no battle; it is with iniquity and sin, and wrong everywhere,
   that they proclaimed an everlasting warfare. But still, brethren, there
   is many a true word spoken in jest, we say, and surely there is many a
   true word spoken in malice. They said the Apostles turned the world
   upside down. They meant by that, that they were disturbers of the
   peace. But they said a great true thing; for Christ's gospel does turn
   the world upside down. It was the wrong way upwards before, and now
   that the gospel is preached, and when it shall prevail, it will just
   set the world right by turning it upside down.

   And now I shall try to show how, in the world at large, Christ's gospel
   turns the world upside down. and then I shall endeavor, as well as God
   shall help me, to show how the little world that is within every man is
   turned upside down, when he becomes a believer in the gospel of Christ.

   I. First, then, the gospel of Christ turns the world upside down, WITH
   REGARD TO THE POSITION OF DIFFERENT CLASSES OF MEN.

   In the esteem of men, the kingdom of heaven is something like this.
   High there on the summit, there sits the most grand rabbi, the right
   venerable, estimable and excellent doctor of divinity, the great
   philosopher, the highly learned, the deeply instructed, the immensely
   intellectual man. He sits on the apex: he is the highest, because he is
   the wisest. And just below him there is a class of men who are deeply
   studied--not quite so skilled as the former, but still exceeding
   wise,--who look down at those who stand at the basement of the pyramid,
   and who say to them, "Ah, they are the ignoble multitude, they know
   nothing at all." A little lower down, we come to the sober,
   respectable, thinking men, not those who set up for teachers, but those
   who seldom will be taught, because they already in their own opinion
   know all that is to be learned. Then after them there come a still
   larger number of very estimable folks, who are exceeding wise in
   worldly wisdom, although not quite so exalted as the philosopher and
   the rabbi. Lower still come those who have just a respectable amount of
   wisdom and knowledge, and then at the very basement there come the
   fool, and the little child, and the babe. When we look at these we say,
   "This is the wisdom of this world. Behold how great a difference there
   is between the babe at the bottom, and the learned doctor on the
   summit! How wide the distinction between the ignorant simpleton who
   forms the hard, rocky, stubborn basement, and the wise man of polished
   marble, who there stands resplendent at the apex of the pyramid." Now,
   just see how Christ turns the world upside down. There it stands. He
   just reverses it. "Except ye be converted, and become as little
   children, ye can in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." "Not
   many great men after the flesh, not many mighty men are chosen; but God
   hath chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, heirs of the
   kingdom." It is just turning the whole social fabric upside down; and
   the wise man finds now that he has to go upstairs towards his
   simplicity. He has been all his life trying as far as he could, to get
   away from the simplicity of the credulous child, he has been thinking,
   and judging, and weighing, and bringing his logic to cut up every truth
   he heard, and now he has to begin, and go up again: he has to become a
   little child, and turn back to his former simplicity. This is the world
   turned upside down, with a vengeance; and therefore the wise seldom
   love it.

   If you wish to see the world turned upside down to perfection, just
   turn to the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew: here you have a
   whole summary of the world reversed. Jesus Christ turned the world
   upside down the first sermon he preached. Look at the third verse.
   "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
   Now, we like a man who has an ambitious spirit--a man who, as we say,
   knows how to push his way in the world--who looks up--is not contented
   with the position that he occupies, but is always for climbing higher
   and higher. And we have a very fair opinion too of a man, who has a
   very fair opinion of himself--a man who is not going to bow and cringe.
   He will have his rights, that he will, he will not give way to anybody.
   He believes himself to be somewhat, and he will stand on his own
   belief, and will prove it to the world yet. He is not one of your poor,
   mean-spirited fellows, who are content with poverty, and sit still. He
   will not be contented. Now such a man as this the world admires. But
   Christ just turns that upside down, and says, "Blessed are the poor in
   spirit, for their's is the kingdom of heaven." The men who have no
   strength of their own, but look for all to Christ--the men who have no
   spirit to run with a wicked world, but who would rather suffer an
   injury than resent one--the men who are lowly and of a humble carriage,
   who seek not to lift their heads above their fellows; who if they be
   great have greatness thrust upon them, but never seek it--who are
   content along the cool, sequestered vale of life, to keep the even
   tenour of their way--who seem to have always ringing in their ears,
   "Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not"--"the poor in
   spirit," happy in their poverty, who are content with the Lord's
   providence, and think themselves far more rich than they deserve to be.
   Now, these men Christ says, are blessed. The world says, they are soft,
   they are fools; but Christ puts those on the top whom the world puts at
   the bottom. "Blessed are the poor in spirit for their's is the kingdom
   of heaven."

   Then there is another lot of people in the world; they are always
   mourning. They do not let you see it often, for their Master has told
   them when they fast, to anoint their face, that they appear not unto
   men to fast, but still secretly before God they have to groan; they
   hang their harps upon the willows; they mourn for their own sin, and
   then they mourn for the sin of the times. The world says of these,
   "They are a moping, melancholy set; I would not care to belong to their
   number;" and the gay reveller comes in, and he almost spits upon them
   in his scorn. For what are they? They love the darkness. They are the
   willows of the stream, but this man, like the proud poplar, lifts his
   head, and is swayed to and fro in the wind of his joy, boasting of his
   greatness, and his freedom. Hear how the gay youth talks to his
   mourning friend, who is under conviction of sin. "Ah! yours is a morbid
   disposition; I pity you; you ought to be under the hand of a physician.
   You go mourning through this world. What a miserable thing, to be
   plunging through waves of tribulation! What a dismal case is yours! I
   would not stand in your shoes and be in your position for all the
   world." No, but Christ turns the world upside down; and so those people
   whom you think to be mournful and sorrowful, are the very ones who are
   to rejoice. For read the fourth verse, "Blessed are they that mourn;
   for they shall be comforted." Yes, worldling, your joy is like the
   crackling of thorns under a pot. It blazeth a little, and maketh a
   great noise: it is soon done with. But "light is sown for the
   righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart." You cannot see the
   light now, because it is sown. It lies under the clods of poverty, and
   shame, and persecution, mayhap. But when the great harvest day shall
   come, the blades of light, upstarting at the second coming, shall bring
   forth "the full corn in the ear" of bliss and glory everlasting. O ye
   mourning souls, be glad; for whereas the world puts you beneath it,
   Christ puts you above the world's head. When he turns the world upside
   down, he says you shall be comforted.

   Then there is another race of people, called "the meek." You may have
   met with them now and then. Let me describe the opposite. I know a man
   who never feels happy unless he has a law-suit; he would never pay a
   bill unless be had a writ about it. He is fond of law. The idea of
   pulling another up before the court is a great delicacy to him. A
   slight affront he would not easily forget. He has a very large amount
   of meek dignity; and if he be never so slightly touched, if a harsh
   word be spoken against him, or one slander uttered he is down upon his
   enemy at once; for he is a man of a hard temper, and he casts the
   debtor into prison, and verily I say unto thee, if thou gettest in
   there by his writ, thou shalt never come out until thou hast paid the
   uttermost farthing. Now the meek are of a very different disposition.
   You may revile them, but they will not revile again; you may injure
   them, but they know that their Master has said, "I say unto thee,
   resist not evil." They do not put themselves into airs and passions on
   a slight affront, for they know that all men are imperfect, and
   therefore they think that perhaps their brother made a mistake, and did
   not wish to hurt their feelings, and therefore they say, "Well, if he
   did not wish to do it, then I will not be hurt by it, I dare say he
   meant well, and therefore I will take the will for the deed, and though
   he spoke harshly, yet he will be sorry for it to morrow; I will not
   mention it to him,--I will put up with whatever he chooses to say."
   There is a slander uttered against him: he says, "Well, let it alone;
   it will die of itself; where no wood is, the fire goeth out." Another
   speaketh exceeding ill against him in his hearing; but he justs holds
   his tongue; he is dumb and openeth not his mouth. He is not like the
   sons of Zeruiah, who said to David, "Let us go and take off that dead
   dog's head, because he cursed the king" He says, "No, if the Lord hath
   bidden him curse; let him curse." "Vengeance is mine; I will repay,
   saith the Lord." He is quite content to bear and forbear, and put up
   with a thousand injuries, rather than inflict one; meekly and quietly
   he goes his way through the world, and people say, "Ah! such a man as
   that will never get on; he will always be taken in. Why, he will be
   lending money, and will never get it back again; he will be giving his
   substance to the poor, and he will never receive it. How stupid he is!
   He allows people to infringe on his rights; he has no strength of mind;
   he does not know how to stand up for himself, fool that he is." Ay, but
   Christ turns it upside down, and he says, "Blessed are the meek, for
   they shall inherit the earth." Is not that provoking to you graspers,
   you high spirited people, you lawyers, you that are always trying to
   bring your neighbor into trouble touching your rights? you do it in
   order that you may inherit the earth: see how Christ spites you, and
   treads your wisdom under feet. He says, "The meek shall inherit the
   earth." After all, very often, the best way to get our rights is to let
   them alone. I am quite certain that the safest way to defend your
   character is never to say a word about it. If every person in this
   place chooses to slander me and utter the most furious libels that he
   pleases, he may rest quite assured he will never have a law-suit from
   me. I am not quite fool enough for that. I have always noticed that
   when a man defends himself in a court of law against any slander, he
   just does his enemy's business with his own hand. Our enemies cannot
   hurt us, unless we hurt ourselves. No man's character was ever really
   injured except by himself. Be you among the meek, and you shall inherit
   the earth. Bear all things, hope all things, believe all things, and it
   shall be the best, even on this earth, in the end.

   Do you see that very respectable gentleman yonder, who has never
   omitted to attend his church or his chapel twice every Sunday ever
   since he became a man. He reads his Bible too, and he has family
   prayers. It is true that there are certain stories flying about, that
   he is rather hard upon his laborers, and exacting at times in his
   payments, but does justice to all men, although no further will he go.
   This man is on very good terms with himself; when he gets up in the
   morning he always shakes hands with himself, and compliments himself on
   being a very excellent person. He generally lives in a front street, in
   his opinion, and the first number in the street, too. If you speak to
   him about his state before God, he says, that if he does not go to
   heaven nobody will; for he pays twenty shillings in the pound to
   everybody; he is strictly upright, and there is no one who can find any
   fault with his character. Isn't he a good man? Don't you envy him?--a
   man who has so excellent an opinion of himself that he thinks himself
   perfect; or if he is not quite perfect, yet he is so good that he
   believes that with a little help, he shall enter into the kingdom of
   heaven. Well, now, do you see standing at the back of the church there,
   a poor woman with tears running down her eyes? Come forward, ma'am; let
   us hear your history. She is afraid to come forward; she dares not
   speak in the presence of respectable persons; but we gather thus much
   from her: She has lately found out that she is full of sin, and she
   desires to know what she must do to be saved. Ask her. She tells you
   she has no merits of her own. Her song is, "I the chief of sinners am.
   Oh! that mercy would save me!" She never compliments herself upon her
   good works, for she says she has none; all her righteousnesses are as
   filthy rags; she puts her mouth in the very dust when she prays, and
   she dares not lift so much as her eyes towards heaven. You pity that
   poor woman. You would not like to be in her case. The other man whom I
   have just mentioned, stands at the very top of the ladder, does he not?
   But this poor woman stands at the bottom. Now just see the gospel
   process--the world turned upside down. "Blessed are they which do
   hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled;" while
   the man who is content with himself has this for his portion--"As many
   as are of the works of the law are under the curse;" publicans and
   harlots enter into the kingdom of heaven before you, because you seek
   not the righteousness which is of faith, but you seek it as it were by
   the works of the law. So here you see again is the world turned upside
   down in the first sermon Christ ever preached.

   Now turn to the next beatitude--in the seventh verse--"Blessed are the
   merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." Of this I have already spoken.
   The merciful are not much respected in this world--at least if they are
   imprudently merciful, the man who forgives too much, or who is too
   generous, is not considered to be wise. But Christ declares that he who
   has been merciful--merciful to supply the wants of the poor, merciful
   to forgive his enemies and to pass by offenses, shall obtain mercy.
   Here, again, is the world turned upside down.

   "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." The world
   says, "Blessed is the man who indulges in a gay life." If you ask the
   common run of mankind who is the happy man, they will tell you, "The
   happy man is he who has abundance of money, and spends it freely, and
   is freed from restraint--who leads a merry dance of life, who drinks
   deep of the cup of intoxication--who revels riotously--who, like the
   wild horse of the prairie, is not bitted by order, or restrained by
   reason, but who dashes across the broad plains of sin, unharnessed,
   unguided, unrestrained." This is the man whom the world calls happy:
   the proud man, the mighty man, the Nimrod; the man who can do just as
   he wishes, and who spurns to keep the narrow way of holiness. Now, the
   Scripture says, Not so; "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
   see God."

   "Blest is the man who shuns the place

   Where sinners love to meet;

   Who fears to tread their wicked ways,

   And hates the scoffer's seat,"--

   the man who cannot touch one thing because that would be lascivious,
   nor another because that would spoil his communion with his Master; a
   man who cannot frequent this place of amusement, because he could not
   pray there, and cannot go to another, because he could not hope to have
   his Master's sanction upon an hour so spent. That man, pure in heart,
   is said to be a Puritanical moralist, a strict Sabbatarian, a man who
   has not any mind of his own; but Jesus Christ puts all straight, for he
   says, these are the blessed men these are the happy ones. "Blessed are
   the pure in heart: for they shall see God."

   And now look at the ninth verse. What a turning of the world upside
   down that is! You walk through London, and who are the men that we put
   upon our columns and pillars, and upon our park gates, and so on? Read
   the ninth verse, and see how that turns the world upside down. There
   upon the very top of the world, high, high up, can be seen the armless
   sleeve of a Nelson: there he stands, high exalted above his fellows;
   and there, in another place, with a long file up his back, stands a
   duke; and in another place, riding upon a war horse, is a mighty man of
   war. These are the world's blest heroes. Go into the capital of what
   empire you choose to select, and you shall see that the blessed men,
   who are put upon pedestals, and who have statues erected to their
   memory, who are put into our St. Paul's Cathedral, and our Westminster
   Abbey, are not exactly the men mentioned in the ninth verse. Let us
   read it. "Blessed are the peace-makers; for they shall be called the
   children of God." Ah! but you do not often bless the peace-makers, do
   you? The man who comes between two beligerents, and bears the stroke
   himself--the man who will lie down on the earth, and plead with others
   that they would cease from warfare--these are the blessed. How rarely
   are they set on high. They are generally set aside, as people who
   cannot be blessed, even though it seem that they try to make others so.
   Here is the world turned upside down. The warrior with his garment
   stained in blood, is put into the ignoble earth, to die and rot; but
   the peace-maker is lifted up, and God's crown of blessing is put round
   about his head, and men one day shall see it, and struck with
   admiration they shall lament their own fully, that they exalted the
   blood-red sword of the warrior, but that they did rend the modest
   mantle of the noon who did make peace among mankind.

   And to conclude our Saviour's sermon, notice once more, that we find in
   this world a race of persons who have always been hated--a class of men
   who have been hunted like the wild goat; persecuted, afflicted, and
   tormented. As an old divine says, "The Christian has been looked upon
   as if he had a wolfs head, for as the wolf was hunted for his head
   everywhere, so has the Christian been hunted to the uttermost ends of
   the earth." And in reading history we are apt to say, "These persecuted
   persons occupy the lowest room of blessedness; these who have been sawn
   asunder, who have been burned, who have seen their houses destroyed,
   and have been driven as houseless exiles into every part of the
   earth--these men who have wandered about in sheep's skins, and goat's
   skins,--these are the very least of mankind." Not so. The gospel
   reverses all this, and it says, "Blessed are they who are persecuted
   for righteousness' sake, for their's is the kingdom of heaven." I
   repeat it: The whole of these beatitudes are just in conflict with the
   world's opinion. and we may quote the words of the Jew, and say, "Jesus
   Christ was the man who turned the world upside down.' "

   And now I find I must be very brief for I have taken so much time in
   endeavoring to show how Christ's gospel turned the world upside down,
   in the position of its characters, that I shall have no space left for
   anything else. But will you have patience with me, and I will briefly
   pass through the other points?

   I have next to remark, that the Christian religion turns the world
   upside down in its maxims. I will just quote a few texts which show
   this very clearly. "It was said by them of old time, eye for eye and
   tooth for tooth; but I say unto you, resist not evil" It has generally
   been held by each of us, that we are not to allow anyone to infringe
   upon our rights; but the Saviour says, "Whosoever would sue thee at the
   law and take thy cloak, let him take thy coat also." "If any man smite
   thee on the one cheek, turn unto him the other also." If these precepts
   were kept, would it not turn the world upside down? "It has been said
   by them of old time, love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy;" but Jesus
   Christ said, "Let love be unto all men." He commands us to love our
   enemies, and to pray for them who despitefully use us. He says, "If
   thine enemy hunger, feed him, and if he thirst give him drink, for in
   so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." This would indeed
   be turning the world upside down; for what would become of our war
   ships and our warriors, if at the port-holes where now we put our
   cannons, we should have sent out to some burning city of our
   enemies--for instance, to burning Sebastapol,--if we had sent to the
   houseless inhabitants, who had been driven from their homes, barrels of
   beef, and bundles of bread and clothes, to supply their wants. That
   would have been a reversal of all human policy, but yet it would have
   been just the carrying out of Christ's law, after all. So shall it be
   in the days that are to come, our enemies shall be loved, and our
   foemen shall be fed. We are told too, in these times, that it is good
   to a man to heap unto himself abundant wealth, and make himself rich,
   but Jesus Christ turned the world upside down, for he said, there was a
   certain rich man who was clothed in scarlet, and fared sumptuously
   every day, and so on, and his fields brought forth abundantly; and he
   said, "I will pull down my barns, and build greater;" but the Lord
   says, "Thou fool!" That is reversing everything in this world. You
   would have made an Alderman of him, or a Lord Mayor; and fathers would
   have patted their boys on the head, and said, "That is all through his
   frugality and taking care; see how he has got on in the world; when he
   had got a good crop, he did not give it away to the poor, as that
   extravagant man does who has kept on working all his life, and never be
   able to retire from business; he saved it all up;--be as good a boy as
   So-and-so, and get on too." But Christ said "Thou fool, this night
   shall thy soul be required of thee." A turning of everything upside
   down. And others of us will have it, that we ought to be very careful
   every day, and always looking forward to the future, and always
   fretting about what is to be. Here is a turning of the world upside
   down, when Jesus Christ says, "Remember the ravens; they sow not,
   neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly
   Father feedeth them, are ye not better than they?" I do believe that at
   this day the maxims of business are clean opposed to the maxims of
   Christ. But I shall be answered by this, "Business is business." Yes, I
   know business is business, but business has no business to be such
   business as it is. Oh! that it might be altered, till every man could
   make his business his religion, and make a religion of his business

   I have not detained you long upon that point; and therefore I am free
   to mention a third. How Christ has turned the world upside down, as to
   our religious notions. Why, the mass of mankind believe, that if any
   man wills to be saved, that is all which is necessary. Many of our
   preachers do in effect preach this worldly maxim. They tell men that
   they must make themselves willing. Now, just hear how the gospel upsets
   that. "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of
   God that showeth mercy." The world will have an universal religion too;
   but how Christ overturns that. "I pray for them; I pray not for the
   world." He hath ordained us from among men. "Elect according to the
   foreknowledge of God, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief
   of the truth." "The Lord knoweth them that are his." How that runs
   counter to all the world's opinion of religion! The world's religion is
   this--"Do, and thou shalt live." Christ's religion is--"Believe and
   live." We will have it, that if a man be righteous, sober upright, he
   shall enter the kingdom of heaven; but Christ says--This thou oughtest
   to have done; but still, not this can ever cleanse thee. "As many as
   are under the works of the law are under the curse." "By the works or
   the law shall no flesh living be justified." " Believe and live," is
   just the upsetting of every human notion. Cast thyself on Christ: trust
   in him. Have good works afterwards; but first of all trust in him that
   died upon the tree. This is the overturning of every opinion of man.
   And hence mortals will always fight against it, so long as the human
   heart is what it is. Oh! that we knew the gospel! Oh! that we felt the
   gospel! For it would be the upsetting of all self-righteousness, and
   the casting down of every high look, and of every proud thing.

   II. And now, beloved, spare me a little time, while I try to show THAT
   WHICH IS TRUE IN THE WORLD, IS TRUE IN THE HEART. Instead, however, of
   enlarging at full length upon the different topics, I shall make my
   last point the subject of examination.

   Man is a little world, and what God does in the outer world, he does in
   the inner. If any of you would be saved your hearts must be turned
   upside down. I will now appeal to you, and ask you whether you have
   ever felt this--whether you know the meaning of it?

   In the first place, your judgment must be turned upside down. Cannot
   many of you say, that which you now believe to be the truth of God is
   very far opposed to your former carnal notions? Why, if anyone had told
   you, that you should be a believer in the distinguishing doctrines of
   free and sovereign grace, you would have laughed him in the face.
   "What! I believe the doctrine of election? What! I ever hold the
   doctrine of particular redemption, or final perseverance? Pshaw!
   nonsense! It cannot be!" But now you do hold it, and the thing which
   you thought unreasonable and unjust, now seems to you to be for God's
   glory, and for man's eternal benefit. You can kiss the doctrine which
   once you despised, and you meekly receive it as sweeter than the
   droppings of honey from the honeycomb, though once you thought it to be
   as the very poison of asps, and gall, and wormwood. Yes, when grace
   enters the heart, there is a turning upside down of all our opinions;
   and the great truth of Jesus sits reigning on our soul.

   Is there not, again, a total change of all your hopes? Why, your hopes
   used to be all for this world. If you could but get rich, if you could
   but be great and honored, you would be happy! You looked forward to it.
   All you were expecting was a paradise this side the flood. And now
   where are your hopes?--not on earth; for where your treasure is, there
   must your heart be also. You are looking for a city that hands have not
   piled; your desires are heavenly, whereas they were gross and carnal
   once. Can ye say that? Oh! all ye members of this congregation, can ye
   say that your hopes and your desires are changed? Are ye looking
   upward, instead of downward? Are you looking to serve God on earth, and
   to enjoy him for ever? Or are you still content with thinking "What ye
   shall eat, and what ye shall drink, and wherewithal ye shall be
   clothed?"

   Again, it is a complete upsetting of all your pleasures. You loved the
   tavern once, you hate it now. You hated God's house once; it is now
   your much-loved habitation. The song, the Sunday newspaper, the lewd
   novel--all these were sweet to your taste; but you have burned the
   books that once enchanted you, and now the dusty Bible from the back of
   the shelf is taken down, and there it lies wide open upon the family
   table, and it is read both morn and night, much loved, much prized and
   delighted in. The Sabbath was once the dullest day of the week to you.
   you either loitered outside the door in your shirt-sleeves, if you were
   poor, or if you were rich you spent the day in your drawing-room, and
   had company in the evening: now, instead thereof, your company you find
   in the church of the living God, and you make the Lord's house the
   drawing-room where you entertain your friends. Your feast is no longer
   a banquet of wine, but a banquet of communion with Christ. There are
   some of you who once loved nothing better than the theater, the low
   concert room, or the casino: over such places you now see a great black
   mark of the curse, and you never go there. You seek now the prayer
   meeting, the church meeting, the gathering of the righteous, the
   habitation of the Lord God of hosts.

   It is marvellous how great a change the gospel makes in a man's house
   too. Why, it turns his house upside down. Look over the
   mantle-piece--There is a vile daub of a picture there, or a wretched
   print, and the subject is worse than the style of the thing. But when
   the man follows Jesus he takes that down, and he gets a print of John
   Bunyan in his prison, or his wife standing before the magistrate, or a
   print of the apostle Paul preaching at Athens, or some good old subject
   representing something Biblical. There is a pack of cards and a
   cribbage board in the cupboard; he turns them out, and instead he puts
   there perhaps the monthly magazine, or mayhaps few works of old
   divines, just here and there one of the publications of the Religious
   Tract Society, or a volume of a Commentary. Every thing is upside down
   there. The children say, "Father is so altered." They never knew such a
   thing. He used to come home sometimes drunk of a night, and the
   children used to run up stairs and be in bed before he came in; and now
   little John and little Sarah sit at the window and watch till he comes
   home; and they go toddling down the street to meet him, and he takes
   one in his arms, and the other by the hand, and brings them home with
   him. He used to teach them to sing "Begone dull care" or something
   worse, now he tells them of "Gentle Jesus meek and mild" or puts into
   their mouth some sweet song of old. A jolly set of companions he used
   to have come to see him, and a roaring party there used to be of them,
   on a Sunday afternoon; but that is all done with. The mother smiles
   upon her husband: she is a happy woman now; she knows that he will no
   longer disgrace himself by plunging into the vilest of society, and
   being seduced into the worst of sins. Now, if you could take a man's
   heart out, and put a new heart right into him, it would not be half so
   good, if it were another natural heart, as the change that God works,
   when he takes out the heart of stone, and puts in a heart of flesh--

   "A heart resigned, submissive, meek,

   Our dear Redeemer's throne

   Where only Christ is heard to speak,

   Where Jesus reigns alone."

   I put, then, the question to you again: Have you been turned upside
   down? How about your companions? You loved those the best who could
   swear the loudest, talk the fastest, and tell the greatest falsehoods:
   now you love those who can pray the most earnestly, and tell you the
   most of Jesus. Everything is changed with you. If you were to meet your
   old self going down the street, you would not know him, except by
   hearsay; you are no relation to him at all. Sometimes the old gentleman
   comes to your house, and he begins to tempt you to go back; but you
   turn him out of doors as soon as you can, and say, "Begone! I never got
   on so long as I knew you; I had a ragged coat to my back then, and I
   was always giving the publican all my money; I never went to God's
   house, but cursed my Maker, and added sin to sin, and tied a mill-stone
   round my neck. So away from me, I will have nothing to do with you; I
   have been buried with Christ, and I have risen with him. I am a new man
   in Christ Jesus, old things have passed away, and behold all things
   have become new."

   I have some here, however, who belong to a different class of society,
   who could not indulge in any of these things; but ah! ladies and
   gentlemen, if you are ever converted, you must have as great a sweeping
   out as the poorest man that ever lived. There must be as true a turning
   upside down in the salvation of an earl, or a duke, or a lord, as in
   the salvation of a pauper or a peasant. There is as much sin in the
   higher ranks as in the lower, and sometimes more, because they have
   more light, more knowledge, more influence, and when they sin, they not
   only damn themselves, but others too. O you that are rich, have you had
   a change too? Have the frivolities of this world become sickening
   things to you? Do you turn away with loathing from the common cant and
   conventionalism of high life? Have you forsaken it? and can you now
   say, "Although I am in the world, yet am I not of it; its pomps and
   vanities I do eschew; its pride and its glory I trample under feet;
   these are nothing to me; I would follow my Master bearing his cross,
   through evil report and through good report?" If such be not the case,
   if you are not changed, remember, there are no exceptions; one truth is
   true for all--"Except ye be born again, ye cannot see the kingdom of
   heaven." And that amounts in substance to my test: except ye be
   thoroughly renewed, turned upside down, ye cannot be saved. "Believe on
   the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;" for he that believeth
   shall be sanctified and renewed--shall he saved at last--but he that
   believeth not must be cast away in the great day of God's account.

   The Lord bless you; for Jesus' sake!
     __________________________________________________________________

                              Human Responsibility

   A Sermon

   (No. 194)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 16, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now
   they have no cloke for their sin."--John 15:22.

   THE PECULIAR SIN of the Jews, the sin which aggravated above everything
   their former iniquities, was their rejection of Jesus Christ as the
   Messiah. He had been very plainly described in the books of the
   prophets, and they who waited for him, such as Simeon and Anna, no
   sooner beheld him even in his infant state, than they rejoiced to see
   him, and understood that God had sent forth his salvation. But because
   Jesus Christ did not answer the expectation of that evil generation
   because he did not come arrayed in pomp and clothed with power, because
   he had not the outward garnishing of a prince and the honors of a king,
   they shut their eyes against him, he was "a root out of a dry ground,"
   he was "despised and they esteemed him not." Nor did their sin stop
   there. Not content with denying his Messiahship, they were exceeding
   hot against him in their anger; they hunted him all his life, seeking
   his blood; nor were they content till their fiendish malice had been
   fully glutted by sitting down at the foot of the cross, and watching
   the dying throes and the expiring agonies of their crucified Messiah.
   Though over the cross itself the words were written, "Jesus of
   Nazareth, the King of the Jews," yet they knew not their king, God's
   everlasting Son; and knowing him not, they crucified him, "for had they
   known him, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."

   Now, the sin of the Jews is every day repeated by the Gentiles; that
   which they did once, many have done every day. Are there not many of
   you now present this day, listening to my voice, who forget the
   Messiah? You do not trouble yourself to deny him; you would not degrade
   yourselves, in what is called a Christian country, by standing up to
   blaspheme his name. Perhaps you hold the right doctrine concerning him,
   and believe him to be the Son of God as well as the Son of Mary; but
   still you neglect his claims, and give him no honor, and do not accept
   him as worthy of your trust. He is not your Redeemer; you are not
   looking for his second advent, nor are you expecting to be saved
   through his blood; nay, even worse; ye are this day crucifying him; for
   know ye not, that as many as put away from them the gospel of Christ,
   do crucify the Lord afresh and open wide his wounds? As often as ye
   hear the Word preached and reject it, as often as ye are warned, and
   stifle the voice of your conscience, as often as ye are made to
   tremble, and yet say, "Go thy way for this time, when I have a more
   convenient season, I will send for thee," so often do you in effect
   grasp the hammer and the nail, and once more pierce the hand, and make
   the blood issue from the side. And their are other ways by which you
   wound him through his members. As often as ye despise his ministers, or
   cast stumbling blocks in the way of his servants, or impede his gospel
   by your evil example, or by your hard words seek to pervert the seeker
   from the way of truth, so often do you commit that great iniquity which
   brought the curse upon the Jew, and which hath doomed him to wander
   through the earth, until the day of the second advent when he shall
   come who shall even by the Jew be acknowledged the King of the Jews,
   for whom both Jew and Gentile are now looking with anxious expectation,
   even Messiah, the Prince who came once to suffer, but who comes again
   to reign.

   And now I shall endeavor this morning to show the parallel between your
   case and that of the Jew; not doing so in set phrase, but yet
   incidentally, as God shall help me; appealing to your conscience, and
   making you feel that in rejecting Christ, you commit the same sin and
   incur the same doom. We shall note, first of all, the excellence of the
   ministry, since Christ comes in it, and speaks to men: "If I had not
   spoken to them." We shall notice, secondly, the aggravation of sin
   caused by the rejection of Christ's message: "If I had not spoken to
   them they had not had sin." Thirdly, the death of all excuses, caused
   by the preaching of the Word: "Now they have no cloke for their sin."
   And then, in the last place, we shall briefly, but very solemnly
   announce the fearfully aggravated doom of those who thus reject the
   Saviour, and increase their guilt by despising him.

   I. In the first place, then, this morning it is ours to say, and to say
   truly too, that in THE PREACHING OF THIS GOSPEL, THERE IS TO MAN'S
   CONSCIENCE THE COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND THE SPEAKING OF THE
   SAVIOUR THROUGH US. When Israel of old despised Moses and murmured
   against him, Moses meekly said, "Ye have not murmured against us, but
   ye have murmured against the Lord God of Israel." And truly the
   minister may, with Scripture warrant, say the same: he that despiseth
   us, despiseth not us, but him that sent us. he who rejecteth the
   message rejecteth not what we say, but rejecteth the message of the
   everlasting God. The minister is but a man; he has no priestly power,
   but he is a man called out of the rest of mankind, and endowed with the
   Holy Spirit, to speak to his fellow-men; and when he preacheth the
   truth as with power sent down from heaven, God owns him by calling him
   his ambassador. and puts him in the high and responsible position of a
   watchman on the walls of Zion, and he bids all men take heed that a
   faithful message, faithfully delivered, when despised and trampled on,
   amounts to rebellion against God, and to sin and iniquity against the
   Most High. As for what I may say, as a man, it is but little that I
   should say it, but if I speak as the Lord's ambassador, take heed that
   ye slight not the message. It is the Word of God sent down from heaven
   which we preach with the power of the Holy Spirit, earnestly beseeching
   you to believe it, and remember, it is at the peril of your own souls
   that you put it from you, for it is not we that speak, but the Spirit
   of the Lord our God who speaketh in us. With what a solemnity does this
   invest the gospel ministry! O ye sons of men, the ministry is not the
   speaking of men, but the speaking of God through men. As many as are
   the real called and sent servants of God, are not the authors of their
   message; but they first hear it from the Master, and they speak it to
   the people, and they see ever before their eyes these solemn
   words--"Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in
   them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear
   thee," and they hear behind them this awful threatening--"If thou warn
   them not they shall perish, but their blood will I require at thine
   hand." Oh! that ye might see written in letters of fire before you this
   day the words of the prophet--"O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of
   the Lord;" for as far as our ministry is true and untainted by error,
   it is God's Word, and it hath the same right and claim to your belief
   as if God himself should speak it from the top of Sinai, instead of
   speaking it through the humble ministry of the Word of God.

   And now let us pause over this doctrine, and let us ask ourselves this
   solemn question. Have we not all of us grossly sinned against God, in
   the neglect that we have often put upon the means of grace? How often
   have you stayed away from the house of God, when God himself was
   speaking there? What would have been the doom of Israel if, when
   summoned on that sacred day to hear the Word of God from the top of the
   mountain, they had perversely rambled into the wilderness, rather than
   attend to hear it? And yet so have you done. You have sought your own
   pleasure, and listened to the syren song of temptation; but ye have
   shut your ear against the voice of the Most High; and when he has
   himself been speaking in his own house, ye have turned aside unto
   crooked ways, and have not regarded the voice of the Lord your God. And
   when ye have come up to the house of God, how often has there been the
   careless eye, the inattentive ear! Ye have heard as though ye heard
   not. Your ear has been penetrated, but the hidden man of the heart has
   been deaf, and you have been like the deaf adder; charm we never so
   wisely, you would not listen nor regard us. God himself has spoken,
   too, at times in your conscience, so that you have heard it. You have
   stood in the aisle, and your knees have knocked together, you have sat
   in your pew, and while some mighty Boanerges has thundered out the
   word, you have heard it said, as with an angel's voice, "Prepare to
   meet thy God--consider thy way--set thine house in order, for thou
   shalt die, and not live." And yet you have gone out of God's house, and
   have forgotten what manner of men you were. You have quenched the
   Spirit, you have done despite to the Spirit of grace; you have put far
   from you the struggles of your conscience; you have throttled those
   infant prayers that were beginning to cry in your heart; you have
   drowned those new-born desires that were just springing up; you have
   put away from you everything that was good and sacred; you have turned
   again to your own ways, and have once more wandered on the mountains of
   sin, and in the valley of iniquity. Ah! my friends, just think, then,
   for a moment, that in all this you have despised God. I am certain, if
   the Holy Spirit would but apply this one solemn truth to your
   consciences this morning, this Hall of Music would be turned into a
   house of mourning, and this place would become a Bochim, a place of
   weeping and lamentation. Oh to have despised God, to have trampled
   under foot the Son of Man, to have passed by his cross, to have
   rejected the wooings of his love and the warnings of his grace! How
   solemn! Did you ever think of this before? You have thought it was but
   despising man, will ye now think of it as despising Christ? For Christ
   has spoken to you. Ah! God is my witness, that oftentimes Christ hath
   wept with these eyes, and spoken to you with these lips. I have sought
   nothing but the winning of your souls. Sometimes with rough words have
   I endeavored to drive you to the cross, and at other times with weeping
   accents have I sought to weep you to my Redeemer; and sure I am, I did
   not speak myself then, but Jesus spoke through me, and inasmuch as ye
   did hear and weep, and then went away and did forget, remember that
   Christ spoke to you. Twas he who said, "Look unto me and be ye saved,
   all the ends of the earth;" twas he who said, "Come unto me, all ye
   that labor and are heavy laden;" twas he who warned you, that if you
   neglected this great salvation you must perish; and in having put away
   the warning and rejected the invitation, you have not despised us, but
   you have despised our Master; and woe unto you, except ye repent, for
   tis a fearful thing to have despised the voice of him that speaketh
   from heaven.

   II. And now we must notice the second point, namely, that THE REJECTION
   OF THE GOSPEL, AGGRAVATES MEN'S SIN. Now, do not let me be
   misunderstood. I have heard of persons who, having gone to the house of
   God, have been filled with a sense of sin, and at last they have been
   driven almost to despair, for Satan has tempted them to forsake the
   house of God; for says he, "The more you go, the more you increase your
   condemnation." Now I believe that this is an error; we do not increase
   our condemnation by going to the house of God; we are far more likely
   to increase it by stopping away; for in stopping away from the house of
   God there is a double rejection of Christ; you reject him even with the
   outward mind, as well as with the inward spirit; you neglect even the
   lying at the pool of Bethesda, you are worse than the man who lay at
   the pool, but could not get in. You will not lie there, and therefore,
   neglecting the hearing of the Word of God, you do indeed incur a
   fearful doom; but if you go up to the house of God, sincerely seeking a
   blessing, if you do not get comfort--if you do not find grace in the
   means, still, if you go there devoutly seeking it, your condemnation is
   not increased thereby. Your sin is not aggravated merely by the hearing
   of the gospel, but by the wilful and wicked rejection of it when it is
   heard. The man who listens to the sound of the gospel, and after having
   heard it, turns upon his heel with a laugh, or who, after hearing time
   after time, and being visibly affected, allows the cares and the
   pleasures of this wicked life, to come in and choke the seed--such a
   man does in a fearful measure increase his guilt.

   And now we will just notice why, in a two-fold measure, he does this.
   Because, in the first place he gets a new sin altogether, that he never
   had before and beside that, he aggravates all his other sins. Bring me
   here a Hottentot, or a man from Kamschatka, a wild savage who has never
   listened to the Word. That man may have every sin in the catalogue of
   guilt except one; but that one I am sure he has not. He has not the sin
   of rejecting the gospel when it is preached to him. But you, when you
   hear the gospel, have an opportunity for committing a fresh sin; and if
   you have rejected it, you have added a fresh iniquity to all those
   others that hang about your neck. I have often been rebuked by certain
   men who have erred from the truth, for preaching the doctrine that it
   is a sin in men, if they reject the gospel of Christ. I care for every
   opprobrious title: I am certain that I have the warrant of God's Word
   in so preaching, and I do not believe that any man can be faithful to
   men's souls and clear of their blood, unless he bears his frequent and
   Solemn testimony upon this vital subject. "When he, the Spirit of
   truth, is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness,
   and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me." "And this is
   the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved
   darkness rather than light." "He that believeth not is condemned
   already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten
   Son of God." "If I had not done among them the works which none other
   man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated
   both me and my Father." "Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee,
   Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
   which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented,
   sitting in sack-cloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more
   tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment, than for you." "If I had
   not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have
   no cloke for their sin." "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest
   heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let
   them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every
   transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward.
   how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" "He that
   despised Moses law died without mercy under two or three witnesses; of
   how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who
   hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of
   the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath
   done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said,
   Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompence, saith the Lord. And
   again, the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall
   into the hands of the living God." I have been quoting, you see, some
   scripture passages, and if they do not mean that unbelief is a sin, and
   the sin, which, above all others, damns men's souls, they do not mean
   anything at all, but they are just a dead letter in the Word of God.
   Now, adultery and murder and theft, and lying--all these are damning,
   and deadly sins; but repentance can cleanse all these, through the
   blood of Christ. But to reject Christ, destroys a man hopelessly. The
   murderer, the thief, the drunkard, may yet enter the kingdom of heaven,
   if, repenting of his sins, he will lay hold on the cross of Christ, but
   with these sins, a man is inevitably lost, if he believeth not on the
   Lord Jesus Christ.

   And now, my hearers, will you consider for one moment what an awful sin
   this is, which you add to all your other sins. Everything lies in the
   bowels of this sin--the rejecting of Christ. There is murder in this;
   for if the man on the scaffold rejects a pardon, does he not murder
   himself? There is pride in this; for you reject Christ, because your
   proud hearts have turned you aside. There is rebellion in this; for we
   rebel against God when we reject Christ. There is high treason in this;
   for you reject a king; you put far from you, him, who is crowned king
   of the earth, and you incur therefore the weightiest of all guilt. Oh!
   to think that the Lord Jesus should come from heaven--to think for a
   moment that he should hang upon the tree--that there he should die in
   agonies extreme, and that from that cross he should this day look down
   upon you, and should say, "Come unto me, ye weary and ye heavy laden;"
   that you should still turn away from him,--it is the unkindest stab of
   all. What more brutish, what more devilish, than to turn away from him
   who gave his life for you? Oh that ye were wise, that ye understood
   this, that ye would consider your latter end!

   But again, we do not only add a new sin to the catalogs of guilt but we
   aggravate all the rest. You cannot sin so cheap as other people, you,
   who have had the gospel. When the unenlightened and ignorant sin, their
   conscience does not prick them; and there is not that guilt in the sin
   of the ignorant, that there is in the sin of the enlightened. Did you
   steal before? that was bad enough; but hear the gospel and continue a
   thief, and you are a thief indeed. Did you lie before you heard the
   gospel? The liar shall have his portion in the lake; but he after
   hearing it: and it seems as if the fire of Tophet should be fanned up
   to a seven-fold fury. He who sins ignorantly, hath some little excuse;
   but he who sins against light and knowledge, sins presumptuously; and
   under the law there was no atonement for this, for presumptuous sins
   were out of the pole of legal atonement, although blessed be God,
   Christ hath atoned for even these, and he that believeth shall be
   saved, despite even his guilt. Oh! I beseech you, recollect that the
   sin of unbelief blackens every other sin. It is like Jeroboam. It is
   said of him, he sinned and made Israel to sin. So unbelief sins itself
   and leads to every other sin. Unbelief is the file by which you sharpen
   the axe; and the coulter, and the sword, which you use in rebellion
   against the Most High. Your sins become more exceeding sinful, the more
   you disbelieve in Christ, the more you know of him, and the longer you
   reject him. This is God's truth; but a truth that is to be spoken with
   reluctance, and with many groanings in our spirits. Oh to have such a
   message to deliver to you, to you I say, for if there be a people under
   heaven to whom my text applies, it is you. If there is one race of men
   in the world, who have more to account for than others, it is
   yourselves. There are doubtless others, who are on an equality with
   you, who sit under a faithful and earnest ministry; but as God shall
   judge betwixt you and me at the great day, to the utmost of my power I
   have been faithful to your souls. I have never in this pulpit sought by
   hard words, by technical language, to magnify my own wisdom. I have
   spoken to you plainly; and not a word, to the best of my knowledge, has
   escaped these lips, which every one of you could not understand. You
   have had a simple gospel. I have not stood here and preached coldly to
   you. I could say as I came up yon stairs, "The burden of the Lord was
   upon me;" for my heart has come here heavy, and my soul has been hot
   within me, and when I have preached feebly, my words may have been
   uncouth, and the language far from proper, but heart never has been
   wanting. This whole soul has spoken to you; and if I could have
   ransacked heaven and earth to find language that might have won you to
   the Saviour, I would have done so. I have not shunned to reprove you, I
   have never minced matters. I have spoken to this age of its iniquities,
   and to you of your sins I have not softened down the Bible to suit the
   carnal tastes of men. I have said damn, where God said damn--I have not
   sweetened it into "condemn." I have not minced matters, nor endeavored
   to veil or conceal the truth, but as to every man's conscience in the
   sight of God, have I endeavored to commend the gospel, earnestly and
   with power, and with a plain, outspoken, earnest, and honest ministry.
   I have not kept back the glorious doctrines of grace, although by
   preaching them the enemies of the cross have called me an Antinomian;
   nor have I been afraid to preach man's solemn responsibility, although
   another tribe have slandered me as an Arminian. And in saying this, I
   say it not in a way of glorying, but I say it for your rebuke, if you
   have rejected the gospel, for you shall have sinned far above that of
   any other men; in casting away Christ, a double measure of the fury of
   the wrath of God shall fall on you. Sin, then, is aggravated by the
   rejection of Christ.

   III. And now, in the third place, THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST
   TAKES AWAY ALL EXCUSE FROM THOSE WHO HEAR IT AND REJECT IT. "Now have
   they no cloke for their sin." A cloak is a very poor covering for sin,
   when there is an all-seeing eye to look through it. In the great day of
   the tempest of God's wrath a cloak will be a very poor shelter; but
   still man is always fond of a cloak. In the day of cold and rain we see
   men gathering their cloaks about them, and if they have no shelter and
   no refuge, still they feel a little comforted by their garment. And so
   it is with you; you will gather together, if you can, an excuse for
   your sin, and when conscience pricks you, you seek to heal the wound
   with an excuse. And even in the day of judgment although a cloak will
   be a sorry covering, yet it will be better than nothing at all. "But
   now ye have no cloke for your sin." The traveler is left in the rain
   without his covering, exposed to the tempest without that garment which
   once did shelter him. "Now ye have no cloke for your sin,"--discovered,
   detected, and unmasked, ye are left inexcusible, without a cloak for
   your iniquity. And now let me just notice how the preaching of the
   gospel, when it is faithfully performed, takes away all cloaks for sin.

   In the first place, one man might get up and say, "I did not know I was
   doing wrong when I committed such and such an iniquity." Now, that you
   cannot say. God has by his law told you solemnly what is wrong. There
   stand the ten commandments; and there stands the comment of our Master
   where he has enlarged upon the commandment, and told us that the old
   law "thou shalt not commit adultery," forbad also all sins of the
   lascivious look and the evil eye. If the Sepoy commits iniquity, there
   is a cloak for it. I doubt not that his conscience tells him that he
   does wrong, but his sacred books teach that he is doing right, and
   therefore he has that cloak. If the Mahommedan commits lust, I doubt
   not his conscience doth prick him, but his sacred books give him
   liberty. But you profess to believe your Bibles, and have them in your
   houses, and have the preachers of them in all your streets; and
   therefore when you sin, you sin with the proclamation of the law upon
   the very wall, before your eyes--you do wilfully violate a well-known
   law which has come from heaven, and come to you.

   Again, you might say, "When I sinned, I did not know how great would be
   the punishment." Of this also, by the gospel, you are left without
   excuse; for did not Jesus Christ tell you, and does he not tell you
   every day, that those who will not have him shall be cast into outer
   darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth? Hath he not
   said, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the
   righteous into life eternal?" Does he not himself declare that the
   wicked shall be burned up with unquenchable fire? Has he not told you
   of a place where their worm dieth not and where their fire is not
   quenched? And the ministers of the gospel have not shunned to tell you
   this too. You have sinned, though you knew you would be lost by it. You
   have taken the poisonous draught, not thinking that it was harmless you
   knew that every drop in the cup was scalding with damnation, and yet
   you have taken the cup and drained it to its dregs. You have destroyed
   your own souls with your eyes open; you have gone like a fool to the
   stocks, like an ox to the slaughter, and like a lamb you have licked
   the knife of the butcher. In this, then, you are left without excuse.

   But some of you may say, "Ah, I heard the gospel, it is true, and I
   knew that I was doing wrong, but I did not know what I must do to be
   saved." Is there one among you who can urge such an excuse as this?
   Methinks you will not have the impudence to do so. "Believe and live,"
   is preached every day in your hearing. Many of you these ten, twenty,
   thirty, forty, or fifty years have been hearing the gospel, and you
   dare not say, "I did not know what the gospel was." From your earliest
   childhood many of you have listened to it. The name of Jesus was
   mingled with the hush of lullaby. You drank in a holy gospel with your
   mother's milk and yet despite all that, you have never sought Christ.
   "Knowledge is power," men say. Alas! Knowledge, when not used, is
   wrath, WRATH, WRATH to the uttermost, against the man who knows, and
   yet doth that which he knoweth to be wrong.

   Methinks I can hear another say, "Well, I heard the gospel preached,
   but I never had a good example set me." Some of you may say that, and
   it would be partially true; but there are others of you, concerning
   whom I may say that this would be a lying excuse. Ah! man; you have
   been very fond of speaking of the inconsistencies of Christians. You
   have said, "They do not live as they ought;" and alas, there is too
   much truth in what you have said. But there was one Christian whom you
   knew, and whose character you were compelled to admire; do not you
   remember her? It was the mother who brought you forth. That has always
   been the one difficulty with you up to this day. You could have
   rejected the gospel very easily, but your mother's example stood before
   you, and you could not overcome that. Do you not remember amongst the
   first early darklings of your recollection, how you opened your little
   eyes in the morning and you saw a mother's loving face looking down
   upon you, and you caught her with a tear in her eye, and you heard her
   say, "God bless the child, may he call the Redeemer blessed!" You
   remember how your father did often chide you; she did seldom chide, but
   she often spoke in tones of love. Recollect that little upper room
   where she took you aside, and putting her arms round your neck,
   dedicated you to God, and prayed that the Lord would save you in your
   childhood. Remember the letter she gave you, and your book in which she
   wrote your name when you left the parental roof to go abroad, and the
   sorrow with which she wrote to you when she heard you had begun to
   plunge in gaiety and mix with the ungodly: recollect that sorrowful
   look with which she did wring your hand the last time you left her.
   Remember how she said to you, "You will bring my hairs with sorrow to
   the grave, if you walk in the ways of iniquity." Well, you knew that
   what she said was not cant; there was reality in that. You could laugh
   at the minister, you could say it was his business, but at her you
   could not scoff; she was a Christian, there was no mistake about it.
   How often did she put up with your angry temper, and bear with your
   rough manners, for she was a sweet spirit, almost too good for
   earth--and you recollect that. You were not there when she was dying,
   you could not arrive in time; but she said to her friend as she was
   dying, "There is only one thing that I want, then I could die
   happy--oh, that I could see my children walking in the truth." Now, I
   apprehend such an example leaves you without a cloak for your
   wickedness, and if you commit iniquity after that, how fearful! must be
   the weight of your woe.

   But others of you can say that you had no such mother; your first
   school was the street, and the first example you ever had was that of a
   swearing father. Recollect, my friend, there is one perfect
   example--Christ, and that you have read of, though you have not seen
   him. Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, was a perfect man; in him was
   there no sin, neither was there guile in his mouth. And if you have
   never seen anything like Christian worth any where else, yet you can
   see it in Christ; and in venturing such an excuse as this, remember you
   have ventured upon a lie, for the example of Christ, the works of
   Christ, as well as the words of Christ, leave you without excuse for
   your sin.

   Ah, and I think I hear one more excuse offered, and that is this:
   "Well, I certainly had many advantages, but they were never sent home
   to my conscience so that I felt them." Now, there are very few of you
   here who can say that. Some of you will say, "Yes, I heard the
   minister, but he never made an impression upon me." Ah, young men and
   young women, and all of you this morning, I must be a witness against
   you in the day of judgment that this is untrue. For, but now, your
   consciences were touched; did I not see some soft tears of
   repentance--I trust they were such--flowing but just now. No, you have
   not always been unmoved by the gospel you have grown old now, and it
   takes a deal to stir you, but it was not always so There was a time in
   your youth, when you were very susceptible of impressing. Remember, the
   sins of your youth will cause your bones to rot, if you have still
   persevered in rejecting the gospel. Your old heart has grown hard,
   still you are with out excuse; you did feel once, ay, and even now you
   cannot help feeling. I know there are some of you that can scarcely
   keep your seats at the thought of your iniquities; and you have almost
   vowed, some of you, that this day you will seek God, and the first
   thing you will do, will be to climb to your chamber, and shut the door,
   and seek the Lord. Ah, but I remember a story of one, who remarked to a
   minister, what a wonderful thing it was to see so many people weeping.
   "Nay," said he, "I will tell you something more wonderful still, that
   so many will forget all they wept about when they get outside the
   door." And you will do this. Still, when you have done it, you will
   recollect that you have not been without the strivings of God's Spirit.
   You will remember that God has, this morning, as it were, put a hurdle
   across your road, digged a ditch in your way, and put up a hand-post,
   and said, "Take warning! beware, beware, beware! you are rushing madly
   into the ways of iniquity!" And I have come before you this morning,
   and in God s name I have said, " Stop, stop, stop, thus saith the Lord,
   consider your ways, why will ye die? Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die
   O house of Israel?" And, now, if ye will put this from you, it must be
   even so; if you will put out these sparks, if ye will quench this first
   burning torch, it must be so! On your own head be your blood; at your
   own door lay your iniquities.

   IV. But now I have one thing more to do. And it is awful work; for I
   have as it were to PUT ON THE BLACK CAP AND PRONOUNCE THE SENTENCE OF
   CONDEMNATION. For those who live and die rejecting Christ there is a
   most fearful doom. They shall perish with an utter destruction. There
   are degrees of punishment; but the highest degree is given to the man
   who rejects Christ. You have noticed that passage, I dare say, that the
   liar and the whoremonger, and drunkards shall have their portion--whom
   do you suppose with?--with unbelievers; as if hell was made first of
   all for unbelievers--as if the pit was digged not for whoremongers, and
   swearers, and drunkards, but for men who despise Christ, because that
   is the A 1 sin, the cardinal vice, and men are condemned for that.
   Other iniquities come following after them, but this one goes before
   them to judgment. Imagine for a moment that time has passed, and that
   the day of judgment is come. We are all gathered together, both quick
   and dead. The trumpet-blast waxes exceeding loud and long. We are all
   attentive, expecting something marvellous. The exchange stands still in
   its business; the shop is deserted by the tradesman; the crowded
   streets are filled. All men stand still; they feel that the last great
   business-day is come, and that now they must settle their accounts for
   ever. A solemn stillness fills the air: no sound is heard. All, all is
   noiseless. Presently a great white cloud with solemn state sails
   through the sky, and then--hark! the twofold clamor of the startled
   earth. On that cloud there sits one like unto the Son of Man. Every eye
   looks, and at last there is heard a unanimous shout--"It is he! It is
   he!" and after that you hear on the one hand, shouts of "Hallelujah,
   Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome Son of God." But
   mixed with that there is a deep bass, composed of the weeping and the
   wailing of the men who have persecuted him, and who have rejected him.
   Listen! I think I can dissect the sonnet, I think I can hear the words
   as they come separately, each one of them, tolling like a death knell
   What say they? They say, "Rocks hide us, mountains fall upon us, hide
   us from the face of Him that sits upon the throne." And shall you be
   among the number of those who say to the rocks "Hide us?"

   My impenitent hearer, I suppose for a moment that you have gone out of
   this world, and that you have died impenitent, and that you are among
   those who are weeping, and wailing, and gnashing their teeth. Oh! what
   will then be your terror! Blanched cheeks, and knocking knees are
   nothing, compared to thy horror of heart, when thou shalt be drunken,
   but not with wine and when thou shalt reel to and fro, with the
   intoxication of amazement, and shall fall down, and roll in the dust
   for horror and dismay. For there he comes, and there he is, with
   fierce, fire-darting eye; and now the time is come for the great
   division. The voice is heard, "Gather my people from the four winds of
   heaven, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth." They are gathered at
   the right hand, and there they are. And now saith he, "Gather up the
   tares, and bind them in bundles to burn." And you are gathered, and on
   the left hand there you are, gathered into the bundle. All that is
   wanted is the lighting of the pile. Where shall be the torch that shall
   kindle them? The tares are to be burned: where is the flame? The flame
   comes out of his mouth, and it is composed of words like
   these--"Depart, ye cursed into everlasting fire, in hell, prepared for
   the devil and his angels." Do you linger? "Depart!" Do you seek a
   blessing? "Ye are cursed." I curse you with a curse. Do ye seek to
   escape? It is everlasting fire. Do ye stop and plead? No, "I called,
   and ye refused; I stretched out my hands, and ye regarded me not,
   therefore I will mock at your calamity, I will laugh when your fear
   cometh. "Depart, again, I say; depart for ever!" And you are gone. And
   what is your reflection? Why, it is this: "Oh! would to God that I
   never had been born! Oh! that I had never heard the gospel preached,
   that I might never have had the sin of rejecting it!" This will be the
   gnawing of the worm in your conscience--"I knew better but I did not do
   better."--As I sowed the wind, it is right I should reap the whirlwind;
   I was checked, but I would not be stopped; I was wooed, but I would not
   be invited. Now I see that I have murdered myself Oh! thought above all
   thoughts most deadly. I am lost, lost, lost! And this is the horror of
   horrors: I have caused myself to be lost; I have put from me the gospel
   of Christ; I have destroyed myself.

   Shall this be so with thee, my hearer? Shall this be so with thee? I
   pray it may not! O may the Holy Spirit now constrain thee to come to
   Jesus, for I know that thou art too vile to yield, unless he compels
   thee. But I hope for thee. Methinks I hear thee say, "What must I do to
   be saved?" Let me tell you the way of salvation, and then farewell. If
   thou wouldest be saved, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou
   shalt be saved;" for the Scripture says, "He that believeth and is
   baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned!" There
   he hangs, dying on his cross! look to him and live.

   "Venture on him, venture wholly,

   Let no other trust intrude;

   None but Jesus

   Can do helpless sinners good."

   Be you wicked, filthy, depraved degraded, you are still invited to
   Christ. The devil's castaways Christ takes in--the offscouring, the
   dross, the scum, the draff, the sewerage of this world, is now invited
   to Christ. Come to him now, and obtain mercy. But if ye harden your
   hearts,

   "The Lord in anger dress'd

   Shall lift his hand and swear,

   'You that despis'd my promis'd rest,

   Shall have no portion there.'"
     __________________________________________________________________

                               Looking Unto Jesus

   A Sermon

   (No. 195)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 23, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not
   ashamed."--Psalm 34:5.

   FROM THE CONNECTION we are to understand the pronoun "him" as referring
   to the word "Lord" in the preceding verse. "They looked unto the Lord
   Jehovah, and were lightened." But no man ever yet looked to Jehovah
   God, as he is in himself, and found any comfort in him, for "our God is
   a consuming fire." An absolute God, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ,
   can afford no comfort whatever to a troubled heart. We may look to him,
   and we shall be blinded, for the light of Godhead is insufferable, and
   as mortal eye cannot fix its gaze upon the sun, no human intellect
   could ever look unto God, and find light, for the brightness of God
   would strike the eye of the mind with eternal blindness. The only way
   in which are can see God is through the Mediator Jesus Christ.

   "Till God in human flesh I see,

   My thoughts no comfort find,--"

   God shrouded and veiled in the manhood,--there we can with steady gaze
   behold him, for so he cometh down to us, and our poor finite
   intelligence can understand and lay hold upon him. I shall therefore
   use my text this morning, and I think very legitimately, in reference
   to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ--"They looked unto him, and were
   lightened;" for when we look at God, as revealed in Jesus Christ our
   Lord, and behold the Godhead as it is apparent in the Incarnate Man,
   who was born of the Virgin Mary, and was crucified by Pontius Pilate,
   we do see that which enlightens the mind, and casts rays of comfort
   into our awakened heart.

   And now this morning, I shall first invite you, in order to illustrate
   my text, to look to Jesus Christ in his life on earth, and I hope there
   are some of you who will be lightened by that. We shall then look to
   him on his cross. Afterwards we shall look to him in his resurrection.
   We shall look to him in his intercession; and lastly, we shall look to
   him in his second coming; and it may be, as with faithful eye we look
   upon him, the verse shall be fulfilled in our experience, which is the
   best proof of a truth, when we prove it to be true in our own hearts,
   We shall "look unto him" and we shall "be lightened."

   I. First, then, we shall LOOK TO THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IN HIS LIFE. And
   here the troubled saint will find the most to enlighten him. In the
   example, in the patience, in the sufferings of Jesus Christ, there are
   stars of glory to cheer the midnight darkness of the sky of your
   tribulation. Come hither, ye children of God and whatever now are your
   distresses, whether they be temporal or spiritual, you shall, in the
   life of Jesus Christ and his sufferings, find sufficient to cheer and
   comfort you, if the Holy Spirit shall now open your eyes to look unto
   him. Perhaps I have among my congregation, indeed I am sure I have,
   some who are plunged in the depths of poverty. You are the children of
   toil; with much sweat of your brow you eat your bread; the heavy yoke
   of oppression galls your neck; perhaps at this time you are suffering
   the very extremity of hunger; you are pinched with famine, and though
   in the house of God, your body complains, for you feel that you are
   brought very low. Look unto Him, thou poor distressed brother in Jesus;
   look unto Him, and be lightened.

   "Why dost thou complain of want or distress,

   Temptation or pain?--he told thee no less;

   The heirs of salvation, we know from his word,

   Through much tribulation must follow their Lord."

   See him there! Forty days he fasts and he hungers. See him again, he
   treads the weary way, and at last all athirst he sits upon the curb of
   the well of Sychar and he the Lord of glory, he who holds the clouds in
   the hollow of his hand, said to a woman, "Give me to drink." And shall
   the servant be above his master, and the disciple above his Lord? If he
   suffered hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, O heir of poverty, be of
   good cheer; in all these thou hast fellowship with Jesus; therefore be
   comforted, and look unto him and be lightened.

   Perhaps your trouble is of another caste. You have come here to-day
   smarting from the forked tongue of that adder--slander. Your character,
   though pure and spotless before God, seems to be lost before man; for
   that foul slanderous thing hath sought to take away that which is
   dearer to you than life itself, your character, your good fame; and you
   are this day filled with bitterness and made drunken with wormwood,
   because you have been accused of crimes which your soul loathes. Come,
   thou child of mourning, this indeed is a heavy blow; poverty is like
   Solomon's whip, but slander is like the scorpion of Rehoboam, to fall
   into the depths of poverty is to have it on thy little finger, but to
   be slandered is to have it on thy loins. But in all this thou mayest
   have comfort from Christ. Come and look unto him and be lightened. The
   King of kings was called a Samaritan; they said of him that he had a
   devil and was mad; and yet infinite wisdom dwelt in him, though he was
   charged with madness. And was he not ever pure and holy? And did they
   not call him a drunken man and a wine-bibber? He was his father's
   glorious Son and yet they said he did cast out devils through Beelzebub
   the prince of the devils. Come! poor slandered one; wipe that tear
   away! "If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much
   more shall they call they of his household?" If they had honored him,
   then might you have expected that they would honor you, but inasmuch as
   they mocked him and took away his glory and his character blush not to
   bear the reproach and the shame, for he is with you, carrying his cross
   before you, and that cross was heavier than yours. Look, then, unto him
   and be lightened.

   But I hear another say, "Ah! but my trouble is worse than either of
   those. I am not to-day smarting from slander, nor am I burdened with
   penury; but, sir, the hand of God lies heavy upon me, he hath brought
   my sins to my remembrance; he hath taken away the bright shining of his
   countenance; once I did believe in him, and could read my title clear
   to mansions in the skies,' but to-day I am brought very low; he hath
   lifted me up and cast me down; like a wrestler, he has elevated me that
   he might dash me to the ground with the greater force, my bones are
   sore vexed, and my spirit within me is melted with anguish." Come, my
   tried brother, "look unto him and be lightened." No longer groan over
   thine own miseries, but come thou with me and look unto him, if thou
   canst. Seest thou the garden of Olives? It is a cold night, and the
   ground is crisp beneath thy feet for the frost is hard; and there in
   the gloom of the olive garden, kneels thy Lord. Listen to him. Canst
   thou understand the music of his groans, the meaning of his sighs?
   Sure, thy griefs are not so heavy as his were, when drops of blood were
   forced through his skin, and a bloody sweat did stain the ground! Say,
   are thy wrestlings greater than his? If; then, he had to combat with
   the powers of darkness, expect to do so also; and look thou to him in
   the last solemn hour of his extremity, and hear him say, "My God, my
   God, why hast thou forsaken me?" And when thou hast heard that, murmur
   not, as though some strange thing had happened to thee as if thou hast
   to join in his "lama subbacthani," and hast to sweat some few drops of
   his bloody sweat. "They looked unto him, and were lightened."

   But, possibly I may have here some one who is much persecuted by man.
   "Ah!" saith one, "I cannot practice my religion with comfort. My
   friends have turned against me; I am mocked, and jeered, and reviled,
   for Christ's sake." Come, Christian, be not afraid of all this, but,
   "look unto him, and be lightened." Remember how they persecuted him.
   Oh! think thou of the shame and spitting, the plucking off the hair,
   the reviling of the soldiers; think thou of that fearful march through
   the streets, when every man did hoot him, and when even they that were
   crucified with him did revile him. Hast thou been worse treated than
   he? Methinks this is enough to make you gird your armor on once more.
   Why need you blush to be as much dishonored as your Master? It was this
   thought that cheered the martyrs of old. They that fought the bloody
   fight, knew they should win the blood-red crown--that ruby crown of
   martyrdom; therefore they did endure, as seeing him who is invisible;
   for this ever cheered and comforted them. They remembered him who had
   "endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that they might
   not be weary or faint in their minds." They "resisted unto blood,
   striving against sin;" for they knew their Master had done the same,
   and his example did comfort them. I am persuaded beloved brothers and
   sisters, that if we looked more to Christ, our troubles would not
   become anything like so black. In the darkest night, looking to Christ
   will clear the ebony sky; when the darkness seems thick, like that of
   Egypt, darkness that might be felt, like solid pillars of ebony, even
   then, like a bright lightning flash, as bright but not as transient,
   will a look to Jesus prove. One glimpse at him, may well suffice for
   all our toils, while on the road. Cheered by his voice, nerved by his
   strength, we are prepared to do and suffer, even as he did, to the
   death, if he will be with us, even unto the end. This, then, is our
   first point. We trust that those of you, who are weary Christians, will
   not forget to "look unto him, and be lightened."

   II. And now I have to invite you to a more dreary sight; but, strange
   it is just as the sight becomes more black, so to us, does it grow more
   bright. The more deeply the Saviour dived into the depths of misery,
   the brighter were the pearls which he brought up--the greater his
   griefs, the greater our joys, and the deeper his dishonor, the brighter
   our glories. Come, then--and this time I shall ask poor, doubting,
   trembling sinners and saints, to come with me,--come ye now to
   Calvary's cross. There, on the summit of that little hill, outside the
   gates of Jerusalem, where common criminals were ordinarily put to
   death--the Tyburn of Jerusalem, the Old Bailey of that city, where
   criminals were executed--there stand three crosses; the center one is
   reserved for one who is reputed to be the greatest of criminals. See
   there! They have nailed him to the cross. It is the Lord of life and
   glory, before whose feet angels delight to pour full vials of glory
   They have nailed him to the cross: he hangs there in mid-heaven, dying,
   bleeding; he is thirsty, and he cries. They bring him vinegar and
   thrust it into his mouth. He is in suffering, and he needs sympathy,
   but they mock at him, and they say, "He saved others; himself he cannot
   save." They misquote his words, they challenge him now to destroy the
   temple, and build it in three days; while the very thing was being
   fulfilled, they taunt him with his powerlessness to accomplish it. How
   see him, ere the veil is drawn over agonies too black for eye to
   behold. See him now! Was ever face marred like that face? Was ever
   heart so big with agony? And did eyes ever seem so pregnant with the
   fire of suffering, as those great wells of fiery agony? Come and behold
   him, come and look to him now. The sun is eclipsed, refusing to behold
   him! earth quakes; the dead rise; the horrors of his sufferings have
   startled earth itself,

   "He dies! the friend of sinners dies;"

   And we invite you to look to this scene that you may be lightened. What
   are your doubts this morning? Whatever they be, they can find a kind
   and fond solution here, by looking at Christ on the cross. You have
   come here, perhaps, doubting God's mercy; look to Christ upon the
   cross, and can you doubt it then? If God were not full of mercy, and
   plenteous in his compassion, would he have given his Son to bleed and
   die? Think you, that a Father would rend his darling from his heart and
   nail him to a tree, that he might suffer an ignominious death for our
   sakes, and yet be hard, merciless, and without pity? God forbid the
   impious thought! There must be mercy in the heart of God, or else there
   had never been a cross on Calvary.

   But do you doubt God's power to save! Are you saying in yourself this
   morning, "How can he forgive so great a sinner as I am?" Oh! look
   there, sinner, look there, to the great atonement made, to the utmost
   ransom paid. Dost thou think that that blood has not an efficacy to
   pardon and to justify. True, without that cross it had been an
   unanswerable question,--"How can God be just, and yet the justifier of
   the ungodly?" But see there the bleeding substitute! and know that God
   has accepted his sufferings as an equivalent for the woes of all
   believers; and then thy spirit dare to think, if it can, that there is
   not sufficient in the blood of Christ, to enable God to vindicate his
   justice, and yet to have mercy upon sinners.

   But I know you say, "My doubt is not of his general mercy, nor of his
   power to forgive, but of his willingness to forgive me." Now I beseech
   you, by him that liveth and was dead, do not this morning look into
   your own heart in order to find an answer to that difficulty; do not
   now sit down and look at your sins; they have brought you into the
   danger--they cannot bring you out of it. The best answer you will ever
   get, is at the foot of the cross. Sit down, when you get home this
   morning, for half-an-hour, in quiet contemplation, sit at the foot of
   the cross, and contemplate the dying Saviour, and I will defy you then
   to say, "I doubt his love to me." Looking at Christ begets faith. You
   cannot believe on Christ except as you see him, and if you look to him
   you will learn that he is able to save; you will learn his
   loving-kindness; and you cannot doubt him after having once beheld him.
   Dr. Watts says,

   "His worth, if all the nations knew,

   Sure the whole world would love him too;"

   and I am sure it is quite true if I read it another way--

   "His worth, if all the nations knew

   Sure the whole world would trust him too."

   Oh, that you would look to him now, and your doubts would soon be
   removed; for there is nothing that so speedily kills all doubt and
   fear, as a look into the loving eye of the bleeding, dying Lord. "Ah,"
   says one, "but my doubts are concerning my own salvation in this
   respect; I cannot be so holy as I want to be." "I have tried very
   much," says one, "to get rid of all my sins, and I cannot; I have
   labored to live without wicked thoughts, and without unholy acts, and I
   still find that my heart is deceitful above all things;' and I wander
   from God. Surely I cannot be saved, while I am like this?" Stay! Look
   to him, and be lightened. What business have you to be looking to
   yourself? The first business of a sinner is not with himself, but with
   Christ. Your business is to come to Christ, sick, weary, and
   soul-diseased, and ask Christ to cure you. You are not to be your own
   physician, and then go to Christ, but just as you are; the only
   salvation for you is to trust implicitly, simply, nakedly, on Christ.
   As I sometimes put it--make Christ the only pillar of your hope, and
   never seek to buttress or prop him up. "He is able, he is willing." All
   he asks of you is just to trust him. As for your good works, they shall
   come afterwards. They are after-fruits of the Spirit: but your first
   business is not to do, but to believe. Look to Jesus, and put your only
   trust in him. "Oh," another cries, "Sir, I am afraid I do not feel my
   need of a Saviour as I ought." Looking to yourselves again! all looking
   to yourselves you see! This is all wrong. Our doubts and fears all
   arise from this cause--we will turn our eyes the wrong way just look to
   the cross again, just as the poor thief did when he was dying; he said,
   "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." Do the same. You
   may tell him if you please, that you do not feel your need of him as
   you ought; you may put this among your other sins, that you fear you
   have not a right sense of your great and enormous guilt. You may add to
   all your confessions, this cry "Lord help me to confess my sins better;
   help me to feel them more penitently." But recollect, it is not your
   repentance that saves you; it is just the blood of Christ, streaming
   from his hands, and feet, and side. Oh! I beseech you by him whose
   servant I am, this morning turn your eyes to the cross of Christ. There
   he hangs this day; he is lifted up in your midst. As Moses lifted up
   the serpent in the wilderness, even so is the Son of Man lifted up
   to-day in your eyes, that whosoever believeth in him may not perish,
   but have everlasting life.

   And you children of God, I turn to you, for you have your doubts too.
   Would you get rid of them? Would you rejoice in the Lord with faith
   unmoved and confidence unshaken? Then look to Jesus; look again to him
   and you shall be lightened. I know not how it is with you my beloved
   friends, but I very often find myself in a doubting frame of mind; and
   it seems to be a question whether I have any love to Christ or not. And
   despite the fact that some laugh at the hymn, It is a hymn that I am
   forced to sing:--

   "Tis a point I long to know,

   Oft it causes anxious thought!

   Do I love the Lord or not

   Am I his, or am I not?"

   And really I am convinced that every Christian has his doubts at times,
   and that the people who do not doubt are just the people that ought to
   doubt; for he who never doubts about his state perhaps may do so when
   it is too late. I knew a man who said he never had a doubt for thirty
   years. I told him that I knew a person who never had a doubt about him
   for thirty years. "How is that?" said he "that is strange." He thought
   it a compliment. I said, "I knew a man who never had a doubt about you
   for thirty years. He knew you were always the most confounded hypocrite
   he ever met; he had no doubt about you." But this man had no doubt
   about himself: he was a chosen child of God, a great favourite of the
   Most High; he loved the doctrine of Election, wrote it on his very
   brow; and yet he was the hardest driver and the most cruel oppressor to
   the poor I ever met with, and when brought to poverty himself, he might
   very frequently be seen rolling through the streets. And this man had
   not a doubt for thirty years; and yet the best people are always
   doubting. Some of those who are just living outside the gates of
   heaven, are afraid of being cast into hell after all; while those
   people who are on the high road to the pit are not the least afraid.
   However, if you would get rid of your doubts once more, turn to Christ.
   You know what Dr. Carey had put on his tomb-stone--just these words,
   for they were his comfort;--

   "A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,

   Into Christ's arms I fall;

   He is my strength and righteousness,

   My Jesus and my all."

   Remember what that eminent Scotch divine said, when he was dying. Some
   one said to him, "What, are you dying now?" Said he, "I am just
   gathering all my good works up together, and I am throwing them all
   overboard; and I am lashing myself to the plank of free grace, and I
   hope to swim to glory on it." So do you do; every day keep your eye
   only on Christ; and so long as your eye is single, your whole body must
   and shall be full of light. But if you once look cross-eyed, first to
   yourself and then to Christ, your whole body shall be full of darkness.
   Remember, then, Christian, to hie away to the cross. When that great
   black dog of hell is after you, away to the cross! Go where the sheep
   goes when he is molested by the dog; go to the shepherd. The dog is
   afraid of the shepherd's crook; you need not be afraid of it, it is one
   of the things that shall comfort you. "Thy rod and thy staff they
   comfort me." Away to the cross, my brothers! away to the cross, if thou
   wouldest get rid of thy doubts. Certain I am, that if we lived more
   with Jesus, were more like Jesus, and trusted more to Jesus, doubts and
   fears would be very scarce and rare things, and we should have as
   little to complain of them as the first emigrants in Australia had to
   complain of thistles; for they found none there, and none would have
   been there if they had not been carried there. If we live simply by
   faith on the cross of Christ, we live in a land where there are no
   thistles, but if we will live on self, we shall have plenty of thistles
   and thorns, and briers, and nettles growing there. "They looked unto
   him, and were lightened."

   III. And now I invite you to a glorious scene--CHRIST'S RESURRECTION.
   Come you here, and look at him, as the old serpent bruises his heel!

   "He dies! the friend of sinners dies,

   And Salem's daughters weep around."

   He was wrapped in his grave-clothes and put into his grave, and there
   he slept three days and nights. And on the first day of the week, he,
   who could not be holden by the bands of death, and whose flesh did not
   see corruption, neither did his soul abide in Hades--he arose from the
   dead. In vain the bands that swaddled him; he unfolded them by himself,
   and by his ownliving power wrapped them in perfect order, and laid them
   in their place. In vain the stone and the seal; the angel appeared and
   rolled away the stone, and forth the Saviour came. In vain the guards
   and watchmen; for in terror they fled far away, and he rose the
   conqueror over death--the firstfruits of them that slept. By his own
   power and might, he came again to life. I see among my congregation,
   not a few wearing the black weeds of sorrow. You have lost, some of
   you, the dearest of your earthly relatives There are others here, who,
   I doubt not, are under the constant fear of death. You are all your
   lifetime subject to bondage, because you are thinking upon the groans,
   and dying strife, which fall upon men, when they near the river Jordan.
   Come, come, I beseech you, ye weeping and timid spirits, behold Jesus
   Christ risen! For remember, this is a great truth--"Now is Christ risen
   from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept." And the
   verse of our song just embodies it:--

   "What though our inbred sins require

   Our flesh to see the dust,

   Yet as the Lord our Saviour rose,

   So all his followers must."

   There widow; weep no longer for your husband, if he died in Jesus. See
   the Master; he is risen from the dead; no spectre is he. In the
   presence of his disciples he eats a piece of broiled fish and part of
   an honeycomb. No spirit is he; for he saith, "Handle me and see; a
   spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." That was a real
   resurrection. And learn then, beloved, when you weep, to restrain your
   sorrows; for thy loved ones shall live again. Not only shall their
   spirits live, but their bodies too.

   "Corruption, earth, and worms,

   Do but refine this flesh;

   At the archangel's sounding trump,

   We put it on afresh."

   Oh! think not that the worm has eaten up your children, your friends,
   your husband, your father, your aged parents--true, the worms seem to
   have devoured them. Oh! what is the worm after all, but the filter
   through which our poor filthy flesh must go? For in the twinkling of an
   eye, at the last trump, we shall be raised incorruptible, and the
   living shall be changed, you shall see the eye that just now has been
   closed, and you shall look on it again, you shall again grasp the hand
   that just now fell motionless at the side. You shall kiss the lips that
   just now were clay-cold, and white, and you shall hear again the voice
   that is silent in the tomb. They shall live again. And you that fear
   death--why fear to die? Jesus died before you, and he passed through
   the iron gates, and as he passed through them before you, he will come
   and meet you. Jesus who lives can

   "Make the dying bed

   Feel soft as downy pillows are."

   Why should you weep? for Jesus rose from the dead; so shall you. Be of
   good cheer and confidence. You are not lost when you are put into the
   tomb; you are but seed sown to ripen against the eternal harvest. Your
   spirit mounts to God; your body slumbers for awhile to be quickened
   into eternal life. It cannot be quickened except it die; but when it
   dies it shall receive a new life; it shall not be destroyed. "they
   looked to him, and were lightened." Oh! this is a precious thing to
   look to--a risen Saviour. I know of nothing that can lift our spirits
   higher than a true view of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
   dead. We have not lost any friends then; they have gone before. We
   shall not die ourselves; we shall seem to die, but are shall begin to
   live; for it is written

   "He lives to die; he dies to live;

   He lives to die no more."

   May that be the lot of each one of us!

   IV. And with the greatest possible brevity, I invite you to LOOK AT
   JESUS CHRIST ASCENDING INTO HEAVEN. After forty days, he takes his
   disciples to the hill, and while he discourses with them, on a sudden
   he mounts upward; and he is separated from them, and a cloud receives
   him into glory. Perhaps I may be allowed a little poetical license if I
   try to picture that which occurred after he ascended into the clouds.
   The angels came from heaven--

   "They brought his chariot from on high,

   To bear him to his throne

   Clapped their triumphant wings and cried,

   The glorious work is done."

   I doubt not, that with matchless triumph he ascended the hill of light
   and went to the celestial city, and when he neared the portals of that
   great metropolis of the universe, the angels shouted, "Lift up your
   heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors," and the
   bright spirits from burning battlements, cried out, "Who is this King
   of Glory--who?" And the answer came, "the Lord mighty in battle, and
   the Lord of Hosts; he is the King of Glory." And then both they upon
   the walls, and they who walk with the chariot join the song once more,
   and with one mighty sea of music, beating its melodious waves against
   the gates of heaven and forcing them open, the strain is heard, "Lift
   up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors, that
   the King of Glory may come in"--and in he went. And at his feet the
   angelic hosts all cast their crowns, and forth came the blood-washed
   and met him, not casting roses at his feet, as are do at the feet of
   conquerors in our streets, but casting immortal flowers, imperishable
   wreaths of honor that never can decay; while again, again, again, the
   heavens did ring with this melody, "Unto him that hath loved us, and
   washed us from our sins in his blood, and hath made us kings and
   priests unto God and his Father--unto him be glory forever and ever.
   And all the saints and all the angels said, "Amen." Now look here ye
   Christians, here is your comfort; Jesus Christ won wrestling with
   spiritual enemies, not with flesh and blood, but with principalities
   and powers; you are at war today, and mayhap the enemy has thrust sore
   at you, and you have been ready to fall; it is a marvel to you, that
   you have not turned your back in the day of battle, for you have often
   feared lest you should be made to fly like a coward from the field. But
   tremble not, your Master was more than conqueror, and so shall you be.
   The day is coming when with splendor less than his, but yet the same in
   its measure, you too shall pass the gates of bliss; when you are dying,
   angels shall meet you in the mid-stream, and when your blood is cooling
   with the cold current, then shall your heart be warming with another
   stream, a stream of light and heat from the great fountain of all joy,
   and you shall stand on the other side of Jordan, and angels shall meet
   you clothed in their immaculate garments, they shall attend you up the
   hill of light, and they shall chant the praise of Jesus, and hail you
   as another trophy of his power. And when you enter the gates of heaven,
   you shall be met with Christ your Master, who will say to you--"Well
   done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord."
   Then will you feel that you are sharing in his victory, as once you
   shared in his struggles and his war. Fight on, Christian, your glorious
   Captain has won a great victory, and has secured for you in one and the
   same victory, a standard that never yet was stained with defeat, though
   often dipped in the blood of the slain.

   V. And now once more "Look unto him, and be lightened." See there he
   sits is, heaven, he has led captivity captive, and now sits at the
   right hand of God, for ever making intercession for us. Can your faith
   picture him to-day? Like a great high priest of old, he stands with
   outstretched arms: there is majesty in his mien, for he is no mean
   cringing suppliant. He does not beat his breast, nor cast his eyes upon
   the ground, but with authority he pleads enthroned in glory now. There
   on his head is the bright shining mitre of his priesthood, and look
   you, on his breast are glittering the precious stones whereon the names
   of his elect are everlastingly engraved; hear him as he pleads, hear
   you not what it is?--is that your prayer that he is mentioning before
   the throne? The prayer that this morning you offered ere you came to
   the house of God, Christ is now offering before his Father's throne.
   The vow which just now you uttered when you said, "Have pity and have
   mercy,"--he is now uttering there. He is the Altar and the Priest, and
   with his own sacrifice he perfumes our prayers. And yet, mayhap, you
   have been at prayer many a day, and had no answer; poor weeping
   suppliant, thou hast sought the Lord and he hath not heard thee, or at
   least not answered thee to thy soul's delight; thou hast cried unto
   him, but the heavens have been as brass, and he hath shut out thy
   prayer, thou art full of darkness and heaviness on account of this,"
   Look to him, and be lightened." If thou dost not succeed, he will; if
   thy intercession be unnoticed, his cannot be passed away; if thy
   prayers can be like water spilt on a rock which cannot be gathered up,
   yet his prayers are not like that, he is God's Son, he pleads and must
   prevail; God cannot refuse his own Son what he now asks, he who once
   bought mercies with his blood. Oh! be of good cheer, continue still thy
   supplication. "Look unto him, and be lightened."

   VI. In the last place, there are some of you here, weary with this
   world's din and clamor, and with this world's iniquity and vice. You
   have been striving all your life long, to put an end to the reign of
   sin, and it seems as if your efforts have been fruitless; the pillars
   of hell stand as fast as ever and the black palace of evil is not laid
   in ruins; you have brought against it all the battering-rams of prayer,
   and the might of God, you have thought,--and yet the world still sins,
   its rivers still roll with blood, its plains are still defiled with the
   lascivious dance, and its ear is still polluted with the filthy song
   and profane oath. God is not honored; man is still vile; and perhaps
   you are saying, "It is vain for us to fight on, we have undertaken a
   task which cannot be accomplished. the kingdoms of this world never can
   become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ." But, Christian,
   "Look unto him, and be lightened." Lo! he cometh, he cometh, he cometh
   quickly; and what we cannot do in six thousand years, he can do in an
   instant. Lo! he comes, he comes to reign; we may try to build his
   throne, but we shall not accomplish it. But when he comes, he shall
   build his throne himself, on solid pillars of light and sit and judge
   in Jerusalem, amidst his saints, gloriously. Perhaps to-day, the hour
   we are assembled, Christ may come--"For of that day and hour knoweth no
   man; no, not the angels in heaven." Christ Jesus may, while I yet
   speak, appear in the clouds of glory. We have no reason to be guessing
   at the time of his appearing, he will come as a thief in the night; and
   whether it shall be at cock-crowing, or broadday, or at midnight, we
   are not allowed to guess; it is left entirely in the dark, and vain are
   the prophecies of men, vain your "Apocalyptic Sketches," or ought of
   that. No man knoweth anything of it, except that it is certain he will
   come; but when he comes, no spirit in heaven or on earth should pretend
   to know. Oh! it is my joyous hope, that he may come whilst yet I live.
   Perhaps there may be some of us here who shall be alive, and remain at
   the coming of the Son of Man. Oh, glorious hope! we shall have to
   sleep, but we shall all be changed. He may come now, and we that are
   alive and remain shall be caught up together with the Lord in the air,
   and so shall be for ever with him. But if you die, Christian, this is
   your hope. "I will come again, and receive you to myself, that where I
   am, there ye may be also." And this is to be your duty, "Watch,
   therefore, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh."
   Oh, will I not work on, for Christ is at the door! Oh! I will not give
   up toiling never so hard, for my Master cometh, and his reward is with
   him, and his work before him, giving unto every man according as his
   work shall be. Oh, I will not lie down in despair, for the trump is
   sounding now. Methinks I hear the trampling of the conquering legion,
   the last of God's mighty heroes are even now, perhaps, born into the
   world. The hour of this revival is the hour of the turning of the
   battle; thick has been the fight. and hot and furious the struggle, but
   the trump of the Conqueror is beginning to sound, the angel is lifting
   it now to his lips. The first blast has been heard across the sea, and
   we shall hear it yet again; or if we hear it not in these our days, yet
   still it is our hope. He comes, he comes, and every eye shall see him,
   and they that have crucified him shall weep and wail before him, but
   the righteous shall rejoice, and shall magnify him exceedingly. "They
   looked unto him, and were lightened."

   I remember I concluded preaching at Exeter Hall with these three words,
   "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!" and I think I will conclude my sermon of this
   morning with the same words, but not till I have spoken to one poor
   forlorn soul who is standing over there, wondering whether there is
   mercy for him. He says, "It is well enough, sir, to say, Look to
   Jesus,' but suppose you cannot look? If your eye is blind--what then?"
   Oh I my poor brother, turn your restless eyeballs to the cross, and
   that light which gives light to them that see, shall give eyesight to
   them that are blind. Oh! if thou canst not believe this morning, look
   and consider, and weigh the matter, and in weighing and reflecting thou
   shalt be helped to believe. He asks nothing of thee; he bids thee now
   believe that he died for thee. If to-day thou feelest thyself a lost,
   guilty sinner, all he asks is that thou wouldest believe on him; that
   is to say, trust him, confide in him. Is it not little he asks? And yet
   it is more than any of us are prepared to give, except the Spirit hath
   made us willing. Come, cast yourselves upon him; fall flat on his
   promise; sink or swim, confide in him, and you cannot guess the joy
   that you shall feel in that one instant that you believe on him. Were
   there not some of you impressed last Sabbath day, and you have been
   anxious all the week? Oh! I hope I have brought a good message to you
   this morning for your comfort. "Look unto me and be ye saved, all the
   ends of the earth," saith Christ, "for I am God, and beside me there is
   none else." Look ye now, and looking ye shall live. May every blessing
   rest upon you, and may each go away to think of that one person whom we
   love, even Jesus--Jesus--Jesus!
     __________________________________________________________________

                               A Present Religion

   A Sermon

   (No. 196)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 30, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "Beloved, now are we the sons of God."--1 John 3:2.

   I SHALL not pretend to preach from the whole of my text this morning,
   short though it be. The word "now" is to me the most prominent word in
   the text, and I shall make it so this morning. "Beloved, now are we the
   sons of God."

   It is astonishing how distance blunts the keen edge of anything that is
   disagreeable. War is at all times a most fearful scourge. The thought
   of slain bodies and of murdered men must always harrow up the soul; but
   because we hear of these things in the distance, there are few
   Englishmen who can truly enter into their horrors. If we should hear
   the booming of cannon on the deep which girdles this island; if we
   should see at our doors the marks of carnage and bloodshed; then should
   we more thoroughly appreciate what war means. But distance takes away
   the horror, and we therefore speak of war with too much levity, and
   even read of it with an interest not sufficiently linked with pain. As
   it is with war, so it is with death. Death is a frightful thing; he who
   is the bravest must still fear before it, for at best it is a solemn
   thing to die. Man, therefore, adopts the expedient of putting off all
   thoughts of death: it may be very near to him, but he conceives it to
   be at a distance, and then the same effect is produced as when war is
   at a distance; its horror is forgotten, and we speak of it with less
   solemnity. So likewise with true religion; men are constrained to
   believe that there is truth in religion. Though there are some
   fool-hardy enough to deny it, the most of us in this enlightened land
   are obliged to acknowledge that there is a power in Godliness. What,
   then, does the worldling do? He practices the same expedient. He puts
   religion far away; he knows that its disagreeableness will be
   diminished by his believing it to be distant. Hence there has sprung up
   in the minds of the unregenerate world a notion that religion is a
   thing to be accomplished just at the close of life, and the usual
   prayer of an ungodly man, when in the slightest degree pricked in his
   conscience, is, "Oh, that I may be saved at last!" He does not feel
   anxious to be saved now; religion is a thing for which he has no
   appetite, and therefore believing it essential to insure his eternal
   welfare, he adopts the alternative of saying, "I hope to have it at
   last."

   The religion, then, of the present, is not the worldling's religion. He
   tolerates that which speaks of eternity; that which deals with dying
   beds; that which leads him to look back with a specious repentance upon
   a life spent in sin, but not that which will enable him to look forward
   to a life spent in holiness. Very differently, however, do we act with
   affairs of the present life, for things that are sweet to us, become
   the more sweet by their nearness. Was there ever a child who longed for
   his father's house who did not feel that the holidays grew more sweet
   in his estimation the shorter the time was that he had to tarry?

   What man is there who having once set his heart on riches, did not find
   his delight in the thought of being rich increase with the nearness of
   his approach to the desired object? And are we not all of us
   accustomed, when we think a good thing is at a distance, to try if we
   can shorten the time between us and it. We try anything and everything
   to push on the lagging hours; we chide them, wish that Time had double
   wings, that he might swiftly fly and bring the expected season. When
   the Christian talks of heaven, you will always hear him try to shorten
   the distance between himself and the happy land; he says,--

   "A few more rolling suns at most

   Will land me on fair Canaan's coast."

   There may be many years between him and paradise, but still he is prone
   to say,

   "The way may be rough, but it cannot be long."

   Thus do we all delight to shorten the distance between us and the
   things for which we hope. Now let us just apply this rule to religion.
   They who love religion love a present thing. The Christian who really
   seeks salvation, will never be happy unless he can say, "Now am I a
   child of God." Because the worldling dislikes it, he puts it from him,
   because the Christian loves it, therefore its very fairest feature is
   its present existence, its present enjoyment in his heart. That word
   "now" which is the sinners warning, and his terror, is to the
   Christian, his greatest delight and joy. "There is therefore"--and then
   the sweetest bell of all rings--"there is therefore now no condemnation
   to them that are in Christ Jesus;" to the sinner that same idea is the
   blackest of all, "He that believeth not is condemned already, because
   he hath not believed on the Son of God."

   This morning, in God's name, I shall endeavor to plead with men, and
   show them the importance of having a present religion. I am quite
   certain that this is a habit which is too much kept in the back-ground.
   I am sure from mixing with mankind, that the current belief is, that
   religion is a future thing, perhaps the wish is father to the thought.
   I am certain the ground of it is, men love not religion, and therefore
   they desire to thrust it far from them.

   I shall commence by endeavoring to show that religion must be a thing
   of the present, because the present has such intimate connection with
   the future, and to proceed--We are told in Scripture that this life is
   a seed time, and the future is the harvest, "He that soweth to the
   flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; he that soweth to the
   spirit, shall of the spirit reap life everlasting." The Scripture often
   speaks to us in words like these, "They that sow in tears, shall reap
   in joy." It is always supposed in Scripture, that this life is the time
   of generating, if I may use such an expression, the life that is to
   come, as the seed generates the plant, even so doth this present life
   generate the eternal future. We know, indeed, that heaven and hell are,
   after all, but the developments of our present character, for what is
   hell but this, "He that is filthy, let him be filthy still, and he that
   is unholy, let him be unholy still?" Do we not know that in the bowels
   of every sin, damnation slumbers? Is it not a fearful truth that the
   germ of everlasting torment sleeps in every vile wish, every unholy
   thought, every unclean act, so that hell is but a great breaking out of
   slumbering lava, which had been so quiet, that while the mountain was
   covered with fair verdure, even to its summit, death comes and bide
   that lava rise; and down the steeps of manhood's eternal existence, the
   fiery flame, and the hot scalding lava of eternal misery doth pour
   itself. Yet it was there before, for sin is hell, and to rebel against
   God is but the prelude of misery. So is it with heaven; I know that
   heaven is a reward, not of debt, but of grace; but still the Christian
   has that within him, which forestall for him a heaven. What did Christ
   say? "I give unto my sheep eternal life." He did not say, I will give,
   but, I give unto them. "As soon as they believe in me, I give them
   eternal life," and "he that believeth, hath eternal life, and shall
   never come unto damnation." The Christian hath within him the seed-beds
   of a paradise, in due time the light that is sown for the righteous,
   and the gladness that is buried beneath the black earth for the upright
   in heart, shall spring up, and they shall reap the harvest. Is it not
   plain then that religion is a thing which we must have here? Is it not
   prominently revealed that religion is important for the present? for if
   this life be the seed time of the future, how can I expect to reap in
   another world other crops than I have been sowing here? how can I trust
   that I shall be saved, unless I am saved? how can I have hope that
   heaven shall be my eternal inheritance, unless the earnest be begun in
   my own soul on earth?

   But again, this life is always said in Scripture to be a preparation
   for the life to come, "Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel." "They that
   were ready went in with him to the supper, and the door was shut."
   There is in this world a getting ready for another world; to use a
   Biblical figure, we must here put on the wedding dress, which we are to
   wear for ever. This life is as the vestibule of the king's court, we
   must put our shoes from off our feet; we must wash our garments and
   make ourselves ready to enter into the marriage supper of the Lamb.
   Somehow, in Scripture, the thought comes out as plain as if written
   with a sunbeam, this world is the beginning of the end,--it is the
   preparing-place for the future. Supposing you have no religion now, how
   will you stand when now is turned into eternity? When days and years
   are gone, how will it fare with you, if all your days have been spent
   without God and without Christ? Do you hope to hurry on the white
   garment after death? Alas! you shall be girt with your shroud, but not
   be able to put on the wedding raiment. Do you trust that you shall wash
   you and make you clean in the river Jordan? Alas! ye shall breed
   corruption in your tomb, but ye shall not find holiness there. Do ye
   trust to be pardoned after you have departed?

   "There are no acts of pardon pass'd

   In the cold grave to which we haste;

   But darkness, death, and fell despair,

   Reign in eternal silence there."

   Or, do ye think that when ye near the borders of the grave, then will
   be the time to prepare? Be not deceived. We read in Scripture one
   instance of a man saved at the eleventh hour. Remember, there is but
   one; and we have no reason to believe that there ever was, or ever will
   be another. There may have been persons saved on their dying beds, but
   we are not sure there ever were. Such things may have happened, but
   none of us can tell. Alas! facts are sadly against it; for we have been
   assured by those who have had the best means of judging--those who have
   long walked the hospital of humanity--that such as thought they were
   dying and made vows of repentance, have almost invariably turned back,
   like "the dog to his own vomit and the sow that was washed to her
   wallowing in the mire." Oh no; "To-day if ye will hear his voice,
   harden not your hearts;" for to-day is the preparing time for the dread
   to-morrow--to-day is the making ready for the eternal future.

   Let me urge one other reflection here. How are we saved? All through
   Scripture we are told we are saved by faith, except in one passage,
   wherein it is said, we are saved by hope. Now note, how certain it is
   that religion must be a present thing if we are saved by faith, because
   faith and hope cannot live in another world. "What a man seeth, why
   doth he yet hope for?" Hope cannot exist in that world of realities
   where shadows are unknown. How can faith be exercised when we see a
   thing? for what a man perceiveth by faith that he realises not by
   sense; and although we say "seeing is believing," it is quite certain
   that seeing and believing are at opposite poles. Believing is an
   assurance of that which we see not, and in confidence of faith waiting
   until we do see it; but seeing is sensuous, and the very reverse of
   faith. Now if I am to be saved by faith, it is quite certain I must be
   saved in a state where faith can be exercised that is in this world;
   and if I am to be saved by hope, I cannot be saved by hope in that
   world where hope cannot exist; I must be saved here, for here is the
   only place where hope can breathe an air that lets it live. The air of
   heaven is too bright and pure, too heavenly, too warm. too sweet with
   angels' songs, for faith and hope to inhabit. They leave us on this
   side of the Jordan; if then we are saved by these I think it
   follows--and every one of you must perceive the inference--we must be
   saved now, because faith and hope are not things of the future. Oh how
   pleasant, if after these remarks we can say, "Yes, it is so; it is even
   so, and we rejoice therein, for now are we the sons of God.'"

   In the second place, as I have briefly shown the connection between the
   present and the future, let me use another illustration to show the
   importance of a present salvation. Salvation is a thing which brings
   present blessings. When you read Scripture, and alas there are few who
   care to read it as they ought in these times, they read anything rather
   than their Bibles--when you read Scripture, you will be struck with the
   fact that every blessing is spoken of in the present tense. You
   remember how the apostle in one of his epistles says, "Unto them which
   are saved, Christ power of God and the wisdom of God." He does not say
   to them who shall be saved, but to them which are saved. We know too
   that justification is a present blessing--"there is therefore now no
   condemnation." Adoption is a present blessing, for it says, "Now are we
   the sons of God," and we know also that sanctification is a present
   blessing, for the apostle addresses himself to "the saints who are
   sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called." All the blessings of the new
   covenant are spoken of in the present tense, because with the exception
   of eternal glory in heaven, they are all to be enjoyed here. I know
   this, that I shall be one day, if I am a believer in Christ, more
   sanctified than I am to-day--if not in the sense of consecration, yet
   still in the sense of purification--but at the same time I know this of
   a surety, that when I stand at God's right hand, midst the lamps of
   eternal brightness, and when these fingers move with vigor across the
   golden strings, and when this voice is filled with the immortal songs,
   I shall not be one whit more a child of God than I am now. And when the
   white robe is upon me, and the crown upon my head, I shall not be more
   justified than I am at the present moment, for it is the doctrine of
   Holy Scripture, that

   "The moment a sinner believes,

   And trusts in his crucified God,

   His pardon at once he receives

   Salvation in full through his blood."

   But the assurance of our possession in these things is a present
   blessing also. I will illustrate what I mean by a circumstance which
   happened to myself. A lady called upon me in some distress of mind, and
   this was her difficulty:--She had, she trusted, been converted to God,
   enjoyed great peace of mind, and for a little season was very full of
   joy; because she believed that she had been forgiven, and was accepted
   in the beloved. Naturally enough, seeking her religious instructor, she
   went to the clergyman of the parish, who, unfortunately for her was a
   blind guide, for when she began to tell him concerning her joy, he
   checked her, by saying, "My good woman, this is all presumption." "Nay,
   sir," said she "I trust not; my hope is fixed on nothing else than
   Jesus; I repose alone in him." "That is right enough," said he, "but
   you have no authority to say you know you are saved; you have no
   authority to believe that you are already pardoned." And he told her
   that he did not believe it possible for any Christian to be assured of
   this except a very few eminent saints, they might hope, that was all;
   they might trust but they could never be sure. Ah! methinks he had gone
   but a very little way on the road to the kingdom of heaven. He must
   have been but a very small infant in Christ, if in Christ at all, to
   have told her so. For those of us who have for a few years put on the
   Lord Jesus, know of a surety that there is such a thing as infallible
   assurance, we know that although there is such a thing as presumption,
   there is a distinction which every Christian can easily mark between
   the one and the other. Presumption says, "I am a child of God, and I
   may live as like. I know I am saved, I need not therefore seek to have
   present communion with Christ." But Assurance says, "I know whom I have
   believed; I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have
   committed unto him against that day." And then she meekly bows her
   head, and says, "Hold thou me up and I shall be safe, keep me and I
   shall be kept; draw me and I will run after thee." Oh! my dear hearers,
   never believe that falsehood of the day--that a man cannot know himself
   to be a child of God. For if you tell us that, we can refute you with a
   thousand testimonies. We have seen the poor, the humble, and the
   illiterate, confident of their interest in Christ. It is true, we have
   seen them doubt; we have heard their wailings when they could not see
   Christ with their heart. Yea we have known the time when the greatest
   of God's people have had to tremble, and say--

   "Tis a point I long to know,

   Oft it causes anxious thought--

   'Do I love the Lord, or no?

   Am I his, or am I not?'"

   But still, God's people may be assured; they may know, by the witness
   of the Spirit within, that they are born of God; for doth not an
   apostle say, "We know we have passed from death unto life, because we
   love the brethren?" "The Spirit beareth witness with our spirits that
   we are born of God." I would that we had more Christians who lived in
   the enjoyment of full assurance. How precious it is when the milk of
   faith settles down, and the thick cream of full assurance can be
   skimmed from the surface as marrow and fatness to the children of God.
   Religion, then, is a thing of present assurance. A man may know in this
   life, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he is accepted in Christ
   Jesus.

   Yet I am inclined to think, that the worldly man most of all objects to
   present religion, because he does not like its duties. Most men would
   be very religious if religion did not entail obligations. Many a free
   liver would be a very pious man, if he were not curtailed of a few of
   his bottles of wine. Many a loose character would have no objection to
   go up to the temple and pray, and subscribe his name to the God of
   Jacob, if the gospel did not forbid all uncleanness, and everything
   that is lascivious. Many a tradesman would put on the Lord Jesus
   Christ, if there were no necessity to put off the old man, if he could
   keep his sins and have Christ too--oh, how willing would he be. Indeed,
   there are a great many who are so fond of it, that they have tried it.
   We know people who are like the Roman Emperor, who believed that Jesus
   Christ was God, but thought that all the other strange gods were
   likewise to be worshipped; so these people think religion a very good
   thing, but think sin a very good thing too, so they set up the two
   together, and their whole life is like Janus, two-faced. They look most
   comely Christians in the synagogue, but they look most unmistakable
   hypocrites if you see them in the market. Men will not direct a single
   eye to religion because it curtails license and entails duties. And
   this, I think, proves that religion is a present thing, because the
   duties of religion cannot be practiced in another world, they must be
   practiced here.

   Now, what are the duties of religion? In the first place, here are its
   active duties, which a man should do between man and man, to walk
   soberly and righteously, and uprightly in the midst of an evil
   generation. Lightly as some people speak about morality, or against
   morality, there is no true religion where there is no morality. Do not
   tell me about your orthodoxy, do not come and tell me about your
   private prayers and secret piety, if your life be bad, you are bad
   altogether. A good tree cannot bring forth anything but good fruit, and
   a corrupt tree will bring forth corrupt fruit. There is no questioning
   that; what your life is, that you are--for as out of the abundance of
   the heart the mouth speaks, so out of the abundance of the heart the
   man lives. It is an in vain for you to deprecate so strong a sentiment
   as this, and to say, "The best of saints are fallible." I know they
   are; I know that even the best of men will sin, but they will not sin
   willingly; if they sin publicly, it will be but an exception, their
   lives, under the power of Divine grace, will be holy, and pure, and
   upright. I believe the devil likes Antinomianism, and he says to the
   Romanist, "Preach on, you Priest; I do not mind what you preach, for
   you will enter my dominions. You tell people that they may live in sin,
   and then procure absolution for a shilling! Fine doctrine that!" And he
   pats the priest on the back, and gives him all the Assistance he can.
   Then comes there an Antinomian minister into the pulpit. The devil
   says, "Ah, though he rails against the Pope of Rome, I like them both,
   the one as much as the other." Then how he preaches! he begins
   preaching justification by faith alone, and he carries his argument a
   step too far, for he begins railing at good works, calls them
   legalists, who think it their duty to lead a holy life, and hints with
   a smirk and a smile, that the excellent conduct of a man is of little
   importance, so long as he believes the truth and goes to his chapel.
   "Ah," says the devil, "preach away; I love the two things,
   Antinomianism and Popery, for they are two of the finest quacks for
   canting souls." Again, I say, "Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for
   whatsover a man soweth that shall he also reap." By our works we are
   not to be justified, but still by our works we shall be judged, and by
   our works we shall be condemned. So saith the Scriptures, and this we
   must receive. Religion, therefore, must be a present thing; we need not
   talk of walking righteously, and soberly, in the world to come--

   "There all is pure, and all is clear,

   There all is joy and love."

   There will be no duty to discharge between the tradesman and the
   customer, between the debtor and the creditor, between the father and
   the child, between the husband and the wife, in heaven, for all
   relationships shall have passed away. Religion must be intended for
   this life; the duties of it cannot be practiced, unless they are
   practiced here.

   But besides these, there are other duties devolving upon the Christian.
   Though it is every man's duty to be honest and sober, the Christian has
   another code of law. It is the Christian's duty to love his enemies, to
   be at peace with all men, to forgive as he hopes to be forgiven; and it
   is his duty not to resist evil, when smitten on the one cheek to turn
   the other also; it is his duty to give to him that asketh of him and
   from him that would borrow of him not to turn away--he is to be a
   liberal soul devising liberal things. It is the Christian's duty to
   visit his Master's children when they are sick, so that it may be said
   to him at last, "I was sick, and naked, and in prison, and ye visited
   me, and ministered to my necessities." Now, if religion be not a thing
   for this world, I ask you how is it possible to perform its duties at
   all? There are no poor in heaven whom we can comfort and visit, there
   are no enemies in heaven whom we can graciously forgive; and there are
   no injuries inflicted, or wrongs endured, which we can bear with
   patience. Religion must have been intended in the very first place for
   this world, it must have been meant that now we should be the sons of
   God. For again I repeat it, that the major part of the duties of
   religion cannot be practiced in heaven, and therefore religion must be
   a present thing.

   But, coming near to our conclusion, I believe there are many more
   persons who do not like religion for to-day, but who want to have it at
   the last, for this reason: they think religion is not a happy thing;
   they believe it makes men miserable. They have met with persons with
   long faces, they have seen some who were born in stormy weather, and
   who seem to have lived all their lives long with a hurricane inside
   their hearts, never having one flash of sunlight, nor one pleasant
   rainbow across their brow. Many young people imbibe this idea. They
   think that surely religion must be a thing that will make men go moping
   and melancholy all through this world. In fact, they enter the chapel
   sometimes, and they hear the saints singing--and what a sweet hymn it
   is--a sorry sweetness in truth!--

   "Lord, what a wretched land is this;"

   and they go out and say, "No doubt it is, we will have nothing to do
   with it." Looking upon religion as medicine which is extremely
   nauseous,--if they must drink it, they will put it off to the last;
   they will gulp it down with a "Lord, have mercy on me!" and ere its
   bitterness is fairly in their mouth, they expect to begin to enjoy its
   sweetness in heaven. What a mistake! Religion has its present
   enjoyments. I do solemnly affirm to-day, in the face of this
   congregation, and before Almighty God, if I were certain that I were to
   die like a dog and when I was buried there would be an end of me, had I
   my choice of the happiest life a man could lead, I would say, "Let me
   be a Christian," for if, as some say, it be a delusion, it is one of
   the most magnificent delusions that ever we. devised. If any man could
   prove the religion of Christ to be a delusion, the next thing he should
   do would be to hang himself, because there is nothing worth living for.
   He might well sit down and weep to think he had made a ruin of so
   goodly a structure, and dissolved such a pleasant dream.

   Ah! beloved, there are present enjoyments in religion. Speak, ye that
   know them, for ye can tell; yet ye cannot recount them all. Oh! would
   ye give up your religion for all the joys that earth calls good or
   great? Say, if your immortal life could be extinguished, would you give
   it up, even for all the kingdoms of this world? Oh: ye sons of poverty,
   has not this been a candle to you in the darkness? Has not this
   lightened you through the dark shades of your tribulation? Oh! ye horny
   handed sons of toil, has not this been your rest, your sweet reposer;
   Have not the testimonies of God been your song in the house of your
   pilgrimage? Oh! ye daughters of sorrow, ye who spend the most of your
   time upon your beds--and your couch to you is a rack of pain--has not
   religion been to you a sweet quietus? When your bones were sore vexed,
   could ye not even then praise him on your beds? Speak from your couches
   to-day, ye consumptives, blanched though your cheeks; speak this day
   from your beds of agony, ye that are troubled with inumerable diseases,
   and are drawing near your last home? Is not religion worth having in
   the sick chamber, on the bed of pain and anguish? "Ah!" they heartily
   say," we can praise him on our beds; we can sing his high praises in
   the fires." And ye men of business, speak for yourselves! You have hard
   struggles to pass through life. Sometimes you have been driven to a
   great extremity, and whether you would succeed or not seemed to hang
   upon a thread. Has not your religion been a joy to you in your
   difficulties? Has it not calmed your minds? When you have been fretted
   and troubled about worldly things, have you not found it a pleasant
   thing to enter your closet, and shut-to the door, and tell your Father
   in secret all your cares? And O ye that are rich, cannot you bear the
   same testimony, if you have loved the Master? What had all your riches
   been to you without a Saviour? Can you not say, that your religion did
   gild your gold, and make your silver shine more brightly? for all
   things that you have are sweetened by this thought, that you have all
   these and Christ too! Was there ever a child of God who could deny
   this? We have heard of many infidels who grieved over their infidelity
   when they came to die. Did you ever hear of a Christian acting the
   counterpart? Did you ever hear of any one on his death-bed looking back
   on a life of holiness with sorrow? We have seen the rake, with a wasted
   constitution shrivel into a corpse through his iniquities, and we have
   heard him bemoan the day in which he went astray. We have seen the poor
   debauched child of sin rotting with disease, and listened to her
   shriek, and heard her miserably curse herself that she ever turned
   aside, to what was called the path of gaiety, but what was really the
   path to hell. We have seen the miser too, who has gripped his bags of
   gold, and on his dying bed we have found him curse himself, that when
   he came to die, his gold, though laid upon his heart, could not still
   its achings and give him joy. Never, never did we know a Christian who
   repented of his Christianity. We have seen Christians so sick, that we
   wondered that they lived--so poor, that we pondered at their misery; we
   have seen them so full of doubts, that we pitied their unbelief; but we
   never heard them say, even then, "I regret that I gave myself to
   Christ." No; with the dying clasp, when heart and flesh were failing,
   we have seen them hug this treasure to their breast and press it to
   their heart, still feeling that this was their life, their joy, their
   all. Oh! if ye would be happy, if ye would be saved, if ye would strew
   your path with sunshine, and dig out the nettles and blunt the thorns,
   "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these
   things shall be added unto you." Seek not happiness first; seek Christ
   first, and happiness shall come after. Seek ye first the Lord, and then
   he will provide for you everything that is profitable for you in this
   life and he will crown it with everything that is glorious in the life
   to come. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God."

   Before closing this discourse, I fear that there are a great many of
   you who will say, "Well, I care nothing at all about religion. it is of
   no avail to me;" No, my friends, and it is very probable that you will
   not care about it, until it shall be too late to care. Mayhap you will
   go on putting off these thoughts, until the day shall come, when they
   will come so thick upon you, that you will not be able to procrastinate
   any longer, and then will you in right earnest set about seeking
   Christ; but at that hour he will say to you, "Inasmuch as Moab hath
   wearied himself upon the high places, and he betaketh himself to my
   sanctuary, I will not hear him, saith the Lord." "Strive to enter in at
   the strait gate" now, "for many shall seek to enter in, but shall not
   be able." Let us fear, lest, having the gospel preached in our ears, we
   should neglect and put it off until the last hour has struck, and we
   find ourselves without hope, when there is no time to seek a Saviour.

   I know where this morning's sermon will be found profitable. It will be
   in the case of those who are seeking Christ. Old Flockhart, who used to
   preach till within the last few months in the streets of Edinburgh, a
   much despised, but a very godly man, used to say, "When I begin my
   sermon, I begin by preaching the law, and then I bring the gospel
   afterwards; for," he said, "it is like a woman who is sewing--she
   cannot sew with thread alone; she first sticks a sharp needle through,
   and then draws the thread afterwards. so," he says, "does the Lord with
   us; he sends the sharp needle of conviction, the needle of the law,
   into our hearts. and pricks us in the heart, and he draws through the
   long silken thread of consolation afterwards." Oh! I would that some of
   you were pricked in the heart to-day. Remember, there are thunders in
   this book; though they are sleeping now, they will wake by-and-bye.
   There are in this Bible curses too horrible for heart to know their
   full extent of meaning; they are slumbering now, but they shall waken
   and when they leap from between the folded leaves, and the seven seals
   are broken, where will you flee, and where shall you hide yourselves,
   in that last great day of anger? If, then, ye are pricked to the heart,
   I preach to you the gospel now. "Today, if ye will hear his voice.
   harden not your hearts, as in the provocation." This day look to him
   that hung upon the cross. This day believe and live.

   And now to illustrate the manner in which rebellious sinners are
   reconciled to God, I will relate to you an interesting anecdote from
   the life of a soldier. It may picture to your minds the majesty of God
   in strewing grace, and the humbling experience of the sinner in
   receiving it, and help us to answer that solemn question--"What must I
   do to be saved?" My author says, that himself and his comrades of a
   certain regiment serving in India, had been without pay for about six
   months, and there has strong suspicion throughout the ranks that their
   commanding officer had embezzled the money: he was a great gambler, and
   they thought it most likely that he had gambled away their pay. They
   were determined to seek redress; so all the private soldiers (with the
   exception of non-commissioned officers,) agreed that on a particular
   morning, when on parade, they should not obey the word of command. The
   day arrived, and they carried their design into execution. The regiment
   was assembled; the men in companies, headed by their respective
   officers, proceeded to the parade ground, and formed into open column.
   The commanding officer took his station in front and gave the word of
   command. Not one, however, of the privates obeyed. This being the
   conduct of the regiment, the commanding officer, with great
   self-possession, ordered every tenth man to be confined in the
   guard-house. It was done without a show of resistance. After which, all
   the privates fixed bayonets, shouldered arms, and marched off--the band
   playing and the drums beating alternately--all the way to the residence
   of the general, about a mile distant. There they halted, and formed in
   line fronting the house, in a most orderly manner. One man from each of
   the ten companies then stepped forward, and they proceeded to lodge a
   written complaint against the colonel. Having thus fulfilled their
   purpose, they marched back, and dismissed; but the next thing was to
   release the prisoners, and this they did without any violence being
   offered by the guard. Whatever extenuations we may conceive for such
   conduct, according to military law it was a heinous crime. The
   soldier's duty is to obey; he must not think for himself, but he must
   be as a tool in the hands of his superior officers, to do as he is
   told, and not to complain. Shortly after this, to the surprise of these
   soldiers, the general was seen approaching with a large army of Sepoys,
   infantry and cavalry, with field pieces in front. The regiment went out
   and respectfully saluted him, forming in line. But this was not what
   the general came for. They saw the storm brewing and prepared to fight.
   After the two lines had been formed, facing each other, the General
   moved out on horseback. and said, "Twenty-second, take the command from
   me." They obeyed. He then said, "Order arms." Next--"Handle arms;"--and
   last, which was most disgraceful to them--"Ground army" Having thus
   disarmed, he ordered his black cavalry to charge upon them, and drive
   them from their arms. One more order he gave to those disaffected men,
   that they should strip off their accoutrements and lay them on the
   ground, and be off to their cantonments. When he had thus disarmed and
   dishonored the men, he forgave them.

   And now will not this incident fitly represent the manner of God with
   sinners, when according to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, he
   brings terms of peace and reconciliation to us who are in revolt
   against him? He says, "Ground arms, give up your sins, take off your
   self-righteousness." He disarms us, dishonors us, and strips on all our
   comely array, and then says, "Now I will forgive you." If there be any
   one here who has thrown down his weapons of rebellion, and whose fine
   ornaments of beauty are stained with shame, let him believe that God
   will now forgive him; he forgives those who cannot forgive themselves.
   The great Captain of our salvation will pardon those whom he has
   humbled. He will have you submit to his will, and though that will may
   at first seem imperious to drive you from your quarters, and visit you
   with punishment, you shall presently find that his sovereign will is
   gracious, and he delighteth in mercy. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
   and thou shalt be saved," for thus saith the Word, "He that believeth
   and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be
   damned."
     __________________________________________________________________

                                   The Spies

   A Sermon

   (No. 197)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, June 6, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched
   unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have
   gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof;
   and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great
   stature."--Numbers 13:32.

   "And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were
   of them that searched the land, rent their clothes. And they spake unto
   all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land which we
   passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land."--Numbers
   14:6-7.

   THE UNBELIEF OF THE CHILDREN of Israel, prompted them to send spies
   into Canaan. God had told them that it was a good land, and he had
   promised to drive out their enemies, they ought therefore to have
   marched forward with all confidence to possess the promised heritage.
   Instead of this, they send twelve princes to spy out the land, and
   "alas, for human nature," ten of these were faithless, and only two
   true to the Lord. Read over the narrative, and mark the ill effect of
   the lying message, and the holy boldness of the true spies.

   Now I must take up my parable. The land of Canaan is a picture of
   religion; I do not think it was ever intended to be a picture of
   heaven, for there are no Canaanites in heaven, certainly in heaven
   there are no sons of Anak, no giants to be driven out, no walled
   cities, and no kings with chariots of iron. Canaan is, however, a very
   excellent picture of religion. The children of Israel must stand this
   morning as the representatives of the great mass of mankind. The great
   mass of mankind never try for themselves what religion is; they neither
   search our sacred books, nor taste and try our religion. But this is
   what they do; they consider those who make a profession of religion as
   spies who have entered the land, and they look upon our character and
   our conduct as the message which we bring back to them. The ungodly man
   does not read his Bible in order to discover whether the religion of
   Christ is holy and beautiful, no, he reads the living Bible--Christ's
   church--and if the church is inconsistent he condemns the Bible, though
   the Bible is never to be accountable for the sins of those who profess
   to believe it. Ungodly men of course do not come and by repentance and
   faith make a trial of the love of Christ; they do not enter into
   covenant with the Lord Jesus, or else they would soon discover that it
   is a good land that floweth with milk and honey; but instead thereof
   they stand still, and they say, "Let be, let us see what these
   Christians make of it. Do they find it to be a happy thing? Does it
   succor them in their hour of trouble? Does it comfort them in the midst
   of their trials?" And if they find that our report is a gloomy or an
   unholy one, they turn aside, and they say, "It is not a good land; we
   will not enter into it, for its difficulties are great, but its
   enjoyments are few."

   Beloved brethren and friends, to put the parable as simply as I can, I
   am about to make out every Christian man and woman here to be a spy who
   has entered into the good land of religion, and who by his conduct and
   conversation brings either an evil or a good report of this good land,
   and either moves the world to murmur at and to despise religion, or
   else inspires it with a holy dread of goodness, and something of a
   longing after a portion therein.

   But I shall begin with a word of caution. In the first place I shall
   notice that the men of the world are not to be excused for their folly
   in trusting to mere report from other persons. Then secondly, I shall
   endeavor to describe the evil reporters, the evil spies, which are in
   the camp; then we will mention some good spies, who bring a good report
   of the land; and, in conclusion, bring a few weighty reasons to bear
   upon Christian men, why they should act like Caleb and Joshua, and
   bring up a good report of the land.

   I. In the first place, then, THE UNGODLY WORLD ARE NOT TO BE EXCUSED
   for that, which must nevertheless be admitted to be a very natural
   matter, namely, that INSTEAD OF INVESTIGATING RELIGION FOR THEMSELVES,
   THEY USUALLY TRUST TO THE REPRESENTATION OF OTHERS.

   The worldly man looks at a Christian to see whether his religion be
   joyful. "By this," says he, "shall I know whether there is that in
   religion which will make a man glad. If I see the professor of it with
   a joyous countenance, then I will believe it to be a good thing." But
   hark, sir! hast thou any right to put it to that test? Is not God to be
   counted true, even before we have proved him? And hath he not declared
   himself, "Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity,
   and in whose spirit there is no guile?" Doth not the Scripture itself
   declare that godliness is profitable, not only for this life, but for
   that which is to come--that it hath the blessing of two worlds, the
   blessing of this world below the sky and of that upper world above the
   stars? Would you not know from Scripture if you were to take the Bible
   and read it, that everywhere the Christian is commanded to rejoice,
   because it is comely for him? "Rejoice in the Lord ye righteous and
   shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart." "Rejoice evermore."
   "Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, rejoice." Remember you
   have no right to put the joyfulness of religion to any test short of
   your own experience, for you are bound to believe God on his naked
   word. It is not for you to stand still till you can see it to be true.
   It is your duty to believe your Maker when he declares that the ways of
   religion are pleasantness and all her paths are peace.

   Again, you say you will test the holiness of Christ's religion by the
   holiness of Christ's people. You have no right, I reply, to put the
   question to any such test as that. The proper test that you ought to
   use is to try it yourselves--to "taste and see that the Lord is good."
   By tasting and seeing you will prove his goodness, and by the same
   process you must prove the holiness of his gospel. Your business is to
   seek Christ crucified for yourselves, not to take the representation of
   another man concerning the power of grace to subdue corruption and to
   sanctify the heart. Your business is yourselves to enter into its
   valleys end pluck its grapes; yourselves to climb its hills and see its
   inhabitants. Inasmuch as God has given you a Bible, he intended you to
   read it, and not to be content with reading men. There is his Holy
   Spirit; you are not to be content with feelings that rise through the
   conversation of others, your only power to know true religion is, by
   having that Spirit operating upon your own heart, that you may yourself
   know what is the power of religion. You have no right to judge religion
   from anything extra or external from itself. And if you despise it
   before you have tried it yourself, you must stand confessed in this
   world as a fool, and in the next world as a criminal. And yet this is
   so with most men. If you hear a man rail at the Bible, you can usually
   conclude that he never reads it. And you may be quite certain if you
   hear a man speak against religion, that he never knew what religion
   was. True religion, when once it takes possession of the heart, never
   allows a man to quarrel with it. That man will call Christ his best
   friend who knows Christ at all. We have found many who have despised
   the enjoyments of this world, but we never found one who turned from
   religion with disgust or with satiety, after having once enjoyed it.
   No, remember my hearers, if you take your religion from other people,
   and are led by the example of professors to discard religion, you are
   nevertheless guilty of your own blood. For God has not left you to the
   uncertain chart of men's characters; he has given you his own Word; a
   more sure word and testimony, whereunto you do well if ye take heed.

   It will be in vain for you to say at the day of judgment, "Such and
   such a man was inconsistent, therefore I despised religion." Your
   excuse will then be discovered to be idle, for you shall have to
   Confess, that in other respects, you did not take another man's
   opinion. In business, in the cares of this life, you were independent
   enough; in your political opinions you did not pin your faith to any
   man's coat; and, therefore, it shall be said of you at last, you had
   enough independence of mind to steer your own course even against the
   example of others, in business, in politics, and such like things; you
   certainly had enough of mental vigor, if you had chosen to have done
   so, to have stood out against the inconsistency of professors, anal to
   have searched for yourselves. If all Christ's church were inconsistent,
   so long as there is a Bible upon earth, you could have no excuse in the
   day of judgment; for Christ was not inconsistent, and you are not asked
   to follow Christ's followers--you are asked to follow Christ himself.
   Until then you can find a flaw in his character, a mistake in his
   conduct, you have no right to fling the inconsistency of his followers
   in the teeth of Christ, nor to turn from him because his disciples
   forsake him and flee. To their own Master they stand or fall; they must
   bear their own burden, and you must bear yours too. "Every man shall
   bear his own burden," saith Scripture, "for we must all appear before
   the judgment seat of Christ, to give an account for the things which we
   have done in the body, whether they be good, or whether they be evil"
   You will not be accountable for another man's sins, but for your own;
   and if another man by his sin has brought reproach upon Christ, still
   it shall be no excuse for you if you do not follow him wholly, in the
   midst of an evil generation.

   II. With that, by way of caveat and guard, I shall now bring forth THE
   BAD SPIES. I wish that the men mentioned in the text, had been the only
   spies who have brought an evil report: it would have been a great mercy
   if the plague that killed them, had killed all the rest of the same
   sort; but alas! the breed, I am afraid, will never be extinct, and as
   long as the world endureth, there will be some professors who bring up
   an evil report of the land.

   But now let me bring forth the evil spies. Remember, these spies are to
   be judged, not by what they say, but by what they do; for to a
   worldling, words are nothing--acts are everything. The reports that we
   bring of our religion are not the reports of the pulpit, not the
   reports that we utter with our lips, but the report of our daily life,
   speaking in our own houses, and the every day business of life.

   Well, first, I produce a man who brings up an evil report of the land,
   and you will see at once that he does so, for he is of a dull and heavy
   spirit. If he preaches, he takes this text--"Through much tribulation
   we must inherit the kingdom." Somehow or other, he never mentions God's
   people, without calling them God's tried children. As for joy in the
   Lord, he looks upon it with suspicion. "Lord, what a wretched land is
   this!" is the very height of poetry to him. He could sing that always.
   He is always in the valley, where the mists are hovering: he never
   climbs the mountain's brow, to stand above the tempests of this life.
   He was gloomy before be made a profession of religion--since then he
   has become more gloomy still. See him at home. Ask the children what
   they think of their father's religion. they think they could wish their
   father was anything except religious. "Father will not let us laugh,"
   they say; "he pulls the blinds down on the Sunday; he tries to make us
   as dark and miserable as he can on the Sabbath day;" he thinks it his
   duty as a strict Sabbatarian, to make the Sabbath the greatest day of
   bondage out of the whole seven. Ask his wife what she thinks of
   religion: she says, "I do not know much about it myself, but I wish my
   husband were be little more cheerful." "Nay, but is it his religion
   that makes him miserable?" "I do not know what it is," she says, "but I
   know when he is most miserable, he is generally most religious." Hear
   him pray: when he is on his knees he gives a long list of his trials
   and troubles; but he never says at the end, "More are they that are for
   us than all they that are against us." He usually dwells upon the
   valley of Baca, and about crying so much that he makes it a well. He
   never goes on to say, "They go from strength to strength, every one of
   them in Zion appeared before God." No, it is just the black part of the
   story. If you want to see this brother in perfection, you must see him
   when he is talking to a young convert. The young man is full of joy and
   gladness, for he has found the Saviour, and, like a young fledgling
   that has just taken wing, he delights to fly about in the sunshine, and
   chirp merrily in the joy of his faith. "Ah!" says the old Christian,
   "the black ox has not trodden on your toes yet; you will have more
   troubles than you dream of." Old Mr.Timorous was a friend of mine: did
   you ever hear what he said to Christian, when he met him on his
   journey? I will tell you the same. "The lions; the lions! the lions!"
   he cries; however says "The lions are chained." "The giants! the
   giants! the giants!" he exclaims. He never saith, "He carrieth the
   lambs in his bosom, and gently leadeth those that are with young." He
   takes always the dreary side of the question, bringing up an ill report
   of the land. And, do you know, some of these people are so proud of
   their in report, that they form themselves into a little knot, and they
   cannot hear any preacher except his face he of an extreme length, and
   except he has studied the dictionary to find all the most lugubrious
   terms, and except he appear unto men to fast, just like the Pharisees
   of old. Now, I do not hesitate to say that these men are evil spies.
   Far be it from us to mask the great fact that religion does entail
   tribulation, and that a Christian, like everybody else, must expect in
   this world to have trouble, for man is born to it as the sparks fly
   upward; but it is as false as God is true, that religion makes men
   miserable. So sure as God is good, his religion is good. and as God is
   good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works, religion is
   an atmosphere in which those tender mercies play, and the sea in which
   his lovingkindness swims. Oh, come, ye dreary professors, take away
   those storm-clouds, and wreathe a few rainbows on your brow. Come, now,
   anoint your head and wash your face, that you appear not unto men to
   fast; take those harps from the willows; down with them, and now try if
   your unaccustomed fingers cannot make them alive with melody. And if
   you will not do it, and cannot do it, permit me to bear my testimony. I
   can say, concerning Christ's religion, if I had to die like a dog, and
   had no hope whatever of immortality, if I wanted to lead a happy life,
   let me serve my God with all my heart; let me be a follower of Jesus
   and walk in his footsteps, for never was there a truer word spoken than
   that of Solomon, "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths
   are peace." It is a land that floweth with milk and honey; there are
   clusters even on earth too heavy for one man to carry; there are fruits
   that have been found so rich that even angel lips have never been
   sweetened with more luscious wine; there are joys to be had here so
   fair that even cates ambrosial and the nectared wine of Paradise can
   scarce excel the sweets of satisfaction that are to be found in the
   earthly banquets of the Lord.

   Perhaps, however, this poor man that I have just sent off is to be
   pitied. Not so the next one, for he is a rascal indeed. See him! he
   comes forward as Mr. Meekface, making a great profession of religion.
   How he mouths the hymns! When he stands up to pray, with what a
   spiritual kind of voice he prays. Nothing carnal about his voice! He is
   among the Christian people a great leader. He can preach sermons by the
   yard. He can dissect doctrines by the hour. There is not a metaphysical
   point in all our theology that he does not understand,

   "He can a hair divide,

   Betwixt the west and north-west side."

   His understanding is, in his own opinion, infinite; and he makes very
   boastful pretensions to piety. Everybody says when they see him in his
   good frames in chapel or elsewhere, "What a dear good man he is!" You
   follow him to business. He will not swear, but he will lie. He won't
   out-and-out rob, but he will cheat. He will not curse a man to his
   face, but he will do worse--he will speak ill of him behind his back.
   You watch him! He, if he could find a drunkard in the street, would
   upbraid him, and talk to him so proudly against the sin of
   intoxication, but he himself very seldom knows his own way upstairs to
   bed; only that is in a quiet way, therefore nobody sees it, and he is
   thought to be a very reputable member of society. Don't you know any
   such people? I hope you do not; but I have met with them. There is a
   great stock of them still living; men that make grand professions, and
   their lives are as much opposed to their professions, as hell is
   opposed to heaven. Now what does the world say of religion when they
   see these people? They say at once, "Well, if this be religion, we had
   better have none of it." Says the business man, "I could not do what
   So-and-so does, it is true, I could not sing out of his hymn book, but
   I could not keep his cash book." We have known many men say; "I could
   not make so long a prayer as So-and-so, and could not make out my
   invoices in the dishonest way he does." We have met with worldly men
   who are far more honest as tradesman and professional men than persons
   who make a profession of religion. And we have known on the other hand,
   men who have made the greatest profession, indulging in all kinds of
   evil. Horrible shall he that man's fate, who thus ruins other men's
   souls by bringing up a bad report of the land. But, oh! I beseech you,
   my hearers, if any of you have seen such professors, let the righteous
   stand out to-day, like Joshua and Caleb of old; let the Church stand
   before you and rend its garments, while it entreats you not to believe
   the lying and slanderous reports of such men. For, indeed, religion is
   holy; as Christ is holy, even so do his people desire to be holy. And
   the grace of God which bringeth salvation is pure and peaceful; it
   produces in men things that are holy and of good report, things that
   magnify God, and that make human nature appear glorious. But scarcely
   do I need to tell you that, in your own circle while you have met with
   hypocrites, you have met with men whom you could not doubt. Yes, you
   have sometimes seen even in your evil company, a man who was like an
   angel; you have felt as Satan did when Abdiel, the faithful among the
   faithless, stood forth, and would not turn a rebel to his God.

   "Abashed the devil stood, and felt how awful goodness was"

   I beseech you therefore, do not believe the ill report of the
   hypocrite, and the unholy man.

   But there is a third class of professors who bring up a bad report of
   the land. And this I am afraid will affect us all in some measure we
   must all plead guilty to it. The Christian man, although he endeavors
   uniformly to walk according to the law of Christ, finds still another
   law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and
   consequently there are times when his witness is not consistent.
   Sometimes this witness is, "The Gospel is holy" for he is holy himself.
   But, alas with the very best of men, there are times when our witness
   contradicts our faith. When you see an angry Christian--and such a
   thing may be seen--and when you meet with a Christian who is proud, and
   such a thing has been known, when you catch a Christian overtaken in a
   fault, as you may sometimes do, then his testimony is not consistent.
   He contradicts then what he has at other times declared by his acts.

   And here, I say again, I fear that all of us must plead guilty. We have
   sometimes by our actions put in words which seem to conflict with the
   general testimony of our lives. Oh! brothers and sisters, do not
   believe all that you see in us, and if sometimes you see a Christian
   man betrayed into a hasty or a wrong expression, do not set it down to
   our religion, set it down to our poor fallen humanity. If sometimes you
   should catch us overtaken by a fault, and we trust it shall be rarely
   enough you so see us, abuse us, but do not abuse our Master: say what
   you will concerning us, but do not, we beseech you, impute it to our
   religion, for saints are sinners still, and the most holy men have
   still to say, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that
   trespass against us." But we do beseech you, when the madness of sin
   deludes us, do not believe the maunderings of our madness, but have
   regard to the general testimony of our lives, and that, we trust, you
   will find to be consistent with the gospel of Christ. I could bear to
   be abused, but I should not like to have the Master abused. I would
   rather have it believed that I was not a Christian at all, than allow
   any one to say that any faults I have were caused by my religion. No,
   Christ is holy; the gospel is pure and spotless. If at any time we seem
   to contradict that witness, do not believe us, I beseech you, but look
   into the matter for yourselves, for indeed it is a good land, a land
   which floweth with milk and honey.

   III. Thus I have brought forth the evil spies who bring up a bad
   report. and now, thank God we have some GOOD SPIES too. But we will let
   them speak. Come Joshua and Caleb, we want your testimony; though you
   are dead and gone, you have left children behind you; and they, still
   grieved as you were at the evil report, rend their clothes, but they
   boldly stand to it that the land they have passed through is an
   exceeding good land.

   One of the best spies I have ever met with is an aged Christian. I
   remember to have heard him stand up and tell what he thought of
   religion. He was a blind old man, who for twenty years had not seen the
   light of the sun. His grey locks hung from his brow, and floated over
   his shoulders. He stood up at the table of the Lord, and thus addressed
   us:-"Brethren and sisters, I shall soon be taken from you; in a few
   more months I shall gather up my feet upon my bed, and sleep with my
   fathers. I have not the tongue of the learned nor the mind of the
   eloquent but I desire before I go, to bear one public testimony to my
   God. Fifty and six years have I served him, and I have never found him
   once unfaithful. I can say Surely goodness and mercy have followed us
   all the days of my life, and not one good thing hath failed of all the
   Lord God has promised.' " And there stood that old man, tottering into
   his tomb, deprived of the light of heaven naturally, and yet having the
   light of heaven in a better sense shining into his soul; and though he
   could not look upon us, yet did he turn himself, and seemed to say,
   "Young people, trust God in early life, for I have not to regret that I
   sought him too soon. I have only to mourn that so many of my years ran
   to waste." There is nothing that more tends to strengthen the faith of
   the young believer than to hear the veteran Christian, covered with
   scars from the battle testifying that the service of his Master is a
   happy service, and that if he could have served any other master he
   would not have done so, for his service was pleasant and his wages
   everlasting joy.

   Take the testimony of the sufferer. "Behold that fragile form of
   delicate transparent beauty, whose light-blue eye and hectic cheek are
   lit by the bale-fires of decline, all droopingly she lieth, as a
   dew-laden lily, her flaxen tresses, rashly luxuriant, dank with
   unhealthy moisture." I have seen her when her eyes were sunk, when she
   could scarce be lifted out of the bed, when the frame was wearied of
   life; and I have seen her quite complacent, as she took her Bible from
   beneath her pillow and read, "Yea, though I pass through the valley of
   the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod
   and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table for me in the
   presence of mine enemies." I have sat down and spoken to her, and have
   said to her, "Well, you have been in this sad place these many months.
   Do you find religion cheers you now?" "Oh, Sir," she has said, "what
   could I do without it? I cannot leave this bed; but it has been to me a
   couch of joy, where Christ has spread a banquet. He has made my bed in
   all my sickness. he has put his left hand under my head, and his right
   hand has embraced me; he has given me joy in my sorrows, and has
   prepared me to face death with a calm and unflinching countenance."
   Such a case bears witness to the Master. Like that of the gray-headed
   saint, it is an excellent report of this good land.

   But we need not look to sick beds and to grey heads for the only
   witness. We know a Christian merchant; he is immersed in the cares of
   this life, and yet he always finds time to prepare for a world that is
   to come. He has as much business as any man in the city, and yet family
   prayer is never neglected. And perhaps you find him serving the office
   of civic magistrate--as was the case in one instance--and yet even on
   the day of banquet, he rises from his chair, in order that family
   worship may still be kept up in his house. He is known in business as
   one who is willing to help little tradesmen. He likes good securities,
   as other people do; but he will sometimes run a risk to help a rising
   man. When you go to him, you find him a sharp man of business, he is
   not to be taken in; but at the same time you will find him a man that
   will not take you in. You may trust him. Whatever the transaction may
   be, you have no need to look over the invoice if he has had anything to
   do with it. There will be no mistake there; or if there be a mistake,
   it will be palpably a mistake, and immediately confessed with the
   greatest possible sorrow, for he is upright in his dealings. There has
   come sometimes in his case an unhappy crisis, and when houses were
   tumbling, and bankrupts were as common as leaves upon the trees he was
   not disturbed and distracted like other men, for his confidence was in
   his God, and his trust in the God of Jacob. He had some anxiety, but he
   had more faith. and when his prosperity returned to him, he dedicated
   part of his substance unto the Lord, not in a noisy way, so that it
   might appear in a report that So-and-so gave a hundred a year to a
   society, but he gave five hundred and nobody knew of it. Men said of
   him in the Exchange and in the Market, "If there is a Christian, it is
   that man." When they saw him, they said, "There is something in
   religion. We have watched him; we have never found him trip or turn
   aside. We have always found him the same upright character, fearing his
   God, and fearing no man." Such a man brings up a good report of the
   land. I may talk here Sunday after Sunday, and every day in the week
   elsewhere, but I cannot preach in so forcible a way as you can, who by
   your actions are preaching to the world. Ah! and I cannot preach so
   well as those who are servants, who by their holy action in the midst
   of trial and difficulty have an opportunity to show what grace can do
   in the heart. Those are good spies who bring up a good report of the
   land.

   And, my sisters, let me say a word to you. It is possible for you, too,
   to bring up a good report; not by neglecting your households in order
   to attend to visiting societies. Let visiting societies be attended to.
   God be thanked for them, for they are among the best institutions of
   our times. But I have known some people who would have been a great
   deal better employed in scrubbing their dressers, and seeing their
   servants wash up the tea things, than going out visiting the sick from
   house to house; for their house has run to riot, and their families
   have been quite out of order, because the wife, like a foolish woman,
   was plucking everything down at home, while trying to do good abroad.
   We have known many true sisters of mercy, who are really blessed among
   women, and God shall bless them abundantly. We have known others who
   very seldom go out visiting the sick, but they are at home ordering
   their household. We have known an ungodly husband converted by a godly
   wife. I remember to have heard an instance of a man who had a wife of
   so excellent a disposition, that though he was a worldly, gay man, he
   used to boast in his gay company that he had got the best wife on
   earth. Said he, "You cannot put her into a passion. I go home late at
   night, in all sorts of trim, but she always receives me meekly, and I
   feel ashamed of myself every time I see her, for her holiness rebukes
   me. You may put her to any test you like, you will find her the best of
   women." "Well," said they, "let us all go to supper with you to-night."
   They did. In they rushed. She did not hint there was nothing in the
   house, though there was very little; but she and her maid set to with
   all their might, although it was past twelve o'clock, and very soon had
   supper, and she waited on them with all the grace of a duchess, seeming
   as glad to see them as if they were her friends, and had come at the
   most opportune time. And they began to tell how it was they had come,
   and asked her how it was she could bear it so patiently. She said, "God
   has given me a husband. I was not converted before I was married, but
   ever since I was converted, my first endeavor has been to bring my
   husband to know Jesus. and I am sure," said she, "he will never be
   brought to do so except by kindness." Her husband, through these words,
   after the company had gone, confessed how wrong he had acted to her;
   his heart was touched; next Sabbath he went to the house of God with
   her, and they became a happy couple, rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ
   with all their hearts. She was a good spy, and brought a good report of
   the land. I doubt not there are many women whose names will never be
   heard of on earth who will receive the Master's commendation at last,
   "She hath done what she could;" and when you have done what you can for
   Christ, by holy, patient, quiet meekness, you are good spies; you have
   brought a good report of the land.

   And you servants, you can do the same. A religious servant girl ought
   to be the best servant anywhere. A religious shoeblack ought to black
   shoes better than anybody else. If there be a religious man who is set
   to clean knives, he ought to take care that he does not take the edge
   off. You know the negroes' piety in America is such, that a religious
   negro is worth many dollars more than another and always sells well; so
   that the masters like them to get religious because they are the men
   that do not rebel, but submit meekly and patiently, and the men who,
   finding themselves slaves, much as they may hate their position, yet
   regard one to be their master who is higher than all, and "not with eye
   service as men pleasers, but with singleness of heart," they endeavor
   to serve God.

   IV. And now I want to press with all my might upon every professing
   Christian here, THE GREAT NECESSITY OF BRINGING OUT A UNIFORMLY GOOD
   TESTIMONY CONCERNING RELIGION. Brethren, I feel persuaded if Christ
   were here to-day, there are some of us who love him so well that we
   would turn our own cheek to the smiter, rather than he should be
   smitten. One of Napoleon's officers loved him so well that when a
   cannon ball was likely to smite the emperor, he threw himself in the
   way, in order that he might die as a sacrifice for his master. Oh
   Christian, you would do the same, I think. If Christ were here you
   would run between him and insult, yea, between him and death. Well,
   then, I am sure you would not wantonly expose Christ; but remember,
   every unguarded word you use, every inconsistent act puts a slur on
   Christ. The world, you know, does not find fault with you--they lay it
   all to your Master. If you make a slip to-morrow they will not say,
   "That is John Smith's human nature;" they will say, "That is John
   Smith's religion." They know better, but they will be sure to say it;
   they will be sure they put all the mischief at the door of Christ. Now,
   if you could bear the blame yourself you might bear it manfully; but do
   not allow Christ to bear the blame--do not suffer his escutcheon to be
   tarnished--do not permit his banner to be trampled in the dust.

   Then there is another consideration. You must remember, if you do wrong
   the world will be quite sure to notice you. The world carries two bags:
   in the bag at the back they put all the Christian's virtues--in the bag
   in front they put all our mistakes and sins. They never think of
   looking at the virtues of holy men; all the courage of martyrs and all
   the fidelity of confessors, and all the holiness of saints, is nothing
   to them; but our iniquities are ever before them. Please to recollect,
   that wherever you are as a Christian, the eyes of the world are upon
   you; the Argus eyes of an evil generation follow you everywhere. If a
   church is blind the world is not. It is a common proverb, "As sound
   asleep as a church," and a very true one, for most churches are sound
   asleep; but it would be a great falsehood if anyone were to say, "As
   sound asleep as the world," for the world is never asleep. Sleeping is
   left to the church. And remember, too, that the world always wears
   magnifying glasses to look at Christians' faults. If a man trips who
   makes no profession, oh! it is nothing--you never hear of it; let a
   minister do it, let a Christian professor do it, and then comes out the
   magnifying glass. It is nothing in anybody else, but it is a great sin
   in us. There are two codes of morality in the world, and it is very
   right there should be. If we make profession to be God's children, and
   to have God's grace in our hearts, it is no more wrong in the world to
   expect more of us than of others than it is for a gardener to expect
   his plants to grow more quickly on a hot-bed and under a glass-shade
   than he would out of doors in the cold frost. If we have more
   privileges, and more culture, and make more profession, we ought to
   live up to them, and the world is quite right in expecting us to do so.

   There is another consideration I must offer you before I have done.
   Recollect if you do not bring a good testimony for your religion, an
   evil testimony will defeat a great deal of good. All the saints in a
   church but one may be faithful to Christ, and the world will not honor
   the church for it; but let one professor in that church turn aside to
   sin, and you will hear of it for many a day. It is even so in nature.
   Take the days in the year. The sun rises and shines upon us, and we do
   not note it; all things continue as they were: the stars smile sweetly
   by night, and the day and night roll on in quiet: but there comes one
   day, a day of thunder and lightning, a day of earthquake and storm, and
   it is put on the rolls of our history that such-and-such a remarkable
   day occurred at such-and-such a time. Why not note the good day? But so
   it is. The world will only note the evil. You may cross through a
   country, and you will notice a hundred fair rivers, like silver streams
   threaded with emeralds running through the pastures, who hears the
   sound of their waters, as they flow gently to the sea? But there is one
   precipitous rock, and a waterfall dashes there; you may hear that half
   a mile off. We never hear anything about the river St. Lawrence, in all
   its lengths and breadths, it is only the falls of Niagara that we hear
   of. And so the Christian may flow on in a steady course of life,
   unseen, unheard; but you are sure to hear of him, if he makes a fall.
   Be watchful, therefore; your Master cometh. Be watchful: the enemy is
   at hand even now. O may the Holy Spirit sanctify you wholly, that you
   may abound in every good work, to the glory of God!

   As for you who fear not God, remember, if Christians do sin, that shall
   not be an excuse for you. Suppose a man you are dealing with says to
   you, "I cheated you, but I did not make any profession of being
   honest." You would tell him he was a confirmed rogue. Or if a man were
   taken before a magistrate, and were to say, "You need not put me in a
   prison, I never made a profession of being anything but a thief. I
   never said I would not break into people's chambers and get at their
   plate baskets!" The magistrate would say, "You speak honestly, but you
   are by your own confession a great rogue, and I will transport you for
   life, and you shall never have a ticket of leave." It will be of no use
   for you at the last day, to say that you never made a profession of
   wanting to go to heaven or to escape hell, of leaving sin and trusting
   in Christ. If you never made a profession of serving God, you may rest
   assured he will have short work with you. You have made no profession.
   O there is no judgment required. Depart! Thou didst make no profession
   of loving me, and now thou shalt have no posesssion of my glory.
   Depart, accursed, into everlasting fire. May the Lord deliver us from
   that, for Jesus' sake.
     __________________________________________________________________

                               The Heavenly Race

   A Sermon

   (No. 198)

   Delivered on Friday Afternoon, June 11, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   on the Grand Stand, Epsom Race-Course.

   "So run, that ye may obtain."--1 Corinthians 9:24.

   WE ARE CONTINUALLY insisting upon it from day to day, that salvation is
   not of works, but of grace. We lay this down as one of the very first
   doctrines of the gospel. "Not of works, lest any man should boast." "By
   grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is
   the gift of God." But we find that it is equally necessary to preach
   the absolute necessity of a religious life for the attainment of heaven
   at last. Although we are sure that men are not saved for the sake of
   their works, yet are we equally sure that no man will be saved without
   them; and that he who leads an unholy life, who neglects the great
   salvation, can never inherit that crown of life which fadeth not away.
   In one sense, true religion is wholly the work of God; yet there are
   high and important senses in which we must ourselves "strive to enter
   in at the strait gate." We must run a race; we must wrestle even to
   agony; we must fight a battle, before we can inherit the crown of life.
   We have in our text the course of religion set down as a race; and
   inasmuch as there be many who enter upon a profession of religion with
   very false motives, the apostle warns us that although all run in a
   race, yet all do not obtain the prize: they run all, but only one is
   rewarded: and he gives us, therefore, the practical exhortation to run
   that we may obtain; for unless we are the winners we had better not
   have been runners at all; for he that is not a winner is a loser; he
   who makes a profession of religion, and does not at last obtain the
   crown of life, is a loser by his profession; for his profession was
   hypocrisy or else formality, and he had better not have made a
   profession, than fall therein.

   And now, in entering upon the text, I shall have to notice what it is
   we are to run for: "So run that ye may obtain;" secondly, the mode of
   running, to which we must attend--"So run that ye may obtain;" and then
   I shall give a few practical exhortations to stir those onward in the
   heavenly race who are flagging and negligent, in order that they may at
   last "obtain."

   I. In the first place, then, WHAT IS IT THAT WE OUGHT TO SEEK TO
   OBTAIN?

   Some people think they must be religious, in order to be respectable.
   There are a vast number of people in the world who go to church and to
   chapel, because everybody else does so. It is disreputable to waste
   your Sundays, not to be found going up to the house of God, therefore
   they take a pew and attend the services, and they think they have done
   their duty: they have obtained all that they sought for, when they can
   hear their neighbors saying, "Such-and-such a man is a very respectable
   person; he is always very regular at his Church; he is a very reputable
   person, and exceedingly praiseworthy." Verily, if this be what you seek
   after in your religion, you shall get it; for the Pharisees who sought
   the praise of men "had their reward." But when you have gotten it, what
   a poor reward it is! Is it worth the drudgery? I do not believe that
   the drudgery to which people submit in order to be called respectable,
   is at an compensated by what they gain. I am sure, for my own part, I
   would not care a solitary rap what I was called, or what I was thought;
   nor would I perform anything that was irksome to myself for the sake of
   pleasing any man that ever walked beneath the stars, however great or
   mighty he may be. It is the sign of a fawning, cringing spirit, when
   people are always seeking to do that which renders them respectable.
   The esteem of men is not worth the looking after, and sad it is, that
   this should be the only prize which some men put before them, in the
   poor religion which they undertake.

   There are people who go a little farther: they are not content with
   being considered respectable, but they want something more; they desire
   to be considered pre-eminently saints. These persons come to our places
   of worship, and after a little time they venture to come forward and
   ask whether they may unite with our churches. We examine them, and so
   hidden is their hypocrisy that we cannot discover its rottenness: we
   receive them into our churches; they sit at the Lord's Supper; they
   come to our church-meetings: mayhap, they are even voted into the
   deacon's office; sometimes they attain to the pulpit, though God has
   never called them, and preach what they have never felt in their
   hearts. Men may do all this merely to enjoy the praise of men; and they
   will even undergo some persecution for the sake of it; because to be
   thought a saint, to be reckoned by religious people to be everything
   that is right and proper, to have a name among the living in Zion, is
   to some persons a thing exceedingly coveted. They would not like to be
   set down among the "chief of sinners," but if they may have their names
   written among the chief of saints they will consider themselves
   exceedingly exalted. I am afraid we have a considerable admixture of
   persons of this sort in our churches who only come for the mere sake of
   keeping up their religious pretensions and obtaining a religious status
   in the midst of the church of God. "Verily, I say unto you they have
   their reward," and they shall never have any but what they obtain here.
   They get their reward for a little time. for a short time they are
   looked up to. but perhaps even in this life they make a trip, and down
   they go; the church discovers them, and they are sent out like the ass
   stripped of the lion's skin to browse once more among their native
   nettles, no longer to be glorious in the midst of the church of the
   living God. Or mayhap, they may wear the cloak until the last day of
   their lives, and then death comes, and strips them of all their tinsel
   and gewgaw; And they who acted upon the stage of religion as kings and
   princes, are sent behind the stage to be unrobed and to find themselves
   beggars to their shame, and naked to their eternal disgrace. It is not
   this which you and I would seek after in religion. Dearly beloved, if
   we do run the race, we would run for a higher and more glorious prize
   than any of these things.

   Another set of people take up with religious life for what they can get
   by it. I have known tradespeople attend church for the mere sake of
   getting the custom of those who went there. I have heard of such things
   as people knowing which side their bread was buttered, and going to
   that particular denomination, where they thought they could get the
   most by it. Loaves and fishes drew some of Christ's followers, and they
   are very attracting baits, even to this day. Men find there is
   something to be gotten by religion. Among the poor it is, perhaps, some
   little charity to be obtained, and among those that are in business, it
   is the custom which they think to get. "Verily I say unto you, they
   have their reward;" for the church is ever foolish and unsuspicious. We
   do not like to suspect our fellow creatures of following us from sordid
   motives. The church does not like to think that a man would be base
   enough to pretend to religion for the mere sake of what he can get,
   and, therefore, we let these people easily slip through, and they have
   their reward. But ah! at what a price they buy it! They have deceived
   the Lord's servants for gold, and they have entered into his church as
   base hypocrites for the sake of a piece of bread; and they shall be
   thrust out at last with the anger of God behind them, like Adam driven
   out of Eden, with the flaming Cherubim with a sword turning every way
   to keep the tree of life; and they shall for ever look back upon this
   as the most fearful crime they have committed--that they pretended to
   be God's people when they were not, and entered into the midst of the
   fold when they were but wolves in sheeps' clothing.

   There is yet another class, and when I have referred to them I will
   mention no more. These are the people who take up with religion for the
   sake of quieting their conscience, and it is astonishing how little of
   religion will sometimes do that. Some people tell us that if in the
   time of storm men would pour bottles of oil upon the waves, there would
   be a great calm at once. I have never tried it, and it is most probable
   I never shall, for my organ of credulity is not large enough to accept
   so extensive a statement. But there are some people who think that they
   can calm the storm of a troubled conscience by pouring a little of the
   oil of a profession about religion upon it; and it is amazing how
   wonderful an effect this really has. I have known a man who was drunk
   many times in a week, and who got his money dishonestly, and yet he
   always had an easy conscience by going to his church or chapel
   regularly on the Sunday. We have heard of a man who could "devour
   widows' houses"--a lawyer who could swallow up everything that came in
   his way, and yet he would never go to bed without saying his prayers;
   and that stilled his conscience. We have heard of other persons,
   especially among the Romanists,. who would not object to thieving, but
   who would regard eating anything but fish on a Friday as a most fearful
   sin, supposing that by making a fast on the Friday, all the iniquities
   of all the days in the week would be put away. They want the outward
   forms of religion to keep the conscience quiet; for Conscience is one
   of the worst lodgers to have in your house when he gets quarrelsome:
   there is no abiding with him; he is an ill bed-fellow; ill at lying
   down, and equally troublesome at rising up. A guilty conscience is one
   of the curses of the world: it puts out the sun, and takes away the
   brightness from the moonbeam. A guilty conscience casts a noxious
   exhalation through the air, removes the beauty from the landscape, the
   glory from the flowing river, the majesty from the rolling floods.
   There is nothing beautiful to the man that has a guilty conscience. He
   needs no accusing; everything accuses him. Hence people take up with
   religion just to quiet them. They take the sacrament sometimes; they go
   to a place of worship; they sing a hymn now and then, they give a
   guinea to a charity; they intend to leave a portion in their will to
   build alms-houses, and in this way conscience is lulled asleep, and
   they rock him to and fro with religious observances, till there he
   sleeps while they sing over him the lullaby of hypocrisy, and he wakes
   not until he shall wake with that rich man who was here clothed in
   purple, but in the next world did lift up his eyes in hell, being in
   torments, without a drop of water to cool his burning tongue.

   What, then, is it, for which we ought to run in this race? Why heaven,
   eternal life, justification by faith, the pardon of sin, acceptance in
   the Beloved, and glory everlasting. If you run for anything else than
   salvation, should you will, what you have won is not worth the running
   for. Oh! I beseech every one of you, make sure work for eternity, never
   be contented with anything less than a living faith in a living
   Saviour; rest not until you are certain that the Holy Spirit is at work
   in your souls. Do not think that the outside of religion can be of use
   to you; it is just the inward part of religion that God loveth. Seek to
   have a repentance that needeth not to be repented of--a faith which
   looks alone to Christ, and which will stand by you when you come into
   the swellings of Jordan, Seek to have a love which is not like a
   transient flame, burning for a moment and then extinguished; but a
   flame which shall increase and increase, and still increase, till your
   heart shall be swallowed up therein, and Jesus Christ's one name shall
   be the sole object of your affection. We must, in running the heavenly
   race, set nothing less before us than that which Christ did set before
   him. He set the joy of salvation before himself, and then he did run,
   despising the cross and enduring the shame. So let us do; and may God
   give us good success, that by his good Spirit we may attain unto
   eternal life, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord!

   II. Thus have I noticed what it is we are to run for. And now the
   Apostle says, "So run that ye may obtain." I shall notice some people
   who never will obtain, and tell you the reason why, and in so doing, I
   shall be illustrating THE RULES OF THE RACE.

   There are some people who certainly never will obtain the prize,
   because they are not even entered. Their names are not down for the
   race, and therefore it is quite clear that they will not run, or if
   they do run, they will run without having any warrant whatever for
   expecting to receive the prize. There are some such here this
   afternoon: who will tell you themselves, "We make no profession,
   sir--none whatever." It is quite as well, perhaps, that you do not;
   because if you did, you would be hypocrites, and it is better to make
   no profession at all than to be hypocrites. Still, recollect, your
   names are not down for the race, and therefore you cannot win. If a man
   tells you in business that he makes no profession of being honest, you
   know that he is a confirmed rogue. If a man makes no profession of
   being religious, you know what he is--he is irreligious--he has no fear
   of God before his eyes, he has no love to Christ, he has no hope of
   heaven. He confesses it himself. Strange that men should be so ready to
   confess this. You don't find persons in the street willing to
   acknowledge that they are confirmed drunkards. Generally a man will
   repudiate it with scorn. You never find a man saying to you, "I don't
   profess to be a chaste living man." You don't hear another say, "I
   don't profess to be anything but a covetous wretch." No; people are not
   so fast about telling their faults: and yet you hear people confess the
   greatest fault to which man can be addicted: they say, "I make no
   profession"--which means just this--that they do not give God his due.
   God has made them, and yet they won't serve him; Christ hath come into
   the world to save sinners, and yet they will not regard him; the gospel
   is preached; and yet they will not hear it, they have the Bible in
   their houses, and yet they will not attend to its admonitions: they
   make no profession of doing so. It will be short work with them at the
   last great day. There will be no need for the books to be opened, no
   need for a long deliberation in the verdict. They do not profess to be
   pardoned; their guilt is written upon their own foreheads, their brazen
   shamelessness shall be seen by the whole world, as a sentence of
   destruction written upon their very brows. You cannot expect to win
   heaven unless your names are entered for the race. If there be no
   attempts whatever made, even at so much as a profession of religion,
   then of course you may just sit down and say, "Heaven is not for me; I
   have no part nor lot in the inheritance of Israel, I cannot say that my
   Redeemer liveth; and I may rest quite assured that Tophet is prepared
   of old for me. I must feel its pains and know its miseries; for there
   are but two places to dwell in hereafter, and if I am not found on the
   right hand of the Judge, there is but one alternative--namely, to be
   cast away for ever into the blackness of darkness."

   Then there is another class whose names are down, but they never
   started right. A bad start is a sad thing. If in the ancient races of
   Greece or Rome a man who was about to run for the race had loitered, or
   if he had started before the time it would not matter how fast he ran,
   if he did not start in order. The flag must drop before the horse
   starts; otherwise, even if it reach the winning post first, it shall
   have no reward. There is something to be noted, then, in the starting
   of the race. I have known men run the race of religion with all their
   might, and yet they have lost it because they did not start right. You
   say, "Well, how is that?" Why, there are some people who on a sudden
   leap into religion. They get it quickly, and they keep it for a time.
   and at last they lose it because they did not get their religion the
   right way. They have heard that before a man can be saved, it is
   necessary that, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, he should feel the
   weight of sin, that he should make a confession of it, that he should
   renounce all hope in his own works, and should look to Jesus Christ
   alone. They look upon all these things as unpleasant preliminaries and
   therefore, before they have attended to repentance, before the Holy
   Spirit has wrought a good work in them before they have been brought to
   give up everything and trust to Christ, they make a profession of
   religion. This is just setting up in business without a stock in trade,
   and there must be a failure. If a man has no capital to begin with, he
   may make a fine show for a little time, but it shall be as the
   crackling of thorns under a pot, a great deal of noise and much light
   for a little time, but it shall die out in darkness. How many there are
   who never think it necessary that there should be heart work within!
   Let us remember, however, that there never was a true new birth without
   much spiritual suffering, that there never was a man who had a changed
   heart without his first having a miserable heart. We must pass through
   that black tunnel of conviction before we can come out upon the high
   embankment of holy joy; we must first go through the Slough of Despond
   before we can run along the walls of Salvation. There must be ploughing
   before there is sowing; there must be many a frost, and many a sharp
   shower before there is any reaping. But we often act like little
   children who pluck flowers from the shrubs and plant them in their
   gardens without roots; then they say how fair and how pretty their
   little garden is; but wait a little while, and their flowers are
   withered, because they have no roots. This is an the effect of not
   having a right start, not having the "root of the matter." What is the
   good of outward religion, the flower and the leaf of it, unless we have
   the "root of the matter" in us--unless we have been digged into by that
   sharp iron spade of conviction, and have been ploughed with the plough
   of the Spirit, and then have been sown with the sacred seed of the
   gospel, in the hope of bringing forth an abundant harvest? There must
   be a good start; look well to that, for there is no hope of running
   unless the start be right.

   Again, there are some runners in the heavenly race who cannot win
   because they carry too much weight. A light weight, of course, has the
   advantage. There are come people who have an immensely heavy weight to
   carry. "How hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven!"
   What is the reason? Because he carries so much weight; he has so much
   of the cares and pleasures of this world; he has such a burden that he
   is not likely to win, unless God should please to give him a mighty
   mass of strength to enable him to bear it. We find many men willing to
   be saved, as they say; they receive the word with great joy, but
   by-and-bye thorns spring up and choke the word. They have so much
   business to do; they say they must live; they forget they must die.
   They have such a deal to attend to, they cannot think of living near to
   Christ. They find they have little time for devotions; morning prayer
   must be cut short, because their business begins early; they can have
   no prayer at night, because business keeps them so late. How can they
   be expected to think of the things of God? They have so much to do to
   answer this question--"What shall I eat? what shall I drink? and
   wherewithal shall I be clothed?" It is true they read in the Bible that
   their Father who is in heaven will take care of them in these things if
   they will trust him. But they say, "Not so." Those are enthusiasts
   according to their notions who rely upon providence. They say, the best
   providence in all the world is hard work; and they say rightly, but
   they forget that into the bargain of their hard work "it is in vain to
   rise up early and sit up late, and eat the bread of carefulness; for
   except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." You
   see two men running a race. One of them, as he starts, lays aside every
   weight, he takes off his garment and away he runs. There goes the other
   poor fellow, he has a whole load of gold and silver upon his back. Then
   around his loins he has many distrustful doubts about what shall become
   of him in the future, what will be his prospects when he grows old, and
   a hundred other things. He does not know how to roll his burden upon
   the Lord. See how he flags, poor fellow, and how the other distances
   him, leaves him far behind, has gained the corner, and is coming to the
   winning post. It is well for us if we can cast everything away except
   that one thing needful, and say, "This is my business, to serve God on
   earth, knowing that I shall enjoy him in heaven." For when we leave our
   business to God, we leave it in better hands than if we took care of it
   ourselves. They who carve for themselves generally cut their fingers;
   but they who leave God to carve for them, shall never have an empty
   plate. He who will walk after the cloud shall go aright, but he who
   will run before it shall soon find that he has gone a fool's errand.
   "Blessed is the man who trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the
   Lord.is." "The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that
   wait upon the Lord shall not want any good thing." Our Saviour said,
   "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." Behold the fowls of the
   air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet
   your heavenly Father feedeth them, are ye not much better than they?"
   "Trust in the Lord and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed." "His
   place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks; bread shall be given
   him; his waters shall be sure." "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
   his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Carry
   the weight of this world's cares about you. and it will be as much as
   you can do to carry them and to stand upright under them, but as to
   running a race with such burdens, it is just impossible.

   There is also another thing that will prevent man's running the race.
   We have known people who stopped on their way to kick their fellows.
   Such things sometimes occur in a race. The horse, instead of speeding
   onwards to the mark, is of an angry disposition, and sets about kicking
   those that are running beside him--there is not much probability of his
   coming in first. "Now they that run in a race run all, but one
   receiveth the prize." There is one however who never gets it, and that
   is the man who always attends to his fellow-creatures instead of
   himself. It is a mysterious thing that I never yet saw a man with a hoe
   on his shoulder, going to hoe his neighbour's garden, it is a rarity to
   see a farmer sending his team of horses to plough his neighbour's land;
   but it is a most singular thing that every day in the week I meet with
   persons who are attending to other people's character. If they go to
   the house of God and hear a trite thing said, they say at once "How
   suitable that was for Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Brown?" The thought never
   enters their head, how suitable it was to themselves. They lend their
   ears to everybody else, but they do not hear for themselves. When they
   get out of chapel, perhaps as they walk home, their first thought is,
   "Well, how can I find fault with my neighbors?" They think that putting
   other people down is going up themselves (there never was a greater
   mistake); that by picking holes in their neighbour's coat they mend
   their own They have so few virtues of their own that they do not like
   anybody else to have any therefore they do the best they can to despoil
   everything good in their neighbor; and it there be a little fault, they
   will look at it through a magnifying glass, but they will turn the
   glass the other way when they look at their own sins. Their own faults
   become exceedingly small while those of others become magnificently
   great. Now this is a fault not only among professing religious men, but
   among those who are not religious. We are all so prone to find fault
   with other people instead of attending to our own home affairs. We
   attend to the vineyards of others, but our own vineyard we have not
   kept. Ask a worldly man why he is not religious, and he tells you
   "Because so-and-so makes a profession of religion and is not
   consistent." Pray is that any business of yours? To your own Master you
   must stand or fall, and so must he; God is their judge, and not you.
   Suppose there are a great many inconsistent Christians--and we are
   compelled to acknowledge that there are--so much the more reason why
   you should be a good one. Suppose there are a great many who deceive
   others; so much the more reason you should set the world an example of
   what a genuine Christian is. "Ah! but," you say, "I am afraid there are
   very few." Then why don't you make one? But after all, is that your
   business? Must not every man bear his own burden? You will not be
   judged for other men's sins, you will not be saved by their faith, you
   will not be condemned for their unbelief. Every man must stand in his
   own proper flesh and blood at the bar of God, to account for the works
   done in his own body, whether they have been good or whether they have
   been evil. It will be of little avail for you to say at the day of
   judgment, "O Lord, I wee looking at my neighbors; O Lord, I was finding
   fault with the people in the village; I was correcting their follies."
   But thus saith the Lord: "Did I ever commission thee to be a judge or a
   divider over them? Why, if thou hadst so much time to spare, and so
   much critical judgment, didst thou not exercise it upon thyself? Why
   didst thou not examine thyself, so that thou mightest have been found
   ready and acceptable in the day of God?" These persons are not very
   likely to win the race, because they turn to kicking others.

   Again, there is another class of persons who will not win the
   race--namely, those who, although they seem to start very fair, very
   soon loiter. They dart ahead at the first starting, and distance all
   the others. There they fly away as if they had wings to their heels;
   but a little further on in the race, it is with difficulty that with
   whip and spur they are to be kept going at all, and they almost come to
   a stand still. Alas! this race of persons are to be discovered in all
   our churches. We get young people who come forward and make a
   profession of religion, and we talk with them, and we think it is all
   well with them, and for a little while they do run well; there is
   nothing wanting in them; we could hold them up as patterns for the
   imitation of others. Wait a couple of years. they drop off just by
   little and little. First, perhaps, there is the attendance on a
   week-day service neglected; then it is altogether discontinued; then
   one service on Sabbath; then perhaps family prayer, then private
   prayer--one thing after another is given up, until at last the whole
   edifice which stood upright and looked so fair, having been built upon
   the sand, gives way before the shock of time, and down it falls, and
   great is the ruin thereof. Recollect, it is not starting that wins the
   race; it is running all the way. He that would be saved, must hold on
   to the end: "He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved."
   Stop and loiter in the race before you have come to the end thereof,
   and you have made one of the greatest mistakes that could possibly
   occur. On, on, on! while you live; still onward, onward, onward! for
   until you come to the grave, you have not come to your resting place
   until you arrive at the tomb, you have not come to the spot where you
   may cry "Halt!" Ever onward if ye would win. If you are content to
   lose, if you would lose your own soul, you may say, "Stop," if you
   please; but if you would be saved evermore, be on, on, till you have
   gained the prize.

   But there is another class of persons, who are worse than these. They
   start well too, and they run very fast at first, but at last they leap
   over the posts and rails, they go quite out of the course altogether,
   and you do not know where they are gone. Every now and then, we get
   such people as this. They go out from us, because they are not of us,
   for had they been of us, doubtless they would have continued with us. I
   might point out in my congregation on the Sabbath-day, a man whom I saw
   start myself. I saw him running so well I almost envied him the joy he
   seemed always able to preserve, the faith which ever seemed to be so
   buoyant and full of jubilee. Alas! just when we thought he was speeding
   onwards to the prize, some temptation crossed his path, and he turned
   aside. Away he is scrambling far over the heath, out of the path of
   right, and men say, "Aha! aha! so would we have it; so would we have
   it." And they laugh and make merriment over him, because, having once
   named the name of Jesus Christ, he hath afterwards gone back again, and
   his last end is worse than the first. Those whom God starts never do
   this, for they are preserved in Christ Jesus. Those who have been
   "entered" in the great roll of the Covenant before all eternity shall
   persevere, by the aid of the good Spirit. He that began the good work
   in them, shall carry it on even unto the end. But, alas! there are many
   who run on their own account and in their own strength; and they are
   like the snail, which as it creeps, leaves its life as a trail upon its
   own path. They melt away; their nature decayeth; they perish, and where
   are they? Not in the church, but lost to all hope. They are like the
   dog that returned to his vomit, and the sow that was washed to her
   wallowing in the mire. "The last end of that man shall be worse than
   the first."

   I do not think I shall now mention any other class of persons. I have
   brought before you the rules of the race, if you would will; if you
   would "so run that you may obtain," you must first of all take care to
   start well; you must keep to the course; you must keep strait on; you
   must not stop on the road, or turn aside from it, but, urged on by
   Divine grace, you must ever fly onwards, "like an arrow from the bow,
   shot by an archer strong." And never rest until the march is ended, and
   you are made pillars in the house of your God, to go out no more for
   ever.

   III. But now I am about to give you some few reasons to URGE YOU ONWARD
   IN THE HEAVENLY RACE--those of you who are already running.

   One of my reasons shall be this--"We are compassed about by so great a
   cloud of witnesses." When zealous racers on yonder heath are flying
   across the plain, seeking to obtain the reward, the whole heath is
   covered with multitudes of persons, who are eagerly gazing upon them,
   and no doubt the noise of those who cheer them onward, and the thousand
   eyes of those who look upon them, have a tendency to make them stretch
   every nerve, and press with vigor on. It was so in the games to which
   the apostle alludes. There the people sat on raised platforms, while
   the racers ran before them, and they cried to them, and the friends of
   the racers urged them forward, and the kindly voice would ever be heard
   bidding them go on. Now, Christian brethren, how many witnesses are
   looking down upon you. Down! do I say? It is even so. From the
   battlements of heaven the angels look down upon you, and they seem to
   cry to-day to you with sweet, silvery voice, "Ye shall reap if ye faint
   not; ye shall be rewarded if ye continue stedfast in the work and faith
   of Christ." And the saints look down upon you--Abraham, Isaac, and
   Jacob; martyrs and confessors, and your own pious relatives who have
   ascended to heaven, look down upon you, and if I might so speak,
   methinks sometimes you might hear the clapping of their hands when you
   have resisted temptation and overcome the enemy; and you might see
   their suspense when you are lagging in the course, and you might hear
   their friendly word of caution as they bid you gird up the loins of
   your mind, and lay aside every weight, and still speed forward, never
   resting to take your breath, never staying for a moment's ease till you
   have attained the flowery beds of heaven. where you may rest forever.
   And recollect, these are not the only eyes that are looking upon you.
   The whole world looks upon a Christian: he is the observed of all
   observers. In a Christian every fault is seen. A worldly man may commit
   a thousand faults, and nobody notices him; but let a Christian do so,
   and he will very soon have his faults published to the wide world.
   Everywhere men are looking at Christians. and it is quite right that
   they should do so. I remember a young man, a member of a Christian
   church, who went to a public-house hall of the lowest character; and he
   was no sooner mounting up the stairs, than one of them said, "Ah! here
   comes the Methodist; we will give it to him." As soon as they had him
   in the room, they first of all lead him up and down to let everybody
   see the Methodist who had come among them, and then they kicked him
   down stairs. I sent them my respectful compliments for doing so, for it
   served him right; and I took care that he was kicked down stairs in
   another sense afterwards, and kicked out of the church. The world would
   not have him and the church would not have him. The world then looks
   upon you, it never misses an opportunity of throwing your religion in
   your teeth. If you don't give sixteen ounces to the pound of morality,
   if you don't come up to the mark in everything, you will hear of it
   again. Don't think the world is ever asleep. We say, "as sound asleep
   as a church," and that is a very good proverb; but we cannot say, "as
   sound asleep as the world" for it never sleeps; it always has its eyes
   open, it is always watching us in all we do. The eyes of the world are
   upon you. "We are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses;"
   "let us run with patience the race that is set before us." And there
   are darker and yet more malignant eyes that scowl upon us. There are
   spirits that people this air, who are under the prince of the power of
   the air, who watch every day for our halting.

   "Millions of spiritual creatures walk this earth,

   Both when we wake and when we sleep."

   And alas! those spiritual creatures are not all good. There be those
   that are not yet chained and reserved in darkness, but who are
   permitted by God to wander through this world like roaring lions,
   seeking whom they may devour, ever ready to tempt us. And there is one
   at the head of them called Satan, the enemy, and you know his
   employment. He has access to the throne of God, and he makes most
   horrid use of it, for he accuses us day and night before the throne.
   The accuser of the brethren is not yet cast down--that is to be in the
   great day of the triumph of the Son of Man; but as Jesus stands our
   Advocate before the throne, so does old Satan first watch us and tempt
   us, and then stands as our accuser before the bar of God. O my dear
   brothers and sisters, if you have entered into this race, and have
   commenced it, let these many eyes urge you forward.

   "A cloud of witnesses around

   Hold thee in full survey;

   Forget the steps already trod,

   And onward urge thy way."

   And now a more urgent consideration still. Recollect, your race is win
   or lose--death or life, hell or heaven, eternal misery or everlasting
   joy. What a stake that is for which you run. If I may so put it, you
   are running for your life; and if that does not make a man run nothing
   will. Put a man there on yonder hill, and put another after him with a
   drawn sword seeking his life, If there is any run in him you will soon
   see him run; there will be no need for us to shout out to him, "Run,
   man, run" for he is quite certain that his life is at hazard, and he
   speeds with all his might--speeds till the veins stand like whipcords
   on his brow, and a hot sweat runs from every pore of his body--and
   still flees onward. Now, he looks behind, and sees the avenger of blood
   speeding after him; he does not stop; he spurns the ground, and on he
   flees till he reaches the city of refuge, where he is safe. Ah! if we
   had eyes to see, and if we knew who it is that is pursuing us every
   afar of our lives, how we should run! for lo! O man, hell is behind
   thee, sin pursues thee, evil seeks to overtake thee; the City of Refuge
   has its gates wide open; I beseech thee, rest not till thou canst say
   with confidence, "I have entered into this rest, and now I am secure, I
   know that my Redeemer liveth." And rest not even then, for this is not
   the place for rest; rest not until thy six days work is done; and thy
   heavenly Sabbath is begun. Let this life be thy six days of
   ever-toiling faith. Obey thy Master's commandment; "labour therefore to
   enter into this rest," seeing that there are many who shall not enter
   in, because through their want of faith they shall not be able. If that
   urge not a man to speed forward, what can?

   But let me picture yet one more thing; and may that help you onward!
   Christian, run onward, for remember who it is that stands at the
   winning post. You are to run onward, always looking unto Jesus, then
   Jesus must be at the end. We are always to be looking forward, and
   never backward; therefore Jesus must be there. Are you loitering? See
   him with his open wounds. Are you about to leave the course? See him
   with his bleeding hands; will not that constrain you to devote yourself
   to him? Will not that impel you to speed your course, and never loiter
   until you have obtained the crown? Your dying Master cries to you
   to-day, and he says. "By my agony and bloody sweat; by my cross and
   passion, onward! By my life, which I gave for you; by the death which I
   endured for your sake, onward!" And see! He holds out his hand, laden
   with a crown sparkling with many a star, and he says, "By this crown,
   onward!" I beseech you, onward, my beloved; press forward, for "I know
   that there is laid up for me a crown of life which fadeth not away, and
   not for me only, but for all them that love his appearing."

   I have thus addressed myself to all sorts of characters. Will you this
   afternoon take that home to yourself which is the most applicable to
   your case. Those of you who make no profession of religion, are living
   without God and without Christ, strangers to the commonwealth of
   Israel,--let me affectionately remind you that the day is coming when
   you will want religion. It is very well now to be sailing over the
   smooth waters of life, but the rough billows of Jordan will make you
   want a Saviour. It is hard work to die without a hope; to take that
   last leap in the dark is a frightful thing indeed. I have seen the old
   man die when he has declared he would not die. He has stood upon the
   brink of death, and he has said, "All dark, dark, dark! O God, I cannot
   die." And his agony has been fearful when the strong hand of the
   destroyer has seemed to push him over the precipice. He lingered
   shivering on the brink, and feared to launch away." And frightful was
   the moment when the foot slipped and the solid earth was left, and the
   soul was sinking into the depths of eternal wrath. You will want a
   Saviour then, when your pulse is faint and few; you will need an angel
   then to stand at your bedside: and when the spirit is departing, you
   will need a sacred convoy to pilot you through the dark clouds of death
   and guide you through the iron gate, and lead you to the blessed
   mansion in the land of the hereafter. Oh, "seek ye the Lord while he
   may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 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. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
   your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than
   the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than
   your thoughts." O Lord, turn us and we shall be turned. Draw us and we
   will run after thee; and thine shall be the glory; for the crown of our
   race shall be cast at thy feet, and thou shalt have the glory forever
   and ever.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                A Free Salvation

   A Sermon

   (No. 199)

   Delivered on Friday Afternoon, June 11, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   on the Grand Stand, Epsom Race-Course.

   "Yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price."--Isaiah
   55:1.

   YOU see, I have something to sell this evening, I have to invite you to
   come and buy that which, in the gospel will this night be proclaimed.
   Now, it is usual when persons have anything to sell, to exhibit the
   article, to describe its character, and speak of its excellencies, for
   until persons are made aware of the nature of that which you exhibit,
   it is not likely that they will be prepared to buy it. That shall be my
   first business this evening Then the man who has aught to sell, in the
   next place, endeavors to bring those who hear him up to the price at
   which he desires to sell. My business tonight is to bring you down to
   the price--"Come buy wine and milk without money and without price." I
   shall then conclude by addressing a few sentences of earnest persuasion
   to those who despise that glorious salvation which it is our privilege
   to preach, and turn away from those generous stipulations--"without
   money and without price."

   I. In the first place, then, I have to preach, to-night, WINE AND
   MILK--"Come buy wine and milk." There we have a description of the
   gospel--wine that maketh glad the heart of man; milk, the one thing and
   the only thing in the world which contains all the essentials of life.
   The strongest man might live on milk, for in it. there is everything
   which is needed for the human frame--for bone, for sinew, for nerve,
   for muscle, for flesh--all is there. There you have a double
   description. The gospel is like wine which makes us glad. Let a man
   truly know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he will be a happy
   man, and the deeper he drinks into the spirit of Christ, the more happy
   will he become. That religion which teaches misery to be a duty. is
   false upon the very face of it, for God, when he made the world,
   studied the happiness of his creatures. You cannot help thinking, as
   you see everything around you, that God has sedulously, with the most
   strict attention, sought ways of pleasing man. He has not just given us
   our absolute necessities, he has given us more, not simply the useful,
   but even the ornamental The flowers in the hedgerow, the stars in the
   sky, the beauties of nature, the hill and the valley--all these things
   were intended not merely because we needed them, but because God would
   show us how he loved us, and how anxious he was that we should be
   happy. Now, it is not likely that the God who made a happy world would
   send a miserable salvation. He who is a happy Creator will be a happy
   Redeemer, and those who have tasted that the Lord is gracious, can bear
   witness that the ways of religion "are ways of pleasantness and all her
   paths are peace." And if this life were all, if death were the burial
   of all our life, and if the shroud were the winding-sheet of eternity,
   still to be a Christian would be a bright and happy thing for it lights
   up this valley of tears, and fills the wells in the valley of Baca to
   the brim with streams of love and joy. The gospel then, is like wine.
   It is like milk, too, for there is everything in the gospel that you
   want. Do you want something to bear you up in trouble? It is in the
   gospel--"a very present help in time of trouble." Do you need something
   to nerve you for duty? There is grace all-sufficient for everything
   that God calls you to undergo or to accomplish. Do you need something
   to light up the eye of your hope? Oh! there are joy-flashes in the
   gospel that may make your eye flash back again the immortal fires of
   bliss. Do you want something to make you stand steadfast in the midst
   of temptation? In the gospel there is that that can make you immovable,
   always abounding in the work of the Lord. There is no passion, no
   affection, no thought, no wish, no power which the gospel has not
   filled to the very brim. The gospel was evidently meant for manhood; it
   is adapted to it in its every part. There is knowledge for the head;
   there is love for the heart; there is guidance for the foot. There is
   milk and wine, in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

   And I think there is another meaning in the two words "milk and wine."
   Wine, you know, is a rich thing, something that requires much time to
   manufacture. There has to be vintage and fermentation and preservation
   before wine can come to its full flavour. Now, the gospel is like that,
   it is an extraordinary thing for feast days; it gives a man power to
   use a vintage of thought, a fermentation of action, and a preservation
   of experience, till a man's piety comes forth like the sparkling wine
   that makes the heart leap with gladness. There is that, I say, in
   religion, that makes it an extraordinary thing, a thing for rare
   occasions, to be brought out when princes sit at the table. But milk is
   an ordinary thing; you get it every day, anywhere. If you just run out
   into the farm yard there it is; there is no preparation required. it is
   ready to the hand. it is an ordinary thing. So is it with the gospel:
   it is a thing for every day. I love the gospel on Sunday, but, blessed
   be God, it is a Monday gospel too. The gospel is a thing for the
   chapel, and it is a thing for the church, there it is like wine. But it
   is a thing for the farm yard, it is a thing which you may observe
   behind the plough, and hum behind the counter. The religion of Christ
   is a thing that will go with you into your shop, on to the Exchange,
   into the market, everywhere. It is like milk--an everyday dish--a thing
   which we may always have, and upon which we may always feast. Oh! thank
   heaven, there is wine for that high day when we shall see the Saviour
   face to face; there is wine for that dread day when we shall ford the
   stream of Jordan--wine that shall remove our fears and bid us sing in
   the midst of the dark billows of Death: but thanks be unto him, there
   is milk too--milk for everyday occurrences, for every-day actions, milk
   for us to drink as long as we live, and milk to cherish us till the
   last great day shall come.

   Now, I think I have explained the figure in my text; but still some
   will say, "What is the gospel?" Well, the gospel, as I take it, can be
   looked at in various ways, but I will put it to night as this--the
   gospel is the preaching of a full, free, present, everlasting pardon to
   sinners through Jesus Christ's atoning blood. If I understand the
   gospel at all, it has in it a great deal more than this; but still this
   is the substance of it. I have to preach to night the great fact that
   while all have sinned, Christ hath died, and to all penitents who now
   confess their sins and put their trust in Christ, there is a full, free
   pardon--free in this respect, that you have nothing to do in order to
   get it. The meanest sin-stricken sinner has simply to pour out his
   plaintive griefs before God; that is all he asks. There is no fitness
   needed;--

   "All the fitness he requireth,

   Is to feel your need of him:

   This he gives you;

   'Tis his Spirit's rising beam."

   There is no need to pass through years of penance, of hard labor, and
   of trial; the gospel is as free as the air you breathe. You do not pay
   for breathing; you do not pay for seeing the sunlight, nor for the
   water that flows in the river as you stoop to drink it in your thirst.
   So the gospel is free; nothing is to be done in order to get it. No
   merits need be brought in order to obtain it. There is free pardon for
   the chief of sinners through Jesus Christ's blood. But I said it was a
   full pardon, and so it is. When Christ does anything he never does it
   by halves. He is willing this night to blot out every sin and cleanse
   every iniquity of every soul present who is now prepared by God's grace
   to seek his mercy. If now, sinner, God hath put it in thine heart to
   seek him, the pardon which he is prepared to give thee, is a full one;
   not a pardon for a part of your sins, but for all at once:--

   "Here's pardon for transgressions past,

   It matters not how black their cast,

   And, oh! my soul with wonder view,

   For sins to come here's pardon too."

   Here is pardon for your drunkenness, pardon for your oaths, pardon for
   your lust, pardon for your rebellion against heaven; for the sins of
   your youth and the sins of your old age, for the sins of the sanctuary
   and the sins of the brothel, or the tavern. Here is pardon for all sin,
   for "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." But
   again, the pardon we have to preach is a present pardon. If you feel
   your need of a Saviour, if now you are enabled to believe in Christ,
   you shall be pardoned now. Those who have ordinary hopes say they hope
   to be pardoned when they come to die. But, beloved, that is not the
   religion we preach. If you will now make confession of sin, now seek
   the Lord, you shall be pardoned now. It is possible for a man to have
   come in here with all his sins hanging about his neck like a millstone,
   enough to sink him lower than the lowest hell, and yet to go out of
   this door with every sin blotted out. If now he is enabled to believe
   on him, he may this night receive perfect pardon from the hand of God.
   The pardon of a sinner is not a thing done when he is dying, it is done
   when he is living--done now. And there be some here I trust, and they
   not a few, who can rejoice to night in the fact that they are pardoned.
   Oh! Is it not a magnificent thing for a man to be able to tread God's
   earth with this for a song in his mouth, "I am forgiven, I am forgiven;
   I am pardoned?" I think it is one of the sweetest songs in all the
   world--scarcely less sweet than that of the cherubim before the
   throne--

   "Oh. how sweet to view the flowing

   Of his soul redeeming blood!

   With divine assurance knowing,

   He has made my peace with God."

   Oh! what would you give for such a salvation as this, ye mourning
   souls? It is preached to you without money and without price, and I am
   bidden to cry "Ho! ho! Every one that thirsteth; if you feel your need
   of Christ, if you are now ready to confess your sins, come and take it
   freely without money and without price." But the best remains for the
   last. The pardon which is proclaimed to-night, is not only a free, and
   full, and present, but it is a pardon that will last for ever. If the
   Queen pardons any one--grants a free pardon--it is impossible that man
   should be punished for the same offense. Very often, however, the Queen
   grants a reprieve that is not a full pardon. There are cases in which
   persons are so far pardoned, that they are not executed for the crime,
   but confined during Her Majesty's pleasure. Now, our Lord never does
   that; he makes a clean sweep of it: there is not one sin that he allows
   to remain. When he does wash a soul, he washes it whiter than the
   driven snow. God doth things perfectly. But the best of it is, that
   what he does once is done for ever. This is the very glory of the
   gospel. If you get pardon to-night, you are saved now, but you never
   shall be condemned. If a man believeth in Christ with all his heart,
   his salvation is secure beyond hazard; and I always look upon this as
   the very jewel of the crown of salvation, that it be irreversible. If I
   commit my soul into the hands of God,

   "His honor is engaged to save

   The meanest of his sheep.

   All that his heavenly father gave

   His hands securely keep.

   Not death or hell shall e'er divide

   His fav'rites from his breast;

   In the dear bosom of their God

   They must for ever rest."

   God does not make you his child to-day, and turn you out to-morrow; he
   does not forgive you to-day, and then punish you the next day. As true
   as God is God, if thou gettest thy pardon to-night Christian, the earth
   may melt away just as a moment's foam dissolves into the wave that
   bears it and is lost for ever; the great universe may pass away and be
   like the hoar-frost before the morning sun; but thou never canst be
   condemned. As long as God is God, he who has got his pardon signed and
   sealed, is beyond the reach of harm. I would not preach any other--I
   dare not. It would not be worth your receiving, it would not be worth
   my taking the trouble to preach; but this is worth any man's having
   indeed, for it is a sure investment. He Who puts himself into the hands
   of Christ has a sure keeper, come what may--and there may come strong
   temptations and strong affections, and there may come strong pains and
   hard duties, but he that hath helped us bears us through, and makes us
   more than conquerors too. Oh! to be pardoned once, with the certain
   assurance that we shall be pardoned for ever, beyond the hazard of
   being cast away!

   And now again, I will just preach this salvation, for this is the wine
   and milk which is proclaimed without money and without price. Beloved,
   all this is to be gained by faith in Christ--whosoever believeth in him
   who died upon the tree, and groaned away his life for us--shall never
   come into condemnation: he is passed from death unto life, and the love
   of God abideth in him.

   II. And now, having thus exhibited the article, my next business is to
   BRING THE BIDDERS UP TO THE AUCTION BOX AND SELL IT. My difficulty is
   to bring you down to my price, as old Rowland said. He was preaching in
   a fair, and he heard a man selling his goods. "Ah!" said he, "as for
   those people over there, their difficulty is to bring people up to
   their price; whereas, my difficulty is to bring you down to my price."

   Now, here is a gospel fully preached, without money and without price.
   Here comes some one up to the sacred desk, transformed for the moment
   into an auction box, and he cries, "I want to buy." What will you give
   for it? He holds out his hands, and he has such a handful; he has to
   lift up his very lap with more, for he can hardly hold all his good
   works. He has Ave-Marias and Paternosters without number, and all kinds
   of crossings with holy water, and bendings of the knee, and
   prostrations before the altar, and reverence of the host, and attending
   at the mass, and so on. In French, they call the mass the messe, and a
   mess it is and no mistake, but there are a great many people who trust
   in it; and when they come before God, they bring all these things as
   the ground of their reliance.

   And so, Sir Romanist, you are coming to get salvation are you? and you
   have brought all this with you. Friend, I am sorry for thee, but thou
   must go away from the box with all thy performances, for it is "without
   money and without price," and until thou art prepared to come empty
   handed thou canst never have it. If thou hast anything of thine own
   thou canst not receive it. "But," says he, "I am no heretic. Am I not
   true to the Pope? Do I not make confession and get absolution, and pay
   my shilling?" Do you my friend? Then because you pay your shilling for
   it, it is good for nothing, for that which is good for something you
   can have "without money and without price." The light we pay for is a
   sickly thing, but that which we get from heaven for nothing, is the
   rich healthy light which makes the heart glad. So the pardon that comes
   from Christ is "without money and without price."

   Then another comes up and says "I am glad you have served the Romanist
   like that. I hate the Church of Rome, I am a true Protestant, and
   desire to be saved." What have you brought, sir? "Oh, I have brought no
   Ave-Marias, no Paternosters; I abhor the names; I do not like those
   Latin names, not I. But I say the collect every Sunday; I am very
   attentive to my prayers I go to church almost as soon as the doors are
   open," or (if he is a Dissenter) "I go to chapel three times on the
   Sabbath. and I attend the prayer-meetings and beside that, I pay
   everybody twenty shillings in the pound. I had rather pay twenty-one
   shillings than nineteen. I would not like to hurt anybody. I do not
   tread upon a worm if I can help it, I am always liberal, and assist the
   poor when I can. I may make a little slip just now and then. I may turn
   aside a little; still, if I am not saved I do not know who will be. I
   am as good as my neighbors, and I think, sir, I certainly ought to be
   saved, for I have very few sins, and what few there are do not hurt
   other people; they hurt me more than any one else. Besides, they are
   mere trifles; only one or two days in the year I break loose, and a man
   must have a little amusement after all. I assure you I am one of the
   best, most honest, and sober, and religious people going." Well, my
   friend, I am sorry to hear you quarrelling with the Romanist, for I do
   not like to see twin brothers disagree. You are both of the same kith
   and kin, believe me, for the essence of Popery is salvation by works
   and ceremonies. You do not practice his works and ceremonies, but then
   you hope to be saved by your own, and you are just as bad as he. I will
   send you away; there is no salvation for you, for it is "without money
   and without price;" and as long as you bring these fine good works of
   yours you cannot have it. Mark, I do not find any fault with them, they
   are good enough in their place, but they won't do here to-night, and
   they won't do at the judgment bar of God. Practise those things as much
   as you like, they are good in their place. but still, in the matter of
   salvation you must leave them out, and come for it as poor guilty
   sinners and take it "without money and without price." Says one, "Do
   you find fault with good works?" Not at all. Suppose I see a man
   building a house, and he were fool enough to lay the foundation with
   chimney-pots. If I should say, "My dear man, I do not like these
   chimney-pots to be put into the foundation," you would not say I found
   fault with the chimney-pots, but that I found fault with the man for
   putting them in the wrong place. Let him put good solid masonry at the
   bottom, and then when the house is built he may put on as many
   chimney-pots as he likes. So with good works and ceremonies they will
   not do for a foundation. The foundation must be built of more solid
   stuff. Our hope must be built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and
   righteousness, and when we have built a foundation with that, we may
   have as many good works as we like--the more the better. But for a
   foundation, good works are fickle and feeble things, and he that useth
   them will see his house totter to the ground.

   But see another man. He is a long way off, and he says, "Sir, I am
   afraid to come; I could not come and make a bid for the salvation. Sir,
   I've got no larnin', I'm no scholard I can't read a book, I wish I
   could. My children go to Sunday-school; I wish there was such a thing
   in my time, I can't read, and its no use my hoping to go to heaven. I
   goes to church sometimes, but oh dear! it's no good; the man uses such
   long words I can't understand'em, and I goes to chapel sometimes, but I
   can't make it out. I knows a little of the hymns my child says, about

   'Gentle Jesus meek and mild,'--and

   'Oh! that will be joyful, when we meet to part no more.'

   I wish they would preach like that, and then, maybe, I could make it
   out. But I'm no sholard, sir, and I don't think I can be saved." O my
   dear friend, you need not stand over there at the back. Come along with
   you. It wants no scholarship to go to heaven. The more you know the
   better it will be for you on earth no doubt, but it will be of no
   particular use to you in heaven. If you can "read your title clear to
   mansions in the skies," if you know enough to know yourself a lost
   sinner, and Christ a great Saviour, that is all you want to know to get
   to heaven. There is many a man in heaven that never read a letter on
   earth--many a man that could not, if his life depended on it, have
   signed his name, but was obliged to write a cross as "Tom Stiles's
   mark" and there he is among the brightest. Peter himself has not a
   brighter place than manly poor ignorant souls who looked to Jesus
   Christ, and were enlightened. I will tell you something to comfort you.
   Don't you know that Christ said, the poor had the gospel preached to
   them and besides that, he said, "Except a man be converted, and become
   as a little child, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." What
   does that mean, but that we must believe the gospel like little
   children? A little child has not much learning: he just believes what
   he is told, and that is what you are to do. You are to believe what God
   tells you. He says, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save
   sinners. That is no hard thing, is it? You can believe that; and if you
   can, it you are destitute of all human knowledge, you shall without
   doubt, know hereafter what you know not now.

   Now, I see a man come up to the stall, and he says, "Well, I will have
   salvation sir, I have made in my will provisions for the building of a
   church or two, and a few almshouses, I always devote a part of my
   substance to the cause of God; I always relieve the poor, and
   such-like; I have a pretty good share of money, and I take care not to
   hoard it up; I am generous and liberal, I try to set up poor
   trades-people, and so forth. Won't that carry me to heaven?" Well, I
   like you very much, and I wish there were more of your sort. There is
   nothing like generosity and liberality certainly, where it is exhibited
   towards the sick and the poor, the destitute and the ignorant, and in
   the cause of God; but if you bring these things as your hope of heaven,
   my dear friend, I must undeceive you. You cannot buy heaven with gold.
   Why, they pave the streets up there with it. Are we not told in the
   book of Revelation, that the streets of the city were all of pure gold
   like unto transparent glass. Why, if you had twenty thousand pounds you
   could not buy a flag-stone with it. Baron Rothschild could not buy a
   foot of heaven if he spent all his money for it. It is too precious a
   place to be bought with gold and silver. If all the wealth of the
   Indies could be shot out in order to buy one glimpse of heaven, it
   would be useless. There is no man that could get so much as a distant
   peep within its pearly gates for all the gold that heart could conceive
   or covetousness desire. It is given away for nothing. Christ will never
   sell it--never--because there is nothing that can be brought at all
   equal to its value. What Christ bought with blood you cannot buy with
   gold. He redeemed us not with corruptible things, as silver and gold,
   but with his precious blood; and there is no other price that can ever
   be allowed. Ah! my rich friend, you are just on a level with your
   poorest laborer. You may wear broadcloth, and he fustian, yet he has as
   good an opportunity of being saved as you. Ah! my lady, satin has no
   preference in heaven above calico or cotton.

   "None are excluded hence but those who do themselves exclude."

   Wealth makes distinction on earth, but no distinction at the cross of
   Christ. You must all come alike to the footstool of Jesus, or else not
   come at all. I knew a minister who told me he was once sent for to the
   dying bed of a Roman who was very well to do in the world, and she
   said, "Mr. Baxter, do you think when I get to heaven Betsy my servant
   will be there?" "Well," he said, "I don't know much about you, but
   Betsy will be there; for if I know any one who is a pious girl, it is
   she." "Well," said the lady, "don't you think there will be a little
   distinction? for I never could find it in my heart to sit down with a
   girl of that sort, she has no taste, no education, and I could not
   endure it. I think there ought to be a little difference." "Ah! you
   need not trouble yourself, madam," said he, "there will be a great
   distinction between you and Betsy, if you die in the temper in which
   you now are; but the distinction will be on the wrong side; for you
   will see her in Abraham's bosom, but you yourself will be cast out. As
   long as you have such pride in your heart, you can never enter into the
   kingdom of heaven." He spoke to her very plainly, and she was mightily
   offended. But I believe she preferred to be found out of heaven to
   submitting to sit with her servant Betsy. Let us respect rank and title
   here, if you please: but when we preach the gospel we know no such
   thing. If I preached to a congregation of kings, I would preach just
   the same gospel that I would preach to a congregation of clodhoppers.
   The king on his throne, and the queen in her palace, have no gospel
   different from you and me. However humble and obscure we may be there
   stands the gate of heaven wide open; there is the king's royal highway
   for us. The highway is as much for the poor man as for the rich man; so
   is the kingdom of heaven--"without money and without price."

   Now I hear my friend the Calvinist over there say, "Well, I like that,
   but still I think I can come, and though I can say with you,--

   'nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.'

   Yet I can say this--I have had a deep experience, sir, I have been led
   to see the plague of my own heart, and I have felt a great deal. When I
   come to Christ I rely a great deal upon my feelings. I do not think you
   are right in calling all kinds of sinners to come to Christ, but you
   are right in calling me, for I am one of the right sort. I am one of
   the publican sort; I am pharisaical enough to think that; I think that
   I most certainly have a special commission to come, for I have such an
   experience that if I were to write my biography, you would say, This is
   a good experience; this man has a right to come to Christ.' " Well,
   friend, I am sorry to upset you, but I shall be compelled to do so. If
   you bring your experience to Christ when you come to him, you are as
   bad as the Romanist who brings his masses and Ave-Marias. I like your
   experience very well, if it be the work of God's grace in your heart,
   but if you bring it when you come to Christ, you put that before
   Christ, and it is an Anti-Christ. Away with it! away with it! When we
   have been preaching to poor sinners and tried to describe their state
   by nature and their feelings, I have been afraid after all, that we
   were fostering a spirit of self righteousness, and teaching our hearers
   to think that they must get certain feelings, before they can come to
   Christ. Let me just, if I can, preach the gospel in the broadest way
   possible, and that is the most truthful way. Christ wants your feelings
   no more than he does your money, and that is, not at all. If you want
   good experience you must come to Christ:--

   "All the fitness he requireth, is to feel your need of him."

   Yes, but stop--

   "This he gives you, tis his Spirit's rising beam."

   You are to come to Christ to get everything. You are not to say, "Well,
   I will believe first, and then come." No; go to Christ for faith. You
   must look to the cross even to get a sense of sin. We do not feel our
   sins so much before we see the cross, but we feel them most afterwards.
   We look to Christ first; then repentance flows from both our streaming
   eyes. Remember, if you go anywhere else to find a Saviour, you are on
   the wrong track. If you try to bring anything to Christ, to use a
   homely proverb, it is like bringing coals to Newcastle. He has
   plenty--he does not want any of yours, and what is more, as soon as he
   sees anything in your hands he will turn you straight away. He will
   have nothing to do with you until you can say--

   "Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling."

   I have heard of a negro who was convinced of sin, and at the same time
   his master was under conviction. The negro found peace with God, but
   the master was a long time seeking without any hope; and at last he
   said, "I cannot make out how it is that you found comfort so soon, and
   I cannot get it at all." So the negro after asking his master to excuse
   his speaking plainly, said, "Massa, I tink it is just dis. When Jesus
   say, Come along,' he say, I give you a righteousness dat cover you from
   head to foot.' I, poor negro, looks down at myself, covered all over
   wid filthy rags, and I say, Lord, clothe me, I am naked,'--and off go
   my rags. Now, massa, you not so bad as dat. When he say, Come along,'
   to you, you look at your coat, and you say, Well, it wants a little
   mending, but I fink it will wear a little longer. Dere is a great hole
   here, but a little darning and stitching will do it up again.' So,
   massa, you keep your old coat; you keep on darning and stitching, and
   you never get comfort. But if you would take it off, you would get
   comfort at once." That is just it, we will be trying to get something
   before we come to Christ.

   Now I dare say in this congregation I have a hundred different phases
   of this singular fatuity of man--the desire to bring something to
   Christ. "Oh," says one "I would come to Christ, but I have been too
   great a sinner." Self again, sir; your being a great sinner has nothing
   to do with that. Christ is a great Saviour; and however great your sin,
   his mercy is greater than that. He invites you simply as a sinner. Be
   you big or little, he bids you come to him and take his salvation
   "without money and without price." Another says, "Ah! but I do not feel
   it enough." Self again. He does not ask you about your feelings he
   simply says, "Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth."
   "But, sir, I cannot pray." Self again. You are not to be saved by your
   prayers; you are to he saved by Christ, and your business is simply to
   look to Christ. he will help you to pray afterwards. You must begin at
   the right end by clinging only to his cross and trusting there. "But,"
   says another "if I felt as So-and-so did." Self again. What business
   have you to talk so? Christ is where you are to look, not to self.
   "Yes," you say, "I think he would receive anybody but me." Please, who
   gave you any leave to think at all in the matter? Does he not say, "Him
   that cometh unto me I will in nowise cast out?" Why, you are thinking
   your soul into eternal ruin. Give up thinking, and believe. Are your
   thoughts as God's thoughts? Remember, his thoughts are as much higher
   than yours as heaven is higher than earth "But," says one, "I have
   sought him and I have not found him." Dear friend, can you truly say
   that you have come to Christ with nothing in your hand, and have looked
   alone to him, and yet he has cast you away? Do you dare to say that?
   No, if God's Word be true, and you are true, you cannot say that. Ah! I
   remember how that struck my heart when I heard my mother say it once. I
   had been some years seeking Christ, and I never could believe he would
   save me. She said she had heard many people swear and blaspheme God,
   but one thing she had never heard--she had never heard a man say he had
   sought Christ, and Christ had rejected him. "And," said she, "I do not
   believe that God would permit any man to live to say that." Well, I
   thought I could say it; I thought I had sought him, and he had cast me
   away, and I determined I would say it, even if it destroyed my soul: I
   would speak what I thought was the truth. But, I said to myself, "I
   will try once more" and I went to the Master, with nothing of my own,
   casting myself simply on his mercy; and I believed that he died for
   me:--and I have never said that, and blessed be his holy name, I know I
   never shall. Nor will you. Oh, do try him.

   "Make but a trial of his love;

   Experience will decide

   How blest are they, and only they,

   Who in his love confide."

   If you will come down to this price, and take Christ for nothing, just
   as he is, "without money and without price," you shall not find him a
   hard Master.

   III. Now, I have to use a FEW ARGUMENTS with you, and may God apply
   them to your hearts! I would first speak to some of you who never think
   about these things at all. You have come here to hear the Word today,
   because it is preached in a strange place; otherwise you might not have
   been in the house of God at all. Very seldom you vex yourselves with
   religious questions; you do not ask yourselves many questions about it,
   because you feel it would be an awkward thing for you if you were to
   think much of religion, you feel there would be a necessity for a
   change of life in you, for thoughts about religion and your present
   habits would not suit well together. My dear friends, bear with me a
   moment if I press you very much home. Did you ever hear of the ostrich?
   When the hunter pursues it, the poor silly bird flies away as fast as
   it can, and when it sees that there is no way of escape, what do you
   suppose it does? It buries its head in the sand, and then thinks it is
   safe, because it shuts its eyes and cannot see. Is not that just what
   you are doing? Conscience won't let you rest, and what you are trying
   to do is to bury it. You bury your head in the sand; you do not like to
   think. Ah! if we could bring men to think, what a wonderful thing we
   should have done! That is one of the things, sinner, that, without
   Christ, you dare not do. Do you think? We have heard of men afraid to
   be alone half an hour because of thoughts too terrible for them. I
   challenge any of you without God, to spend one hour on that heath, or
   in this balcony, or in your own house at home, and just chew these
   thoughts, masticate them--"I am an enemy to God, my sins are not
   forgiven; if I die to-night, I am damned to all eternity; I have never
   sought Christ, and never found him to be mine." I defy you to keep at
   that an hour. You dare not, you would be afraid of your shadow. The
   only way sinners can be happy is by thoughtlessness. They say, "Cover
   it up; bury my dead out of my sight." They put such thoughts away. Now
   is this wise? Is there anything in religion? If not, it will be
   consistent in you to deny it; but if this Bible is true, if you have a
   soul that is to live for ever, is it rational, is it sensible, is it
   prudent, to be neglecting your eternal soul? If you suffered your
   bodies to starve, you would not want much argument, would you, to
   induce you to eat? But here is your soul perishing, and yet no mortal
   tongue can persuade you to attend to that. Ah! is it not strange that
   men are going to live for ever in eternity, and yet they have never
   provided for it. I have heard of a certain king who had a fool in his
   court, who made a great many merry jests, and the king gave him a
   stick, and said, "Keep that till you find a bigger fool than yourself."
   At last the king came to die, and when he lay a-dying, the jester came
   to him and said, "Master, what is the matter?" "I am going to died said
   the king." "Going to die--where's that?" "I am going to die, man, don't
   laugh at me now." "How long are you going to be there?" "Well, where I
   am going I shall live for ever." "Have you got a house there?" "No."
   "Have you made any preparation for the journey?" "No." "Have you got
   any provision whatever, as you are going to live there such a long
   time?" "No." "There, take the stick; fool as I am, I have made
   preparation. I am not such a fool as to have to live in a place where I
   have not got a house." Christ has prepared for his people a mansion in
   heaven. There was much wisdom in the jester's language. Let me speak to
   you, even though it be in his language, but very seriously. If men are
   to live for ever in heaven, is it not a strange, wild, frantic freak of
   intolerant madness, that they never think of the world to come. To-day
   they think, but for ever--they put that away. Time, and its poor
   baubles and its toys do fill the heart; but eternity--that hill without
   a summit, that sea without a shore, that river without an end, over
   which they are to sail for ever--they never think of that. Will you
   pause a moment and recollect that you have to sail for ever, and you
   must sail o'er the burning waves of hell, or else o'er sparkling
   streams of glory. Which shall it be with you? You will have to consider
   this soon. Before many days, and months, and years are gone, God will
   say to you "Prepare to meet thy God," and it may be that the summons
   shall come to you Then you are in the death struggle when the stream of
   Jordan is chilling your blood, and your heart is sunken within you by
   reason of fear. And what will you do then? What wilt thou do in the
   swellings of sin in the day when thou art spoiled? What shalt thou do
   when God shall bring thee into judgment?

   And I have now the pleasing task of closing by addressing men of
   another character: Ah! friend; you are not careless. You have many
   thoughts, and they pain you; but, although you would be glad to get rid
   of them, you would be afraid to do so. You can say, "Oh! I do feel it
   were well for me if I could rejoice in Christ--I do feel I should be
   happy if I could be converted." Friend, I am glad to hear thee say so.
   Where God has put the work of an impressed heart, I do not think he
   will leave it till he has finished. Now, I want to speak to you very
   seriously to-night, but for a minute. You do feel your need of a
   Saviour. Remember, Christ died for you. Believe that--will you? There
   he hangs upon his cross, dying; look into his face, it is full of love,
   it is melting with forgiveness; his lips are moving, and he says,
   "Father forgive them." Will you look to him? Can you hear him say it,
   and yet turn away? All he asks you is simply to look, and that look
   will save you. You do feel your need of a Saviour; you know you are a
   sinner. Why tarry? Do not say you are unworthy. Remember, he died for
   the unworthy. Do not say he will not save you. Remember, he died for
   the devil's castaways; the very dram and scum of the world Christ has
   redeemed. Look at him. Can you look at him and not believe him? Can you
   see the blood streaming from his shoulders, and trickling from his
   hands and side, and not believe him? Oh! by him that liveth and was
   dead, and is alive for evermore, I entreat you to believe on the Lord
   Jesus; for thus is it written, "He that believeth on the Lord Jesus,
   and is baptized, shall be saved."

   Once when Rowland Hill was preaching, Lady Ann Erskine happened to be
   driving by: she was in the outer ring of the circle, and she asked the
   coachman, what all the people were there for. He replied, "They are
   going to hear Rowland Hill." Well, she had heard a great deal about
   this strange man, accounted to be the very wildest of preachers, and so
   she drew near. No sooner did Rowland Hill see her, than he said, "Come,
   I am going to have an auction, I am going to sell Lady Ann Erskine."
   (She of course stopped, and she wondered how she was going to be
   disposed of.) "Who will buy her?" Up comes the world. "What will you
   give for her?" "I will give her all the pomps and vanities of this
   present life; she shall be a happy woman here she shall be very rich,
   she shall have many admirers, she shall go through this world with many
   joys." "You shall not have her; her soul is an everlasting thing; it is
   a poor price you are offering, you are only giving a little and what
   shall it profit her if she gain the whole world and lose her own soul?
   Here comes another purchaser--here is the devil. "What will you give
   for her." "Well" says he, "I will let her enjoy the pleasures of sin
   for a season, she shall indulge in everything her heart shall set
   itself unto; she shall have everything to delight the eye and the ear;
   she shall indulge in every sin and vice that can possibly give a
   transcient pleasure." Ah! Satan, what will you do for her for ever? You
   shall not have her, for I know what you are; you would give a paltry
   price for her, and then destroy her soul to all eternity. But, here
   comes another--I know him--it is the Lord Jesus. "What will you give
   for her?" Says he, "It is not what I will give, it is what I have
   given; I have given my life, my blood for her; I have bought her with a
   price, and I will give her heaven for ever and ever; I will give her
   grace in her heart now and glory throughout eternity."

   "O Lord, Jesus Christ," said Rowland Hill, "thou shalt have her. Lady
   Ann Erskine, do you demur to the bargain?" She was fairly caught; there
   was no answer that could be given. "It is done," he said, "it is done;
   you are the Saviour's; I have betrothed you unto him; never break that
   contract." And she never did. From that time forth, from being a gay
   and volatile woman she became one of the most serious persons, one of
   the greatest supporters of the truth of the gospel in those times, and
   died in a glorious and certain hope of entering the kingdom of heaven.
   I would be well pleased if I might make a match of some of you this
   night; if you would now say, "Lord, I will have thee," Christ is ready.
   If he has made you ready he is never behind hand himself. Whosoever is
   willing to have Christ, Christ is willing to have him. What sayest
   thou? wilt thou go with this man? If thou sayest "Ay," God bless thee!
   Christ saith "Ay" too, and thou art saved, saved now, saved for ever!
     __________________________________________________________________

                  The Wicked Man's Life, Funeral, and Epitaph

   A Sermon

   (No. 200)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, June 13, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place
   of the holy and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done:
   this is also vanity."--Ecclesiastes 8:10.

   IT IS QUITE CERTAIN that there are immense benefits attending our
   present mode of burial in extra mural cemeteries. It was high time that
   the dead should be removed from the midst of the living--that we should
   not worship in the midst of corpses, and sit in the Lord's house on the
   Sabbath, breathing the noxious effluvia of decaying bodies. But when we
   have said this, we must remember that there are some advantages which
   we have lost by the removal of the dead, and more especially by the
   wholesale mode of burial which now seems very likely to become general.
   We are not so often met by the array of dead. In the midst of our
   crowded cities we sometimes see the sable hearse bearing the relics of
   men to their last homes, but the funeral ceremonies are now mostly
   confined to those sweet sleeping places beyond our walks, where rest
   the bodies of those who are very dear to us. Now, I believe the sight
   of a funeral is a very healthful thing for the soul. Whatever harm may
   come to the body by walking through the vault and the catacomb, the
   soul can there find much food for contemplation, and much excitement
   for thought. In the great villages, where some of us were wont to
   dwell, we remember how when the funeral came now and then, the tolling
   of the bell preached to all the villagers a better sermon than they had
   heard in the church for many a day, and we recollect, how as children,
   we used to cluster around the grave, and look at that which was not so
   frequent an occurrence in the midst of a rare and spare population; and
   we remember the solemn thoughts which used to arise even in our young
   hearts when we heard the words uttered, "Earth to earth, ashes to
   ashes, dust to dust." The solemn falling of the few grains of ashes
   upon the coffin-lid was the sowing of good seed in our hearts. And
   afterwards, when we have in our childish play climbed over those
   nettle-bound graves, and seated ourselves upon those mossgrown
   tombstones, we have had many a lesson preached to us by the dull cold
   tongue of death, more eloquent than aught we have heard from the lip of
   living man and more likely to abide with us in after years, but now we
   see little of death. We have fulfilled Abraham's wish beyond what he
   desired--we "bury the dead out of our sight;" it is rarely that we see
   them, and a stranger passing through our streets might say, "Do these
   live always? for I see no funerals amongst the millions of this city, I
   see no signs of death."

   We shall this morning want you, first of all, to walk with a living
   man; it is said of him that he did "come and go from the place of the
   holy:" next, I shall want you to attend his funeral, and then, in
   conclusion I shall ask you to assist in writing his epitaph--"and they
   were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this also is
   vanity."

   I. In the first place, HERE IS SOME GOOD COMPANY FOR YOU; some with
   whom you may walk to the house of God, for it is said of them, that
   they did come and go from the place of the holy. By this, I think we
   may understand the place where the righteous meet to worship God. God's
   house may be called "the place of the holy." Still, if we confine
   ourselves strictly to the Hebrew, and to the connection, it appears
   that by the "place of the holy" is intended the judgment-seat the place
   where the magistrate dispenses justice; and alas! there be some wicked
   who and go even to the place of judgment, to judge their fellow
   sinners. And we may with equal propriety consider it in a third sense
   to represent the pulpit which should be "the place of the holy but we
   have seen the wicked come and go even from the pulpit, though God had
   never commanded them to declare his, statutes.

   In the first place we will take this as representing the house of God.
   What a sight it is to see the great crowds coming up to the sanctuary
   of the Lord. I am sure, as we saw the multitudes coming up to the house
   of God, there must have been a peculiar thrill of joy pass through our
   hearts. It reminds us of the ancient gathering in Zion's temple when
   thither the tribes went up, the tribes of the Lord, to worship at the
   sanctuary of God. Oh! it is a noble sight when with joy and gladness we
   see the young and the old, the gray-headed and the children, all of
   them pressing forward in one eager throng to worship the Lord of Hosts,
   and listen to the voice of his sacred oracle. But your pleasure must
   have a great deal of alloy if you stop for a moment and dissect the
   congregation. Pull the goodly mass in sunder: in a heap it sparkles
   like gold;, pull aside the threads, and alas! you will see that there
   are some not made of the precious metal, for "we have seen the wicked
   come and go from the place of the holy." Gathered in this throng this
   morning we have here men who almost profane the spot in which they are
   found. Last night's revel has left its impress upon their countenances.
   We have others who will, ere this day is closed, be cursing God in the
   house of Satan. There be many to be found here who have during this
   week been spending their time in lying, cheating, and swindling in the
   midst of their business. I doubt not there are some here who have taken
   every advantage that was possible of their fellow men, and if they have
   not come within the clutches of the law it certainly has not been their
   fault. We have too, I doubt not, in such a multitude--yea, I may speak
   with confidence--we have men here who have, during the past week, and
   at other times defiled themselves with sins that we will not mention,
   for it were a shame for us to speak of the things which are done of
   them in secret. Little do we know when we look here from this
   pulpit--it looks like one great field of flowers, fair to look
   upon--how many a root of deadly henbane and noxious nightshade groweth
   here, and though you all look fair and goodly, yet "I have seen the
   wicked come and go from the place of the holy."

   Shall we just take the wicked man's arm and walk with him to the house
   of God? When he begins to go, if he be one who has neglected going in
   his childhood, which perhaps is not extremely likely, when he begins to
   go even in his childhood, or whenever you choose to mention, you will
   notice that he is not often affected by the sound of the ministry. He
   goes up to the chapel with flippancy and mirth. He goeth to it as he
   would to a theater or any other place of amusement, as a means of
   passing away his Sabbath and killing time. Merrily he trippeth in
   there, but I have seen the wicked man when he went away look far
   differently from what he did when he entered. His plumes had been
   trailed in the dust. As he walks home there is no more flippancy and
   lightness, for he says, "Surely the Lord God has been in that place and
   I have been compelled to tremble. I went to scoff but I am obliged, in
   coming away, to confess that there is a power in religion, and the
   services of God s house are not all dulness after all." Perhaps you
   have hoped good of this man. But, alas! he forgot it all, and cast away
   all his impressions. And he came again the next Sunday, and that time
   he felt again. Again the arrow of the Lord seemed to stick fast in his
   heart. But, alas! it was like the rushing of water. There was a mark
   for a moment, but his heart was soon healed, he felt not the blow; and
   as for persuading him to salvation, he we, like the deaf adder, "charm
   we never so wisely," he would not regard us so as to turn from his
   ways. And I have seen him come and go till years have rolled over his
   head, and he has still filled his seat, and the minister is still
   preaching, but in his case preaching in vain. Still are the tears of
   mercy flowing for him; still are the thunders of justice launched
   against him; but he abideth just as he was. In him there is no change
   except this, that now he groweth hard and callous. You do not now hear
   him say that he trembles under the Word--not he. He is like a horse
   that hath been in the battle, he feareth not the noise of the drum nor
   the rolling of the smoke, and careth not for the din of the cannon. He
   cometh up, he heareth a faithfill warning, and he saith, "What of it?
   this is for the wicked." He heareth an affectionate invitation, and he
   saith, "Go thy way, when I have a more convenient season I will send
   for thee." And so he comes and goes up to the house of God and back
   again. Like the door upon its hinges he turns into the sanctuary
   to-day, and out of it to-morrow. "He comes and goes from the place of
   the holy." It may be, however, he goes even further. Almost persuaded
   to be a Christian by some sermon from a Paul, he trembles at his feet.
   He thinks he really repents; he unites himself with the Christian
   church: he makes a profession of religion; but, alas! his heart has
   never been changed. The sow is washed, but it is the sow still. The dog
   has been driven from its vomit, but its doggish nature is there the
   same. The Ethiopian is clothed in a white garment, but he hath not
   changed his skin. The leopard hath been covered all over, but he hath
   not washed his spots away. He is the same as ever he was. He goes to
   the baptismal pool a black sinner, and he comes out of it the same. He
   goes to the table of the Lord a deceiver; he eats the bread and drinks
   the wine, and he returns the same. Sacrament after Sacrament passes
   away. The Holy Eucharist is broken in his presence, he receives it, but
   he comes and he goes, for he receives it not in the love of it. He is a
   stranger to vital godliness, and as a wicked man "he comes and he goes
   from the place of the holy."

   But is it not a marvellous thing that men should be able to do this? I
   have sometimes heard a preacher so earnestly put the matter of
   salvation before men, that I have said, "Surely they must see this." I
   have heard him plead as though he pleaded for his own life, and I have
   said, "Surely they must feel this." And I have turned round, and I have
   seen the handkerchief used to brush away the tear, and I have said,
   "Good must follow this." You have brought your own friends under the
   sound of the Word, and you have prayed the whole sermon through that
   the arrow may reach the white and penetrate the center of the mark, and
   you said to yourself, "What an appropriate discourse." Still you kept
   on praying, and you were pleased to see that there was some emotion.
   You said "Oh, it will touch his heart at last." But is it not strange
   that, though wooed by love divine, man will not melt; though thundered
   at by Sinai's own terrific thunderbolts they will not tremble; yea,
   though Christ himself incarnate in the flesh should preach again, yet
   would they not regard him, and mayhap would treat him to-day as their
   parent did but yesterday, when they dragged him out of the city and
   would have cast him headlong from the summit of the mount on which the
   city was builded. I have seen the wicked come and go from the place of
   the holy till his conscience was seared, as with a hot iron. I have
   seen him come and go from the place of the holy till he had become
   harder than the nether millstone, till he was past feeling, given up
   "to work all manner of uncleanness with greediness."

   But now we are going to change our journey. Instead of going to the
   house of God we will go another way. I have seen the wicked go to the
   place of the holy, that is to the judgment bench. We have had glaring
   instances even in the criminal calendar of men who have been seen
   sitting on a judgment bench one day, and in a short time they have been
   standing at the dock themselves. I have wondered what must be the
   peculiar feelings of a man who officiates as a judge, knowing that he
   who judges has been a law-breaker himself. A wicked man, a greedy,
   lustful, drunken man--you know such are to be discovered among petty
   magistrates. We have known these sit and condemn the drunkard, when,
   had the world known how they went to bed the night before, they would
   have said of them, "thou that judgest another doest the same things
   thyself." There have been instances known of men who have condemned a
   poor wretch for shooting a rabbit or stealing a few pheasants' eggs, or
   some enormous crime like that, and they themselves have been robbing
   the coffers of the bank, embezzling funds to an immense extent, and
   cheating everybody. How singular they must feel. One would think it
   must be a very strange emotion that passes over a man when he executes
   the law upon one which he knows ought to be executed upon himself. And
   yet, I have seen the wicked come and go from the holy place, until he
   came to think that his sins were no sins, that the poor must be
   severely upbraided for their iniquities, that what he called the lower
   classes must be kept in check, not thinking that there are none so low
   as those who condemn others whilst they do the same things themselves
   speaking about checks and barriers, when neither check nor barrier were
   of any use to himself, talking of curbing others and of judging
   righteous judgment, when had righteous judgment been carried out to the
   letter, he would himself have been the prisoner, and not have been
   honored with a commission from government. Ah! is it not a sight that
   we may well look at, when we see justice perverted and the law turned
   upside down by men who "come and go from the place of the holy."

   But the third case is worse still. "I have seen the wicked come and go
   from the place of the holy"--that is, the pulpit. If there be a place
   under high heaven more holy than another, it is the pulpit whence the
   gospel is preached. This is the Thermophylae of Christendom; here must
   the great battle be fought between Christ's church and the invading
   hosts of a wicked world. This is the last vestige of anything sacred
   that is left to us. We have no altars now; Christ is our altar: but we
   have a pulpit still left, a place which, when a man entereth, he might
   well put off his shoes from his feet, for the place whereon he standeth
   is holy. Consecrated by a Saviour's presence, established by the
   clearness and the force of an apostle's eloquence, maintained and
   upheld by the faithfulness and fervor of a succession of Evangelists
   who, like stars, have marked the era in which they lived, and stamped
   it with their names, the pulpit is handed down to those of us who
   occupy it now with a prestige of everything that is great and holy. Yet
   I have seen the wicked come and go from it. Alas! if there be a sinner
   that is hardened, it is the man that sins and occupies his pulpit. We
   have heard of such a man living in the commission of the foulest sins,
   and at length has been discovered; and yet such is the filthiness of
   mankind, that when he began to preach to the people again, they
   clustered round the beast for the mere sake of hearing what he would
   say to them. We have known cases, too, where men, when convicted to
   their own forehead, have unblushingly persevered in proclaiming a
   gospel which their lives denied. And perhaps these are the hardest of
   all sinners to deal with!. But if the garment be once defiled, away
   with all thoughts of the pulpit then. He must be clean who ministers at
   the altar. Every saint must be holy, but he, holiest of all, who seeks
   to serve his God. Yet, we must mourn to say it, the church of God every
   now and then has had a sun that was black instead of white, and a moon
   that was as a clot of blood, instead of being full of fairness and
   beauty. Happy the church when God gives her holy ministers; but unhappy
   the church where wicked men preside. I know ministers to this day,
   however, who know more about fishing rods than they do about chapters
   in the Bible; more about fox-hounds than about hunting after men's
   souls; who understand a great deal more of the spring and the net than
   they do of the net for catching souls, or earnest exhortations for men
   to flee from the wrath to come. We know such even now: still uproarious
   at a farmer's dinner, still the very loudest to give the toast and
   clash the glass, still mightiest among the mighty found, of the gay,
   the wild, and the dissolute. Pity on the church that still allows it!
   Happy the day when all such persons shall be purged from the pulpit;
   then shall it stand forth "clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and
   terrible as an army with banners." "I have seen the wicked come and go
   from the place of the holy."

   II. And now WE ARE GOING TO HIS FUNERAL. I shall want you to attend it.
   You need not be particular about having on a hat band, or being arrayed
   in garments of mourning It does not signify for the wretch we are going
   to bury. There is no need for any very great outward signs of mourning,
   for he will be forgotten even in the city where he hath done this:
   therefore we need not particularly mourn for him. Let us first go to
   the funeral and look at the outward ceremonial. We will suppose one or
   two cases.

   There is a man who has come and gone from the place of the holy. He has
   made a very blazing profession. He has been a county magistrate. Now,
   do you see what a stir is made about his poor bones? There is the
   hearse covered with plumes, and there follows a long string of
   carriages. The country people stare to see such a long train of
   carriages coming to follow one poor worm to its resting-place. What
   pomp! what grandeur! See how the place of worship is hung with black.
   There seems to be intense mourning made over this man. Will you just
   think of it for a minute, and who are they mourning for? A hypocrite!
   Whom is all this pomp for? For one who was a wicked man, a man who made
   a pretension of religion, a man who judged others, and who ought to
   have been condemned himself. All this pomp for putrid clay; and what is
   it more or better than that? When such a man dies, ought he not to be
   buried with the burial of an ass? Let him be drawn and dragged from the
   gates of the city. What has he to do with pomp? At the head of the
   mournful cavalcade is Beelzebub, leading the procession, and, looking
   back with twinkling eye, and leer of malicious joy, says, "Here is fine
   pomp to conduct a soul to hell with!" Ah! plumes and hearse for the man
   who is being conducted to his last abode in Tophet! A string of
   carriages to do honor to the man whom God hath cursed in life and
   cursed in death, for the hope of the hypocrite is evermore an accursed
   one. And a bell is ringing, and the clergyman is reading the funeral
   service, and is burying the man "in sure and certain hope." Oh! what a
   laugh rings up from somewhere a little lower down than the grave! "In
   sure and certain hope," says Satan, "ha! ha! your sure and certain hope
   is folly indeed. Trust to a bubble, and hope to fly to the stars; trust
   to the wild winds, that they shall conduct you safely to heaven, but
   trust to such a hope as that, and thou art a madman indeed." Oh! if we
   judged rightly, when a hypocrite died, we should do him no honor. If
   men could but see a little deeper than the skin, and read the thoughts
   of the heart, they would not patronize this great, black lie, and lead
   a long string of carriages through the streets; they would say, "No,
   the man was good for nothing, he was the outward skin without the life,
   he professed to be what he was not, he lived the scornful life of a
   deceiver; let him have the burial of Jeconiah; let him not have a
   funeral at all; let him be cast away as loathsome carrion, for that is
   all he is." Ah! when a godly man dies, ye may make lamentation over
   him, ye may well carry him with solemn pomp unto his grave, for there
   is an odour in his bones, there is a sweet savor about him that even
   God delighteth in, for "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death
   of his saints." But the gilded hypocrite, the varnished deceiver, the
   well accoutred wolf in sheeps' clothing--away with pomp for him! Why
   should men bewail him? They do not do it, why should they pretend to do
   so, then, and give the outward semblance of a grief, where they feel
   none?

   But possibly I may have seen the wicked man buried in a more quiet way.
   He is taken quietly to his tomb with as little pomp as possible, and he
   is with all decency and solemnity interred in the grave. And now listen
   to the minister. If he is a man of God, when he buries such a man as he
   ought to be buried, you do not hear a solitary word about the character
   of the deceased; you hear nothing at all about any hopes of everlasting
   life. He is put into his grave. The minister well remembers how he did
   "come and go from the place of the holy," he recollects full well how
   he used to sit in the gallery and listen to his discourse. And there is
   one who weeps; and the minister stands there and weeps too, to think
   how all his labor has been lost, and one of his hearers has been
   destroyed, and that without hope. But note how cautiously he speaks,
   even to the wife. He would give her all the hope he could, poor widow
   as she is, and he speaks very gentle. She says, "I hope my husband is
   in heaven." He holds his tongue; he is very silent; if he is of a
   sympathetic nature he will be quiet. And when he speaks about the
   deceased in his next Sunday's sermon, if he mentions him at all he
   refers to him as a doubtful case, he uses him rather as a beacon than
   as an example, and bids other men beware how they presume to waste
   their opportunities, and let the golden hours of their Sabbath-day roll
   by disregarded. "I have seen the wicked buried who have come and gone
   from the place of the holy." As for the pompous funeral, that was
   ludicrous. A man might almost laugh to see the folly of honoring the
   man who deserved to be dishonored, but as for the still and silent and
   truthful funeral, how sad it is! But brethren, after all, we ought to
   judge ourselves very much in the light of our funerals. That is the way
   we judge other things. Look at your fields to-morrow. There is the
   flaunting poppy, and there by the hedge-rows are many flowers that lift
   their heads to the sun. Judging them by their leaf you might prefer
   them to the sober coloured wheat. But wait until the funeral. Then the
   poppy shall be gathered and the weeds shall be bound up in a bundle to
   be burned--gathered into a heap in the field to be consumed, to be made
   into manure for the soil. But see the funeral of the wheat. What a
   magnificent funeral has the wheat-sheaf "Harvest home" is shouted as it
   is carried to the garner, for it is a precious thing. Even so let each
   of us so live, as considering that we must die. Oh! I would desire to
   live that when I leave this mortal state, men may say, "There is one
   gone who sought to make the world better. However rough his efforts
   might have been, he was an honest man; he sought to serve God, and
   there lies he that feared not the face of man." I would have every
   Christian seek to win such a funeral as this--a funeral like Stephen's:
   "And devout men carried him to his sepulcher, and made great
   lamentation over him." I remember the funeral of one pastor--I attended
   it. Many ministers of the gospel walked behind the coffin to attend
   their brother, and pay honor to him. And then came a ton of the church,
   every one of whom wept as if they had lost a father. And I remember the
   solemn sermon that was preached in the chapel all hung with black, when
   all of us wept because a great man had fallen that day in Israel. We
   felt that a prince had been taken from us and we all said, like
   Elijah's servant, "My father, my father, the horses of Israel and the
   chariots thereof." But I have seen the wicked buried that have come and
   gone from the place of the holy, and I saw nothing of this sort. I saw
   a flickering kind of sorrow, like the dying of a wick that is almost
   consumed. I saw that those who paid a decent respect to the corpse did
   it for the widow's sake, and for the sake of them that were left
   behind; but if they could have dealt with the corpse as their nature
   seemed to dictate, they ought to have dealt with the man when living,
   they would have said, "Let him be buried at the dead of night; let him
   have some unhallowed corner in the churchyard where the nettle long has
   grown; let the frog croak o'er his tomb; let the owl make her
   resting-place o'er his sepulcher, and let her hoot all night long, for
   hooted he well deserves to be; let no laurel and no cypress grow upon
   his grave, and let no rose twine itself as a sweet bower around the
   place where he sleeps; let no cowslip and no lily of the valley deck
   the grass that covereth him; there let him lie; let not the green sward
   grow, but let the place be accursed where sleeps the hypocrite, for he
   deserves it, and even so let it be." "I have seen the wicked buried who
   have come and gone from the place of the holy."

   But there is a sad thing yet to come. We must look a little deeper than
   the mere ceremonial of the burial and we shall see that there is a
   great deal more in some people's coffins besides their corpses. When
   old Robert Flockart was buried a few weeks ago in Edinburgh, he was
   buried as I think a Christian minister should be, for his old Bible and
   hymn book were placed upon the top of the coffin. Had he been a
   soldier, I suppose he would have had his sword put there; but he had
   been a Christian soldier, and so they buried with him his Bible and
   hymn book as his trophies. It was well that such a trophy should be on
   that coffin; but there is a great deal, as I have said, inside some
   people's coffins. If we had eyes to see invisible things, and we could
   break the lid of the hypocrite's coffin, we should see a great deal
   there. There lie all his hopes. The wicked man may come and go from the
   place of the holy, but he has no hope of being saved. He thought,
   because he had attended the place of the holy regularly, therefore he
   was safe for another world. There lie his hopes, and they are to be
   buried with him. Of all the frightful things that a man can look upon,
   the face of a dead hope is the most horrible. A dead child is a pang
   indeed to a mother's heart; a dead wife or a dead husband, to the heart
   of the bereaved must be sorrowful indeed; but a coffin full of dead
   hopes--did you ever see such a load of misery carried to the grave as
   that? Wrapt in the same shroud, there lie all his dead pretensions.
   When he was here he made a pretension of being respectable; there lies
   his respect, he shall be a hissing and a reproach for ever. He made a
   pretension of being sanctified, but the mask is off now, and he stands
   in all his native blackness. He made pretensions about being God's
   elect, but his election is discovered now to be a rejection. He thought
   himself to be clothed in the Saviour's righteousness, but he finds that
   he justified himself: Christ had never given him his imputed
   righteousness. And so he sleeps. The tongue that prattled once so
   pleasantly concerning godliness is now silent. That hypocritical eye
   that once flashed with the pretended fire of joy--it is all now dark,
   dark. That brain that thought of inventions to deceive--the worm shall
   feed on it. And that heart of his that once throbbed beneath ribs that
   were scarcely thick enough to hide the transparency of his hypocrisy
   shall now be devoured by demons. There are dead pretensions inside that
   rotting skeleton, and dead hopes too. But there is one thing that
   sleeps with him in his coffin that he had set his heart upon. He had
   set his heart upon being known after he was gone. He thought surely
   after he had departed this life, he would be handed down to posterity
   and be remembered. Now read the text--"And they were forgotten in the
   city where they had so done." There is his hope of fame. Every man
   likes to live a little longer than his life--Englishmen especially--for
   there is scarcely to be found a rock in all England up which even a
   goat might scarcely climb where there may not be discovered the
   initials of the names of men, who never had any other mode of attaining
   to fame, and therefore thought they would inscribe their names there.
   Go where you will, you find men attempting to be known; and this is the
   reason why many people write in newspapers, else they never would be
   known. A hundred little inventions we all of us have for keeping our
   names going after we are dead. But with the wicked man it is all in
   vain; he shall be forgotten. He has done nothing to make anybody
   remember him. Ask the poor; "Do you remember So-and-so?" "Hard master,
   sir, very. He always cut us down to the last sixpence; and we do not
   wish to recollect him." Their children won't hear his name; they will
   forget him entirely. Ask the church, "Do you remember So-and-so? he was
   a member." "Well," says one, "I remember him certainly, his name was on
   the books, but we never had his heart. He used to come and go, but I
   never could talk with him. There was nothing spiritual in him. There
   was a great deal of sounding bell-metal and brass, but no gold. I never
   could discover that he had the "root of the matter in him." No one
   thinks of him, and he will soon be forgotten. The chapel grows old,
   there comes up another congregation, and somehow or other they talk
   about the odd deacons that used to be there, who were good and holy men
   and about the old lady, that used to be so eminently useful in visiting
   the sick, about the young man who rose out of that church, who was so
   useful in the cause of God; but you never hear mention made of his
   name; he is quite forgotten. When he died his name was struck out of
   the books, he was reported as being dead, and all remembrance of him
   died with him. I have often noticed how soon wicked things die when the
   man dies who originated them. Look at Voltaire's philosophy; with all
   the noise it made in his time--where is it now? There is just a little
   of it lingering, but it seems to have gone. And there was Tom Paine,
   who did his best to write his name in letters of damnation, and one
   would think he might have been remembered. But who cares for him now?
   Except amongst a few, here and there, his name has passed away. And all
   the names of error, and heresy, and schism, where do they go? You hear
   about St. Austin to this day, but you never hear about the heretics he
   attacked. Everybody knows about Athanasius, and how he stood up for the
   divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ; but we have almost forgotten the
   life of Arius, and scarcely ever think of those men who aided and
   abetted him in his folly. Bad men die out quickly, for the world feels
   it is a good thing to be rid of them; they are not worth remembering.
   But the death of a good man, the man who was sincerely a Christian--how
   different is that! And when you see the body of a saint, if he has
   served God with all his might, how sweet it is to look upon him--ah,
   and to look upon his coffin too, or upon his tomb in after years! Go
   into Bunhill-fields, and stand by the memorial of John Bunyan, and you
   will say, "Ah! there lies the head that contained the brain which
   thought out that wondrous dream of the Pilgrim's Progress from the City
   of Destruction to the Better land. There lies the finger that wrote
   those wondrous lines which depict the story of him who came at last to
   the land Beulah, and waded through the flood, and entered into the
   celestial city. And there are the eyelids which he once spoke of, when
   he said, "If I lie in prison until the moss grows on my eyelids, I will
   never make a promise to withhold from preaching." And there is that
   bold eye that penetrated the judge, when he said, "If you will let me
   out of prison to-day, I will preach again to-morrow, by the help of
   God." And there lies that loving hand that was ever ready to receive
   into communion all them that loved the Lord Jesus Christ: I love the
   hand that wrote the book, "Water Baptism no Bar to Christian
   Communion." I love him for that sake alone, and if he had written
   nothing else but that, I would say, "John Bunyan, be honored for ever."
   And there lies the foot that carried him up Snow Hill to go and make
   peace between a father and a son, in that cold day, which cost him his
   life. Peace to his ashes Wait, O John Bunyan, till thy Master sends his
   angel to blow the trumpet and methinks, when the archangel sounds it,
   he will almost think of thee, and this shall be a part of his joy, that
   honest John Bunyan, the greatest of all Englishmen, shall rise from his
   tomb at the blowing of that great trump. You cannot say so of the
   wicked. What is a wicked man's body but a rotten piece of noisomeness?
   Put it away, and thank God there are worms to eat such a thing up, and
   thank him still more, that there is a worm called Time, to eat up the
   evil influence and the accursed memory, which such a man leaves behind
   him. All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work that is
   done."

   III. We are to WRITE HIS EPITAPH, and his epitaph is contained in these
   short words: "this also is vanity" And now in a few words I will
   endeavor to show that it is vanity for a man to come and go from the
   house of God, and yet have no true religion. If I made up my mind to
   hate God, to sin against him, and to be lost at last, I would do it
   thoroughly, out and out. If I had determined to be damned, and had
   calculated the chances, and made up my mind that it would be better to
   be cast away for ever, I know there is one thing I would not do, I
   would not go to the house of God. Why, if I made up my mind to be lost,
   what is the good of going there to be teared about it? Because, if the
   man is faithful, he will prick my conscience and wake me up. If I am
   determined and have made up my mind to be lost, let me go to hell as
   easily as I can, what need is there that my conscience should be
   pricked, and this great stone laid in my way to keep me from going
   there? Besides, I hold that, for a man who has no love for the house of
   God, regularly to attend because he thinks it is respectable, is just
   one of the most pitiful kinds of drudgery that can be met with. If I
   did not love the house of God, I would not go there. If it were not a
   delight to me to be found in the sanctuary of God, singing of his
   praise, and hearing of his word, I would stop away. To be seen going to
   chapel twice on the Sabbath, sitting as God's people sit, rising when
   they rise, and singing about what you do not feel; hearing that which
   pricks your conscience, and listening to the reading of promises that
   do not belong to you; hearing about heaven, that is not yours, being
   frightened with hell, which is to be yours for ever--why, the man is
   just a born fool that goes to the house of God, except he has got an
   interest in it. We may commend him for going; it is a respectable
   thing, perhaps, and right that it should be so but I submit it is an
   intolerable drudgery to go always to the house of God, if you have made
   up your mind to be lost. Now, on this man's tomb must be written at
   last--"there was a men who would not serve God, but who had not courage
   enough to stand out against God. There is a man so silly that he
   pretended to be religious, and so wicked that he was a hypocrite to his
   pretensions." Why, although you must deplore a wicked man's wickedness
   as a fearful crime, yet there is some kind of respect to be paid to the
   man who is downright honest in it; but not an atom of respect to the
   man who wants to be a cant and a hypocrite. He wishes, if he can, just
   to save his neck at last; just as he thinks, to do enough to let him
   get off free when he comes to lay a-dying; enough to keep his
   conscience quiet, enough to look respectable; enough as he thinks, when
   he dies to give him a little chance of entering heaven, though it be,
   as it were, neck or nothing. Ah, poor thing! Well may we write over
   him, "This also is vanity!" But, sir, you will be more laughed at for
   your pretensions than if you had made none. Having professed to be
   religious, and having pretended to carry it out, you shall have more
   scorn than if you had came out in your right colors, and have said,
   "Who is the Lord, that I should fear him? Who is Jehovah, that I should
   obey his voice?" And now, are there any here who are so wicked as to
   choose eternal wrath? Have I any here so besotted as to choose
   destruction? Yes, yes, many; for if to-day, my hearer, thou art
   choosing sin; if thou art choosing self-righteousness, if thou art
   choosing pride, or lust, or the pleasures of this world, remember, thou
   art choosing damnation, for the two things cannot but go together. Sin
   is the guilt, and hell is the bread beneath it. If you choose sin, you
   have virtually chosen perdition. Think of this, I beseech you.

   "O Lord! do thou the sinner turn!

   Now rouse him from his senseless state;

   O let him not thy counsel spurn,

   Nor rue his fatal choice too late."

   May the Lord lead you to Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth and
   the life! And when ye are buried, may ye be buried with the righteous,
   and may your last end be like his!
     __________________________________________________________________

                       The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit

   A Sermon

   (No. 201)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, June 20, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them
   which heard the Word"--Acts 10:44.

   THE BIBLE IS A BOOK of the Revelation of God. The God after whom the
   heathen blindly searched, and for whom reason gropes in darkness, is
   here plainly revealed to us in the pages of divine authorship, so that
   he who is willing to understand as much of Godhead as man can know, may
   here learn it if he be not willingly ignorant and wilfully obstinate.
   The doctrine of the Trinity is specially taught in Holy Scripture. The
   word certainly does not occur, but the three divine persons of the One
   God are frequently and constantly mentioned, and Holy Scripture is
   exceedingly careful that we should all receive and believe that great
   truth of the Christian religion, that the Father is God, that the Son
   is God, that the Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but
   one God: though they be each of them very God of very God, yet three in
   one and one in three is the Jehovah whom we worship. You will notice in
   the works of Creation how carefully the Scriptures assure us that all
   the three divine persons took their share. "In the beginning Jehovah
   created the heavens and the earth;" and in another place we are told
   that God said "Let us make man"--not one person, but all three taking
   counsel with each other with regard to the making of mankind. We know
   that the Father hath laid the foundations and fixed those solid beams
   of light on which the blue arches of the sky are sustained; but we know
   with equal certainty that Jesus Christ, the eternal Logos, was with the
   Father in the beginning, and "without him was not anything made that
   was made:" moreover we have equal certainty that the Holy Spirit had a
   hand in Creation, for we are told that "the earth was without form and
   void, and darkness was upon the face of the earth; and the spirit of
   the Lord moved upon the face of the waters;" and brooding with his
   dove-like wing, he brought out of the egg of chaos this mighty thing,
   the fair round world. We have the like proof of the three persons in
   the Godhead in the matter of Salvation. We know that God the, Father
   gave his Son; we have abundant proof that God the Father chose his
   people from before the foundations of the world, that he did invent the
   plan of salvation, and hath always given his free, willing, and joyous
   consent to the salvation of his people. With regard to the share that
   the Son had in salvation, that is apparent enough to all. For us men
   and for our salvation he came down from heaven; he was incarnate in a
   mortal body; he was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into
   hades; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into
   heaven; he sitteth at the right hand of God, where also he maketh
   intercession for us. As to the Holy Spirit, we have equally sure proof
   that the Spirit of God worketh in conversion; for everywhere we are
   said to be begotten of the Holy Spirit; continually it is declared,
   that unless a man be born again from above, he cannot see the kingdom
   of God; while all the virtues and the graces of Christianity are
   described as being the fruits of the Spirit, because the Holy Spirit
   doth from first to last work in us and carry out that which Jesus
   Christ hath beforehand worked for us in his great redemption, which
   also God the Father hath designed for us in his great predestinating
   scheme of salvation.

   Now, it is to the work of the Holy Spirit that I shall this morning
   specially direct your attention; and I may as well mention the reason
   why I do so. It is this. We have received continually fresh
   confirmations of the good news from a far country, which has already
   made glad the hearts of many of God's people. In the United States of
   America there is certainly a great awakening. No sane man living there
   could think of denying it. There may be something of spurious
   excitement mixed up with it, but that good, lasting good, has been
   accomplished, no rational man can deny. Two hundred and fifty thousand
   persons--that is a quarter of a million--profess to have been
   regenerated since December last, have made a profession of their faith,
   and have united themselves with different sections of God's church. The
   work still progresses, if anything, at a more rapid rate than before,
   and that which makes me believe the work to be genuine is just
   this--that the enemies of Christ's holy gospel are exceedingly wroth at
   it. When the devil roars at anything, you may rest assured there is
   some good in it. The devil is not like some dogs we know of; he never
   barks unless there is something to bark at. When Satan howls we may
   rest assured he is afraid his kingdom is in danger. Now this great work
   in America has been manifestly caused by the outpouring of the Spirit,
   for no one minister has been a leader in it. All the ministers of the
   gospel have co-operated in it, but none of them have stood in the van.
   God himself has been the leader of his own hosts. It began with a
   desire for prayer. God's people began to pray; the prayer-meetings were
   better attended than before. it was then proposed to hold meetings at
   times that had never been set apart for prayer; these also were well
   attended; and now, in the city of Philadelphia, at the hour of noon,
   every day in the week, three thousand persons can always be seen
   assembled together for prayer in one place. Men of business, in the
   midst of their toil and labor, find an opportunity of running in there
   and offering a word of prayer, and then return to their occupations.
   And so, throughout all the States, prayer-meetings, larger or smaller
   in number, have been convened. And there has been real prayer. Sinners
   beyond all count, have risen up in the prayer-meeting, and have
   requested the people of God to pray for them; thus making public to the
   world that they had a desire after Christ; they have been prayed for,
   and the church has seen that God verily doth hear and answer prayer. I
   find that the Unitarian ministers for a little while took no notice of
   it. Theodore Parker snarls and raves tremendously at it, but he is
   evidently in a maze; he does not understand the mystery, and acts with
   regard to it as swine are said to do with pearls. While the church was
   found asleep, and doing very little, the Socinian could afford to stand
   in his pulpit and sneer at anything like evangelical religion, but now
   that there has been an awakening, he looks like a man that has just
   awakened out of sleep. He sees something; he does not know what it is.
   The power of religion is just that which will always puzzle the
   Unitarian, for he knows but little about that. At the form of religion
   he is not much amazed, for he can to an extent endorse that himself,
   but the supernaturalism of the gospel--the mystery--the miracle--the
   power--the demonstration of the Spirit that comes with the preaching,
   is what such men cannot comprehend, and they gaze and wonder, and then
   become filled with wrath, but still they have to confess there is
   something there they cannot understand, a mental phenomenon that is far
   beyond their philosophy--a thing which they cannot reach by all their
   science nor understand by all their reason.

   Now, if we have the like effect produced in this land, the one thing we
   must seek is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and I thought, perhaps,
   this morning in preaching upon the work of the Holy Spirit, that text
   might be fulfilled--"Him that honoureth me I will honor." My sincere
   desire is to honor the Holy Spirit this morning, and if he will be
   pleased to honor his church in return, unto him shall be the glory for
   ever.

   "While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them
   which heard the word." In the first place, I shall endeavor to describe
   the method of the Spirit's operation, secondly, the absolute necessity
   of the Holy Spirit's influence, if we could see men converted, and
   then, in the third place, I shall suggest the ways and means by which
   under divine grace we may obtain a like falling down of the Spirit upon
   our churches.

   1. In the first place, then, I will endeavor to explain THE METHOD OF
   THE HOLY SPIRIT'S OPERATIONS. But let me guard myself against being
   misunderstood. We can explain what the Spirit does, but how he does it,
   no man must pretend to know. The work of the Holy Spirit is the
   peculiar mystery of the Christian religion. Almost any other thing is
   plain, but this must remain an inscrutable secret into which it were
   wrong for us to attempt to pry. Who knoweth where the winds are
   begotten? Who knoweth, therefore, how the Spirit worketh, for he is
   like the wind? "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the
   sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it
   goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." In Holy Scripture
   certain great secrets of nature are mentioned as being parallel with
   the secret working of the Spirit. The procreation of children is
   instanced as a parallel wonder, for we know not the mystery thereof;
   how much less, therefore, shall we expect to know that more secret and
   hidden mystery of the new birth and new creation of man in Christ
   Jesus. But let no man be staggered at this, for they are mysteries in
   nature: the wisest man will tell you there are depths in nature into
   which he cannot dive, and heights into which he cannot soar. He who
   pretends to have unravelled the knot of creation hath made a mistake,
   he may have cut the knot by his rough ignorance, and by his foolish
   conjectures, but the knot itself must remain beyond the power of man's
   unravelling, until God himself shall explain the secret. There are
   marvellous things, that, as yet, men have sought to know in vain. They
   may, perhaps, discover many of them, but how the Spirit works, no man
   can know. But now I wish to explain what the Holy Spirit does, although
   we cannot tell how he does it. I take it that the Holy Spirit's work in
   conversion is two-fold. First it is an awakening of the powers that man
   already has, and secondly, it is an implantation of powers which he
   never had at all.

   In the great work of the new birth, the Holy Spirit first of all
   awakens the mental powers; for be it remembered that, the Holy Spirit
   never gives any man new mental powers. Take for instance reason--the
   Holy Spirit does not give men reason, for they have reason prior to
   their conversion. What the Holy Spirit does is to teach our reason,
   right reason--to set our reason in the right track, so that he can use
   it for the high purpose of discerning between good and evil; between
   the precious and vile. The Holy Spirit does not give man a will, for
   man has a will before; but he makes the will that was in bondage to
   Satan free to the service of God. The Holy Spirit gives no man the
   power to think, or the organ of belief--for man has power to believe or
   think as far as the mental act is concerned; but he gives that belief
   which is already there a tendency to believe the right thing, and he
   gives to the power of thought the propensity to think in the right way
   so that instead of thinking irregularly, we begin to think as God would
   have us think, and our mind desireth to walk in the steps of God's
   revealed truth There may be here, this morning, a man of enlarged
   understanding in things political--but his understanding is darkened
   with regard to spiritual things--he sees no beauty in the person of
   Christ--he sees nothing desirable in the way of holiness--he chooses
   the evil and forsakes the good. Now the Holy Spirit will not give him a
   new understanding, but he will cleanse his old understanding so that he
   will discern between things that differ, and shall discover that it is
   but a poor thing to enjoy "the pleasures of sin for a season," and let
   go an "eternal weight of glory." There shall be a man here too who is
   desperately set against religion, and willeth not to come to God, and
   do what we will, we are not able to persuade him to change his mind and
   turn to God. The Holy Spirit will not make a new will in that man, but
   he will turn his old will, and instead of willing to do evil he will
   make him will to do right--he will make him will to be saved by
   Christ--he will make him "willing in the day of his power." Remember,
   there is no power in man so fallen but that the Holy Spirit can raise
   it up. However debased a man may be, in one instant, by the miraculous
   power of the Spirit, all his faculties may be cleansed and purged.
   Ill-judging reason may be made to judge rightly; stout, obstinate wills
   may be made to run willingly in the ways of God's commandments; evil
   and depraved affections may in an instant be turned to Christ, and old
   desires that are tainted with vice, may be replaced by heavenly
   aspirations. The work of the Spirit on the mind is the re-modelling of
   it; the new forming of it. He doth not bring new material to the
   mind--it is in another part of the man that he puts up a new
   structure--but he puts the mind that had fallen out of order into its
   proper shape. He builds up pillars that had fallen down, and erects the
   palaces that had crumbled to the earth. This is the first work of the
   Holy Spirit upon the mind of man.

   Besides this, the Holy Spirit gives to men powers which they never had
   before. According to Scripture, I believe man is constituted in a
   three-fold manner. He has a body; by the Holy Spirit that body is made
   the temple of the Lord. He has a mind; by the Holy Spirit that mind is
   made like an altar in the temple. But man by nature is nothing higher
   than that; he is mere body and soul. When the Spirit comes, he breathes
   into him a third higher principle which we call the spirit. The apostle
   describes man as man, "body, soul and spirit." Now if you search all
   the mental writers through, you will find they all declare there are
   only two parts--body and mind; and they are quite right, for they deal
   with unregenerate man; but in regenerate man there is a third principle
   as much superior to mere mind as mind is superior to dead animal
   matter--that third principle is that with which a man prays; it is that
   with which he lovingly believes; or rather it is that which compels the
   mind to perform their acts. It is that which, operating upon the mind,
   makes the same use of the mind as the mind does of the body. When,
   after desiring to walk I make my legs move, it is my mind that compels
   them; and so my Spirit, when I desire to pray, compels my mind to think
   the thought of prayer and compels my soul also, if I desire to praise,
   to think the thought of praise, and lift itself upward towards God. As
   the body without the soul is dead, so the soul without the Spirit is
   dead, and one work of the Spirit is to quicken the dead soul by
   breathing into it the firing Spirit; as it is written, "The first man,
   Adam, was made a living soul, but the second Adam was made a quickening
   Spirit"--and, "as we have borne the image of the earthy, so must we
   bear the image of the heavenly;" that is, we must have in us, if we
   would be converted, the quickening Spirit, which is put into us by God
   the Holy Ghost. I say again, the spirit has powers which the mind never
   has. It has the power of communion with Christ, which to a degree is a
   mental act, but it can no more be performed by man without the Spirit,
   than the act of walking could be performed by man, if he were destitute
   of a soul to suggest the idea of walking. The Spirit suggests the
   thoughts of communion which the mind obeys and carries out. Nay, there
   are times, I think, when the spirit leaves the mind altogether, times
   when we forget everything of earth and one almost ceases to think, to
   reason, to judge, to weigh, or to will. Our souls are like the chariots
   of Amminadib, drawn swiftly onwards without any powers of volition. We
   lean upon the breast of Jesus, and in rhapsody divine, and in ecstasy
   celestial, we enjoy the fruits of the land of the blessed, and pluck
   the clusters of Eschol before entering into the land of promise.

   I think I have clearly put these two points before you. The work of the
   Spirit consists, first, in awakening powers already possessed by man,
   but which were asleep and out of order; and in the next place in
   putting into man powers which he had not before. And to make this
   simple to the humblest mind, let me suppose man to be something like a
   machine; all the wheels are out of order, the cogs do not strike upon
   each other, the wheels do not turn regularly, the rods will not act,
   the order is gone. Now, the first work of the Spirit is to put these
   wheels in the right place, to fit the wheels upon the axles, to put the
   right axle to the right wheel, then to put wheel to wheel, so that they
   may act upon each other. But that is not all his work. The next thing
   is to put fire and steam so that these things shall go to work. He does
   not put fresh wheels, he puts old wheels into order, and then he puts
   the motive power which is to move the whole. First he puts our mental
   powers into their proper order and condition, and then he puts a living
   quickening spirit, so that all these shall move according to the holy
   will and law of God.

   But, mark you, this is not all the Holy Spirit does. For if he were to
   do this, and then leave us, none of us would get to heaven. If any of
   you should be so near to heaven that you could hear the angels singing
   over the walls--if you could almost see within the pearly gates still,
   if the Holy Spirit did not help you the last step, you would never
   enter there. All the work is through his divine operation. Hence it is
   the Spirit who keeps the wheels in motion, and who tales away that
   defilement which, naturally engendered by our original sin, falls upon
   the machine and puts it out of order. He takes this away, and keeps the
   machine constantly going without injury, until at last he removes man
   from the place of defilement to the land of the blessed, a perfect
   creature, as perfect as he was when he came from the mould of his
   Maker.

   And I must say, before I leave this point, that all the former part of
   what I have mentioned is done instantaneously. When a man is converted
   to God, it is done in a moment. Regeneration is an instantaneous work.
   Conversion to God, the fruit of regeneration, occupies all our life,
   but regeneration itself is effected in an instant. A man hates God; the
   Holy Spirit makes him love God. A man is opposed to Christ, he hates
   his gospel, does not understand it and will not receive it: the Holy
   Spirit comes, puts light into his darkened understanding, takes the
   chain from his bandaged will, gives liberty to his conscience, gives
   life to his dead soul, so that the voice of conscience is heard, and
   the man becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus. And all this is done,
   mark you, by the instantaneous supernatural influence of God the Holy
   Ghost working as he willeth among the sons of men.

   II. Having thus dwelt upon the method of the Holy Spirit's work, I
   shall now turn to the second point, THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY OF THE
   SPIRIT'S WORK IN ORDER TO CONVERSION. In our text we are told that
   "while Peter spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which
   heard the word." Beloved, the Holy Ghost fell on Peter first, or else
   it would not have fallen on his hearers. There is a necessity that the
   preacher himself, if we are to have souls saved, should be under the
   influence of the Spirit. I have constantly made it my prayer that I
   might be guided by the Spirit even in the smallest and least important
   parts of the service; for you cannot tell but that the salvation of a
   soul may depend upon the reading of a hymn, or upon the selection of a
   chapter. Two persons have joined our church and made a profession of
   being converted simply through my reading a hymn--

   "Jesus, lover of my soul"

   They did not remember anything else in the hymn, but those words made
   such a deep impression upon their mind, that they could not help
   repeating them for days afterwards, and then the thought arose, "Do I
   love Jesus?" And then they considered what strange ingratitude it was
   that he should be the lover of their souls, and yet they should not
   love him. Now I believe the Holy Spirit led me to read that hymn. And
   many persons have been converted by some striking saying of the
   preacher. But why was it the preacher uttered that saying? Simply
   because he was led thereunto by the Holy Spirit. Rest assured, beloved,
   that when any part of the sermon is blessed to your heart, the minister
   said it because he was ordered to say it by his Master. I might preach
   to-day a sermon which I preached on Friday, and which was useful then,
   and there might be no good whatever come from it now, because it might
   not be the sermon which the Holy Ghost would have delivered to-day. But
   if with sincerity of heart I have sought God's guidance in selecting
   the topic, and he rests upon me in the preaching of the Word, there is
   no fear but that it shall be found adapted to your immediate wants. The
   Holy Spirit must rest upon your preachers. Let them have all the
   learning of the wisest men, and all the eloquence of such men as
   Desmosthenes and Cicero, still the Word cannot be blessed to you,
   unless first of all the Spirit of God hath guided the minister's mind
   in the selection of his subject, and in the discussion of it.

   But if Peter himself were under the hand of the Spirit, that would fail
   unless the Spirit of God, then, did fall upon our hearers; and I shall
   endeavor now to show the absolute necessity of the Spirit's work in the
   conversion of men.

   Let us remember what kind of thing the work is, and we shall see that
   other means are altogether out of the question. It is quite certain
   that men cannot be converted by physical means. The Church of Rome
   thought that she could convert men by means of armies; so she invaded
   countries, and threatened them with war and bloodshed unless they would
   repent and embrace her religion. However, it availed but little, and
   men were prepared to die rather than leave their faith; she therefore
   tried those beautiful things--stakes, racks, dungeons, axes, swords,
   fire; and by these things she hoped to convert men. You have heard of
   the man who tried to wind up his watch with a pick-axe. That man was
   extremely wise, compared with the man who thought to touch mind through
   matter. All the machines you like to invent cannot touch mind. Talk
   about tying angel's wings with green withes, or manacling the cherubim
   with iron chains, and then talk about meddling with the minds of men
   through physical means. Why, the things don't set; they cannot act. All
   the king's armies that ever were, and all the warriors clothed with
   mail, with all their ammunition, could never touch the mind of man.
   That is an impregnable castle which is not to be reached by physical
   agency.

   Nor, again, can man be converted by moral argument. "Well," says one,
   "I think he may. Let a minister preach earnestly, and he may persuade
   men to be converted." Ah! beloved, it is for want of knowing better
   that you say so. Melancthon thought so, but you know what he said after
   he tried it--"Old Adam is too strong for young Melancthon." So will
   every preacher find it, if he thinks his arguments can ever convert
   man. Let me give you a parallel case. Where is the logic that can
   persuade an Ethiopian to change his skin? By what argument can you
   induce a leopard to renounce his spots? Even so may he that is
   accustomed to do evil learn to do well. But if the Ethiopian's skin be
   changed it must be by a supernatural process. and if the leopard's
   spots be removed, he that made the leopard must do it. Even so is it
   with the heart of man. If sin were a thing ab extra and external, we
   could induce man to change it. For instance, you may induce a man to
   leave off drunkenness or swearing, because those things are not a part
   of his nature--he has added that vice to his original depravity. But
   the hidden evil at the heart is beyond all moralsuasion. I dare say a
   man might have enough argument to induce him to hang himself, but I am
   certain no argument will ever induce him to hang his sins, to hang his
   self-righteousness, and to come and humble himself at the foot of the
   cross; for the religion of Christ is so contrary to all the
   propensities of man, that it is like swimming against the stream to
   approach it, for the stream of man's will and man's desire is exactly
   the opposite of the religion of Jesus Christ. If you wanted a proof of
   that, at the lifting of my finger, there are thousands in this hall who
   would rise to prove it, for they would say, "I have found it so sir, in
   my experience; I hated religion as much as any men; I despised Christ,
   and his people, and I know not to this day how it is that I am what I
   am, unless it be the work of God." I have seen the tears run down a
   man's cheeks when he has come to me in order to be united to the church
   of Christ, and he has said, "Sir, I wonder how it is I am here to-day,
   if anyone had told me a year ago that I should think as I now think,
   and feel as I now feel, I should have called him a born fool for his
   pains; I used to say I never would be one of those canting Methodists,
   I liked to spend my Sunday in pleasure, and I did not see why I was to
   be cooping myself up in the house of God listening to a man talk. I
   pray, sir? No, not I. I said the best providence in all the world was a
   good strong pair of hands, and to take care of what you got. If any man
   talked to me about religion, why I would slam the door in his face, and
   pretty soon put him out; but the things that I loved then, I now hate,
   and the things that then I hated, now I love, I cannot do or say enough
   to show how total is the change that has been wrought in me. It must
   have been the work of God; it could not have been wrought by me, I feel
   assured; it must be some one greater than myself, who could thus turn
   my heart." I think these two things are proofs that we want something
   more than nature, and since physical agency will not do, and mere moral
   suasion will never accomplish it, that there must be an absolute
   necessity for the Holy Spirit.

   But again, if you will just think a minute what the work is, you will
   soon see that none but God can accomplish it. In the Holy Scripture,
   conversion is often spoken of as being a new creation. If you talk
   about creating yourselves, I should feel obliged if you would create a
   fly first. Create a gnat. create a grain of sand, and when you have
   created that, you may talk about creating a new heart. Both are alike,
   impossible, for creation is the work of God. But still, if you could
   create a grain of dust, or create even a world, it would not be half
   the miracle, for you must first find a thing which has created itself.
   Could that be? Suppose you had no existence, how could you create
   yourself? Nothing cannot produce anything. Now, how can man re-create
   himself. A man cannot create himself into a new condition, when he has
   no being in that condition, but is, as yet, a thing that is not.

   Then, again, the work of creation is said to be like the resurrection.
   "We are alive from the dead." Now, can the dead in the grave raise
   themselves. Let any minister who thinks he can convert souls, go and
   raise a corpse let him go and stand in one of the cemeteries, and bid
   the tombs open wide their mouths, and make room for those once buried
   there to awaken, and he will have to preach in vain. But if he could do
   it, that is not the miracle: it is for the dead to raise themselves,
   for an inaminate corpse to kindle in its own breast the spark of life
   anew. If the work be a resurrection, a creation, does it not strike you
   that it must be beyond the power of man? It must be wrought in him by
   no one less than God himself.

   And there is yet one more consideration, and I shall have concluded
   this point. Beloved, even if man could save himself, I would have you
   recollect how averse he is to it? If we could make our hearers all
   willing, the battle would be accomplished. "Well," says one, "If I am
   willing to be saved, can I not be saved?" Assuredly you can, but the
   difficulty is, we cannot bring men to be willing. That shows,
   therefore, that there must be a constraint put upon their will. There
   must be an influence exerted upon them, which they have not in
   themselves, in order to make them willing in the day of God's power.
   And this is the glory of the Christian religion. The Christian religion
   has within its own bowels power to spread itself. We do not ask you to
   be willing first. We come and tell you the news, and we believe that
   the Spirit of God working with us, will make you willing. If the
   progress of the Christian religion depended upon the voluntary assent
   of mankind it would never go an inch further but because the Christian
   religion has within an omnipotent influence, constraining men to
   believe it, it is therefore that it is and must be triumphant, "till
   like a sea of glory it spreads from shore to shore."

   III. Now I shall conclude by bringing one or two thoughts forward, with
   regard to WHAT MUST BE DONE AT THIS TIME IN ORDER TO BRING DOWN THE
   HOLY SPIRIT. It is quite certain, beloved, if the Holy Spirit willed to
   do it, that every man, woman, and child in this place might be
   converted now. If God, the Sovereign Judge of all, would be pleased now
   to send out his Spirit, every inhabitant of this million-peopled city
   might be brought at once to turn unto the living God. Without
   instrumentality, without the preacher, without books, without anything,
   God has it in his power to convert men. We have known persons about
   their business, not thinking about religion at all, who have had a
   thought injected into their heart, and that thought has been the
   prolific mother of a thousand meditations. and through these
   meditations they have been brought to Christ. Without the aid of the
   minister, the Holy Spirit has thus worked, and to-day he is not
   restrained. There may be some men, great in infidelity, staunch in
   opposition to the cross of Christ, but, without asking their consent,
   the Holy Spirit can pull down the strong man, and make the mighty man
   bow himself. For when we talk of the Omnipotent God, there is nothing
   too great for him to do. But, beloved, God has been pleased to put
   great honor upon instrumentality; he could work without it if he
   pleased but he does not do so. However, this is the first thought I
   want to give you; if you would have the Holy Spirit exert himself in
   our midst, you must first of all look to him and not to
   instrumentality. When Jesus Christ preached, there were very few
   converted under him, and the reason was, because the Holy Spirit was
   not abundantly poured forth. He had the Holy Spirit without measure
   himself, but on others the Holy Spirit was not as yet poured out. Jesus
   Christ said, "Greater works than these shall ye do because I go to my
   Father, in order to send the Holy Spirit;" and recollect that those few
   who were converted under Christ's ministry, were not converted by him,
   but by the Holy Spirit that rested upon him at that time. Jesus of
   Nazareth was anointed of the Holy Spirit. Now then, if Jesus Christ,
   the great founder of our religion, needed to be anointed of the Holy
   Spirit, how much more our ministers? And if God would always make the
   distinction even between his own Son as an instrument, and the Holy
   Spirit as the agent, how much more ought we to be careful to do that
   between poor puny men and the Holy Spirit? Never let us hear you say
   again, "So many persons were converted by So-and so." They were not. If
   converted they were not converted by man. Instrumentality is to be
   used, but the Spirit is to have the honor of it. Pay no more a
   superstitious reverence to man, think no more that God is tied to your
   plans, and to your agencies. Do not imagine that so many city
   missionaries, so much good will be done. Do not say, "So many
   preachers; so many sermons, so many souls saved." Do not say, "So many
   Bibles, so many tracts; so much good done." Not so, use these, but
   remember it is not in that proportion the blessing comes; it is, so
   much Holy Spirit, so many souls in-gathered.

   And now another thought. If we would have the Spirit, beloved, we must
   each of us try to honor him. There are some chapels into which if you
   were to enter, you would never know there was a Holy Spirit. Mary
   Magdalen said of old, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not
   where they have laid him," and the Christian might often say so, for
   there is nothing said about the Lord until they come to the end, and
   then there is just the benediction, or else you would not know that
   there were three persons in one God at all. Until our churches honor
   the Holy Spirit, we shall never see it abundantly manifested in our
   midst. Let the preacher always confess before he preaches that he
   relies upon the Holy Spirit. Let him burn his manuscript and depend
   upon the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit does not come to help him, let him
   be still and let the people go home and pray that the Spirit will help
   him next Sunday.

   And do you also, in the use of all your agencies, always honor the
   Spirit? We often begin our religious meetings without prayer; it is all
   wrong. We must honor the Spirit; unless we put him first, he will never
   make crowns for us to wear. He will get victories, but he will have the
   honor of them, and if we do not give to him the honor, he will never
   give to us the privilege and success. And best of all, if you would
   have the Holy Spirit, let us meet together earnestly to pray for him.
   Remember, the Holy Spirit will not come to us as a church, unless we
   seek him. "For this thing will I be enquired of by the house of Israel
   to do it for them." We purpose during the coming week to hold meetings
   of special prayer, to supplicate for a revival of religion. On the
   Friday morning I opened the first prayer meeting at Trinity Chapel,
   Brixton; and, I think, at seven o'clock, we had as many as two hundred
   and fifty persons gathered together. It was a pleasant sight. During
   the hour, nine brethren prayed, one after the other; and I am sure
   there was the spirit of prayer there. Some persons present sent up
   their names, asking that we would offer special petitions for them; and
   I doubt not the prayers will be answered; At Park Street, on Monday
   morning, we shall have a prayer. meeting from eight to nine; then
   during the rest of the week there will be a prayer-meeting in the
   morning from seven to eight. On Monday evening we shall have the usual
   prayer-meeting at seven, when I hope there will be a large number
   attending. I find that my brother, Baptist Noel, has commenced morning
   and evening prayer-meetings, and they have done the same thing in
   Norwich and many provincial towns, where, without any pressure, the
   people are found willing to come. I certainly did not expect to see so
   many as two hundred and fifty persons at an early hour in the morning
   meet together for prayer. I believe it was a good sign The Lord hath
   put prayer into their hearts and therefore they were willing to come,
   "Prove me now here, saith the Lord of host., and see if I do not pour
   you out a blessing so that there shall not be room enough to receive
   it." Let us meet and pray, and if God doth not hear us, it will be the
   first time he has broken his promise. Come, let us go up to the
   sanctuary; let us meet together in the house of the Lord, and offer
   solemn supplication; and I say again, if the Lord doth not make bare
   his arm in the sight of all the people, it will be the reverse of all
   his previous actions, it will be the contrary of all his promises, and
   contradictory to himself. We have only to try him, and the result is
   certain. In dependence on his Spirit, if we only meet for prayer, the
   Lord shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear him. O
   Lord, lift up thyself because of thine enemies; pluck thy right hand
   out of thy bosom, O Lord our God, for Christ's sake, Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                        The Conversion of Saul of Tarsus

   A Sermon

   (No. 202)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, June 27, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking
   unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest
   thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks."--Acts 26:14.

   HOW MARVELLOUS the condescension which induced the Saviour to take
   notice of such a wretch as Saul! Enthroned in the highest heavens,
   amidst the eternal melodies of the redeemed, and the seraphic sonnets
   of the cherubim and all the angelic hosts, it was strange that the
   Saviour should stoop himself from his dignity to speak to a persecutor.
   Engaged as he is both day and night in pleading the cause of his own
   church before his Father's throne, it is condescension indeed which
   could induce him, as it were, to suspend his intercessions, in order
   that he might speak personally to one who had sworn himself his enemy.
   And what grace was it that could lead the Saviour's heart to speak to
   such a man as Saul, who had breathed out threatenings against his
   church? Had he not haled men and women to prison; had he not compelled
   them in every synagogue to blaspheme the name of Jesus Christ? and now
   Jesus himself must interpose to bring him to his senses! Ah, had it
   been a thunderbolt which quivered in its haste to reach the heart of
   man, we should not have marvelled, or had the lips of the Saviour been
   heaving with a curse we should not have been astonished. Had he not
   himself in his own lifetime cursed the persecutor? Did he not say,
   whosoever shall offend one of the least of these my little ones, it
   here better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and
   that be were cast in the sea? But now the man that is cursed by that
   language, is yet to be blessed by him whom he had persecuted; who
   though he had stained his hand in blood, and had now the commission in
   his hands to drag others to prison, though he had kept the clothes of
   those who had stoned Stephen, yet the Master, the King of heaven, must
   himself speak from the upper skies to bring him to feel the need of a
   Saviour, and to make him partaker of precious faith. I say this is
   marvellous condescension and matchless grace. But, beloved, when we
   come to recollect the Saviour's character it is but little wonderful
   that he should do this for he has done far more than this. Did he not
   in person leave the starry thrones of heaven, and come down to earth to
   suffer, and bleed and die? But when I think of Bethlehem's manger, of
   the cruel garden of Gethsemane, and the yet more shameful Calvary, I do
   not wonder that the Saviour should do any act of grace or
   condescension. That being done, what can be greater? If he hath stooped
   from heaven into hades, what greater stoop can he accomplish? If his
   own throne must be left empty, if his own crown must he relinquished,
   if his Godhead must be veiled in flesh, and the splendours of his deity
   clothed in the rags of manhood, what wonder, I say, that he should
   stoop to speak even to Saul of Tarsus, to bring his heart to himself?
   Beloved, some of us do not wonder either, for although we have not had
   greater grace than the apostle himself we have had no less. The Saviour
   did not speak out of heaven to us with a voice that others might hear,
   but he spoke with a voice that our conscience heard. We were not
   blood-thirsty, it may be, against his children, but we had sins both
   black and heinous; yet he stopped us. Not content with wooing us or
   with threatening us, not content with sending his ministers to us and
   giving us his word to warn us of duty, be would come himself. And you
   and I, beloved, who have tasted of this grace, can say it was matchless
   love that saved Paul, but not love unexampled; for he hath saved us
   also, and made us partakers of the same grace.

   I intend, this morning, to address myself more particularly to those
   who fear not the Lord Jesus Christ, but on the contrary, oppose him. I
   think I may be quite certain that I have none here who go the length of
   desiring to see the old persecution of the church revived. I do not
   think there is an Englishman, however much he may hate religion, who
   would wish to see the stake again in Smithfield, and the burning pile
   consuming the saints. There may be some who hate them as much, but
   still not in that fashion; the common sense of the age reviles against
   the gibbet, the sword, and the dungeon. The children of God, in this
   country at least, are quite safe from any political persecution of that
   kind, but it is highly probable that I have here this morning some who
   go to the full length of their tether, and who endeavor as much as
   lieth in them to provoke the Lord to anger by opposing his cause. You
   will perhaps recognize yourselves if I try to paint a picture. It is
   seldom that you ever go into the house of God, in fact you have a
   contempt for all the gatherings of the righteous; you have a notion
   that all saints are hypocrites, that all professors are cants, and you
   do not at times blush to say so. However, you have a wife, and that
   wife of yours has been impressed under the sound of the ministry; she
   loves to go to the house of God, and heaven and her heart alone know
   what grief and agony of mind you have caused her. How often have you
   taunted and jeered her on account of her profession! You cannot deny
   but that she is a better woman for it; you are obliged to confess that
   although she cannot go with you in all your sports and merriments, yet
   as far as she can go she is a loving and affectionate wife to you. If
   any one should find fault with her, you would right manfully defend her
   character; but it is her religion that you hate; and it is but lately
   that you threatened to lock her up on Sunday. You say it is impossible
   for you to live in the house with her if she will go up to the house of
   God. Moreover there is a little child of yours, you had no objection to
   that child going to the Sunday-school, because she was out of your way
   on the Sunday when you were smoking your pipe in your shirt sleeves;
   you did not want to be bothered with your children, you said, and
   therefore you were glad to pack them off to the Sunday-school, but that
   child has had her heart touched; and you cannot help seeing that the
   religion of Christ is in her heart, therefore you do not like it, you
   love the child, but you would give anything if she were not what she
   is; you would give anything if you could crush the last spark of
   religion out of her. But perhaps I can put your case yet. You are a
   master; you occupy a respectable position, you have many men under you,
   you cannot bear a man to make a profession of religion. Other masters
   you know have said to their men, "Do as you like, so long as you are a
   good servant, I do not care about your religious views." But mayhap you
   are a little the reverse; although you would not turn a man away
   because of his religion you give him a jeer every now and then, and if
   you trip him up in a little fault, you say, "Ah! that is your religion,
   I suppose you learned that at chapel;" grieving the poor man's soul,
   while he endeavors as far as he can to discharge his duty to you. Or,
   you are a young man, employed in a warehouse or a shop, and there is
   one of your shopmates who has lately taken to religion, he is to be
   found on his knees in prayer--what fine fun you have made of him
   lately, haven't you? You and others have joined in like a pack of
   hounds after a poor hare and he being of rather a timid turn of mind,
   perhaps is silent before you, or if he speaks, the tear is in his eye,
   because you have wounded his spirit. Now this is the selfsame spirit
   that kindled the firebrand of old; that stretched the saint upon the
   rack; that cut his body in pieces, and sent him to wander about in
   sheep skins and in goat skins. If I have not exactly hit your character
   yet, I may do it before I have done. I wish to address myself
   especially to those of you, who in word or deed or in any other manner,
   persecute the children of God; or if you do not like so hard a word as
   "persecute," laugh at them, opposing them, and endeavor to put an end
   to the good work in their hearts.

   I shall in the name of Christ, first put the question to you, "Saul,
   Saul, why persecutest thou me?" In the second place, I shall in
   Christ's name expostulate with you, "It is hard for thee to kick
   against the pricks;" and then if God shall bless what is said to the
   touching of your heart, it may be that the Master shall give you a few
   words of comfort, as he did the apostle Paul, when he said, "Rise and
   stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to
   make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast
   seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee."

   I. In the first place, then, we will consider THE QUESTION, WHICH JESUS
   CHRIST PUT OUT OF HEAVEN TO PAUL, has been put to you this morning.

   First, notice what a personal question it was, "Saul, Saul, why
   persecutest thou me?" When I preach to you, I am obliged to address you
   all as an assembly; it is not possible for me, except on rare
   occasions, to single out an individual, and describe his character,
   although under the hand of the Spirit it is sometimes done; but in the
   main I am obliged to describe the character as a whole, and deal with
   it in the mass. But not so our Master; he did not say out of heaven.
   "Saul, why does the synagogue persecute me? Why do the Jews hate my
   religion?" No; it was put more pertinently than that--"Saul, Saul, why
   persecutest thou me?" If it had been put in general terms, it would
   have glanced off from the heart of the apostle; it could have been like
   an arrow which had missed the mark, and barely grazed the skin of the
   man in whose heart it was intended to find a home; but when it came
   personally--"Why persecutest thou me?"--there was no getting off it. I
   pray the Lord to make the question personal to some of you. There be
   many of us here present who have had personal preaching to our souls.
   Do you not remember, dear brother in Christ, when you were first
   pricked in the heart, how personal the preacher was? I remember it
   well. It seemed to me that I was the only person in the whole place, as
   if a black wall were round about me, and I were shut in with the
   preacher, something like the prisoners at the Penitentiary, who each
   sit in their box and can see no one but the chaplain. I thought all he
   said was meant for me; I felt persuaded that some one knew my
   character, and had written to him and told him all, and that he had
   personally picked me out. Why, I thought he fixed his eyes on me; and I
   have reason to believe he did, but still he said he knew nothing about
   my case. Oh, that men would hear the word preached, and that God would
   so bless them in their hearing, that they might feel it to have a
   personal application to their own hearts.

   But note again--the Apostle received some information as to the
   persecuted one. If you had asked Saul who it was he persecuted, he
   would have said, "Some poor fishermen, that had been setting up an
   impostor; I am determined to put them down. Why, who are they? They are
   the poorest of the world; the very scum and draff of society; if they
   were princes and kings we perhaps might let them have their opinion;
   but these poor miserable ignorant fellows, I do not see why they are to
   be allowed to carry out their infatuation, and I shall persecute them.
   Moreover, most of them are women I have been persecuting--poor ignorant
   creatures. What right have they to set their judgment up above the
   priests? They have no right to have an opinion of their own, and
   therefore it is quite right for me to make them turn away from their
   foolish errors." But see in what a different light Jesus Christ puts
   it. He does not say, "Saul, Saul, why didst thou persecute Stephen?" or
   "Why art thou about to drag the people of Damascus to prisons?"
   No--"Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Did you ever think of it in
   that light? You have got a poor man who works for you, who wears a
   fustian jacket. He is nobody. You may laugh at him. He will not tell
   anybody, or even if he does, you will not be called to book about it,
   because he is nobody. You dare not laugh so at a duke or an earl. You
   would mind your behavior if you were in such company as that; but
   because this is a poor man, you think you have a license given you to
   laugh at his religion. But remember, that beneath the fustian jacket
   there is Jesus Christ himself. Inasmuch as you have done this unto one
   of the least of his brethren, you have done it unto him. Has the
   thought ever struck you, that when you laughed you were laughing, not
   at him, but at his Master? Whether it struck you or not it is a great
   truth, that Jesus Christ takes all the injuries which are done to his
   people as if they had been done to him. You locked your wife out the
   other night, did you, because she would frequent the house of God? When
   she stood there shivering in the midnight air, or entreating you to let
   her in, if your eyes had been wide open, you would have seen the Lord
   of life and glory shivering there, and he might have said to you,
   "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" And then you would have seen it
   to have been a very much greater sin than you imagine it now to be. You
   laughed at a little child the other day, because the child sang its
   simple hymn, and evidently sang it from its heart. Did you know,--or if
   you did not know it then, know it now,--did you know that you were
   laughing at Christ; that when you mocked her you were mocking her
   Master, and that Jesus Christ has set down that laugh in his great
   book, as an indignation done to his own real person. "Why persecutest
   thou me?" If ye could see Christ enthroned in heaven, reigning there in
   the splendours of his majesty, would ye laugh at him? If ye could see
   him sitting on his great throne coming to judge the world, would ye
   laugh at him? Oh! as all the rivers run into the sea, so all the
   streams of the churches suffering ran into Christ. If the clouds be
   full of rain they empty themselves upon the earth, and if the
   Christian's heart be full of woes it empties itself into the breast of
   Jesus. Jesus is the great reservoir of all his people's woes, and by
   laughing at his people you help to fill that reservoir to its brim. and
   one day will it burst in the fury of its might and the floods shall
   sweep you away, and the sand foundation upon which your house is
   builded shall give way, and then what shall ye do when ye shall stand
   before the face of him whose person ye have mocked and whose name ye
   have despised?

   We will put the question in another way; it is a very reasonable one,
   and seems to demand an answer. "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"
   "Saul," the Master might have said, "what have I done to hurt thee?
   When I was on earth did I say a word against thy character--did I
   damage thy reputation--did I injure thy person--did I ever grieve
   thee--did I ever say a hard word against thee? What hurt have I ever
   done thee? Why art thou so provoked against me? If I had been thy
   bitterest enemy, and had spit in thy face, thou couldest not have been
   more wroth with me than now. But why, man, wilt thou be angry against
   one who has never hurt thee--who has never done thee a displeasure? Oh!
   why persecutest thou me? Is there anything in my character that
   deserves it? Was I not pure, and holy, and separate from sinners? Did I
   not go about doing good? I raised the dead, I healed the lepers. I fed
   the hungry. I clothed the naked; for which of these works dost thou
   hate me? Why persecutest thou me?" The question comes home to you in
   the same manner this morning. Ah! man, why dost thou persecute Christ?
   He puts it to thee. What hurt has he ever done thee? Has Christ ever
   despoiled you, robbed you, injured you in any way whatever? Has his
   gospel in any way whatever taken away the comforts of life from you, or
   done you any damage? You dare not say that. If it were the Mormonism of
   Joe Smith, I wonder not that you should persecute it, though, even
   then, you would have no right to do so, for that might take the wife of
   your bosom from you. If it were a filthy and lustful system that would
   undermine the foundations of society, you might think yourself right in
   persecuting it. But has Christ ever taught his disciples to rob you, to
   cheat you, to curse you? Does not his doctrine teach the very reverse,
   and are not his followers, when they are true to their Master and
   themselves, the very reverse of this? Why hate a man who has done you
   no injury? Why hate a religion that does not interfere with you? If you
   will not follow Christ yourself, how does it injure you to let others
   do so? You say it injures your family; prove it, sir. Has it injured
   your wife? Does she love you less than before? Is she less obedient?
   You dare not say that. Has it hurt your child? Is your child less
   reverent to his father because he fears God? Is he less fond of you
   because he loves his Redeemer best of all? In what respect has Christ
   ever hurt any of you? He has fed you with the bounties of his
   providence. The clothes you wear to-day are the gifts of his bounty.
   The breath in your nostrils he has preserved to you, and will you curse
   him for this? It was but the other day that an avenging angel seized
   the axe, and the Master said, "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the
   ground?" And Jesus came and put his hand upon the auger's arm, and
   said, "Stay, stay yet another year until I have digged about it and
   dunged it." Your life was spared by him, and you curse him for this;
   you blaspheme him because he has spared your life, and spend the breath
   which his own grace has given you, in cursing the God that allows you
   to breathe. You little know from how many dangers Christ in his
   providence protects you. You can little guess how numerous the mercies
   which, unseen by you, are poured into your lap every hour. And yet, for
   mercies innumerable, for grace that cannot be stopped by your iniquity,
   for love that cannot be overpowered by your injuries, do you curse the
   Saviour for all this? Base ingratitude! Truly, ye have hated him
   without a cause; ye have persecuted him, though he has loved you, and
   has done nought to injure you.

   But let me picture the Master to you once more, and methinks you will
   never, never persecute him again, if you do but see him. Oh, if you
   could but see the Lord Jesus, you must love him; if you did but know
   his worth you could not hate him! He was more beautiful than all the
   sons of men. Persuasion sat upon his lips, as if all the bees of
   eloquence had brought their honey there, and made his mouth the hive.
   He spoke and so did he speak, that if a lion had heard him, it would
   have crouched and licked his feet. Oh, how roving was he in his
   tenderness! Remember that prayer of his when the iron was piercing his
   hand--"Father, forgive them." You never heard him, all his life long,
   once saying an angry word to those who persecuted him. He was reviled,
   but he reviled not again. Even when he was led like a lamb to the
   slaughter, he was dumb before his shearers, and he opened not his
   mouth. But though fairer than the sons of men, both in person and in
   character, yet he was the Man of Sorrows. Grief had ploughed his brow
   with her deepest furrows. His cheeks were sunken and hollow with agony.
   He had fasted many a day, and often had he thirsted. He toiled from
   morning to night; then spent all night in prayer; then rose again to
   labour--and all this without reward--with no hope of getting anything
   from any man. He had no house, no home, no gold, no saver. Foxes had
   holes and the birds of the air had nests, but he, the Son of Man, had
   not where to lay his head. He was the persecuted man, hunted by his
   enemies from place to place, with scarce a friend to help him. Oh, had
   ye seen him; had ye seen his loveliness and his misery united, had ye
   seen his kindness, and yet the cruelty of his enemies, your hearts must
   have melted--you would have said, "No, Jesus, I cannot persecute thee!
   No, I will stand between thee and the burning sunshine. If I cannot be
   thy disciple, yet at any rate I will not be thy opposer. If this cloak
   can shelter thee in thy midnight wrestlings, there it is; and if this
   waterpot can draw thee water from the well, I will let it down and thou
   shalt have enough; for if I love thee not, since thou art so poor, so
   sad and so good, I cannot hate thee. No, I will not persecute thee!"
   But though I feel certain, if you could see Christ, you must say this,
   yet have you really persecuted him in his disciples, in the members of
   his spiritual body, and I therefore put to you the question, "Saul,
   Saul, why persecutest thou me?" God help you to answer that question,
   and the answer must be shame and confusion of face.

   II. This shall bring me to the second point--EXPOSTULATION. "It is hard
   for thee to kick against the pricks." There is a figure here; there is
   an allusion to the ox goad. When the ox was yoked for ploughing, if he
   did not move on in as sprightly a manner as was desired, the husbandman
   pricked him with a long rod that ended with an iron point. Very likely,
   as soon as the ox felt the goad, instead of going on, he struck out as
   hard as he could behind him. He kicked against the goad, sending the
   iron deep into his own flesh. Of course the husbandman who was guiding
   him kept his goad there still, and the more frequently the ox kicked,
   the more he was hurt. But go he must. He was in the hand of man, who
   must and will rule the beast. It was just his own option to kick as
   long as he pleased, for he did no harm to his driver, but only to
   himself. You will see that there is a beauty in this figure, if I pull
   it to pieces, and ask you a question or two.

   It is hard for you to kick against the goad; for, in the first place,
   you do not really accomplish your purpose. When the ox kicks against
   the goad it is to spite the husbandman for having goaded him onward;
   but instead of hurting the husbandman it hurts itself. And when you
   have persecuted Christ in order to stop the progress of his gospel, let
   me ask you, have you ever stopped it at all? No; and ten thousand like
   you would not be able to stop the mighty onward rush of the host of
   God's elect. If thou thickest, O man, that thou canst stop the progress
   of Christ's church, go thou and first bind the sweet influences of the
   Pleiades, and bid the universe stand still instead of circling round
   those fair stars! Go, stand by the winds, and bid them cease their
   wailing, or take thy station upon a hoary cliff, and bid the roaring
   sea roll back when its tide is marching on the beach; and when thou
   hast stopped the universe, when sun, moon, and stars have been obedient
   to thy mandate, when the sea hath heard thee and obeyed thee, then come
   forth and stop the omnipotent progress of the church of Christ. But
   thou canst not do it. "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the
   rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against his
   anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their
   cords from us." But what said the Almighty? He did not even get up to
   combat with them. "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord
   shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath
   and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my
   holy hill of Zion." The church cares not for all the noise of the
   world. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
   Therefore, will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though
   the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though waters
   thereof roar, and be troubled, and though the mountains shake with the
   swelling thereof." Ah, in your hosts ye have not prevailed, and think
   ye, O puny man, that one by one, ye shall be able to conquer? Your wish
   may be strong enough, but your wish can never be accomplished. You may
   desire it anxiously, but you shall never attain thereto.

   But put it as a personal matter, have you ever succeeded in stopping
   the work of grace in the heart of any one? You tried to laugh it out of
   your wife, but if she really was converted, you never would laugh it
   out of her. You may have tried to vex your little child; but if grace
   be in that child, I defy you and your master the devil to get it out.
   Ay, young man, you may laugh at your shopmate, but he will beat you in
   the long run. He may sometimes be abashed, but you never will turn him.
   If he is a hypocrite you will, and perhaps there will be no great loss,
   but if he be a true soldier of Christ, he can bear a great deal more
   than the laugh of an emptyheaded being like yourself. You need not for
   a moment flatter yourself that he will be afraid of you. He will have
   to endure a greater baptism of suffering than that, and he will not be
   cowed by the first shower of your poor, pitiful, malicious folly. And
   as for you, sir merchant, you may persecute your man, but see if you
   will get him to yield. Why, I know a man whose master had tried very
   hard to make him go against his conscience; but he said, "No, sir." And
   the master thought, "Well, he is a very valuable servant; but I will
   beat him if I can." So he threatened that if he did not do as he wished
   he would turn him away. The man was dependent on his master. and he
   knew not what he should do for his daily bread. So he said to his
   master honestly at once, "Sir, I don't know of any other situation, I
   should be very sorry to leave you, for I have been very comfortable.
   but if it comes to that, sir, I would sooner starve than submit my
   conscience to any one." The man left, and the master had to go after
   him to bring him back again. And so it will be in every case. If
   Christians are but faithful they must win the day. It is no use your
   kicking against them; you cannot hurt them. They must, they shall be
   conquerors through him that hath loved them.

   But there is another way of putting it. When the ox kicked against the
   goad, he got no good by it. Kick as he might, he was never benefited by
   it. If the ox had stopped and nibbled a blade of grass or a piece of
   hay, why, then he would have been wise, perhaps, in standing still. but
   to stand still simply to be goaded and to kick, simply to have iron
   stuck into your flesh, is a rather foolish thing. Now, I ask you, what
   have you ever got by opposing Christ? Suppose you say you don't like
   religion, what have you ever got by hating it? I will tell you what you
   have got. You have got those red eyes sometimes on the Monday morning,
   after the drunkenness of the Sunday night. I will tell you what you
   have got, young man. You have got that shattered constitution, which,
   even if you had now turned it to the paths of virtue, must hang about
   you till you leave it in your grave. What have you got? Why, there are
   some of you who might have been respectable members of society, who
   have got that old broken hat, that old ragged coat, that drunken,
   slouched manner about you, and that character that you would like to
   let down and run away from, for it is no good to you. That is what you
   have got by opposing Christ. What have you got by opposing him? Why, a
   house without furniture--for through your drunkenness you have had to
   sell everything of value you had. You have got your children in rags.
   and your wife in misery, and your eldest daughter, perhaps, running
   into shame, and your son rising up to curse the Saviour, as you
   yourself have done. What have you got by opposing Christ! What man in
   all the world ever got anything by it? There is a serious loss
   sustained, but as for gain, there is nothing of the sort.

   But you say, though you have opposed Christ, still you are moral. Again
   I will put it to you--Have you ever got anything even then by opposing
   Christ? Has it made your family any the happier, do you think? Has it
   made you any the happier yourself? Do you feel after you have been
   laughing at your wife, or your child or your man, that you can sleep
   any the sounder? Do you feel that to be a thing which will quiet your
   conscience when you come to die? Remember, you must die; and do you
   think that when you are dying, it will afford you any consolation to
   think that you did your best to destroy the souls of other people? No.
   you must confess it is a poor game. You are getting no good by it, but
   you are doing yourself a positive injury. Ah, drunkard, go on with your
   drunkenness, remember that every drunken fit leaves a plague behind
   it--that you will have to feel one day. It is pleasant to sin to-day,
   but it will not be pleasant to reap the harvest of it tomorrow the
   seeds of sin are sweet when we sow them, but the fruit is frightfully
   bitter when we come to house it at last. The wine of sin tasteth sweet
   when it goeth down, but it is as gall and vinegar in the bowels. Take
   heed, ye that hate Christ and oppose his gospel for as certainly as the
   Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and his religion is true, you are
   heaping on your head a load of injury, instead of deriving good. "Saul,
   Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the
   pricks."

   But kick as the ox might, it had to go forward at last. We have seen a
   horse stand still in the street, and the driver, who had not very much
   patience with him, has so belaboured him, that we wondered how the poor
   horse could stand still under such a torrent of blows; but we have
   observed at last that the horse is obliged to go on, and we wondered
   what he got by standing still. It is just the same with you. If the
   Lord means to make a Christian out of you, you may kick against
   Christianity, but he will have you at last. If Jesus Christ intends
   your salvation you may curse him, but he will make you preach his
   gospel one day, if he likes to do so. Ah, if Christ had willed it,
   Voltaire who cursed him, might have made a second apostle Paul. He
   could not have resisted sovereign grace, if Christ had so determined.
   If anyone had told the apostle Paul when he was going to Damascus, that
   he would one day become a preacher of Christianity, he would no doubt,
   have laughed at it as ridiculous nonsense; but the Lord had the key of
   his will, and he wound it up as he pleased. And so it will be with
   you--if he has determined to have you as one of his followers--

   "If, as the eternal mandate ran

   Almighty grace arrest that man,"--

   Almighty grace will arrest you; and the bloodiest of persecutors will
   be made the boldest of saints. Then why persecutest thou me? Perhaps
   you are despising the very Saviour you will one day love; trying to
   knock down the very thing that you will one day try to build up. Mayhap
   you are persecuting the men you will call your brothers and sisters. It
   is always well for a man not to go so far that he cannot go back
   respectably. Now do not go too far in opposing Christ. for one of these
   times it may be you will be very glad to come crouching at his feet.
   But there is this sad reflection, if Christ does not save you, still
   you must go on. You may kick against the pricks, but you cannot get
   away from his dominion; you may kick against Christ, but you cannot
   cast him from his throne, you cannot drag him out of heaven. You may
   kick against him, but you cannot prevent his condemning you at last.
   You may laugh at him, but you cannot laugh away the day of judgment.
   You may scoff at religion; but all your scoffs cannot put it out. You
   may jeer at heaven; but all your jeers will not take one single note
   from the harps of the redeemed. No, the thing is just the same as if
   you did not kick; it makes no difference except to yourself: Oh how
   foolish must you be, to persevere in a rebellion which is harmful to
   none but your own soul, which is not injurious to him whom you hate,
   but which, if he pleases, he can stop, or if he doth not stop, he can
   and will revenge.

   III. And now I close up by addressing myself to some here, whose hearts
   are already touched. Do you this morning feel your need of a Saviour?
   Are you conscious of your guilt in having opposed him, and has the Holy
   Spirit made you willing now to confess your sins? Are you saying!
   "Lord, have mercy upon me a sinner?" Then I have GOOD NEWS for you.
   Paul, who persecuted Christ, was forgiven. He says he was the very
   chief of sinners, but he obtained mercy. So shall you. Nay, more, Paul
   not only obtained mercy, he obtained honor. He was made an honored
   minister to preach the gospel of Christ, and so may you. Yes if thou
   repentest, Christ may make use of you to bring others to him. It
   strikes me with wonder when I see how many of the very greatest of
   sinners have become the most useful of men. Do you see John Bunyan
   yonder? He is cursing God. He goes into the belfry and pulls the bell
   on Sunday, because he likes the bellringing, but when the church door
   is open, he is playing bowls upon the village green. There is the
   village tap, and there is no one that laughs so loud there as John
   Bunyan. There are some people going to the meeting house; there is no
   one curses them so much as John. He is a ringleader in all vice. If
   there is a hen roost to be robbed, Jack's your man. If there is any
   iniquity to be done, if there be any evil in the parish, you need not
   guess twice, John Bunyan is at the bottom of it. But who is it stands
   there in the deck before the magistrate? Who is it I heard just
   now--"If you let me out of prison today, I will preach the gospel
   tomorrow, by the help of God?" Who was it that lay twelve years in
   prison, and when they said he might go out if he would promise not to
   preach, replied, "No, I will be here till the moss grows on mine
   eyelids, but I must and will preach God's gospel as soon as I have
   liberty?" Why, that is John Bunyan, the very man who cursed Christ the
   other day. A ringleader in vice has become the glorious dreamer, the
   very leader of God's hosts. See, what God did for him, and what God did
   for him he will do for you, if now you repent and seek the mercy of God
   in Christ Jesus.

   "He is able, he is willing, doubt no more."

   Oh! I trust I have some here who have hated God, but who are
   nevertheless God's elect; some that have despised him, but who are
   bought with blood; some that have kicked against the pricks, but yet
   almighty grace will bring them onward. There are some here, I doubt
   not, who have cursed God to his face, who shall one day sing
   hallelujahs before his throne; some that have indulged in lusts all but
   bestial, who shall one day wear the white robe, and move their fingers
   along the golden harps of the glorified spirits in heaven. Happy is it
   to have such a gospel to preach to such sinners! To the persecutor,
   Christ is preached. Come to Jesus whom thou hast persecuted.

   "Come, and welcome, sinner, come."

   And now bear with me one moment if I address you yet again. The
   probability stares me in the face that I may have but very few more
   opportunities of addressing you upon subjects that concern your soul.
   My hearer, I shall arrogate nothing to myself, but this one thing--"I
   have not shunned to declare the whole counsel of God," and God is my
   witness with how many sighs, and tears, and prayers, I have labored for
   your good. Out of this place I believe thousands have been called;
   among you whom I now see there is a large number of converted persons;
   according to your own testimony you have had a thorough change, and you
   are not now what you were. But I am conscious of this fact, that there
   are many of you who have attended here now almost these two years, who
   are just what you were when you first came. There are some of you whose
   hearts are not touched. You sometimes weep, but still your lives have
   never been changed; you are yet "in the gall of bitterness, and in the
   bonds of iniquity." Well, sirs, if I never address you again, there is
   one favor that I would crave of you. If you will not turn to God, if
   you are determined to be lost, if you will not hear my rebuke nor turn
   at my exhortation, I ask this one favor at least let me know, and let
   me have this confidence, that I am clear of your blood. I think you
   must confess this. I have not shunned to preach of hell with all its
   horrors, until I have been laughed at, as if I always preached upon it.
   I have not shunned to preach upon the most sweet and pleasing themes of
   the gospel, till I have feared lest I should make my preaching
   effeminate, instead of retaining the masculine vigor of a Boanerges. I
   have not shunned to preach the law; that great commandment has wrung in
   your ears, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and thou shalt love thy
   neighbor as thyself." I have never feared the great, nor have I courted
   their smile; I have rebuked nobility as I would rebuke the peasantry,
   and to everyone of you I have dealt a portion of meat in due season. I
   know that this much can be said of me--"Here stands one that never
   feared the face of man yet;" and I hope never wilt. Amidst contumely,
   and rebuke, and reproach, I have sought to be faithful to you and to my
   God. If then, you will be damned, let me have this one thing as a
   consolation for your misery, when I shall think of so frightful a
   thought--that you are not damned for the want of calling after; you are
   not lost for the want of weeping after, and not lost, let me add, for
   the want of praying after. In the name of him who shall judge the quick
   and dead according to my Gospel, and of him that shall come in the
   clouds of heaven, and by that fearful day when the pillars of this
   earth shall totter, and the heavens shall fall about your ears--by that
   day when "Depart, ye cursed," or "Come, ye blessed," must be the dread
   alternative, I charge you, lay these things to heart, and as I shall
   face my God to account for my honesty to you, and my faithfulness to
   him, so remember, you must stand before his bar, to give an account of
   how you heard, and how you acted after hearing; and woe unto you if,
   having been lifted up like Capernaum with privileges, you should be
   cast down like Sodom and Gomorrah, or lower still than they, because
   you repented not.

   Oh! Master! turn sinners to thyself; for Jesus sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                         The Sympathy of the Two Worlds

   A Sermon

   (No. 203)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, July 4, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "There is joy in the: presence of the angels of God over one sinner
   that repenteth."--Luke15:10.

   MAN'S HEART IS NEVER BIG ENOUGH to hold either its joys or its sorrows.
   You never heard of a man whose heart was exactly full of sorrow; for no
   sooner is it full, than it overflows. The first prompting of the soul
   is to tell its sorrow to another. The reason is, that our heart is not
   large enough to hold our grief; and we need to have another heart to
   receive a portion thereof It is even so with our joy. When the heart is
   full of joy, it always allows its joy to escape. It is like the
   fountain in the marketplace; whenever it is full it runs away in
   streams, and so soon as it ceases to overflow, you may be quite sure
   that it has ceased to be full. The only full heart is the overflowing
   heart. You know this, beloved, you have proved it to be true; for when
   your soul has been full of joy, you have first called together your own
   kindred and friends, and you have communicated to them the cause of
   your gladness; and when those vessels have been full even to the brim,
   you have been like the woman who borrowed empty vessels of her
   neighbors, for you have asked each of them to become partakers in your
   joy, and when the hearts of all your neighbors have been full, you have
   felt as if they were not large enough, and the whole world has been
   called upon to join in your praise. You bade the fathomless ocean drink
   in your joy; you spoke to the trees and bade them clap their hands,
   while the mountains and hills were invoked by you to break forth into
   singing; the very stars of heaven seemed to look down upon you, and you
   bade them sing for you, and all the world was full of music through the
   music that was in your heart. And, after all, what is man but the great
   musician of the world? The universe is a great organ with mighty pipes.
   Space, time, eternity, are like the throats of this great organ; and
   man, a little creature, puts his fingers on the keys, and wakes the
   universe to thunders of harmony, stirring up the whole creation to
   mightiest acclamations of praise. Know ye not that man is God's high
   priest in the universe? All things else are but the sacrifice; but he
   is the priest,--carrying in his heart the fire, and in his hand the
   wood, and in his mouth the two-edged sword of dedication, with which he
   offers up all things to God.

   But I have no doubt, beloved, the thought has sometimes struck us that
   out praise does not go far enough. We seem as if we dwelt in an isle
   cut off from the mainland. This world, like a fair planet, swims in a
   sea of ether unnavigated by mortal ship. We have sometimes thought that
   surely our praise was confined to the shores of this poor narrow world,
   that it was impossible for us to pull the ropes which might ring the
   bells of heaven, that we could by no means whatever reach our hands so
   high as to sweep the celestial chords of angelic harps. We have said to
   ourselves there is no connection between earth and heaven. A huge black
   wall divides us. A strait of unnavigable waters shuts us out. Our
   prayers cannot reach to heaven, neither can our praises affect the
   celestials. Let us learn from our text how mistaken we are. We are,
   after all, however much we seem to be shut out from heaven, and from
   the great universe, but a province of God's vast united empire, and
   what is done on earth is known in heaven; what is sung on earth is sung
   in heaven; and there is a sense in which it is true that the tears of
   earth are wept again in paradise, and the sorrows of mankind are felt
   again, even on the throne of the Most High.

   My text tells us, "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God,
   over one sinner that repenteth." It seems as if it showed me a bridge
   by which I might cross over into eternity. It doth, as it were, exhibit
   to me, certain magnetic wires which convey the intelligence of what is
   done here to spirits in another world. It teaches me that there is a
   real and wonderful connection between this lower world, and that which
   is beyond the skies, where God dwelleth, in the land of the happy.

   We shall talk about that subject a little this morning. My first head
   will be the sympathy of the world above with the world below; the
   second, the judgment of the angels--they rejoice over repenting
   sinners; we shall see what is their ground for so doing. The third,
   will be a lesson for the saints; if the angels in heaven rejoice over
   repenting sinners, so should we.

   I. In the first place, our text teaches us THE SYMPATHY OF THE TWO
   WORLDS. Imagine not, O son of man, that thou art cut off from heaven:
   for there is a ladder, the top whereof doth rest at the foot of the
   throne of the Almighty, the base whereof is fixed in the lowest place
   of man's misery! Conceive not that there is a great gulph fixed between
   thee and the Father, across which his mercy cannot come, and over which
   thy prayers and faith can never leap. Oh, think not, son of man, that
   thou dwellest in a storm-girt island, cut off from the continent of
   eternity. I beseech thee, believe that there is a bridge across that
   chasm, a road along which feet may travel. This world is not separated,
   for all creation is but one body. And know thou, O son of man, though
   thou in this world doth but dwell, as it were on the foot, yet from the
   feet even to the head, there are nerves and veins that do unite the
   whole, The same great heart which beats in heaven beats on earth. The
   love of the Eternal Father which cheers the celestial, makes glad the
   terrestrial too. Rest assured that though the glory of the celestial be
   one and the glory of the terrestrial be another, yet are they but
   another in appearance, for after all, they are the same Oh! list thee,
   son of man, and thou wilt soon learn that thou art no stranger in a
   strange land--a homeless Joseph in the land of Egypt, shut out from his
   Father, and his children, who still remain in the happy paradise of
   Canaan. No, thy Father loves thee still. There is a connection between
   thee and him. Strange that though leagues of distance lie between the
   finite creature and the infinite Creator, yet there are links that
   unite us both! When a tear is wept by thee, think not thy Father doth
   not behold; for, "Like as a father pitieth his children so the Lord
   pitieth them that fear him." Thy sigh is able to move the heart of
   Jehovah; thy whisper can incline his ear unto thee; thy prayer can stay
   his hands; thy faith can move his arm. Oh! think not that God sits on
   high in an eternal slumber, taking no account of thee. "Shall a mother
   forget her suckling child, that she should not have compassion on the
   son of her womb? Yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget thee."
   Engraven upon the Father's hand thy name remains; and on his heart
   recorded there thy person stands. He thought of thee before the worlds
   were made; before the channels of the sea were scooped, or the gigantic
   mountains lifted their heads in the white clouds, he thought of thee.
   He thinketh on thee still. "I, the Lord, do keep it; I will water it
   every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." For the
   eyes of the Lord run to and fro in every place, to show himself strong
   on the behalf of all them that fear him. Thou art not cut off from him.
   Thou dost move in him; in him thou dost live and have thy being. "He is
   a very present help in time of trouble."

   Remember, again, O heir of immortality, that thou art not only linked
   to the Godhead, but there is another one in heaven with whom thou hast
   a strange, yet near connection. In the center of the throne sits one
   who is thy brother, allied to thee by blood. The Son of God, eternal,
   equal with his Father, became in the fullness of time the Son of Mary,
   an infant of a span long. He was, yea is, bone of thy bone and flesh of
   thy flesh. Think not that thou art cut off from the celestial world,
   while he is there; for is he not thy head, and hath he not himself
   declared that thou art a member of his body, of his flesh and of his
   bones? Oh, man, thou art not separated from heaven whilst Jesus tells
   thee--

   "I feel at my heart all thy sighs and thy groans,

   For thou art most near me, my flesh and my bones,

   In all thy distresses, thy Head feels the pain,

   They all are most needful, not one is in vain."

   Oh, poor, disconsolate mourner, Christ remembers thee every hour. Thy
   sighs are his sighs; thy groans are his groans; thy prayers are his
   prayers:--

   "He in his measure feels afresh,

   What every member bears."

   Crucified he is when thou art crucified; he dies when thou diest; thou
   livest in him, and he lives in thee, and because he lives shalt thou
   live also: thou shalt rise in him, and thou shalt sit together in the
   heavenly places with him. Oh, never was husband nearer to his wife, and
   never head nearer to the members, and never soul nearer to the body of
   this flesh, than Christ is unto thee, and while it is so, think not
   that heaven and earth are divided. They are but kindred worlds; two
   ships moored close to one another, and one short plank of death will
   enable you to step from one into the other: this ship, all black and
   coaly, having done the coasting trade, the dusty business of to-day,
   and being full of the blackness of sorrow; and that ship all golden,
   with its painted pennon flying, and its sail all spread, white as the
   down of the sea-bird, fair as the angel's wing--I tell thee, man, the
   ship of heaven is moored side by side with the ship of earth, and rock
   though this ship may, and careen though she will on stormy winds and
   tempests, yet the invisible and golden ship of heaven sails by her side
   never sundered, never divided, always ready, in order that when the
   hour shall come, thou mayest leap from the black, dark ship, and step
   upon the golden deck of that thrice happy one in which thou shalt sail
   for ever.

   But, O man of God, there are other golden links besides this which bind
   the present to the future, and time unto eternity. And what are time
   and eternity, after all, to the believer, but like the Siamese twins,
   never to be separated? This earth is heaven below, the next world is
   but a heaven above; it is the same house--this is the lower room, and
   that the upper, but the same roof cover both, and the same dew falls
   upon each. Remember, beloved, that the spirits of the just made perfect
   are never far from you and me if we are lovers of Jesus. All those who
   have passed the flood have still communion with us. Do we not sing--

   "The saints on earth, and all the dead,

   But one communion make;

   All join in Christ, the living Head,

   And of his grace partake."

   We have but one Head for the church triumphant and for the church
   militant;

   "One army of the living God,

   To his command we bow;

   Part of the host have cross'd the flood,

   And part are crossing now."

   Doth not the apostle tell us that the saints above are a cloud of
   witnesses? After he had mentioned Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and
   Gideon, and Barak, and Jephthah, did he not say, "Wherefore seeing we
   also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay
   aside every weight." Lo, we are running in the plains, and the
   glorified ones are looking down upon us. Thy mother's eyes follow thee,
   young man; a father's eyes are looking down upon thee, young woman. The
   eyes of my godly grandmother, long since glorified, I doubt not, rest
   on me perpetually. No doubt, in heaven they often talk of us. Methinks
   they sometimes visit this poor earth--they never go out of heaven, it
   is true, for heaven is everywhere to them. This world is to them but
   just one corner of God's heaven, one shady bower of paradise.

   The saints of the living God, are, I doubt not, very near unto us, when
   we think them very far away. At any rate, they still remember us, still
   look for us; for this is ever upon their hearts--the truth that they
   without us cannot be made perfect. They cannot be a perfect church till
   all are gathered in, and therefore do they long for our appearing.

   But, to come to our text a little more minutely. It assures us that the
   angels have communion with us. Bright spirits, first-born sons of God,
   do ye think of me? Oh, cherubim, great and mighty; seraphim, burning,
   winged with lightning, do ye think of us? Gigantic is your stature. Our
   poet tells us that the wand of an angel might make a mast for some tall
   admiral; and doubtless he was right when he said so. Those angels of
   God are creatures mighty and strong, doing his commandments, hearkening
   to his word--and do they take notice of us? Let the Scripture answer,
   "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister unto
   those that shall be heirs of salvation?" "The angel of the Lord
   encampeth round about them that fear him." "For he shall give his
   angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways; they shall bear
   thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." Yes,
   the brightest angels are but the serving men of the saints; they are
   our lacqueys and our footmen. They wait upon us; they are the troops of
   our body guard; and we might, if our eyes were opened, see what Elisha
   saw, horses of fire and chariots of fire round about us; so that we
   should joyously say, "More are they that are with us than they that are
   against us."

   Our text tells us that the angels of God rejoice over repenting
   sinners. How is that? They are always as happy as they can be; how can
   they be any happier? The text does not say that they are any happier;
   but perhaps that they show their happiness more. A man may have a
   Sabbath every day, as he ought to have if he be a Christian, and yet on
   the first day of the week he will let his Sabbatism come out plainly;
   for then the world shall see that he doth rest. "A merry heart hath a
   continual feast;" but then even the merry heart hath some special days
   on which it feasteth well. To the glorified every day is a Sabbath, but
   of some it can be said, "and that Sabbath was an high day." There are
   days when the angels sing more loudly than usual; they are always
   harping well God's praise, but sometimes the gathering hosts who have
   been flitting far through the universe, come home to their center; and
   round the throne of God, standing in serried ranks, marshalled not for
   battle but for music, on certain set and appointed days they chant the
   praises of the Son of God, "who loved us and gave himself for us." And
   do you ask me when those days occur? I tell you, the birthday of every
   Christian is a sonnet day in heaven. There are Christmas-days in
   paradise, where Christ's high mass is kept, and Christ is glorified not
   because he was born in a manger, but because he is born in a broken
   heart. There are days--good days in heaven; days of sonnet, red letter
   days, of overflowing adoration. And these are days when the shepherd
   brings home the lost sheep upon his shoulder, when the church has swept
   her house and found the lost piece of money; for then are these friends
   and neighbors called together, and they rejoice with joy unspeakable
   and full of glory over one sinner that repenteth.

   I have thus, I hope, shown you that there is a greater connection
   between earth and heaven than any of us dreamed. And now let none of us
   think, when we look upward to the blue sky, that we are far from
   heaven; it is a very little distance from us. When the day comes we
   shall go post-haste there, even without horses and chariots of fire.
   Balaam called it a land that is very far off; we know better--it is a
   land that is very near. Even now

   "By faith we join our hands

   With those that went before.

   And greet the blood-besprinkled bands

   Upon the eternal shore."

   All hail, bright spirits! I see you now. All hail, angels! All hail, ye
   brethren redeemed! A few more hours, or days, or months, and we shall
   join your happy throng; till then your joyous fellowship, your sweet
   compassion shall ever be our comfort and our consolation--and having
   weathered all storms of life, we shall at last anchor with you within
   the port of everlasting peace.

   II. But the angels are said to sing whenever a sinner repents. Let us
   see if there is any JUDGMENT IN THEIR SONG, or whether they make a
   mistake. Why do angels sing over penitent sinners?

   In the first place, I think it is because they remember the days of
   creation. You know, when God made this world, and fixed the beams of
   the heavens in sockets of light, the morning stars sang together, and
   the sons of God shouted for joy; as they saw star after star flying
   abroad like sparks from the great anvil of Omnipotence, they began to
   sing; and every time they saw a new creature made upon this little
   earth, they praised afresh. When first they saw light they clapped
   their hands, and said, "Great is Jehovah; for he said Light be!' and
   light was." And when they saw sun and moon, and stars, again they
   clapped their hands, and they said, "He hath made great lights; for his
   mercy endureth for ever. The sun to rule the day; for his mercy
   endureth for ever. The moon to rule the night; for his mercy endureth
   for ever." And over everything he made, they chanted evermore that
   sweet song, "Creator, thou art to be magnified; for thy mercy endureth
   for ever." Now, when they see a sinner returning, they see the creation
   over again; for repentance is a new creation. No man ever repents until
   God makes in him a new heart and a right spirit. I do not know that
   ever since the day when God made the world, with the exception of new
   hearts, the angels have seen God make anything else. He may, if he hath
   so pleased, have made fresh worlds since that time. But perhaps the
   only instance of new creation they have ever seen since the first day,
   is the creation of a new heart and a right spirit within the breast of
   a poor penitent sinner. Therefore do they sing, because creation cometh
   over again.

   I doubt not, too, that they sing because they behold God's works afresh
   shining in excellence. When God first made the world, he said of it,
   "It is very good"--he could not say so now. There are many of you that
   God could not say that of. He would have to say the very reverse. He
   would have to say, "No, that is very bad, for the trail of the serpent
   hath swept away thy beauty, that moral excellence which once dwelt in
   manhood has passed away;" but when the sweet influences of the Spirit
   bring men to repentance and faith again, God looks upon man, and he
   saith, "It is very good." For what his Spirit makes is like
   himself--good, and holy and precious; and God smiles again over his
   twice-made creation, and saith once more, "It is very good." Then the
   angels begin again, and praise his name, whose works are always good
   and full of beauty.

   But, beloved, the angels sing over sinners that repent, because they
   know what that poor sinner has escaped. You and I can never imagine all
   the depths of hell. Shut out from us by a black veil of darkness, we
   cannot tell the horrors of that dismal dungeon of lost souls. Happily,
   the wailings of the damned have never startled us, for a thousand
   tempests were but a maidens whisper, compared with one wail of a damned
   spirit. It is not possible for us to see the tortures of those souls
   who dwell eternally within an anguish that knows no alleviation. These
   eyes would become sightless balls of darkness if they were permitted
   for an instant to look into that ghastly shrine of torment. Hell is
   horrible, for we may say of it, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
   neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the horrors
   which God hath prepared for them that hate him. But the angels know
   better then you or I could guess. They know it; not that they have felt
   it, but they remember that day when Satan and his angels rebelled
   against God. They remember the day when the third part of the stars of
   heaven revolted against their liege Lord; and they have not forgotten
   how the red right hand of Jehovah Jesus was wrapt in thunder; they do
   not forget that breach in the battlements of heaven when, down from the
   greatest heights to the lowest depths, Lucifer and his hosts were
   hurled. they have never forgotten how, with sound of trumpet, they
   pursued the flying foe down to the gulphs of black despair; and, as
   they neared that place where the great serpent is to be bound in
   chains, they remember how they say, Tophet, which was prepared of old,
   the pile whereof is fire and much wood, and they recollect how, when
   they winged back their flight, every tongue was silent, although they
   might well have shouted the praise of him who conquered Lucifer; but on
   them all there did sit a solemn awe of one who could smite a cherubim,
   and cast him in hopeless bonds of everlasting despair. They knew what
   hell was, for they had looked within its jaws, and seen their own
   brothers, fast enclosed within them; and, therefore, when they see a
   sinner saved, they rejoice, because there is one less to be food for
   the never-dying worm--one more soul escaped out of the mouth of the
   lion.

   There is yet a better reason. The angels know what the joys of heaven
   are, and therefore, they rejoice over one sinner that repenteth. We
   talk about pearly gates and golden streets, and white robes, and harps
   of gold, and crowns of amaranth, and all that; but if an angel could
   speak to us of heaven, he would smile and say, "All these fine things
   are but child's talk, and ye are little children, and ye cannot
   understand the greatness of eternal bliss, and therefore God has given
   you a child's horn book, and an alphabet, in which you may learn the
   first rough letters of what heaven is, but what it is thou dost not
   know. O mortal, thine eye hath never yet beheld its splendours; thine
   ear hath never yet been ravished with its melodies; thy heart has never
   been transported with its peerless joys." Thou mayest talk and think,
   and guess, and dream, but thou canst never measure the infinite heaven
   which God has provided for his children: and therefore it is, when they
   see a soul saved and a sinner repenting, that they clap their hands;
   for they know that all those blessed mansions are theirs, since all
   those sweet places of everlasting happiness are the entail of every
   sinner that repenteth.

   But I want you just to read the text again, while I dwell upon another
   thought. "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one
   sinner that repenteth." Now, why do they not save their joy till that
   sinner dies and goes to heaven? Why do they rejoice over him when he
   repents? My Arminian friend, I think, ought to go to heaven, to set
   them right upon this matter. According to his theory, it must be very
   wrong of them, because they rejoice prematurely. According to the
   Arminian doctrine a man may repent, and yet he may be lost, he may have
   grace to repent and believe, and yet he may fall from grace and be a
   castaway. Now, angels, don't be too fast. Perhaps you may have to
   repent of this one day, if the Arminian doctrine be true, I would
   advise you to save your song for greater joys. Why, angels, perhaps the
   men that you are singing over to-day, you will have to mourn over
   to-morrow. I am quite sure that Arminius never taught his doctrine in
   heaven. I do not know whether he is there--I hope he is, but he is no
   longer an Arminian; but if he ever taught his doctrine there, he would
   be put out. The reason why angels rejoice is because they know that
   when a sinner repents, he is absolutely saved; or else they would
   rejoice prematurely, and would have good cause for retracting their
   merriment on some future occasion. But the angels know what Christ
   meant when he said, "I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall
   never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand;" and
   therefore they rejoice over repenting sinners, because they know they
   are saved.

   There is yet one more fact I will mention, before I leave this point.
   It is said that the angels "rejoice over one sinner that repenteth."
   Now this evening it shall be my happy privilege to give the right hand
   of fellowship to no less than forty-eight sinners that have repented,
   and there will be great joy and rejoicing in our churches to-night,
   because these forty-eight have been immersed on a profession of their
   faith. But how loving are the angels to men; for they rejoice over one
   sinner that repenteth. There she is, in that garret where the stars
   look between the tiles. There is a miserable bed in that room, with but
   one bit of covering, and she lieth there to die! Poor creature! many a
   night she has walked the streets in the time of her merriment. but now
   her joys are over; a foul disease, like a demon is devouring her heart!
   She is dying fast, and no one careth for her soul! But there, in that
   chamber, she turns her face to the wall, and she cries, "O thou that
   savedst Magdalene, save me; Lord I repent; have mercy upon me; I
   beseech thee." Did the bells ring in the street? Was the trumpet blown?
   Ah! no. Did men rejoice? Was there a sound of thanksgiving in the midst
   of the great congregation? No; no one heard it; for she died unseen.
   But stay! There was one standing at her bedside, who noted well that
   tear; an angel, who had come down from heaven to watch over this stray
   sheep, and mark its return. and no sooner was her prayer uttered than
   he clapped his wings, and there was seen flying up to the pearly gates
   a spirit like a star. The heavenly guards came crowding to the gate,
   crying, "What news, O son of fire?" He said, "Tis done." "And what is
   done?" they said, "Why, she has repented." "What! she who was once a
   chief of sinners? has she turned to Christ?" "Tis even so," said he.
   And then they told it through the streets, and the bells of heaven rang
   marriage peals, for Magdalene was saved, and she who had been the chief
   of sinners was turned unto the living God.

   It was in another place. A poor neglected little boy in ragged clothing
   had run about the streets for many a-day. Tutored in crime, he was
   paving his path to the gallows; but one morning he passed by a humble
   room, where some men and women were sitting together teaching poor
   ragged children. He stepped in there a wild Bedouin of the streets;
   they talked to him, they told him about a soul and about an
   eternity--things he had never heard before; they spoke of Jesus, and of
   good tidings of great joy to this poor friendless lad. He went another
   Sabbath. and another; his wild habits hanging about him, for he could
   not get rid of them; At last it happened that his teacher said to him
   one day, "Jesus Christ receiveth sinners." That little boy ran, but not
   home, for it was but a mockery to call it so--where a drunken father
   and a lascivious mother kept a hellish riot together. He ran, and under
   some dry arch, or in some wild unfrequented corner, he bent his little
   knees, and there he cried, that poor creature in his rags, "Lord save
   me, or I perish;" and the little Arab was on his knees--the little
   thief was saved! He said--

   "Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly;"

   And up from that old arch, from that forsaken hovel, there flew a
   spirit, glad to bear the news to heaven, that another heir of glory was
   born to God. I might picture many such scenes; but will each of you try
   to picture your own? You remember the occasion when the Lord met with
   you. Ah! little did you think what a commotion there was in heaven. If
   the Queen had ordered out all her soldiers, the angels of heaven would
   not have stopped to notice them; if all the princes of earth had
   marched in pageant through the streets, with all their robes, and
   jewellery, and crowns, and all their regalia, their chariots, and their
   horsemen--if the pomps of ancient monarchies had risen from the
   tomb--if all the might of Babylon and Tyre and Greece had been
   concentrated into one great parade, yet not an angel would have stopped
   in his course to smile at those poor tawdry things; but over you the
   vilest of the vile, the poorest of the poor, the most obscure and
   unknown--over you angelic wings were hovering, and concerning you it
   was said on earth and sung in heaven, "Hallelujah, for a child is born
   to God to-day."

   III. And now I must conclude with this LESSON TO THIS SAINTS. I think
   beloved, it will not be hard for you to learn. The angels of heaven
   rejoice over Sinners that repent: saints of God, will not you and I do
   the same? 1 do not think the church rejoices enough. We all grumble
   enough and groan enough: but very few of us rejoice enough. When we
   take a large number into the church it is spoken of as a great mercy;
   but is the greatness of that mercy appreciated? I will tell you who
   they are that can most appreciate the conversion of sinners. They are
   those that are just converted themselves, or those that have been great
   sinners themselves. Those who have been saved themselves from bondage,
   when they see others coming who have so lately worn the chains, are so
   glad that they can well take the tabret, and the harp, and the pipe,
   and the psaltery, and praise God that there are other prisoners who
   have been emancipated by grace. But there are others who can do this
   better still, and they are the parents and relations of those who are
   saved. You have thanked God many times when you have seen a sinner
   saved; but, mother did not you thank him most when you saw your son
   converted? Oh! those holy tears; they are not tears--they are God's
   diamonds--the tears of a mother's joy, when her son confesses his faith
   in Jesus. Oh! that glad countenance of the wife, when she sees her
   husband, long bestial and drunken at last made into a man and a
   Christian! Oh, that look of joy which a young Christian gives, when he
   sees his father converted who had long oppressed and persecuted him. I
   was preaching this week for a young minister, and being anxious to know
   his character, I spoke of him with apparent coolness to an estimable
   lady of his congregation. In a very few moments she began to warm in
   his favor. She said, "You must not say anything against him, sir; if
   you do, it is because you do not know him." " Oh," I said, "I knew him
   long before you did; he is not much, is he?" "Well,' she said, "I must
   speak well of him, for he has been a blessing to my servants and
   family." I went out into the street, and saw some men and women
   standing about; so I said to them, "I must take your minister away" "If
   you do," they said, "we will follow you all over the world, if you take
   away a man who has done so much good to our souls."" After collecting
   the testimony of fifteen or sixteen witnesses, I said, "If the man gets
   such witnesses as these let him go on; the Lord has opened his mouth,
   and the devil will never be able to shut it." These are the witnesses
   we want--men who can sing with the angels because their own households
   are converted to God. I hope it may be so with all of you; and if any
   of you are yourselves brought to Christ to-day--for he is willing to
   receive you--you will go out of this place singing, and the angels will
   sing with you. There shall be joy in earth, and joy in heaven; on earth
   peace, and glory to God in the highest. The Lord bless you one and all,
   for Jesus' sake.
     __________________________________________________________________

                         The Mission of the Son of Man

   A Sermon

   (No. 204)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, July 11, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was
   lost."--Luke 19:10.

   HOW FOND OUR MASTER WAS of the sweet title, the "Son of Man!" If he had
   chosen, he might always have spoken of himself as the Son of God, the
   Everlasting Father, the Wonderful, the Counseller, the Prince of Peace.
   He hath a thousand gorgeous titles, resplendent as the throne of
   heaven, but he careth not to use them: to express his humility and let
   us see the lowliness of him whose yoke is easy and whose burden is
   light. He calls not himself the Son of God, but he speaks of himself
   evermore as the Son of Man who came down from heaven. Let us learn a
   lesson of humility from our Saviour; let us never court great titles,
   nor proud degrees. What are they, after all, but beggarly distinctions
   whereby one worm is known from another? He that hath the most of them
   is a worm still, and is in nature no greater than his fellows. If Jesus
   called himself the Son of Man, when he had far greater names, let us
   learn to humble ourselves unto men of low estate, knowing that he that
   humbleth himself shall in due time be exalted. Methinks, however, there
   is a sweeter thought than this in that name, Son of Man. It seems to me
   that Christ loved manhood so much, that he always desired to honor it;
   and since it is a high honor, and indeed the greatest dignity of
   manhood, that Jesus Christ was the Son of Man, he is wont to display
   this name, that he may as it were put rich stars upon the breast of
   manhood, and put a crown upon its head. Son of Man--whenever he said
   that word he seemed to put a halo round the head of Adam's children.
   Yet there is perhaps a more lovely thought still. Jesus Christ called
   himself the Son of Man, because he loved to be a man. It was a great
   stoop for him to come from heaven and to be incarnate. It was a mighty
   stoop of condescension when he left the harps of angels and the songs
   of cherubims to mingle with the vulgar herd of his own creatures. But
   condescension though it was, he loved it. You will remember that when
   he became incarnate he did not become so in the dark. When he bringeth
   forth the only begotten into the world, he saith, "Let all the angels
   of God worship him." It was told in heaven; it was not done as a dark
   secret which Jesus Christ would do in the night that none might know
   it; but all the angels of God were brought to witness the advent of a
   Saviour a span long, sleeping upon a Virgin's breast, and lying in a
   manger. And ever afterwards, and even now, he never blushed to confess
   that he was man; never looked back upon his incarnation with the
   slightest regret; but always regarded it with a joyous recollection,
   thinking himself thrice happy that he had ever become the Son of Man.
   All hail, thou blessed Jesus! we know how much thou lovest our race; we
   can well understand the greatness of thy mercy towards thy chosen ones,
   inasmuch as thou art evermore using the sweet name which acknowledges
   that they are bone of thy bone and flesh of thy flesh, and thou art one
   of them, a brother and a near kinsman.

   Our text announces as a declaration of our Saviour, that he, the Son of
   Man, is come to seek and to save that which was lost. In addressing you
   this morning, I shall simply divide my discourse thus:--First, I shall
   lay it down as a selfevident truth, that whatever was the intention of
   Christ in his coming into the world that intention most certainly shall
   never be frustrated. We shall then in the second place, look into the
   intention of Christ, as announced in the text, viz., "to seek and to
   save that which was lost." Then, in concluding, we shall derive a word
   of comfort, and perhaps one of warning, from the intention of our
   Saviour in coming into the world "to seek and to save that which was
   lost."

   I. You are aware that there has been a very great discussion amongst
   all Christians about the redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is
   one class of men who believe in what is called general redemption,
   affirming it to be an undoubted truth that Jesus Christ hath shed his
   blood for every man, and that the intention of Christ in his death was
   the salvation of men considered as a whole; they have, however, to
   overlook the fact that in this case Christ's intention would be
   frustrated in a measure. There are others of us who hold what is called
   the doctrine of particular redemption. We conceive that the blood of
   Christ was of an infinite value, but that the intention of the death of
   Christ never was the salvation of all men; for if Christ had designed
   the salvation of all men, we hold that all men would have been saved.
   We believe that the intention of Christ's death is just equal to its
   effects, and therefore I start this morning by announcing what I regard
   to be a self-evident truth, that whatever was the intention of Jesus
   Christ in coming into the world, that intention most certainly shall be
   fulfilled.

   But I shall make use of a few arguments to strengthen this doctrine,
   although I believe that on the very first announcement it commends
   itself to every thinking mind.

   In the first place, it seems to be inconsistent with the very idea of
   God that he should ever intend anything which should not be
   accomplished. When I look at man I see him to be a creature so
   distracted with folly and so devoid of power, that I do not wonder that
   he often begins to build and is not able to finish, I do not marvel
   that full often he stops short because he hath not counted the cost: I
   wonder not, when I think how much there is that is above man's control,
   that he should sometimes propose but that God should dispose far
   differently from his proposition. I see man to be the insect of a day,
   a mere ephemera upon the bay-leaf of existence; and when I see him as a
   mere drop in the great sea of creation, I do not wonder that when he is
   ambitious he sometimes fashions in himself great designs which he is
   unable to accomplish because the wheels of providence and destiny will
   often run quite contrary to all the frolic of his will. But when I
   think of God whose name is, "I am that I am," the self-existent one, in
   whom we live and move and have our being, who is from everlasting to
   everlasting, the Almighty God; when I think of him as filling
   immensity, having all power and strength, knowing all things, having a
   fullness of wisdom, I cannot associate with such an idea of God the
   supposition of his ever failing in any of his intentions. It would seem
   to me that a God who could intend a thing and fail in his intention
   would be no God, but be a thing like ourselves perhaps superior in
   strength, but certainly not entitled to worship. I cannot anyhow think
   of God of a true and real God like Jehovah, except as a being who wills
   and it is accomplished, who speaks and it is done, who commands and it
   stands fast, for ever, settled in heaven. I cannot therefore imagine,
   since Jesus Christ was the Son of God, that in his atonement and
   redemption, his real intention and desire can in any way be frustrated.
   If I were a Socinian and believed Jesus Christ to be a mere man, I
   could of course imagine, that the result of his redemption would be
   uncertain; but believing that Jesus Christ was very God of very God,
   equal and co-eternal with the Father, I dare not, lest I should be
   guilty of presumption and blasphemy, associate with that name of
   Jehovah Jesus any suspicion that the design of his death shall remain
   unaccomplished.

   But again, we have before us the fact, that hitherto, all the works of
   God have accomplished their purpose. Whenever God has uttered, by the
   lips of his servants, a prophecy, it has surely come to pass. The
   instruments of accomplishing that purpose have often been the most
   factious and rebellious of men: they had no intention whatever of
   serving God; they have run contrary to his laws; but you will observe
   that when they have dashed wildly along, his bit has been still in
   their mouth and his bridle in their jaws. A great monarch has acted
   like leviathan in the sea; he hath moved himself wherever he pleased;
   he hath seemed mighty among the sons of men; all the rest of mankind
   were as minnows, while he was a huge leviathan: but we discover that
   God has been overruling his thought, that he has been in his council
   chamber, that the wildest speculations of his ambition have, after all,
   been but the fulfilling of Jehovah's stern decrees. Look ye abroad
   through all the nations of the earth, and tell me, is there one
   prophecy of God that hath failed? May he not still say, "Not one of
   them hath lost her mate?" Every word of God hath certainly been
   accomplished. The kings of the earth stood up and took counsel together
   against the Lord and against his anointed saying, Let us break his
   bands asunder and cast his cords from us. But he that sitteth in the
   heavens did laugh at them; the Lord did have them in derision. Still he
   worked his own sovereign will; let them do as they pleased, God was
   over them all, reigning and ruling evermore. If, then, God's purpose in
   providence certainly never has been frustrated, am I to imagine that
   God's purpose in the glorious sacrifice of Jesus Christ shall be null
   and void? If there be any of you who have arrived at such a contortion
   of intellect as to conceive that a less work being accomplished, a
   greater one shall fail, I must leave you to yourselves, with you I
   could not argue, I should think you incapable of an argument. Surely,
   if God the Master, the Judge, the King, hath in all things done
   according to his own pleasure in this lower world, in the mere creation
   and preservation of men, it is not to be dreamed of for a moment, that
   when he stoops himself from the highest heaven, to give his own heart's
   blood for our redemption, he shall in that be foiled. No though earth
   and hell be against him, every purpose of Jesus on the cross shall be
   consummated, and as the price was "finished," so shall the purchase be;
   as the means were fully provided, so shall the end be accomplished to
   its utmost jot and tittle.

   But again, I invite you to stand at the foot of the cross, and take a
   view of Jesus Christ, and then I will put it to you whether you can
   imagine that Jesus Christ could in any measure have died in vain. Come,
   believer, place thyself in the garden of Gethsemane, hide thyself among
   those dark olives, and listen to yonder man who is in agony. Dost hear
   those groans? They are the groans of an incarnate God. Dost hear those
   sighs? They are the sighs of the Son of Man. God over all, blessed for
   ever. Hearest thou those strong cries, and dost thou see those tears?
   They are the crying and the tears of him who is equal with his Father,
   but who condescended to be a man. Rise, for he has risen, Judas has
   betrayed him and taken him away. Look on that ground. Seest thou those
   gouts of gore? It is the bloody sweat of the man Christ Jesus. I
   conjure thee, answer this question. Standing in the garden of
   Gethsemane, with those blood gouts staining the white frost of that
   cold midnight, canst thou believe that one of those clots of blood
   shall fall to the ground and not effect its purposed I challenge thee,
   O Christian, whatever thy doctrinal opinions, to say me "Yes" to such a
   question as that. Canst thou imagine that a sweat of blood from the
   veins of incarnate Deity shall ever fall to the ground and fail? Why,
   beloved, the word of God which cometh forth out of his mouth shall not
   return unto him void, but it shall accomplish that which he pleases;
   how much more shall the Great WORD of God, which came forth from the
   loin; of Deity, accomplish the purpose whereunto God hath sent him, and
   prosper in the thing for which it pleased God to ordain him!

   But now come with me to the hall of judgment. See there your Master
   placed in mock state in the midst of a ribald band of soldiery. Do you
   see how they spit on those blessed cheeks, how they pluck his hair, how
   they buffet him? Do you see the crown of thorns with its ruby drops of
   gore? Hark! Can you hear the cry of the multitude, as they say,
   "Crucify him, crucify him?" And will you now stand there and look at
   this man whom Pilate has just brought forth, still bleeding from the
   lash of the scourge, covered with shame, and spitting and mockery, and
   as this "Ecce Homo" is presented to you, will you believe that this,
   the incarnate Son of God, shall be made such a spectacle to men, to
   angels, and to devils, and yet fail of his design? Can you imagine that
   one lash of that whip shall have a fruitless aim? Shall Jesus Christ
   suffer this shame and spitting, and yet endure what were far worse--a
   disappointment in the fulfillment of his intentions? No, God forbid! By
   Gethsemane and Gabbatha, we are pledged to the strong belief that what
   Christ designed by his death, must certainly be accomplished.

   Then again, see him hanging on his cross. The nails have pierced his
   hands and feet, and there in the broiling sun he hangs,--he hangs to
   die. The mockery has not ceased; still they put out the tongue and wag
   the head at him; still they taunt him with "If thou be the Son of God
   come down from the cross." And now his bodily pains increase, while his
   soul's anguish is terrible even unto death. Christian canst thou
   believe that the blood of Christ was shed in vain? Canst thou look at
   one of those precious drops as it trickles from his head or his hands
   or his feet, and canst thou imagine that it shall fall to the ground
   and perish there? Trust the waters may fail from the sea, the sun may
   grow dim with age, but I never can imagine that the value, the merit,
   the power of the blood of Jesus ever shall die out, or that its purpose
   shall be unaccomplished. It seems to me as clear as noonday, that the
   design of the Saviour's death must certainly be fulfilled, be it what
   it may.

   I might use a hundred other arguments. I might show that every
   attribute of Christ declares that his purpose must be accomplished. He
   certainly has love enough to accomplish his design of saving the lost,
   for he has a love that is bottomless and fathomless, even as the abyss
   itself. He certainly has no objection to the accomplishment of his own
   design, for "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death
   of him that dieth, but had rather that he should turn unto me and
   live." And certainly the Lord cannot fail for want of power, for where
   we have omnipotence there can be no deficiency of strength. Nor again,
   can the design be unaccomplished because it was unwise, for God's
   designs cannot be unwise, simply because they are of God--that is to
   say--they are of infinite wisdom. I cannot see anything in the
   character of Christ, nor anything the wide world over, that can for one
   moment make me imagine that Christ should die, and yet it should be
   said afterwards, "This man died for a purpose which he never lived to
   see accomplished: the object of his death was only partially fulfilled;
   he saw of the travail of his soul, but he was not satisfied, for he did
   not redeem all whom he intended to redeem."

   Now, some persons love the doctrine of universal atonement because they
   say it so beautiful. It is a lovely idea that Christ should have died
   for all men; it commends itself, they say, to the instincts of
   humanity; there is something in it full of joy and beauty. I admit
   there is; but beauty may be often associated with falsehood. There is
   much which I might well admire in the theory of universal redemption
   but let me just tell you what the supposition necessarily involves. If
   Christ on his cross intended to save every man, then he intended to
   save those who were damned before he died; because if the doctrine be
   true, that he died for all men, he died for some that were in hell
   before he came into this world, for doubtless there were myriads there
   that had been cast away. Once again, if it were Christ's intention to
   save all men, how deplorably has he been disappointed! for we have his
   own evidence that there is a lake that burneth with fire and brimstone,
   and into that pit must be cast some of the very persons, who according
   to that theory, were bought with his blood. That seems to me a thousand
   times more frightful than any of those horrors, which are said to be
   associated with the Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of particular
   redemption. To think that my Saviour died for men in hell seems a
   supposition too horrible for me to imagine: that he was the substitute
   for the sons of men, and that God having first punished the substitute
   punished men again, seems to me to conflict with any idea of justice.
   That Christ should offer an atonement and satisfaction for the sins of
   men, and that afterwards those very men should be punished for the sins
   which Christ had already atoned for, seems to me, to be the most
   marvellous monstrosity that ever could have been imputed to Saturn, to
   Janus, ay, to the god of the Thugs, or the most diabolical heathen
   demons. God forbid that we should ever think thus of Jehovah, the just
   and wise. If Christ has suffered in man's stead, God is faithful and
   just to forgive us our sins, and save us from all unrighteousness.

   II. I have thus started the first thought that the intention of
   Christ's death cannot be frustrated. And now methinks every one will
   anxiously listen, and every ear will be attentive, and the question
   will arise from every heart, "WHAT THING WAS THE INTENTION OF THE
   Saviour'S DEATH? AND IS IT POSSIBLE: THAT I CAN HAVE A PORTION IN IT?"
   For whom, then, did the Saviour die--and is there the slightest
   probability that I have some lot or portion in that great atonement
   which he has offered? Beloved, my text is the answer to the
   question--"The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was
   lost." Now, our text tells us of two things--first, the subjects of the
   Saviour's atonement, the lost; and, secondly, the objects of it, he
   came to seek and save.

   I must now endeavor to pick out the objects of the Saviour's atonement.
   He came "to seek and to save that which was lost." Some of you may turn
   your heads away at once, and conclude that hitherto you have given no
   evidence that you have any portion in the death of Christ. You are very
   good sort of people; you never did much that was wrong--perhaps a
   little now and then; but nothing particular ever troubles your
   conscience. You have a notion that you shall certainly enter into the
   kingdom of heaven, for you are no worse than your neighbors, and if you
   are not saved, God help other people! for if you do not go to heaven,
   who will? You are trusting in your own good works, and believing you
   are righteous. Now let us decide your case at once. Since you are
   ashamed to put yourselves among those who are lost, I have no Christ to
   preach to you till you are ready to come and confess that you are lost;
   for Christ himself tells us, that he came "not to call the righteous,
   but sinners to repentance;" and inasmuch as you belong to the
   righteous, and trust in yourselves that you are good and excellent you
   may turn upon your heel and go, for in the blood of Christ there is no
   portion for men who live and die trusting in their own
   self-righteousness.

   But I may dismiss another part of you. Some of you are saying, "Well,
   sir, I know I am guilty, but still I am persuaded that by attention to
   the law of God in future, I shall certainly be able to take away the
   demerit of my guilt. I intend henceforward to reform, and I believe
   that by a consistent course of attention to religious ordinances, and
   by carefully regarding that which is right and wrong between God and
   man, and man and man, I shall, without doubt, make an atonement for the
   sins of the past." Ah, my friend, hitherto thou givest me no hope that
   thou had any portion in the death of Christ. Christ came not to die for
   men who can save themselves without him. If thou thinkest thou canst
   save thyself remember the door of mercy is shut in thy face. Christ
   came to bring robes from heaven, but not for you who can spin for
   yourselves. He came to bring bread for the hungry, but he will give
   none of it to you who can sow and reap, and make bread for yourselves.
   Christ helps the helpless, but they who can help themselves and have
   sufficient of their own strength and merit to carry them to heaven, may
   fight their way there alone, if they can--they shall have no help from
   him. Whom then did Christ die to save? It is said, he came to save
   "that which was lost."

   Now, you must bear with me while I run over the different ways in which
   a man may be lost; and then I will conclude by noticing the term as it
   is used in the proper sense, when we may affirm that Christ died for
   such. We know that all men are lost in Adam; as soon as we are born
   into this world, we are lost, when the tiny bark of the infant is
   launched upon the river of life it is lost; unless Sovereign grace
   shall stretch forth its hand and save it in infancy, and carry it to
   heaven or save it afterwards, when it shall have grown up--that infant
   is lost. "Behold," saith David, "I was born in sin and shapen in
   iniquity; in sin did my mother conceive me." "In Adam all die." The
   fall of Adam was the fall of the human race; then, you and I, and all
   of us fell down.

   Again, we are all lost by practice. No sooner does the child become
   capable of knowing right and wrong, than you discover that he chooses
   the evil and abhors the good. Early passions soon break out, like weeds
   immediately after the shower of rain; speedily the hidden depravity of
   the heart makes itself manifest and we grow up to sin and so we become
   lost by practice. But mark, a man may be lost in Adam, and lost by
   practice, and yet not be saved by Christ; but Christ is able to save
   you; though you be twice lost, his salvation is able to redeem you from
   death.

   Then there be some who go further still. The deadly tree of sin grows
   taller and taller some become lost to the church. After having been
   trained up religiously in our Midst, they turn aside; they give up all
   outward regard to the worship of God, the ministry of the gospel is
   neglected, the house of prayer is forsaken, and the church tolls its
   bell and says of such an one, "He is lost to the church." Some go
   further still; they are lost to society. I have seen many who are dead
   while they live. We have in the midst of us the harlot and the
   drunkard, who, like the leper in the camp of Israel, have to be put
   away, lest the contagion should spread; and those who seek after right
   are obliged to turn away from them, lest the evil should spread in the
   midst of the flock. Now there are many who are lost to society whom
   Jesus Christ came to save, and whom he will save. But a man may be lost
   to society and may be lost everlastingly; it is no proof that Christ
   will save him, because he is thus lost, while at the same time it is no
   proof that he will not save him, for Christ came to save even men who
   are lost like this. Again, the man may go further, and be lost to the
   family. We have known those who have become so vile, that even after
   society has shut them out, a parent has been obliged to shut then out
   too. That must be a hell of sin indeed which can make a father say to
   his son, "My son, you shall not want bread while I have any, but I must
   forbid you my house, for your brothers and sisters cannot endure your
   society; I feel you would destroy their souls if I should allow you to
   associate with them." Now, a man may be lost thus to his own family,
   and yet sovereign grace will save him. But, mark, a man may be lost to
   his family and yet not be saved; yea, that may be the increase of his
   condemnation, that he sinned against a mother's prayers and against a
   father's exhortations.

   Now I will tell you the people whom Christ will save--they are those
   who are lost to themselves. Just imagine a ship at sea passing through
   a storm: the ship leaks, and the captain tells the passengers he fears
   they are lost. If they are far away from the shore, and have sprung a
   leak, they pump with all their might as long as they have any strength
   remaining; they seek to keep down the devouring element; they still
   think that they are not quite lost while they have power to use the
   pumps. At last they see the ship cannot be saved; they give it up for
   lost, and leap into the boats. The boats are beating for many a-day,
   full of men who have but little food to eat. "They are lost," we say,
   "lost out at sea." But they do not think so; they still cherish a hope
   that perhaps some stray ship may pass that way and pick them up. There
   is a ship in the horizon; they strain their eyes to look at her; they
   lift each other up; they wave a flag; they rend their garments to make
   something which shall attract attention; but she passes away; black
   night comes, and they are forgotten. At length the very last mouthful
   of food has been consumed; strength fails them, and they lay down their
   oars in the boat, and lay themselves down to die. You can imagine then
   how well they understand the awful meaning of the term--"lost." As long
   as they had any strength left they felt they were not lost; as long as
   they could see a sail they felt there was yet hope; while there was yet
   a mouldy biscuit left, or a drop of water, they did not give up all for
   lost. Now the biscuit is gone, and the water is gone; now strength has
   departed, and the oar lies still: they lie down to die by each other's
   side, mere skeletons; things that should have been dead days ago, if
   they had died when all enjoyment of life had ceased. Now they know, I
   say, what it is to be lost, and across the shoreless waters they seem
   to hear their deathknell pealing forth that awful word, Lost! lost!
   lost! Now, in a spiritual sense, these are the people Christ came to
   save. Sinner, thou too art condemned. Our Father Adam steered the ship
   awry and she split upon a rock, and she is filling even to her bulwarks
   now; and pump as philosophy may, it can never keep the waters of her
   depravity so low as to prevent the ship from sinking. Seeing that human
   nature is of itself lost, it hath taken to the boat. She is a fair
   boat, called the boat of Good Endeavour, and in her you are striving to
   row with all your might, to reach the shore; but your strength fails
   you. You say, "Oh, I cannot keep God's law. The more I strive to keep
   it, the more I find it to be impossible for me to do so. I climb; but
   the higher I climb, the higher is the top above me. When I was in the
   plains, I thought the mountain was but a moderate hill but now I seem
   to have ascended half-way up its steps,--there it is, higher than the
   clouds, and I cannot discern the summit." However, you gather up your
   strength, you try again, you row once more, and at last unable to do
   anything, you lay down your oars, feeling that if you are saved, it
   cannot be by your own works. Still you have a little hope left. There
   are a few small pieces of mouldy biscuit remaining. You have heard that
   by attention to certain ceremonies you may be saved, and you munch your
   dry biscuit; but at last that fails you, and you find that neither
   baptism, nor the Lord's supper, nor any other outward rites, can make
   you clean, for the leprosy lies deep within. That done, you still look
   out. You are in hopes that there may be a sail coming, and while
   floating upon that deep of despair, you think you detect in the
   distance some new dogma, some fresh doctrine that may comfort you. It
   passes, however, like the wild phantom ship--it is gone, and there you
   are left at last, with the burning sky of God's vengeance above you,
   with the deep waters of a bottomless hell beneath you, fire in your
   heart and emptiness in that ship which once was so full of hope, you
   lie down despairing, and you cry--"Lord save me, or I perish!" Is that
   your condition this morning, my friend, or has that ever been your
   condition? If so, Christ came into the world to seek and to save you;
   and you he will save, and no one else. He will save only those who can
   claim this for their title,--"Lost;" who have understood in their own
   souls what it is to be lost, as to all self-trust, all self-reliance,
   and all self-hope. I can look back to the time when I knew myself to be
   lost. I thought that God meant to destroy me. I imagined that because I
   felt myself to be lost, I was the special victim of Almighty vengeance;
   for I said unto the Lord. "Hast thou set me as the target of all thine
   arrows? Am I a seal or a whale, that thou hast set a mark upon me? Hast
   thou sewed up mine iniquities in a bag, and sealed my transgressions
   with a seal. Wilt thou never be gracious? Hast thou made me to be the
   center of all sorrow, the chosen one of heaven to be cursed for ever?"
   Ah! fool that I was! I little knew then, that those who have the curse
   in themselves are the men whom God will bless--that we have the
   sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves,
   but in him who died for us and rose again. Come, I will put the
   question once again--can you say that you are lost? Was there a time
   when you traveled with the caravan through this wild wilderness world?
   Have you left the caravan with your companions, and are you left in the
   midst of a sea of sand--a hopeless, arid waste? And do you look around
   you, and see no helper; and do you cast your eyes around and see no
   trust? Is the deathbird wheeling in the sky, screaming with delight
   because he hopes soon to feed upon your flesh and bones? Is the
   water-bottle dry, and doth the bread fail you? Have you consumed the
   last of your dry dates, and drunk the last of that brackish water from
   the bottle. and are you now without hope, without trust in yourself;
   ready to lie down in despair? Hark thee! The Lord thy God loveth thee;
   Jesus Christ has bought thee with his blood; thou art, thou shalt be
   his. He has been seeking thee all this time, and he has found thee at
   last, in the vast howling wilderness and now he will take thee upon his
   shoulders, and carry thee to his house rejoicing, and the angels shall
   be glad over thy salvation. Now, such people must and shall be saved.
   and this is the description of those whom Jesus Christ came to save.
   Whom he came to save he will save; you, ye lost ones--lost to all hope
   and self confidence, shall be saved. Though death and hell should stand
   in the way, Christ will perform his vow, and accomplish his design.

   I shall be very brief in concluding my discourse; but we have now to
   notice THE OBJECTS OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST--he came "to seek and to save
   that which was lost." I am so glad that these two words are both there,
   for if they were not, what hope would there be for any of us? The
   Arminian says Christ came to save those that seek him. Beloved, there
   is a sense in which that is true; but it is a lie. Christ did come to
   save those that seek him, but no one ever sought the Lord Jesus Christ,
   unless the Lord Jesus first sought him. Christ does not leave it to
   ourselves to seek him, or else it would be left indeed, for so vile is
   human nature that although heaven be offered, and though hell thunder
   in our ears, yet there never was and there never will be any man who,
   unconstrained by sovereign grace, will run in the way of salvation, and
   so escape from hell and flee to heaven. It is all in vain for me to
   preach to you, and all in vain for the most earnest exhortations to be
   addressed to any of you, unless the Holy Spirit shall be pleased to
   back them up; for man is so infatuated, his disease is one which causes
   such a madness of the brain, that he refuses the remedy, and puts away
   from him the healing draught which alone can give him life from the
   dead. "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life." Let man
   alone, and with the cross of Christ before him and all hell behind him,
   he will shut his eyes and prefer to be damned rather than enter into
   eternal life by the blood of Christ the Lord. Hence Christ came first
   to seek men, and then to save them. Ah! what a task that is of seeking
   men! There are some of you to-day on the tops of the mountains of
   pride, and others of you in the deep glens of despair. Methinks I see
   the Saviour coming forth to seek you; he finds you to-day in the green
   pastures of the sanctuary, he comes near to you, and by these hands of
   mine he seeks to lay hold of you, but no sooner do you discern his
   approach then you run far away into the wild desert of sin. Perhaps
   this evening you will be spending the remnant of the Sabbath in
   profaning God's day. One of you at least I know who will be in the
   public house as soon as the evening sermon is over, and most probably
   will go home very late. If Christ intends to save you, he will go to
   you there; and while you are in that wild waste of sin, he will send
   some providence after you, and save you there. Away you fly then to the
   marshes of reformation, and you say, "The shepherd cannot overtake me.
   I shall be beyond his reach now, I have left off my drunkenness, I have
   given up my cursing." But he will come to you there, and wade for you
   ankle deep in your own self-righteousness. And then you will run away
   again and jump into the deep pit of despair, and there you will say to
   yourself, "He can never find me here." But I see him coming with that
   crook of his: he enters the pit, takes you by the feet, and casts you
   round his neck, and carries you home rejoicing, saying, "I have found
   him at last! Wherever he wandered, I sought him, and now I have found
   him." It is strange what queer places Christ finds some of his people
   in! I knew one of Christ's sheep who was found out by his Master while
   committing robbery. I knew another who was found out by Christ, while
   he was spiting his old mother by reading the Sunday newspaper and
   making fun of her. Many have been found by Jesus Christ, even in the
   midst of sin and vanity. I knew a preacher of the Gospel who was
   converted in a theater. He was listening to a play, an old-fashioned
   piece, that ended with a sailor's drinking a glass of gin before he was
   hung, and he said, "Here's to the prosperity to the British Nation, and
   the salvation of my immortal soul.", and down went the curtain; and
   down went my friend too, for he ran home with all his might. Those
   words, "The salvation of my immortal soul;" had struck him to the
   quick; and he sought the Lord Jesus in his chamber. Many a-day he
   sought him, and at last he found him to his joy and confidence.

   But for the most part Christ finds his people in his own house; but he
   finds them often in the worst of tempers, in the most hardened
   conditions; and he softens their hearts, awakens their consciences,
   subdues their pride, and takes them to himself; but never would they
   come to him unless he came to them. Sheep go astray, but they do not
   come back again of themselves. Ask the shepherd whether his sheep come
   back, and he will tell you, "No, sir; they will wander, but they never
   return." When you find a sheep that ever came back of himself, then you
   may hope to find a sinner that will come to Christ of himself. No; it
   must be sovereign grace that must seek the sinner and bring him home.

   And when Christ seeks him he SAVES him. Having caught him at last, like
   the ram of old, in the thorns of conviction, he does not take a knife
   and slay him as the sinner expects, but he takes him by the hand of
   mercy, and begins to comfort and to save. Oh, ye lost sinners, the
   Christ who seeks you to-day in the ministry, and who has sought you
   many a-day by his providence, will save you. He will first find you
   when you are emptied of self, and then he will save you. When you are
   stripped he will bring forth the best robe and put it on you. When you
   are dying he will breathe life into your nostrils. When you feel
   yourselves condemned he will come and blot out your iniquities like a
   cloud, and your transgressions like a thick cloud. Fear not, ye
   hopeless and helpless souls, Christ seeks you to-day, and seeking, he
   will save you--save you here, save you living, save you dying, save you
   in time, save you in eternity, and give you, even you, the lost ones, a
   portion among them that are sanctified. May the Lord now bless these
   words to your consolation!

   III. I shall not stop to say more, as I intended to have done, lest I
   should weary you. Let me only remind you, that the time is coming when
   that word "lost" will have a more frightful meaning to you, than it has
   to-day. In a few more months, some of you, my hearers, will hear the
   great bell of eternity tolling forth that awful word--lost, lost, lost!
   The great sepulchres of hell will toll out your doom--lost, lost, lost!
   and through the shades of eternal misery this shall for ever assail
   your ear, that you are lost for ever. But if that bell is ringing in
   your ear to-day, that you are lost oh, be of good cheer, it is a good
   thing to be so lost, it is a happy thing to be lost to self, and lost
   to pride, and lost to carnal hope. Christ will save you. Believe that.
   Look to him as he hangs upon his cross. One look shall give you
   comfort. Turn your weeping eyes to him as he bleeds there in misery. He
   can, he will save you. Believe on him, for he that believeth and is
   baptized, shall be saved. He that believeth not must be damned, but
   whosoever among the lost ones will now cast himself on Christ Jesus,
   shall find everlasting life through his death and righteousness. May
   the Lord now gather in his lost sheep, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                           A Lecture for Little-Faith

   A Sermon

   (No. 205)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, July 18, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet,
   because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of
   everyone of you all toward each other aboundeth"--2 Thessalonians 1:3.

   WE ARE BOUND to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet."
   Whether we shall praise God or not, is not left to our opinion Although
   the commandment saith not, "Thou shalt praise the Lord," yet praise is
   God's most righteous due, and every man, as a partaker of God's bounty,
   and especially every Christian, is bound to praise God, as it is meet.
   It is true we have no authoritative rubric for daily praise; we have no
   commandment left on record specially prescribing certain hours of song
   and thanksgiving; but still the law written upon the heart, teacheth us
   with divine authority that it is right to praise God; and this
   unwritten mandate hath as much power and authority about it, as if it
   had been recorded on the tables of stone, or handed to us from the top
   of thundering Sinai. The Christian's duty is to praise God. Think not
   ye who are always mourning that ye are guiltless in that respect;
   imagine not that ye can discharge your duty to your God without songs
   of praise. It is your duty to praise him. You are bound by the bonds of
   his love as long as you live to bless his name. It is meet and comely
   that you should do so. It is not only a pleasurable exercise, but it is
   the absolute duty of the Christian life to praise God. This is taught
   us in the text,--"We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren,
   as it is meet." Let not your harps then hang upon the willows, ye
   mourning children of the Lord. It is your duty to strike them and bring
   forth their loudest music. It is sinful if you to cease from praising
   God; you are blessed in order that you may bless him; and if you do not
   praise God you are not bringing forth the fruit, which he as the divine
   husbandman, may well expect at your hands. Go forth then, ye sons of
   God, and chant his praise. With every morning's dawn lift up your notes
   of thanksgiving, and every evening let the setting sun be followed with
   your song. Girdle the earth with your praises; surround it with an
   atmosphere of melody, so shall God himself look down from heaven and
   accept your praises as like in kind, though not equal in degree, to the
   praises of cherubim and seraphim. It seems, however, that the apostle
   Paul in this instance exercised praise not for himself but for others,
   for the church at Thessalonica. If any of you should in ignorance ask
   the question why it was that Paul should take so deep an interest in
   the salvation of these saints, and in their growth in faith, I would
   remind you, that this is a secret known only to the men who have
   brought forth and nourished children, and therefore love them. The
   apostle Paul had founded the church at Thessalonica, most of these
   people were his spiritual offspring, by the words of his mouth,
   attended by the power of the Spirit, they had been brought out of
   darkness into marvellous light; and they who have had spiritual
   children who have brought many sons unto God, can tell you that there
   is an interest felt by a spiritual father, that is not to be equalled
   even by the tender affection of a mother towards her babe. "Ay," said
   the apostle, "I have been tender over you as a nursing father," and in
   another place he says he had "travailed in birth," for their souls.
   This is a secret not known to the hireling minister. Only he whom God
   hath himself ordained and thrust forth into the work, only he who has
   had his tongue touched with a live coal from off the altar, can tell
   you what it is to agonize for men's souls before they are converted,
   and what it is to rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory, when
   the travail of their souls is seen in the salvation of God's elect.

   And now, beloved, having thus given you two thoughts which seemed to me
   to arise naturally from the text, I shall repair at once to the object
   of this morning's discourse. The apostle thanks God that the faith of
   the Thessalonians had grown exceedingly. Leaving out the rest of the
   text, I shall direct your attention this morning to the subject of
   growth in faith. Faith hath degrees.

   In the first place, I shall endeavor to notice the inconveniences of
   little faith; secondly, the means of promoting its growth; and thirdly,
   a certain high attainment, unto which faith will assuredly grow, if we
   diligently water and cultivate it.

   I. In the first place, THE INCONVENIENCES OF LITTLE FAITH. When faith
   first commences in the soul, it is like a grain of mustard seed of
   which the Saviour said it was the least of all seeds, but as God the
   Holy Spirit is pleased to bedew it with the sacred moisture of his
   grace, it germinates and grows and begins to spread, until at last it
   becomes a great tree. To use another figure: when faith commences in
   the soul it is simply looking unto Jesus, and perhaps even then there
   are so many clouds of doubts and so much dimness of the eye, that we
   have need for the light of the Spirit to shine upon the cross before we
   are able even so much as to see it. When faith grows a little, it rises
   from looking to Christ to coming to Christ. He who stood afar off and
   looked to the cross by-and-bye plucks up courage, and getting heart to
   himself, he runneth up to the cross. or perhaps he doth not run. but
   hath to be drawn before he can so much as creep thither, and even then
   it is with a limping gait that he draweth nigh to Christ the Saviour.
   But that done, faith goeth a little farther: it layeth hold on Christ;
   it begins to see him in his excellency, and appropriates him in some
   degree, conceives him to be a real Christ and a real Saviour, and is
   convinced of his suitability. And when it hath done as much as that, it
   goeth further; it leaneth on Christ. it leaneth on its Beloved; casteth
   all the burden of its cares, sorrows, and griefs upon that blessed
   shoulder, and permitteth all its sins to he swallowed up in the great
   red sea of the Saviour's blood. And faith can then go further still;
   for having seen and ran towards him and laid hold upon him, and having
   leaned upon him, faith in the next place puts in a humble, but a sure
   and certain claim to all that Christ is and all that he has wrought;
   and then, trusting alone in this, appropriating all this to itself,
   faith mounteth to full assurance; and out of heaven there is no state
   more rapturous and blessed. But, as I have observed at the beginning,
   faith is but very small, and there are some Christians who never get
   out of little faith all the while they are here. You notice in John
   Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," how many Little-faith's he mentions
   There is our old friend Ready-to-halt, who went all the way to the
   celestial city on crutches but left them when he went into the river
   Jordan. Then there is little Feeblemind, who carried his feeble mind
   with him all the way to the banks of the river and then left it, and
   ordered it to be buried in a dunghill that none might inherit it. Then
   there is Mr. Fearing, too, who used to stumble over a straw, and was
   always frightened if he saw a drop of rain, because he thought the
   floods of heaven were let loose upon him. And you remember Mr.
   Despondency and Miss Much-afraid, who were so long locked up in the
   dungeon of Giant Despair, that they were almost starved to death, and
   there was little left of them but skin and bone; and poor Mr.
   Feeble-mind, who had been taken into the cave of Giant Slay-good who
   was about to eat him, when Great-heart came to his deliverance. John
   Bunyan was a very wise man He has put a great many of those characters
   in his book, because there are a great many of them. He has not left us
   with one Mr. Ready-to-halt, but he has given us seven or eight graphic
   characters because he himself in his own time has been one of them, and
   he had known many others who had walked in the same path. I doubt not I
   have a very large congregation this morning of this very class of
   persons. Now let me notice the inconveniences of little faith.

   The first inconvenience of little faith is that while it is always sure
   of heaven it very seldom thinks so. Little-faith is quite as sure of
   heaven as Great-faith. When Jesus Christ counts up his jewels at the
   last day he will take to himself the little pearls as well as the great
   ones. If a diamond be never so small yet it is precious because it is a
   diamond. So will faith, be it never so little, if it be true faith,
   Christ will never lose even the smallest jewel of his crown.
   Little-faith is always sure of heaven, because the name of Little-faith
   is in the book of eternal life. Little-faith was chosen of God before
   the foundation of the world. Little-faith was bought with the blood of
   Christ; ay, and he cost as much as Great-faith. "For every man a
   shekel" was of redemption. Every man, whether great or small, prince or
   peasant, had to redeem himself with a shekel. Christ has bought all,
   both little and great, with the same most precious blood. Little-faith
   is always sure of heaven, for God has begun the good work in him and he
   will carry it on. God loves him and he will love him unto the end. God
   has provided a crown for him, and he will not allow the crown to hang
   there without a head; he has erected for him a mansion in heaven, and
   he will not allow the mansion to stand untenanted for ever.
   Little-faith is always safe, but he very seldom knows it. If you meet
   him he is sometimes afraid of hell; very often afraid that the wrath of
   God abideth on him. He will tell you that the country on the other side
   the flood can never belong to a worm so base as he. Sometimes it is
   because he feels himself so unworthy, another time it is because the
   things of God are too good to be true, he says, or he cannot think they
   can be true to such an one as he is. Sometimes he is afraid he is not
   elect; another time he fears that he has not been called aright. that
   he has not come to Christ aright. Another time his fears are that he
   will not hold on to the end, that he shall not be able to persevere,
   and if you kill a thousand of his fears he is sure to have another host
   by to-morrow; for unbelief is one of those things that you cannot
   destroy. "It hath," saith Bunyan, "as many lives as a cat;" you may
   kill it over and over again, but still it lives. It is one of those ill
   weeds that sleep in the soil even after it has been burned, and it only
   needs a little encouragement to grow again. Now Great-faith is sure of
   heaven, and he knows it. He climbs Pisgah's top, and views the
   landscape o'er; he drinks in the mysteries of paradise even before he
   enters within the pearly gates. He sees the streets that are paved with
   gold; he beholds the walls of the city, the foundations whereof are of
   precious stones; he hears the mystic music of the glorified, and begins
   to smell on earth the perfumes of heaven. But poor Little-faith can
   scarcely look at the sun; he very seldom sees the light. he gropes in
   the valley, and while all is safe he always thinks himself unsafe. That
   is one of the disadvantages of Little-faith.

   Another disadvantage is that Little-faith, while always having grace
   enough (for that is Little-faith's promise, "My grace shall be
   sufficient for thee") yet never thinks he has grace enough. He will
   have quite enough grace to carry him to heaven; and Great-heart won't
   have any more. The greatest saint, when he entered heaven, found that
   he went in with an empty wallet: he had eaten his last crust of bread
   when he got there. The manna ceased when the children of Israel entered
   into Canaan. they had none to carry with them there: they began to eat
   the corn of the land when the manna of the wilderness had ceased But
   Little-faith is always afraid that he has not grace enough. You see him
   in trouble. "Oh!" says he, "I shall never be able to hold my head above
   water." Blessed be God he never can sink. If you see him in prosperity,
   he is afraid he shall be intoxicated with pride; that he shall turn
   aside like Balaam. If you meet him attacked by an enemy, he is scarcely
   able to say three words for himself; and he lets the enemy exact upon
   him. If you find him fighting the battle of the Lord Jesus Christ he
   holds his sword tight enough, good man, but he has not much strength in
   his arm to bring his sword down with might. He can do but little, for
   he is afraid that God's grace will not be sufficient for him.
   Great-faith, on the other hand, can shake the world. What cares he
   about trouble, trial, or duty?

   He that helped him bears him through,

   And makes him more than conqueror too."

   He would face an army single-handed, if God commanded him; and "with
   the jaw-bone of an ass, he would slay heaps upon heaps, and thousands
   of men." There is no fear of his lacking strength. He can do all
   things, or can bear all sufferings, for his Lord is there. Come what
   may, his arm is always sufficient for him; he treads down his enemy,
   and his cry every day is like the shout of Deborah, "Oh my soul, thou
   hast trodden down strength." Little-faith treads down strength too, but
   he does not know it. He kills his enemies, but has not eye-sight enough
   to see the slain. He often hits so hard that his foemen retreat, but he
   thinks they are there still. He conjures up a thousand phantoms, and
   when he has routed his real enemies he makes others, and trembles at
   the phantoms which he has himself made. Little-faith will assuredly
   find that his garments will not wax old, that his shoes shall be iron
   and brass, and that as his day is so shall his strength be; but all the
   way he will be murmuring, because he thinks his garments will grow old,
   that his feet will be blistered and sore; and he is terrified lest the
   day should be too heavy for him and that the evil of the day shall more
   than counterbalance his grace. Ay, it is an inconvenient thing to have
   little faith, for little faith perverts everything into sorrow and
   grief.

   Again, there is a sad inconvenience about Little-faith, namely, that if
   Little-faith be sorely tempted to sin, he is apt to fall. Strong-faith
   can well contest with the enemy. Satan comes along, and says, "All
   these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me."
   "Nay," we say, "thou canst not give us all these things, for they are
   ours already." "Nay," says he, "but ye are poor, naked and miserable."
   "Ay," say we to him, "but still these things are ours, and it is good
   for us to be poor, good for us to be without earthly goods, or else our
   Father would give them to us." "Oh," says Satan, "you deceive
   yourselves; you have no portion in these things; but if you will serve
   me, then I will make you rich and happy here." Strong-faith says,
   "Serve thee, thou fiend! Avaunt! Dost thou offer me silver?--behold God
   giveth me gold. Dost thou say to me, "I will give thee this if thou
   disobey?--fool that thou art! I have a thousand times as great wages
   for my obedience as thou canst offer for my disobedience." But when
   Satan meets Little-faith, he says to him, "If thou be the Son of God
   cast thyself down;" and poor Little faith is so afraid that he is not a
   son of God that he is very apt to cast himself down upon the
   supposition. "There," says Satan, "I will give thee all this if thou
   wilt disobey." Little-faith says, "I am not quite sure that I am a
   child of God, that I have a portion among them that are sanctified;"
   and he is very apt to fall into sin by reason of the littleness of his
   faith. Yet at the same time I must observe that I have seen some
   Little-faiths who are far less apt to fall into sin than others. They
   have been so cautious that they dared not put one foot before the
   other, because they were afraid they should put it awry: they scarcely
   even dared to open their lips, but they prayed, "O Lord, open thou my
   lips;" afraid that they should let a wrong word out, if they were to
   speak; always alarmed lest they should be falling into sin
   unconsciously, having a very tender conscience. Well, I like people of
   this sort. I have sometimes thought that Little-faith holds tighter by
   Christ than any other. For a man who is very near drowning is sure to
   clutch the plank all the tighter with the grasp of a drowning man,
   which tightens and becomes more clenched the more his hope is
   decreased. Well, beloved, Little-faith may be kept from falling, but
   this is the fruit of tender conscience and not of little faith. Careful
   walking is not the result of little faith; it may go with it, and so
   may keep Little-faith from perishing, but little faith is in itself a
   dangerous thing, laying us open to innumerable temptations, and taking
   away very much of our strength to resist them. "The joy of the Lord is
   your strength;" and if that joy ceases you become weak and very apt to
   turn aside. Beloved, you who are Little-faiths, I tell you it is
   inconvenient for you always to remain so; for you have many nights and
   few days. Your years are like Norwegian years--very long winters and
   very short summers. You have many howlings, but very little of
   shouting; you are often playing upon the pipe of mourning, but very
   seldom sounding the trump of exultation. I would to God you could
   change your notes a little. Why should the children of a King go
   mourning all their days? It is not the Lord's will that you should be
   always sorrowful. "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say
   rejoice." Oh, ye that have been fasting, anoint your heads and wash
   your faces, that ye appear not unto men to fast. Oh, ye that are sad in
   heart, "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright
   in heart." Therefore rejoice for ye shall praise him. Say unto
   yourselves, "Why art thou cast down, Oh, soul and why art thou
   disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him, who
   is the light of my countenance and my God."

   II. Having thus noticed the inconveniences and disadvantages of little
   faith, let me give you A FEW RULES WITH REGARD TO THE WAY OF
   STRENGTHENING IT. If you would have your little faith grow into great
   faith, you must feed it well. Faith is a feeding grace. It does not ask
   you to give it the things that are seen, but it does ask you to give it
   the promise of the things that are not seen, which are eternal. Thou
   tellest me thou hast little faith. I ask thee whether thou art given to
   the meditation of God's Word, whether thou hast studied the promises
   whether thou art wont to carry one of those sacred things about with
   thee every day? Dost thou reply, "No?" Then, I tell thee, I do not
   wonder at thine unbelief He who deals largely with the promises, will,
   under grace, very soon find that there is great room for believing
   them. Get a promise, beloved, every day, and take it with you wherever
   you go; mark it, learn it, and inwardly digest it. Don't do as some men
   do--who think it a Christian duty to read a chapter every morning, and
   they read one as long as your arm without understanding it at all; but
   take out some choice text and pray the Lord during the day to break it
   up to your mind. Do as Luther says: "When I get hold of a promise,"
   says he, "I look upon it as I would a fruit tree. I think--there hang
   the fruits above my head, and if I would get them I must shake the tree
   to and fro." So I take a promise and meditate upon it; I shake it to
   and fro, and sometimes the mellow fruit fans into my hand, at other
   times the fruit is less ready to fall, but I never leave off till I get
   it. I shake, shake all the day long; I turn the text over and over
   again, and at last the pomegranate droppeth down, and my soul is
   comforted with apples, for it was sick of love. Do that, Christian.
   Deal much with the promises; have much commerce with these powders of
   the merchant: there is a rich perfume in every promise of God; taken;
   it is an alabaster box, break it by meditation, and the sweet scent of
   faith shall be shed abroad in your house.

   Again, prove the promise, and in that way you will get your faith
   strengthened. When you are at any time placed in distress, take a
   promise and see whether it is true. Suppose you are very near lacking
   bread; take this promise, "Thy bread shall be given thee, thy water
   shall be sure." Rise up in the morning when nothing is in the cupboard,
   and say, "I will see whether God will keep this promise;" and if he
   does, do not forget it; set it down in your book; make a mark in your
   Bible against it. Do as the old woman did, who put T and P against the
   promise, and told her minister that it means "tried and proved;" so
   that when she was again in distress, she could not help believing. Have
   you been exercised by Satan? There is a promise that says, "Resist the
   devil, and he will flee from you." Take that and prove it, and when you
   have proved it, make a mark against it, and say, "This I know is true,
   for I have proved it to be so." There is nothing in the world that can
   confirm faith like proof. "What I want," said one, "is facts." And so
   it is with the Christian. What he wants is a fact to make him believe.
   The older you grow the stronger your faith ought to become, for you
   have so many more facts with which to buttress your faith, and compel
   you to believe in God. Only think of a man who has come to be seventy
   years of age what a pile of evidence could he accumulate if he kept a
   note of all God's providential goodness and all his lovingkindness. You
   do not wonder when you hear a man, the hairs of whose head are white
   with the sunlight of heaven, get up and say, "These fifty years have I
   served God, and he has never forsaken me I can bear willing testimony
   to his faithfulness, not one good thing hath failed of all that the
   Lord hath promised, all hath come to pass." Now we, who are young
   beginners, must not expect that our faith will be so strong as it will
   be in years to come. Every instance of God's love should make us
   believe him more; and as each promise passes by, and we can see the
   fulfillment of it at the heels thereof, we must be compelled and
   constrained to say, that God has kept so many of these promises and
   will keep them unto the end. But the worst of it is that we forget them
   all, and so we begin to have grey hairs sprinkled on our heads, and we
   have no more faith than when we began, because we have forgotten God's
   repeated answers, and though he has fulfilled the promise we have
   suffered it to lie buried in forgetfulness.

   Another plan I would recommend for the strengthening of your faith,
   though not so excellent as the last, is to associate yourselves with
   Godly and much-tried men. It is astonishing how young believers will
   get their faith refreshed by talking with old and advanced Christians.
   Perhaps you are in great doubt and distress. you run off to an old
   brother, and you say, "Oh my dear friend, I am afraid I am not a child
   of God at all, I am in such deep distress, I have had blasphemous
   thoughts cast into my heart; if I were a child of God I should never
   feel like that." The old man smiles, and says, "Ah! you have not gone
   very far on the road to heaven, or else you would know better. Why I am
   the subject of these thoughts very often. Old as I am, and though I
   hope I have enjoyed the full assurance for a long time, yet there are
   seasons when if I could have heaven for a grain of faith, I could not
   think heaven was mine, for I could not find so much as a grain in me,
   though it is there." And he will tell you what dangers he has passed,
   and of the sovereign love that kept him; of the temptations that
   threatened to ensnare him, and of the wisdom that guided his feet; and
   he will tell you of his own weakness and God's omnipotence; of his own
   emptiness, and God's fullness; of his own changeableness, and God's
   immutability, and if after talking with such a man you don't believe
   surely you are sinful indeed; for "out of the mouth of two witnesses,
   the whole shall be established," but when there are many such who can
   bear testimony to God, it would be foul sin indeed if we were to doubt
   him.

   Another way whereby you may obtain increase of faith is to labor to get
   as much as possible free from self. I have striven with all my might to
   attain the position of perfect indifference of all men. I have found at
   times, if I have been much praised in company, and if my heart has
   given way a little, and I have taken notice of it, and felt pleased,
   that the very next time I was censured and abused. I felt the censure
   and abuse very keenly, for the very fact that I took the praise
   rendered me liable to lay hold upon the censure. So that I have always
   tried, especially of late, to take no more notice of man's praise than
   of his censure, but to fix my heart simply upon this--I know that I
   have a right motive in what I attempt to do, I am conscious that I
   endeavor to serve God with a single eye to his glory, and therefore it
   is not for me to take praise from man nor censure, but to stand
   independently upon the one rock of right doing. Now the same thing will
   apply to you. Perhaps you find yourself full of virtue and grace one
   day, and the devil flatters you: "Ah! you are a bright Christian; you
   might join the church now, you would be quite an honor to it; see how
   well you are prospering." And unconsciously to yourself you believe the
   sound of that syren music, and you half believe that really you are
   growing rich in grace. Well, the next day you find yourself very low
   indeed in godly matters. Perhaps you fall into some sin, and now the
   devil says, "Ah! now you are no child of God; look at your sins."
   Beloved, the only way in which you can maintain your faith is to live
   above the praise of self and the censure of self; to live simply upon
   the blood and merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who can say in the
   midst of all his virtues, "These are but dross and dung; my hope is
   fixed on nothing less than Jesus Christ's finished sacrifice"--such a
   man, when sins prevail, will find his faith remain constant, for he
   will say "I once was full of virtue and then I did not trust in myself,
   and now I have none still do I trust in my Saviour, for change as I
   may, he changeth not. If I had to depend on myself in the least degree
   then it would be up and down, up and down, but since I rely on what
   Christ has done, since he is the unbuttressed pillar of my hope, then
   come what may my soul doth rest secure, confident in faith. Faith will
   never be weak if self be weak, but when self is strong, faith cannot be
   strong, for self is very much like what the gardener calls the sucker
   at the bottom of the tree, which never bears fruit but only sucks away
   the nourishment from the tree itself. Now, self is that sucker which
   sucks away the nourishment from faith, and you must cut it up or else
   your faith will always be little faith, and you will have difficulty in
   maintaining any comfort in your soul.

   But, perhaps, the only way in which most men get their faith increased
   is by great trouble. We don't grow strong in faith on sunshiny days. It
   is only in strong weather that a man gets faith. Faith is not an
   attainment that droppeth like the gentle dew from heaven; it generally
   comes in the whirlwind and the storm. Look at the old oaks: how is it
   that they have become so deeply rooted in the earth? Ask the March
   winds and they will tell you. It was not the April shower that did it,
   or the sweet May sunshine, but it was March's rough wind, the
   blustering month of old Boreas shaking the tree to and fro and causing
   its roots to bind themselves around the rocks. So must it be with us.
   We don't make great soldiers in the barracks at home; they must be made
   amidst flying shot and thundering cannon. We cannot expect to make good
   sailors on the Serpentine; they must be made far away on the deep sea,
   where the wild winds howl, and the thunders roll like drums in the
   march of the God of armies. Storms and tempests are the things that
   make men tough and hardy mariners. They see the works of the Lord and
   his wonders in the deep. So with Christians. Great-faith must have
   great trials. Mr. Great-heart would never have been Mr. Great-heart if
   he had not once been Mr. Great-trouble. Valiant-for-truth would never
   have put to fight those foes, and have been so valiant, if the foes had
   not first attacked him. So with us: we must expect great troubles
   before we shall attain to much faith.

   Then he who would have great faith, must exercise what he has. I should
   not like to-morrow to go and shoe horses, or to make horse shoes on an
   anvil. I am sure my arm would ache in the first hour with lifting the
   heavy hammer and banging it down so many times. Whatever the time might
   be, I should not be able to keep time. The reason why the blacksmith's
   arm does not tire is, because he is used to it. He has kept at it all
   day long these many years, till there's an arm for you! He turns up his
   sleeve and shows you the strong sinew that never tires, so strong has
   it become by use. Do you want to get your faith strong? Use it. You
   lazy lie-a-bed Christians, that go up to your churches and chapels, and
   take your seats, and hear our sermons, and talk about getting good, but
   never think about doing good; ye that are letting hell fill beneath
   you, and yet are too idle to stretch out your hands to pluck brands
   from the eternal burning; ye that see sin running down your streets,
   yet can never put so much as your foot to turn or stem the current, I
   wonder not that you have to complain of the littleness of your faith.
   It ought to be little; you do but little. and why should God give you
   more strength than you mean to use. Strong faith must always be an
   exercised faith, and he that dares not exercise the faith he has shall
   not have more "Take away from him the one talent and give it to him
   that hath, because he did not put it out to usury." In Mr. Whitfield's
   life, you do not often find him complaining of want of faith, or if he
   did, it was when he only preached nine times a week; he never
   complained when he preached sixteen times. Read Grimshaw's life: you do
   not often find him troubled with despondency when he preached
   twenty-four times in seven days; it was only when he was growing a
   little idle and only preached twelve times. Keep always at it, and all
   at it, and there is not much fear of your faith becoming weak. It is
   with our faith as with boys in the winter time There they go round the
   fire, rubbing and chafing their hands to keep the blood in circulation,
   and almost fighting each other to see which shall sit on the fire and
   get warm. At last the father comes, and says, "Boys, this won't do, you
   will never get warm by these artificial means run out and do some
   work." Then they all go out, and they come in again with a ruddy hue in
   their cheeks their hands no longer tingles and they say, "Well, father,
   we didn't think it half so warm as it is." So must it be with you: you
   must set to work if you would have your faith grow strong and warm.
   True, your works won't save you; but faith without works is dead,
   frozen to death; but faith with works groweth to a red heat of fervency
   and to the strength of stability. Go and teach in the Sunday school, or
   go and catch seven or eight poor ragged children; go and visit the poor
   old woman in her hovel; go and see some poor dying creatures in the
   back streets of our great city, and you will say, "Dear me, how
   wonderfully my faith is refreshed just by doing something." You have
   been watering yourself whilst you were watering others.

   Now my last advice shall be this--the best way to get your faith
   strengthened is to have communion with Christ. If you commune with
   Christ, you cannot be unbelieving. When his left hand is under my head,
   and his right hand doth embrace me, I cannot doubt. When my Beloved
   sits at his table, and he brings me into his banqueting house, and his
   banner over me is his love, then indeed I do believe. When I feast with
   him, my unbelief is abashed and hides its head. Speak, ye that have
   been led in the green pastures, and have been made to lie down by the
   still waters; ye who have seen his rod and his stay, and hope to see
   them even when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death;
   speak, ye that have sat at his feet with Mary, or laid your head upon
   his bosom with the well-beloved John; have you not found when you have
   been near to Christ your faith has grown strong, and when you have been
   far away, then your faith has become weak? It is impossible to look
   Christ in the face and then doubt him. When you cannot see him then you
   doubt him; but if you live in fellowship with him, you are like the ewe
   lambs of Nathan's parable, for you lie in his bosom, and eat from his
   table, and drink from his cup. You must believe when your Beloved
   speaks unto you, and says, "Rise up my love, my fair one, and come
   away." There is no hesitation then; you must arise from the lowlands of
   your doubt up to the hills of assurance.

   III. And now, in conclusion, there is A CERTAIN HIGH ATTAINMENT TO
   WHICH FAITH MAY, IF DILIGENTLY CULTIVATED, CERTAINLY ATTAIN. Can a
   man's faith grow so strong that he will never afterwards doubt at all?
   I reply, no. He who has the strongest faith will have sorrowful
   intervals of despondency. I suppose there has scarcely ever been a
   Christian who has not, at some time or other, had the most painful
   doubts concerning his acceptance in the Beloved. All God's children
   will have paroxysms of doubt even though they be usually strong in
   faith. Again, may a man so cultivate his faith that he may be
   infallibly sure that he is a child of God--so sure that he has made no
   mistake--so sure that all the doubts and fears which may be thrust upon
   him may not be able at that time to get an advantage over him? I
   answer, yes, decidedly he may. A man may, in this life, be as sure of
   his acceptance in the Beloved as he is of his own existence. Nay, he
   not only may, but there are some of us who have enjoyed this precious
   state and privilege for years; we do not mean for years together--our
   peace has been interrupted, we have now and then been subjected to
   doubts; but I have known some--I knew one especially, who said that for
   thirty years he had enjoyed almost invariably a full sense of his
   acceptance in Christ. "I have had," he said "very often a sense of sin,
   but I have had with that a sense of the power of the blood of Christ; I
   have now and then for a little time had great despondency, but still I
   may say, taking it as a general rule, that for thirty years I have
   enjoyed the fullest assurance of my acceptance in the Beloved." I trust
   a large portion of God's people can say that for months and years they
   have not had to sing,

   "Tis a point I long to know."

   But they can say, "I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded
   that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him." I will try
   to depict the state of the Christian, he may be as poor as poverty can
   make him, but he is rich; he has no thought with regard to the morrow,
   for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. He casts
   himself upon the providence of God; he believes that he who clothes the
   lilies, and feeds the ravens, will not allow his children to go
   starving or barefooted. He has but little concern as to his temporal
   estate; he folds his arms and floats down the stream of providence
   singing all the way whether he float by mud bank, dark, dreary, and
   noxious, or by palace fair and valley pleasant, he alters not his
   position; he neither moves not struggles; he has no will nor wish which
   way to swim, his only desire being to "lie passive in God's hand, and
   know no will but his." When the storm flies over his head he finds
   Christ to be a shelter from the tempest; when the heat is hot he finds
   Christ to be the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. He just casts
   his anchor down deep into the sea, and when the wind blows, he sleeps;
   hurricanes may come about his ears, the masts creak, and every timber
   seems to be strained and every nail to start from its place, but there
   he sleeps. Christ is at the helm. he says, "My anchor is within the
   vail, I know it will keep its hold." The earth shakes beneath his feet;
   but he says, "Though the earth be removed and mountains be cast into
   the sea, yet will not we fear, for God is our refuge and strength, and
   a very present help in time of trouble." Ask him about his eternal
   interests, and he tells you that his only confidence is in Christ, and
   that die when he may, he knows he shall stand boldly at the last great
   day clothed in his Saviour's righteousness. He speaks very confidently
   though never boastingly; though he has no time to dance the giddy dance
   of presumption, he stands firmly on the rock of confidence. Perhaps you
   think he is proud--ah! he is a humble man; he lies low before the
   cross, but not before you, he can look you boldly in the face, and tell
   you that Christ is able to keep that which he has committed to him. He
   knows that--

   "His honor is engaged to save

   The meanest of his sheep

   All that his heavenly Father gave,

   His hands securely keep."

   And die when he may he can lay his head upon the pillow of the promise,
   and breathe his life out on the Saviour's breast without a struggle or
   a murmur, crying--"Victory," in the arms of death; challenging Death to
   produce his sting, and demanding of the grave its victory. Such is the
   effect of strong faith; I repeat, the weakest in the world, by diligent
   cultivation may attain to it. Only seek the refreshing influence of the
   Divine Spirit, and walk in Christ's commandments, and live near to him;
   and ye that are dwarfs, like Zaccheus, shall become as giants; the
   hyssop on the wall shall start up into the dignity of the cedar in
   Lebanon, and ye that fly before your enemies shall yet be able to chase
   a thousand, and two of you shall put ten thousand to flight. May the
   Lord enable his poor little ones so to grow!

   As for those of you who have no faith in Christ, let me remind you of
   one sad thing--namely, that "without faith it is impossible to please
   God." If thou hast not put thy trust in Christ, then God is angry with
   thee every day. "If thou turn not he will whet his sword, for he hath
   bent his bow and made it ready." I beseech thee, cast thyself on
   Christ; he is worthy of thy trust; there is none other to trust to, he
   is willing to receive thee; he invites thee; he shed his blood for
   thee; he intercedes for thee. Believe on him, for thus his promise
   runs, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Do both of
   these things. Believe on him, and then profess thy faith in baptism;
   and the Lord bless thee, and hold thee to the end, and make thee to
   increase exceedingly in faith, to the glory of God. May the Lord add
   his blessing!
     __________________________________________________________________

                               Everybody's Sermon

   A Sermon

   (No. 206)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, July 25, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes."--Hosea 12:10.

   WHEN THE LORD would win his people Israel from their iniquities, he did
   not leave a stone unturned, but gave them precept upon precept, line
   upon line, here a little and there a little. He taught them sometimes
   with a rod in his hand, when he smote them with sore famine and
   pestilence, and invasion; at other times he sought to win them with
   bounties, for he multiplied their corn and their wine and their oil,
   and he laid no famine upon them. But all the teachings of his
   providence were unavailing, and whilst his hand was stretched out,
   still they continued to rebel against the Most High. He hewed them by
   the prophets. He sent them first one, and then another: the golden
   mouthed Isaiah was followed by the plaintive Jeremy; while at his heels
   in quick succession, there followed many far-seeing, thunder-speaking
   seers. But though prophet followed prophet in quick succession, each of
   them uttering the burning words of the Most High, yet they would have
   none of his rebukes, but they hardened their hearts, and went on still
   in their iniquities. Among the rest of God's agencies for striking
   their attention and their conscience, was the use of similitudes. The
   prophets were accustomed not only to preach, but to be themselves as
   signs and wonders to the people. For instance, Isaiah named his child,
   Maher-shalal-hash-baz, that they might know that the judgment of the
   Lord was hastening upon them; and this child was ordained to be a sign,
   "for before the child shall have knowledge to cry, my father and my
   mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken
   away before the king of Assyria." On another occasion, the lord said
   unto Isaiah, "Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put
   off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.
   And the Lord said, "Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and
   barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon
   Ethiopia; so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians
   prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives young and old, naked and
   barefoot, to the shame of Egypt." Hosea, the prophet, himself had to
   teach the people by a similitude. You will notice in the first chapter
   a most extraordinary similitude. The Lord said to him, "Go, take unto
   thee a wife of whoredoms; for the land hath committed great whoredom,
   departing from the Lord," and he did so; and the children begotten by
   this: marriage, were made as signs and wonders to the people. As for
   his first son he was to be called Jezreel, "for yet a little while, and
   I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu." As for his
   daughter, she was to be called Lo-ruhamah "for I will no more have
   mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away."
   Thus by divers significant signs, God made the people think. He made
   his prophets do strange things, in order that the people might talk
   about what he had done, and then the meaning which God would have them
   learn, should come home more powerfully to their consciences, and be
   the better remembered.

   Now it struck me that God is every day preaching to us by similitudes.
   When Christ was on earth he preached in parables, and, though he is in
   heaven now, he is preaching in parables to-day. Providence is God's
   sermon. The things which we see about us are God's thoughts and God's
   words to us; and if we were but wise there is not a step that we take,
   which me should not find to be full of mighty instruction. O ye sons of
   men! God warns you every day by his own word; he speaks to you by the
   lips of his servants, his ministers; but, besides this, by similitudes
   he addresses you at every time. He leaves no stone unturned to bring
   his wandering children to himself, to make the lost sheep of the house
   of Israel return to the fold. In addressing myself to you this morning,
   I shall endeavor to show how every day, and every season of the year,
   in every place, and in every calling which you are made to exercise,
   God is speaking to you by similitudes.

   I. EVERY DAY God speaks to you by similitudes. Let us begin with the
   early morning. This morning you awakened and you found yourselves
   unclothed, and you began to array yourselves in your garments. Did not
   God, if you would but have heard him, speak to you by a similitude? Did
   he not as much as say to thee, "Sinner, what will it be when thy vain
   dreams shall have ended, if thou shouldst wake up in eternity to find
   thyself naked? Wherewithal shalt thou array thyself? If in this life
   thou dost cast away the wedding garment, the spotless righteousness of
   Jesus Christ, what wilt thou do when the trump of the archangel shall
   awaken thee from thy clay cold couch in the grave, when the heavens
   shall be blazing with lightnings, and the solid pillars of the earth
   shall quake with the terror of God's thunder? How wilt thou be able to
   dress thyself then? Canst thou confront thy Maker without a covering
   for thy nakedness? Adam dared not, and canst thou attempt it? Will he
   not affright thee with his terrors? Will he not cast thee to the
   tormentors that thou mayest be burned up with unquenchable fire,
   because thou didst forget the clothing of thy soul while thou wast in
   this place of probation?

   Well, you have put on your dress, and you come down to your families,
   and your Children gather round your table for the morning meal. If you
   have been wise God has been preaching to you by a similitude then: he
   seemed to say to thee--"Sinner, to whom should a child go but to his
   father? And where should be his resort when he is hungry but to his
   father's table?" And as you feed your children, if you had an ear to
   hear, the Lord was speaking to you and saying, "How willingly would I
   feed you! How would I give you of the bread of heaven and cause you to
   eat angels, food! But thou hast spent thy money for that which is not
   bread, and thy labor for that which not. Hearken diligently unto me,
   and eat ye that which is good, let thy soul delight itself in fatness."
   Did he not stand there as a Father, and say, "Come my child, come to my
   table. The precious blood of my Son has been shed to be thy drink, and
   he has given his body to be thy bread. Why wilt thou wander hungry and
   thirsty? Come to my table O, my child, for I love my children to be
   there and to feast upon the mercies I have provided."

   You left your home and you went to your business. I knew not in what
   calling your time was occupied--of that we will say more before we
   shall have gathered up the ends of your similitudes this morning--but
   you spend your time in your work; and surely, beloved, All the time
   that your fingers were occupied, God was speaking to your heart, if the
   ears of your soul had not been closed, so that you were heavy and ready
   to slumber, and could not hear his voice And when the sun was shining
   in high heaven, and the hour of noon was reached, mightest thou not
   bare lifted up thine eye and remembered that if thou hadst committed
   thy soul to God, thy path should have been as the shining light which
   shineth more and more unto the perfect day? Did he not speak to thee
   and say, "I brought the sun from the darkness of the east; I have
   guided him and helped him to ascend the slippery steeps of heaven and
   now he standeth in his zenith, like a giant that hath run his race, and
   hath attained his goal. And even so will I do with thee. Commit thy
   ways unto me and I will make thee full of light, and thy path shall be
   as brightness, and thy life shall be as the noon-day: thy sun shall not
   go down by day, but the days of thy mourning shall be ended, for the
   Lord God shall be thy light, and thy salvation."

   And the sun began to set, and the shadows of evening were drawing on,
   and did not the Lord then remind thee of thy death? Suns have their
   setting, and men have their graves. When the shadows of the evening
   were stretched out, and when the darkness began to gather, did he not
   say unto thee, "O man, take heed of thine eventide, for the light of
   the sun shall not endure for ever? There are twelve hours wherein a man
   shall work, but when they are past there is no work nor device in the
   night of that grave whither we are all hastening. Work while ye have
   the light, for the night cometh wherein no man can work. Therefore,
   whatsoever thine hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might." Look I
   say to the sun at his setting and observe the rainbow hues of glory
   with which he paints the sky, and mark how he appears to increase his
   orb as he nears the horizon. O man kneel down and learn this
   prayer,--"Lord, let my dying be like the setting of the sun; help me,
   if clouds and darkness are round about me, to light them up with
   splendor; surround me, O my God, with a greater brightness at my death
   than I have shown in all my former life. If my death-bed shall be the
   miserable pallet, and if I expire in some lone cot yet nevertheless,
   grant, O Lord, that my poverty may be gilded with the light that thou
   shalt give me, that I may exhibit the grandeur of a Christian's
   departure at my dying hour." God speaketh to thee, O man, by
   similitude, from the rising to the setting of the sun.

   And now, thou hast lit thy candle and thou sittest down; thy children
   are about thee. and the Lord sends thee a little preacher to preach
   thee a sermon, if thou wilt hear. It is a little gnat, and it flieth
   round and round about thy candle, and delighteth itself in the light
   thereof, till, dazzled and intoxicated, it begins to singe its wings
   and burn itself. Thou seekest to put it away, but it dashes into the
   flame, and having burned itself it can scarcely fan itself through the
   air again. But as soon as it has recruited its strength again, mad-like
   it dashes to its death and destruction. Did not the Lord say to thee,
   "Sinner, thou art doing this also, thou lovest the light of sin; oh!
   that thou wert wise enough to tremble at the fire of sin, for he who
   delights in the sparks thereof, must be consumed in the burning!" Did
   not the hand seem to be like the hand of thy Almighty, who would put
   thee away from thine own destruction, and who rebukes and smites thee
   by his providence, as much as to say to thee, "Poor silly man be not
   thine own destruction." And whilst thou seest perhaps with a little
   sorrow the death of the foolish insect, might not that forewarn thee of
   thine awful doom. when, after having been dazzled with the giddy round
   of this world's joys, thou shalt at last plunge into the eternal
   burning and lose thy soul, so madly, for nothing but the enjoyments of
   an hour? Doth not God preach to thee thus?

   And now it is time for thee to retire to thy rest. Thy door is bolted,
   and thou hast fast closed it. Did not that remind thee of that saying,
   "When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut-to the
   door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door saying,
   Lord, Lord, open unto us;' and he shall answer and say unto you, I know
   not whence you are?" in vain shall be your knocking then, when the bars
   of immutable justice shall have fast closed the gates of mercy on
   mankind; when the hand of the Almighty Master shall have shut his
   children within the gates of Paradise, and shall have left the thief
   and the robber in the cold chilly darkness, the outer darkness, where
   there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Did he not
   preach to thee by similitude? Even then, when thy finger was on the
   bolt, might not his finger have been on thy heart?

   And at night time thou wast startled. The watchman in the street awoke
   thee with the cry of the hour of the night, or his tramp along the
   street. O man, if thou hadst ears to hear, thou mightest have heard in
   the steady tramp of the policeman the cry, "Behold, the bridegroom
   cometh; go ye out to meet him." And every sound at midnight that did
   awaken thee from thy slumber and startle thee upon thy bed, might seem
   to forewarn thee of that dread trump of the archangel which shall
   herald the coming of the Son of Man, in the day he shall judge both the
   quick and the dead, according to my gospel. O that ye were wise, that
   ye understood this, for all the day long, from dewy morning till the
   darkness of the eventide, and the thick darkness of midnight, God
   evermore doth preach to man--he preacheth to him by similitudes.

   II. And now we turn the current of our thoughts, and observe that ALL
   THE YEAR round God doth preach to man by similitudes. It was but a
   little while ago that we were sowing our seeds in our garden, and
   scattering the corn over the broad furrows. God had sent the seed time,
   to remind us that we too are like the ground, and that he is scattering
   seed in our hearts each day. And did he not say to us, "Take heed, O
   man, lest thou shouldest be like the highway whereon the seed was
   scattered, the fowls of the air devoured it. Take heed that thou be not
   like the ground that had its basement on a hard and arid rock, lest
   this seed should spring up and by-and-bye should wither away when the
   sun arose, because it had not much depth of earth. And be thou careful,
   O son of man, that thou art not like the ground where the seed did
   spring up, but the thorns sprang up and choked it; but be thou like the
   good ground whereon the seed did fall, and it brought forth fruit, some
   twenty, some fifty, and some a hundred fold."

   We thought, when are were sowing the seed, that we expected one day to
   see it spring up again. Was there not a lesson for us there? Are not
   our actions all of them as seeds? Are not our little words like grains
   of mustard seed? Is not our daily conversation like a handful of the
   corn that we scatter over the soil? And ought we not to remember that
   our words shall live again, that our acts are as immortal as ourselves,
   that after having laid a little while in the dust to be matured, they
   shall certainly arise? The black deeds of sin shall bear a dismal
   harvest of damnation; and the right deeds which God's grace has
   permitted us to do, shall, through his mercy and not through our merit,
   bring forth a bounteous harvest in the day when they who sow in tears
   slowly reap in joy. Doth not seed-time preach to thee, O man, and say,
   "Take heed that thou sowest good seed in thy field."

   And when the seed sprang up, and the season had changed, did God cease
   then to preach? Ah! no. First the blade, then the ear, and then the
   full corn in the ear, had each its homily. And when at last the harvest
   came, how loud the sermon which it preached to us! It said to us, "O
   Israel, I have set a harvest for thee. Whatsoever a man soweth that
   shall he also reap. He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap
   corruption, and he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap
   life everlasting." If you have an opportunity to journey into the
   country during the next three weeks, you will, if your heart is rightly
   attuned, find a marvellous mass of wisdom couched in a cornfield. Why I
   could not attempt for a moment to open the mighty mines of gabled
   treasure which are hidden there. Think, beloved, of the joy of thy
   harvest. How does it tell us of the joy of the redeemed if we, being
   saved, shall at last be carried like shocks of corn fully ripe into the
   garner. Look at the ear of corn when it is fully ripe, and see how it
   bendeth toward the earth! It held its head erect before, but in getting
   ripe how humble does it become! And how does God speak to the sinner
   and tell him, that if he would be fit for the great harvest he must
   drop his head and cry "Lord hare mercy upon me a sinner." And when we
   see the weeds spring up amongst wheat, have we not our Master's parable
   over again of the tares among the wheat; and are we not reminded of the
   great day of division, when he shall say to the reaper, "Gather first
   the tares and bind them in bundles, to burn them; but gather the wheat
   into my barn." O yellow field of corn, thou preaches well to me, for
   thou safest to me, the minister, "Behold, the fields are ripe already
   to the harvest. Work thou thyself; and pray thou the Lord of the
   harvest to send forth more laborers into the harvest." And it preaches
   well to thee, thou man of years, it tells thee that the sickle of death
   is sharp, and that thou must soon fall, but it cheers and comforts
   thee, for it tells thee that the wheat shall be safely housed, and it
   bids thee hope that thou shalt be carried to thy Master's garner to be
   his joy and his delight for ever. Hark, then, to the rustling eloquence
   of the yellow harvest.

   In a very little time, my beloved, you will see the birds congregated
   upon the housetops in great multitudes, and after they have whirled
   round and round and round as if they were taking their last sight of
   Old England, or rehearsing their supplications before they launched
   away, you will see them, with their leader in advance, speed across the
   purple sea to live in sunnier climes, while winter's cold hand shall
   strip their native woods. And doth not God seem to preach to you,
   sinners, when these birds are taking their flight? Do you not remember
   how he himself puts it? "Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her
   appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow,
   observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment
   of the Lord." Doth he not tell us that there is a time of dark winter
   coming upon this world; a time of trouble, such as there has been none
   like it, neither shall be any more; a time, when all the joys of sin
   shall be nipped and frost-bitten, and when the summer of man's estate
   shall be turned into the dark winter of his disappointment? And does he
   not say to you, "Sinner fly away--away--away to the goodly land, where
   Jesus dwells! Away from self and sin! Away from the city of
   destruction! Away from the whirl of pleasures, and from the tossing to
   and fro of trouble! Haste thee, like a bird to its rest! Fly thou
   across the sea of repentance and faith and build thy nest in the land
   of mercy, that when the great day of vengeance shall pass o'er this
   world, thou mayest be safe in the clefts of the rock."

   I remember well, how once God preached to me by a similitude in the
   depth of winter The earth had been black, and there was scarcely a
   green thing or a flower to be seen. As you looked across the field,
   there was nothing but blackness--bare hedges and leafless trees, and
   black, black earth, wherever you looked. On a sudden God spake and
   unlocked the treasures of the snow, and white flakes descended until
   there was no blackness to be seen, and all was one sheet of dazzling
   whiteness. It was at that time that I was seeking the Saviour, and it
   was then I found him; and I remember well that sermon which I say,
   before me: "Come now, and let us reason together; though your sins be
   as scarlet they shall be as snow, though they be red like crimson they
   shall be whiter than wool." Sinner! thy heart is like that black
   ground; thy soul is like that black tree and hedgerow, without leaf or
   blossom. God's grace is like the white snow--it shall fall upon thee
   till thy doubting heart shall glitter in whiteness of pardon, and thy
   poor black soul shall be covered with the spotless purity of the Son of
   God. He seems to say to you, "Sinner, you are black, but I am ready to
   forgive you; I will wrap thy heart in the ermine of my Son's
   righteousness, and with my Son's own garments on, thou shalt be holy as
   the Holy One."

   And the wind of to-day, as it comes howling through the trees,--many of
   which have been swept down,--reminds us of the Spirit of the Lord,
   which, "bloweth where it listeth," and when it pleaseth; and it tells
   us to seek earnestly after that divine and mysterious influence, which
   alone can speed us on our voyage to heaven; which shall cast down the
   trees of our pride, and tear up by the roots the goodly cedars of our
   self confidence; which shall shake our refuges of lies about our ears,
   and make us look to Him who is the only covert from the storm, the only
   shelter when "the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the
   wall."

   Ay, and when the heat is coming down, and we hide ourselves beneath the
   shadow of the tree, an angel standeth there, and whispereth, "Look
   upwards, sinner, as thou hidest thyself from the burning rays of Sol
   beneath the tree; so there is One who is like the apple tree among the
   trees of the wood, and he bids thee come and take shadow beneath his
   branches, for he will screen thee from the eternal vengeance of God,
   and give thee shelter when the fierce heat of God's anger shall beat
   upon the heads of wicked men."

   III. And now again, EVERY PLACE to which you journey, every animal that
   you see, every spot you visit, has a sermon for you. Go into your
   farm-yard, and your ox and your ass shall preach to you. "The ox
   knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not
   know, my people doth not consider." The very dog at your heels may
   rebuke you. He follows his master; a stranger will he not follow, for
   he knows not the voice of a stranger, but ye forsake your God and turn
   aside unto your crooked ways. Look at the chicken by the side of yonder
   pond, and let it rebuke your ingratitude. It drinks, and every sip it
   takes it lifts its head to heaven and thanks the giver of the rain for
   the drink afforded to it; while thou eatest and drinkest, and there is
   no blessing pronounced at thy meals and no thanksgiving bestowed upon
   thy Father for his bounty. The very horse is checked by the bridle, and
   the whip is for the ass; but thy God hath bridled thee by his
   commandments, and he hath chastened by his providence, yet art thou
   more obstinate than the ass or the mule; still thou wilt not run in his
   commandments, but thou turnest aside, wilfully and wickedly following
   out the perversity of thine own heart. Is it not so? Are not these
   things true of you? If you are still without God and without Christ,
   must not these things strike your conscience? Would not any one of them
   lead you to tremble before the Most High, and beg of him that he would
   give you a new heart and a right spirit, and that no longer you might
   be as the beasts of the field, but might be a man full of the Divine
   Spirit, living in obedience to your Creator.

   And in journeying, you have noticed how often the road is rough with
   stones, and you have murmured because of the way over which you have to
   tread; and have you not thought that those stones were helping to make
   the road better, and that the worst piece of road when mended with hard
   stones would in time become smooth and fit to travel on? And did you
   think how often God has mended you; how many stones of affliction he
   has cast upon you; how many waggon-loads of warnings you have had
   spread out upon you, and you have been none the better, but have only
   grown worse, and when he comes to look on you to see whether your life
   has become smooth, whether the highway of your moral conduct has become
   more like the king's highway of righteousness, how might he say, "Alas!
   I have repaired this road, but it is none the better; let it alone
   until it becomes a very bog and quagmire, until he who keeps it thus
   ill shall have perished in it himself."

   And thou hast gone by the sea-side, and has not the sea talked to thee?
   Inconstant as the sea art thou, but thou art not one-half so obedient.
   God keeps the sea, the mountain-waved sea, in check with a belt of
   sand; he spreads the sand along the sea-shore and even the sea observes
   the landmark. "Fear ye not me? saith the Lord: will ye not tremble at
   my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a
   perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof
   toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can
   they not pass over it?" It is so. Let thy conscience prick thee. The
   sea obeys Him from shore to shore, and yet thou wilt not have him to be
   thy God, but thou sayest, "Who is the Lord that I should fear him? Who
   is Jehovah that I should acknowledge his sway?"

   Hear the mountains and the hills, for they have a lesson. Such is God.
   He abideth for ever, think not that he shall change.

   And now, sinner, I entreat thee to open thine eyes as thou goest home
   today and if nothing that I have said shall smite thee, perhaps God
   shall put into thy way something that shall give thee a text, from
   which thou mayest preach to thyself a sermon that never shall be
   forgotten. Oh! if I had but time, and thought, and words, I would bring
   the things that are in heaven above, and in the earth beneath and in
   the waters under the earth, and I would set them all before thee, and
   they should every one give their warning before they had passed from
   thine inspection, and I know that their voice would be, "Consider the
   Lord thy Creator and fear and serve him, for he hath made thee, and
   thou hast not made thyself;" we obey him, and we find it is our beauty
   to be obedient, and our glory ever to move according to his will; and
   thou shalt find it to be the same." Obey him while thou mayest, lest
   haply when this life is over all these things shall rise up against
   thee, and the stone in the street shall clamor for the condemnation,
   and the beam out of the wall shall bear witness against thee, and the
   beasts of the field shall be thine accusers, and the valley and hill
   shall begin to curse thee. O man, the earth is made for thy warning.
   God would have thee he saved. He hath set hand-posts everywhere in
   nature and in providence, pointing thee the way to the City of Refuge,
   and if thou art but wise thou needest not miss thy way; it is but thy
   wilful ignorance and thy neglect that shall cause thee to run on in the
   way of error, for God hath made the way straight before thee and given
   thee every encouragement to run therein.

   IV. And now, lest I should weary you, I will just notice that every man
   in his CALLING has a sermon preached to him.

   The farmer has a thousand sermons; I have brought them out already; let
   him open wide his eye, and he shall see more. He need not go an inch
   without hearing the songs of angels, and the voice of spirits wooing
   him to righteousness, for all nature round about him has a tongue given
   to it, when man hath an ear to hear.

   There are others, however, engaged in a business which allows them to
   see but very little of nature, and yet even there God has provided them
   with a lesson. There is the baker who provides us with our bread. He
   thrusts his fuel into the oven, and he causeth it to glow with heat,
   and puts bread therein. Well may he if he be an ungodly man, tremble as
   he stands at the oven's mouth, for there is a text which he may well
   comprehend as he stands there: "For the day cometh that shall burn as
   an oven, and all the proud and they that do wickedly shall be as
   stubble; they shall be consumed." Men ingather them in bundles and cast
   them into the fire, and they are burned. Out of the oven's mouth comes
   a hot and burning warning, and the man's heart might melt like wax
   within him if he would but regard it.

   Then see the butcher. How doth the beast speak to him? He sees the lamb
   almost lick his knife, and the bullock goes unconsciously to the
   slaughter. How might he think every time that he smites the unconscious
   animal, (who knows nothing of death), of his own. doom. Are we not, all
   of us who are without Christ, fattening for the slaughter? Are we not
   more foolish than the bullock, for doth not the wicked man follow his
   executioner, and walk after his own destroyer into the very chambers of
   hell? When we see a drunkard pursuing his drunkenness, or an unchaste
   man running in the way of licentiousness, is he not as an ox going to
   the slaughter, until a dart smite him through the liver? Hath not God
   sharpened his knife and made ready his axe that the fatlings of this
   earth may he killed, when he shall say to the fowls of the air and the
   beasts of the field, "Behold, I have made a feast of vengeance for you,
   and ye shall feast upon the blood of the slain, and make yourselves
   drunken with the streams thereof?" Ay butcher, there is a lecture for
   you in your trade; and your business may reproach you.

   And ye whose craft is to sit still all day, making shoes far our feet,
   the lapstone in your lap may reproach you, for your heart, perhaps, is
   as hard as that. Have you not been smitten as often as your lapstone,
   and yet your heart has never been broken or melted? And what shall the
   Lord say to you at last, when your stony heart being still within you,
   he shall condemn you and cast you away because you would have none of
   his rebukes and would not turn at the voice of his exhortation?

   Let the brewer remember that as he brews he must drink. Let the potter
   tremble lest he be like a vessel marred upon the wheel. Let the printer
   take heed, that his life be set in heavenly type, and not in the black
   letter of sin. Painter, beware! for paint will not suffice, we must
   have unvarnished realities.

   Others of you are engaged in business where you are continually using
   scales and measures. Might you not often put yourselves into those
   scales? Might you not fancy you saw the great Judge standing by with
   his Gospel in one scale and you in the other, and solemnly looking down
   upon you, saying, "Mene, mene, tekel,--thou art weighed in the balances
   and found wanting." Some of you use the measure, and when you have
   measured out, you cut off the portion that your customer requires.
   Think of your life too, it is to be of a certain length, and every year
   brings the measure a little farther, and at last there come the
   scissors that shall clip off your life, and it is done. How knowest
   thou when thou art come to the last inch? What is that disease thou
   hast about thee, but the first snip of the scissors? What is that
   trembling in thy bones, that failing in thy eyesight, that fleeing of
   thy memory, that departure off thy youthful vigor, but the first rent?
   How soon shalt thou be rent in twain, the remnant of thy days past
   away, and thy years all numbered and gone, misspent and wasted for
   ever!

   But you say you are engaged as a servant and your occupations are
   diverse. Then diverse are the lectures God preaches to you. "A servant
   waits for his wages and the hireling fulfilleth his day." There is a
   similitude for thee, when thou hast fulfilled thy day on earth, and
   shalt take thy wages at last. Who then is thy master? Art thou serving
   Satan and the lusts of the flesh, and wilt thou take out thy wages at
   hast in the hot metal of destruction? or art thou serving the fair
   prince Emmanuel, and shalt thy wages be the golden crowns of heaven?
   Oh! happy art thou if thou servest a good master, for according to thy
   master shall be thy reward; as is thy labor such shall the end be.

   Or thou art one that guideth the pen, and from hour to hour wearily
   thou writest. Ah! man, know that thy life is a writing. When thy hand
   is not on the pen, thou art a writer still; thou art always writing
   upon the pages of eternity; thy sins thou art writing or else thy holy
   confidence in him that loved thee. Happy shall it be for thee, O
   writer, if thy name is written in the Lamb's book of life, and if that
   black writing of thine, in the history of thy pilgrimage below, shall
   have been blotted out with the red blood of Christ, and thou shalt hare
   written upon thee the fair name of Jehovah, to stand legible for ever.

   Or perhaps thou art a physician or a chemist; thou prescribest or
   preparest medicines for man's body. God stands there by the side of thy
   pestle and thy mortar, and by the table where thou writest thy
   prescriptions, and he says to thee, "Man, thou art sick; I can
   prescribe for thee. The blood and righteousness of Christ, laid hold of
   by faith, and applied by the Spirit, can cure thy soul I can compound a
   medicine for thee that shall rid thee of thy sins and bring thee to the
   place where the inhabitants shall no more say, I am sick.' Wilt thou
   take my medicine or wilt thou reject it? Is it bitter to thee, and dost
   thou turn away from it? Come, drink my child, drink, for thy life lieth
   here; and how shalt thou escape if thou neglect so great salvation?" Do
   you cast iron, or melt lead, or fuse the hard metals of the mines? then
   pray that the Lord may melt thine heart and cast thee in the mould of
   the gospel? Do you make garments for men? oh, be careful that you find
   a garment for yourself for ever.

   Are you busy in building all day long, laying the stone upon its fellow
   and the mortar in its crevice? Then remember thou art building for
   eternity too. Oh that thou mayest thyself be built upon a good
   foundation! Oh that thou mayest build thereon, not wood, hay, or
   stubble, but gold, and silver, and precious stones, and things that
   will abide the fire! Take care man lest thou shouldest be God's
   scaffold, lest thou shouldest be used on earth to be a scaffolding for
   building his church, and when his church is built thou shouldest be
   cast down and burned up with fire unquenchable. Take heed that thou art
   built upon a rock, and not upon the sand, and that the vermillion
   cement of the Saviour's precious blood unites thee to the foundation of
   the building, and to every stone thereof.

   Art thou a jeweller, and dost thou cut thy gem and polish the diamond
   from day to day? Would to God thou wouldest take warning from the
   contrast which thou presentest to the stone on which thou dost exercise
   thy craft. Thou cuttest it, and it glitters the more thou dost cut it;
   but though thou hast been cut and ground, though thou hast had cholera
   and fever, and hast been at death's door many a day, thou art none the
   brighter, but the duller, for alas! thou art no diamond. Thou art but
   the pebble-stone of the brook, and in the day when God makes up his
   jewels he shall not enclose thee in the casket of his treasures; for
   thou art not one of the precious sons of Zion, comparable unto fine
   gold. But be thy situation what it may, be thy calling what it may,
   there is a continual sermon preached to thy conscience. I could that
   thou wouldest now from this time forth open both eye and ear, and see
   and hear the things that God would teach thee.

   And now, dropping the similitude while the clock shall tick but a few
   times more, let us put the matter thus--Sinner, thou art as yet without
   God and without Christ; thou art liable to death every hour. Thou canst
   not tell but that thou mayest be in the flames of hell before the clock
   shall strike ONE to-day. Thou art to-day "condemned already," because
   thou believest not in the Son of God. And Jesus Christ saith to thee
   this day, "Oh, that thou wouldest consider thy latter end!" He cries to
   thee this morning, "How often would I have gathered thee as a hen
   gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not." I entreat
   you, consider your ways. If it be worth while to make your bed in hell
   do it. If the pleasures of this world are worth being damned to all
   eternity for enjoying them, if heaven be a cheat and hell a delusion,
   go on in your sins. But, if there be hell for sinners and heaven for
   repenting ones, and if thou must dwell a whole eternity in one place or
   the other, without similitude, I put a plain question to thee--Art thou
   wise in living as thou dost, without thought,--careless, and godless?
   Wouldest thou ask now the way of salvation? It is simply this--"Believe
   on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." He died; he rose
   again; thou art to believe him to be thine. Thou art to believe that he
   is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by him. But,
   more than that, believing that to be a fact, thou art to cast thy soul
   upon that fact and trust to him, sink or swim. Spirit of God! help us
   each to do this and by similitude, or by providence, or by thy
   prophets, bring us each to thyself and save us eternally, and unto thee
   shall be the glory.
     __________________________________________________________________

                    Sovereign Grace and Man's Responsibility

   A Sermon

   (No. 207)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, August 1, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me
   not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. But to
   Israel he saith, all day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a
   disobedient and gainsaying people."--Romans 10:20-21.

   DOUBTLESS THESE WORDS primarily refer to the casting away of the Jews,
   and to the choosing of the Gentiles. The Gentiles were a people who
   sought not after God, but lived in idolatry; nevertheless, Jehovah was
   pleased in these latter times to send the gospel of his grace to them:
   while the Jews who had long enjoyed the privileges of the Word of God,
   on account of their disobedience and rebellion were cast away. I
   believe, however, that while this is the primary object of the words of
   our text, yet, as Calvin says, the truth taught in the text is a type
   of a universal fact. As God did choose the people who knew him not, so
   hath he chosen, in the abundance of his grace, to manifest his
   salvation to men who are out of the way; while, on the other hand, the
   men who are lost, after having heard the Word, are lost because of
   their wilful sin; for God doth all the day long "stretch forth his
   hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people."

   The system of truth is not one straight line, but two. No man will ever
   get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look at the two
   lines at once. I am taught in one book to believe that what I sow I
   shall reap: I am taught in another place, that "it is not of him that
   willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." I see
   in one place, God presiding over all in providence; and yet I see, and
   I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has
   left his actions to his own will, in a great measure. Now, if I were to
   declare that man was so free to act, that there was no presidence of
   God over his actions, I should be driven very near to Atheism; and if,
   on the other hand, I declare that God so overrules all things, as that
   man is not free enough to be responsible, I am driven at once into
   Antinomianism or fatalism. That God predestines, and that man is
   responsible, are two things that few can see. They are believed to be
   inconsistent and contradictory; but they are not. It is just the fault
   of our weak judgment. Two truths cannot be contradictory to each other.
   If, then, I find taught in one place that everything is fore-ordained,
   that is true; and if I find in another place that man is responsible
   for all his actions, that is true; and it is my folly that leads me to
   imagine that two truths can ever contradict each other. These two
   truths, I do not believe, can ever be welded into one upon any human
   anvil, but one they shall be in eternity: they are two lines that are
   so nearly parallel, that the mind that shall pursue them farthest, will
   never discover that they converge; but they do converge, and they will
   meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all
   truth doth spring.

   Now, this morning I am about to consider the two doctrines. In the 20th
   verse, we have taught us the doctrines of sovereign grace--"But Esaias
   is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was
   made manifest unto them that asked not after me." In the next verse, we
   have the doctrine of man's guilt in rejecting God. "To Israel he saith,
   all day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and
   gainsaying people."

   I. First, then, DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY AS EXEMPLIFIED IN SALVATION. If any
   man be saved, he is saved by Divine grace, and by Divine grace alone;
   and the reason of his salvation is not to be found in him, but in God.
   We are not saved as the result of anything that we do or that we will;
   but we will and do as the result of God's good pleasure, and the work
   of his grace in our hearts. No sinner can prevent God; that is, he
   cannot go before him, cannot anticipate him; God is always first in the
   matter of salvation. He is before our convictions, before our desires,
   before our fears, before our hopes. All that is good or ever will be
   good in us, is preceded by the grace of God, and is the effect of a
   Divine cause within.

   Now in speaking of God's gracious acts of salvation, this morning, I
   notice first, that they are entirely unmerited. You will see that the
   people here mentioned certainly did not merit God's grace. They found
   him, but they never sought for him; he was made manifest to them, but
   they never asked for him. There never was a man saved yet who merited
   it. Ask all the saints of God, and they will tell you that their former
   life was spent in the lusts of the flesh; that in the days of their
   ignorance, they revolted against God and turned back from his ways,
   that when they were invited to come to him they despised the
   invitation, and, when warned, cast the warning behind their back. They
   will tell you that their being drawn by God, was not the result of any
   merit before conversion; for some of them, so far from having any
   merit, were the very vilest of the vile: they plunged into the very
   kennel of sin; they were not ashamed of all the things of which it
   would be a shame for us to speak; they were ringleaders in crime, very
   princes in the ranks of the enemy; and yet sovereign grace came to
   them, and they were brought to know the Lord. They will tell you that
   it was not the result of anything good in their disposition, for
   although they trust that there is now something excellent implanted in
   them, yet in the days of their flesh they could see no one quality
   which was not perverted to the service of Satan. Ask them whether they
   think they were chosen of God because of their courage; they will tell
   you, no; if they had courage it was defaced, for they were courageous
   to do evil. Question them whether they were chosen of God because of
   their talent; they will tell you, no; they had that talent, but they
   prostituted it to the service of Satan. Question them whether they were
   chosen because of the openness and generosity of their disposition;
   they will tell you that that very openness of temper, and that very
   generosity of disposition, led them to plunge deeper into the depths of
   sin, than they otherwise would have done, for they were "hail fellow,
   well met," with every evil man, and ready to drink and join every
   jovial party which should come in their way. There was in them no
   reason whatever why God should have mercy upon them, and the wonder to
   them is that he did not cut them down in the midst of their sins, blot
   out their names from the book of life, and sweep them into the gulf
   where the fire burneth. that shall devour the wicked. But some have
   said that God chooses his people because he foresees that after he
   chooses them, they will do this, that, and the other, which shall be
   meritorious and excellent. Refer again to the people of God, and they
   will tell you that since their conversion they have had much to weep
   over. Although they can rejoice that God has begun the good work in
   them, they often tremble lest it should not be God's work at all. They
   will tell you that if they are abundant in faith yet there are times
   when they are superabundant in unbelief; that if sometimes they are
   full of works of holiness, yet there are times when they weep many
   tears to think that those very acts of holiness were stained with sin.
   The Christian will tell you that he weeps over his very tears; he feels
   that there is filth even in the best of desires; that he has to pray to
   God to forgive his prayers, for there is sin in the midst of his
   supplications, and that he has to sprinkle even his best offerings with
   the atoning blood, for he never else can bring an offering without spot
   or blemish. You shall appeal to the brightest saint, to the man whose
   presence in the midst of society is like the presence of an angel, and
   he will tell you that he is still ashamed of himself. "Ah!" he will
   say, "you may praise me, but I cannot praise myself, you speak well of
   me, you applaud me, but if you knew my heart you would see abundant
   reason to think of me as a poor sinner saved by grace, who hath nothing
   whereof to glory, and must bow his head and confess his iniquities in
   the sight of God." Grace, then is entirely unmerited.

   Again, the grace of God is sovereign. By that word we mean that God has
   an absolute right to give that grace where he chooses, and to withhold
   it when he pleases. He is not bound to give it to any man, much less to
   all men; and if he chooses to give it to one man and not to another,
   his answer is, "Is thine eye evil because mine eye is good? Can I not
   do as I will with mine own? I will have mercy on whom I will have
   mercy." Now, I want you to notice the sovereignty of Divine grace as
   illustrated in the text: "I was found of them that sought me not, I was
   made manifest to them that asked not after thee." You would imagine
   that if God gave his grace to any he would wait until he found them
   earnestly seeking him. You would imagine that God in the highest
   heavens would say, "I have mercies, but I will leave men alone, and
   when they feel their need of these mercies and seek me diligently with
   their whole heart, day and night, with tears, and vows, and
   supplications, then will I bless them, but not before." But, beloved,
   God saith no such thing. It is true he doth bless them that cry unto
   him, but he blesses them before they cry, for their cries are not their
   own cries, but cries which he has put into their lips; their desires
   are not of their own growth, but desires which he has cast like good
   seed into the soil of their hearts. God saves the men that do not seek
   him. Oh, wonder of wonders! It is mercy indeed when God saves a seeker;
   but how much greater mercy when he seeks the lost himself! Mark the
   parable of Jesus Christ concerning the lost sheep; it does not run
   thus: "A certain man had a hundred sheep, and one of them did go
   astray. And he tarried at home, and lo, the sheep came back, and he
   received it joyfully and said to his friends, rejoice, for the sheep
   that I have lost is come back." No; he went after the sheep: it never
   would have come after him; it would have wandered farther and farther
   away. He went after it; over hills of difficulty, down valleys of
   despondency he pursued its wandering feet, and at last he laid hold of
   it; he did not drive it before him, he did not lead it, but he carried
   it himself all the way, and when he brought it home he did not say, the
   sheep is come back," but, "I have found the sheep which was lost." Men
   do not seek God first; God seeks them first; and if any of you are
   seeking him to-day it is because he has first sought you. If you are
   desiring him he desired you first, and your good desires and earnest
   seeking will not be the cause of your salvation, but the effects of
   previous grace given to you. "Well," says another, "I should have
   thought that although the Saviour might not require an earnest seeking
   and sighing and groaning, and a continuous searching, after him, yet
   certainly he would have desired and demanded that every man, before he
   had grace, should ask for it." That, indeed, beloved, seems natural,
   and God will give grace to them that ask for it; but mark, the text
   says that he was manifested "to them that asked not for him." That is
   to say, before we ask, God gives us grace. The only reason why any man
   ever begins to pray is because God has put previous grace in his heart
   which leads him to pray. I remember, when I was converted to God, I was
   an Arminian thoroughly. I thought I had begun the good work myself, and
   I used sometimes to sit down and think, "Well, I sought the Lord four
   years before I found him," and I think I began to compliment myself
   upon the fact that I had perseveringly entreated of him in the midst of
   much discouragement. But one day the thought struck me, "How was it you
   came to seek God?" and in an instant the answer came from my soul,
   "Why, because he led me to do it; he must first have shown me my need
   of him, or else I should never have sought him; he must have shown me
   his preciousness, or I never should have thought him worth seeking;"
   and at once I saw the doctrines of grace as clear as possible. God must
   begin. Nature can never rise above itself. You put water into a
   reservoir, and it will rise as high as that, but no higher if let
   alone. Now, it is not in human nature to seek the Lord. Human nature is
   depraved, and therefore, there must be the extraordinary pressure of
   the Holy Spirit put upon the heart to lead us first to ask for mercy.
   But mark, we do not know an thing about that, while the Spirit is
   operating; we find that out afterwards. We ask as much as if we were
   asking all of ourselves. Our business is to seek the Lord as if there
   were no Holy Spirit at all. But although we do not know it, there must
   always be a previous motion of the Spirit in our heart, before there
   will be a motion of our heart towards him.

   "No sinner can be beforehand with thee,

   Thy grace is most sovereign, most rich, and most free."

   Let me give you an illustration. You see that man on his horse
   surrounded by a body of troopers. How proud he is, and how he reins up
   his horse with conscious dignity. Sir, what have you got there? What
   are those despatches you treasure up with so much care? "Oh, sir, I
   have that in my hand that will vex the church of God in Damascus. I
   have dragged the fellows into the synagogue, both men and women; I have
   scourged them, and compelled them to blaspheme; and I have this
   commission from the high priest to drag them to Jerusalem, that I may
   put them to death." Saul! Saul! have you no love for Christ? "Love to
   him! No. When they stoned Stephen, I took care of the witnesses'
   clothes, and I rejoiced to do it. I wish I had had the crucifying of
   their Master, for I hate them with perfect hatred, and I breathe out
   threatenings and slaughter against them." What do you say of this man?
   If he be saved, will you not grant that it must be some Divine
   sovereignty that converts him? Look at poor Pilate, how much there was
   that was hopeful in him. He was willing to save the Master, but he
   feared and trembled. If we had had our choice, we should have said,
   "Lord, save Pilate, he does not want to kill Christ, he labours to let
   him escape; but slay the bloodthirsty Saul, he is, the very chief of
   sinners." "No," says God, "I will do as I will with mine own." The
   heavens open, and the brightness of glory descends--brighter than the
   noon-day sun. Stunned with the light he falls to the ground, and a
   voice is heard addressing him, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it
   is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." He rises up; God appears
   to him: "Lo, I have made thee a chosen vessel to bear my name among the
   Gentiles." Is not that sovereignty--sovereign grace, without any
   previous seeking? God was found of him that sought not for him; he
   manifested himself to one that asked him not. Some will say, that was
   it miracle; but it is one that is repeated every day in the week. I
   knew a man once, who had not been to the house of God for a long time;
   and one Sunday morning, having been to market to buy a pair of ducks
   for his Sunday dinner, he happened to see a house of God opened as he
   was passing by. "Well," he thought, "I will hear what these fellows are
   up to." He went inside; the hymn that was being sung struck his
   attention; he listened to the sermon, forgot his ducks, discovered his
   own character, went home, and threw himself upon his knees before God,
   and after a short time it pleased God to give him joy and peace in
   believing. That man had nothing in him to begin with, nothing that
   could have led you to imagine he ever would be saved, but simply
   because God would have it so, he struck the effectual blow of grace,
   and the man was brought to himself. But we are, each of us who are
   saved, the very people who are the best illustrations of the matter. To
   this day, my wonder is, that ever the Lord should have chosen thee. I
   cannot make it out; and my only answer to the question is, "Even so,
   Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."

   I have now, I think, stated the doctrine pretty plainly. Let me only
   say a few words about it. Some people are very much afraid of this
   truth. They say, "It is true, I dare say, but still you ought not to
   preach it before a mixed assembly; it is very well for the comfort of
   God's people, but it is to be very carefully handled, and not to be
   publicly preached upon." Very well, sir, I leave you to settle that
   matter with my Master. He gave me this great book to preach from, and I
   cannot preach from anything else. If he has put anything in it you
   think is not fit, go and complain to him, and not to me. I am simply
   his servant, and if his errand that I am to tell is objectionable, I
   cannot help it. If I send my servant to the door with a message, and he
   delivers it faithfully, he does not deserve to be scolded. Let me have
   the blame, not the servant. So I say; blame my Master, and not me, for
   I do but proclaim his message. "No," says one, "it is not to be
   preached." But it is to be preached. Every word of God is given by
   inspiration, and it is profitable for some good end. Does not the Bible
   say so? Let me tell you, the reason why many of our churches are
   declining is just because this doctrine has not been preached. Wherever
   this doctrine has been upheld. it has always been "Down with Popery."
   The first reformers held this doctrine and preached it. Well said it
   Church of England divine to some who railed at him, "Look at your own
   Luther. Do you not consider him to be the teacher of the Church of
   England? What Calvin and the other reformers taught is to be found in
   his book upon the freedom of the will." Besides, we can point you to a
   string of ministers from the beginning even until now. Talk of
   apostolic succession! The man who preaches the doctrines of grace has
   an apostolic succession indeed. Can we not trace our pedigree through a
   whole line of men like Newton, and Whitfield, and Owen, and Bunyan,
   straight away on till we come to Calvin, Luther, and Zwingle; and then
   we can go back from them to Savonarola, to Jerome of Prague, to Huss,
   and then back to Augustine, the mighty preacher of Christianity; and
   from St. Augustine to Paul is but one step. We need not be ashamed of
   our pedigree; although Calvinists are now considered to be heterodox,
   we are and ever must be orthodox. It is the old doctrine. Go and buy
   any puritanical book, and see if you can find Arminianism in it. Search
   all the book stalls over, and see if you can find one large folio book
   of olden times that anything in it but the doctrine of the free grace
   of God. Let this once be brought to bear upon the minds of men, and
   away go the doctrines of penance and confession, away goes paying for
   the pardon of your sin. If grace be free and sovereign in the hand of
   God, down goes the doctrine of priestcraft, away go buying and selling
   indulgences and such like things; they are swept to the four winds of
   heaven, and the efficacy of good works is dashed in pieces like Dagon
   before the ark of the Lord. "Well," says one, "I like the doctrine;
   still there are very few that preach it, and those that do are very
   high." Very likely; but I care little what anybody calls me. It
   signifies very little what men call you. Suppose they call you a
   "hyper," that does not make you anything wicked, does it? Suppose they
   call you an Antinomian, that will not make you one. I must confess,
   however, that there are some men who preach this doctrine who are doing
   ten thousand times more harm than good, because they don't preach the
   next doctrine I am going to proclaim, which is just as true. They have
   this to be the sail. but they have not the other to be the ballast.
   They can preach one side but not the other. They can go along with the
   high doctrine, but they will not preach the whole of the Word. Such men
   caricature the Word of God. And just let me say here, that it is the
   custom of a certain body of Ultra-Calvinists, to call those of us who
   teach that it is the duty of man to repent and believe, "Mongrel
   Calvinists." If you hear any of them say so, give them my most
   respectful compliments, and ask them whether they ever read Calvin's
   works in their lives. Not that I care what Calvin said or did not say;
   but ask them whether they, ever read his works; and if they say "No,"
   as they must say, for there are forty-eight large voluines, you can
   tell them, that the man whom they call "a Mongrel Calvinist," though he
   has not read them all, has read a very good share of them, and knows
   their spirit; and he knows that he preaches substantially what Calvin
   preached--that every doctrine he preaches may be found in Calvin's
   Commentaries on some part of Scripture or other. We are TRUE
   Calvinists, however. Calvin is nobody to us. Jesus Christ and him
   crucified, and the old fashioned Bible, are our standards. Beloved, let
   us take God's Word as it stands. If we find high doctrine there, let it
   be high; if we find low doctrine, let it be low; let us set up no other
   standard than the Bible affords.

   II. Now then for the second point. "There now," says my ultra friend,
   "he is going to contradict himself." No, my friend, I am not, I am only
   going to contradict you. The second point is MAN'S RESPONSIBILITY. "But
   to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a
   disobedient and gainsaying people." Now, these people whom God had cast
   away had been wooed, had been sought, had been entreated to be saved;
   but they would not, and inasmuch as they were not saved, it was the
   effect of their disobedience and their gainsaying. That lies clearly
   enough in the text. When God sent the prophets to Israel, and stretched
   forth his hands, what was it for? What did he wish, thein to come to
   him for? Why, to be saved. "No," says one, "it was for temporal
   mercies." Not so, my friend; the verse before is concerning spiritual
   mercies, and so is this one, for they refer to the same thing. Now, was
   God sincere in his offer? God forgive the man that dares to say he was
   not. God is undoubtedly sincere in every act he did. He sent his
   prophets, he entreated the people of Israel to lay hold on spiritual
   things, but they would not, and though he stretched out his hands all
   the day long, yet they were "a disobedient and gainsaying people," and
   would not have his love; and on their head rests their blood.

   Now let me notice the wooing of God and of what sort it is. First, it
   was the most affectionate wooing in the world. Lost sinners who sit
   under the sound of the gospel are not lost for the want of the most
   affectionate invitation. God says he stretched out his hands. You know
   what that means. You have seen the child who is disobedient and will
   not come to his father. The father puts out his hands, and says, "Come,
   my child, come; I am ready to forgive you." The tear is in his eye, and
   his bowels move with compassion, and he says, "Come, come." God says
   this is what he did--"he stretched out his hands." That is what he has
   done to some of you. You that are not saved to-day are without excuse,
   for God stretched out his hands to you, and he said, "Come, come." Long
   have you sat beneath the sound of the ministry, and it has been a
   faithful one, I trust, and a weeping one. Your minister has not
   forgotten to pray for your souls in secret or to weep over you when no
   eye saw him, and he has endeavoured to persuade you as an ambassador
   from God. God is my witness, I have sometimes stood in this pulpit, and
   I could not have pleaded harder for my own life than I have pleaded
   with you. In Christ's name, I have cried, "Come unto me all ye that
   labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I have wept over
   you as the Saviour did, and used his words on his behalf, "O Jerusalem,
   Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together as a
   hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not." And you
   know that your conscience has often been touched; you have often been
   moved; you could not resist it. God was so kind to you; he invited you
   so affectionately by the Word; he dealt so gently with you by his
   providence; his hands were stretched out, and you could hear his voice
   speaking in your ears, "Come unto me, come: come now, let us reason
   together; though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as wool; though
   they be red like crimson they shall be whiter than snow." You have
   heard him cry, "Ho every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters."
   You have heard him say with all the affection of a father's heart, "Let
   the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and
   let him turn unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and unto
   our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Oh! God does plead with men
   that they would be saved, and this day he says to every one of you,
   "Repent, and be converted for the remission of your sins. Turn ye unto
   me. Thus saith the Lord of hosts; consider your ways." And with love
   divine he woos you as a father woos his child, putting out his hands
   and crying, "Come unto me, come unto me." "No," says one
   strong-doctrine man, "God never invites all men to himself; he invites
   none but certain characters." Stop, sir, that is all you know about it.
   Did you ever read that parable where it is said, My oxen and my
   fatlings are killed, and all things are ready; come unto the marriage."
   And they that were bidden would not come. And did you never read that
   they all began to make excuse, and that they were punished because they
   did not accept the invitations. Now, if the invitation is not to be
   made to anybody, but to the man who will accept it, how can that
   parable be true? The fact is, the oxen and fatlings are killed; the
   wedding feast is ready, and the trumpet sounds, "Ho every one that
   thirsteth, come and eat, come and drink." Here are the provisions
   spread, here is an all-sufficiency; the invitation is free; it is a
   great invitation. "Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water
   of life freely." And that invitation is couched in tender words, "Come
   to me, my child, come to me." "All day long I have stretched forth my
   hands."

   And note again, this invitation was very frequent. The words, "all the
   day long," may be translated "daily"--"Daily have I stretched forth my
   hands." Sinner, God has not called you once to come, and then let you
   alone, but every day has he been at you; every day has conscience
   spoken to you; every day has providence warned you, and every Sabbath
   has the Word of God wooed you. Oh! how much some of you will have to
   account for at God's great bar! I cannot now read your characters, but
   I know there are some of you who will have a terrible account at last.
   All the day long has God been wooing you. From the first dawn of your
   life, he wooed you through your mother, and she used to put your little
   hands together, and teach you to say,

   "Gentle Jesus meek and mild,

   Look upon a little child,

   Pity my simplicity;

   Suffer me to come to thee."

   And in your boyhood God was still stretching out his hands after you.
   How your Sunday-school teacher endeavoured to bring you to the Saviour!
   How often your youthful heart was affected; but you put all that away,
   and you are still untouched by it. How often did your mother speak to
   you, and your father warn you; and you have forgotten the prayer in
   that bed-room when you were sick, when your mother kissed your burning
   forehead, knelt down and prayed to God to spare your life, and then
   added that prayer, "Lord, save my boy's soul!" And you recollect the
   Bible she gave you, when you first went out apprentice, and the prayer
   she wrote on that yellow front leaf. When she gave it, you did not
   perhaps know, but you may now; how earnestly she longed after you, that
   you might be formed anew in Christ Jesus; how she followed you with her
   prayers, and how she entreated with her God for you. And you have not
   yet surely forgotten how many Sabbaths you have spent, and how many
   times you have been warned. Why you have had waggon-loads of sermons
   wasted on you. A hundred and four sermons you have heard every year,
   and some of you more, and yet you are still just what you were.

   But sinners, sermon hearing is an awful thing unless it is blessed to
   our souls. If God has kept on stretching out his hands every day and
   all the day, it will be a hard thing for you when you shall be justly
   condemned not only for your breaches of the law, but for your wilful
   rejection of the gospel. It is probable that God will keep on
   stretching out his hands to you until your hairs grow grey, still
   continually inviting you: and perhaps when you are nearing death he
   will still say, "Come unto me, come unto me." But if you still persist
   in hardening your heart, if still you reject Christ, I beseech you let
   nothing make you imagine that you shall go unpunished. Oh! I do tremble
   sometimes when I think of that class of ministers who tell sinners that
   they are not guilty if they do not seek the Saviour. How they shall be
   found innocent at God's great day I do not know. It seems to be a
   fearful thing that they should be lulling poor souls into sleep by
   telling them it is not their duty to seek Christ and repent, but that
   they may do as they like about that, and that when they perish they
   will be none the more guilty for having heard the Word. My Master did
   not say that. Remember how he said, "And thou, Capernaum, which art
   exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty
   works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would
   have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more
   tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee."
   Jesus did not talk thus when he spoke to Chorazin and Bethsaida; for he
   said, "Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the
   mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
   they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say
   unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of
   judgment, than for you." It was not the way Paul preached. He did not
   tell sinners that there was no guilt in despising the cross. Hear the
   apostle's words once more: "For if the word spoken by angels was
   stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just
   recompence of reward, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great
   salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was
   confirmed unto us by them that heard him." Sinner, at the great day of
   God thou must give an account for every warning thou hast ever had, for
   every time thou hast read thy Bible, ay, and for every time thou hast
   neglected to read it; for every Sunday when the house of God was open
   and thou didst neglect to avail thyself of the opportunity of hearing
   the Word, and for every time thou didst hear it and didst not improve
   it. Ye who are careless hearers, are tying faggots for your own burning
   for ever. Ye that hear and straightway forget, or hear with levity, are
   digging for yourselves a pit into which ye must be cast. Remember, no
   one will be responsible for your damnation but yourself, at the last
   great day. God will not be responsible for it. "As I live saith the
   Lord"--and that is a great oath--"I have no pleasure in the death of
   him that dieth. but had rather that he should turn unto me and live."
   God has done much for you. He sent you his Gospel. You are not born in
   a heathen land; he has given you the Book of Books; he has given you an
   enlightened conscience; and if you perish under the sound of the
   ministry, you perish more fearfully and terribly, than if you had
   perished anywhere else.

   This doctrine is as much God's Word as the other. You ask me to
   reconcile the two. I answer, they do not want any reconcilement; I
   never tried to reconcile them to myself, because I could never see a
   discrepancy. If you begin to put fifty or sixty quibbles to me, I
   cannot give any answer. Both are true; no two truths can be
   inconsistent with each other; and what you have to do is to believe
   them both. With the first one, the saint has most to do. Let him praise
   the free and sovereign grace of God, and bless his name. With the
   second, the sinner has the most to do. O sinner, humble thyself under
   the mighty hand of God, when thou thinkest of how often he hath shown
   his love to thee, by bidding thee come to himself, and yet how often
   thou hast spurned his Word and refused his mercy, and turned a deaf ear
   to every invitation, and hast gone thy way to rebel against a God of
   love, and violate the commands of him that loved thee.

   And now, how shall I conclude? My first exhortation shall be to
   Christian people. My dear friends, I beseech you do not in any way give
   yourselves lip to any system of faith apart from the Word of God. The
   Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants; I am the
   successor of the great and venerated Dr. Gill, whose theology is almost
   universally received among the stronger Calvinistic churches; but
   although I venerate his memory, and believe his teachings, yet he is
   not my Rabbi. What you find in God's Word is for you to believe and to
   receive. Never be frightened at a doctrine; and above all, never be
   frightened at a name. Some one said to me the other day, that he
   thought the truth lay somewhere between the two extremes. He meant
   right, but I think he was wrong, I do not think the truth lies between
   the two extremes, but in them both. I believe the higher a man goes the
   better, when he is preaching the matter of salvation. The reason why a
   man is saved is grace, grace, grace; and you may go as high as you like
   there. But when you come to the question as to why men are damned, then
   the Arminian is far more right than the Antinomian. I care not for any
   denomination or party, I am as high as Huntingdon upon the matter of
   salvation, but question me about damnation, and you will get a very
   different answer. By the grace of God I ask no man's applause, I preach
   the Bible as I find it. Where we get wrong is where the Calvinist
   begins to meddle with the question of damnation, and interferes with
   the justice of God; or when the Arminian denies the doctrine of grace.

   My second exhortation is,--Sinners, I beseech every one of you who are
   unconverted and ungodly, this morning to put away every form and
   fashion of excuse that the devil would have you make concerning your
   being unconverted. Remember, that all the teaching in the world can
   never excuse you for being enemies to God by wicked works. When we
   beseech you to be reconciled to him, it is because we know you will
   never be in your proper place until you are reconciled. God has made
   you; can it be right that you should disobey him? God feeds you every
   day: can it be right that you should still live in disobedience to him?
   Remember, when the heavens shall be on a blaze, when Christ shall come
   to judge the earth in righteousness and his people with equity, there
   will not be one excuse that you can make which will be valid at the
   last great day. If you should attempt to say, "Lord, I have never heard
   the word;" his answer would be, "Thou didst hear it; thou heardest it
   plainly." "But Lord, I had an evil will." "Out of thine own mouth will
   I condemn thee; thou hadst that evil will, and I condemn thee for it.
   This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men
   love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." "But
   Lord," some will say, "I was not predestinated." "What hadst thou to do
   with that? Thou didst; do according to thine own will when thou didst
   rebel. Thou wouldest not come unto me, and now I destroy thee for ever.
   Thou hast broken my law--on thine own head be the guilt." If a sinner
   could say at the great day, "Lord, I could not be saved anyhow his
   torment in hell would be mitigated by that thought: but this shall be
   the very edge of the sword, and the very burning of the fire"--Ye knew
   your duty and ye did it not: ye trampled on everything that was holy;
   ye neglected the Saviour, and how shall ye escape if ye neglect so
   great salvation?"

   Now, with regard to myself; you may some of you go away and say, that I
   was Antinomian in the first part of the sermon and Arminian at the end.
   I care not. I beg of you to search the Bible for yourselves. To the law
   and to the testimony; if I speak not according to this Word, it is
   because there is no light in me. I am willing to come to that test.
   Have nothing to do with me where I have nothing to do with Christ.
   Where I separate from the truth, cast my words away. But if what I say
   be God's teaching, I charge you, by him that sent me, give these things
   your thoughts, and turn unto the Lord with all your hearts.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                Righteous Hatred

   A Sermon

   (No. 208)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, August 8, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "Ye that love the Lord, hate evil."--Psalm 97:10.

   THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION is a golden chain with which the hands of men
   are fettered from all hatred. The spirit of Christ is love. Wherever he
   governs, love reigns as a necessary consequence. The Christian man is
   not allowed to hate any one. Ye have heard that it hath been said by
   them of old time, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy; but
   I say unto you," said Jesus, "Love your enemies; do good to them that
   hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you." The word "hate"
   must be cut out of the language of a Christian, except it be used with
   one meaning and intention only, and that, the meaning of my text. Thou
   hast no right, O Christian, to tolerate within thy bosom wrath, malice,
   anger, harshness, or uncharitableness, towards any creature that God's
   hands have made. When thou hatest the man's sins, thou art not to hate
   him, but to love the sinner, even as Christ loved sinners and came to
   seek and save them. When thou hatest a man's false doctrine, thou art
   still to love the man, and hate his doctrine even out of love to his
   soul, with an earnest desire that he may be reclaimed from his error,
   and brought into the way of truth. Thou hast no right to excrete thy
   hatred upon any creature, however fallen or debased, however much he
   may irritate thy temper, or injure thee in thy estate or reputation.
   Still hatred is a power of manhood, and we believe that all powers of
   manhood are to be exercised, and may every one of them be exercised as
   in the fear of God. It is possible to be angry, and yet sin not, and it
   is possible to hate, and yet not be guilty of sin, but be positively
   performing a duty. Christian man, thou mayest have hatred in thy heart,
   if thou wilt only allow it to run in one stream, then it shall not do
   mischief, but it shall even do good--"Ye that love the Lord, hate
   evil." As much as the revengeful man hates his enemy, so much hate thou
   evil. As much as contending despots in battle hate one another, end
   only seek an opportunity to meet each other face to face, so hate thou
   evil. As much as hell hateth heaven, and as much as heaven hateth hell,
   so much mayest thou hate evil. The whole of that passion which, when
   let loose in a wrong track, becomes as a fierce lion on its prey, thou
   mayest keep in leash, (like a noble lion, only destitute of ferocity)
   against any whom it should not hurt, and thou mayest let it slip
   against the enemies of the Lord thy God and do great exploits thereby.
   Tell me of a man who is never angry, that man has not any true zeal for
   God. We must sometimes be angry against sin. When we see evil, though
   not vindictive against the persons who commit it, yet angry against the
   evil we must be; we must hate wickedness always. Doth not David say, "I
   hate them with a perfect hatred yea, I count them mine enemies." We are
   to love our enemies, but we are to hate God's enemies. We are to love
   sinners, but we are to hate sin. As much as it is in the power of man
   to hate, so much are we to hate evil in every form and fashion.

   The duty here enjoined is a general one to all God's people. We are to
   hate all evi--not some evils. It was said, you know, long ago, of
   certain professors, that they did

   "Compound for sins they were inclined to

   By damning those they had no mind to."

   And there are some, I dare say, at this day, who think others extremely
   guilty for committing iniquities which they do not care to commit, but
   they themselves commit other sins with which they deal very gently. O
   Christian, never take hold of sin, except with a gauntlet on thy hand;
   never go to it with the kid-glove of friendship, never talk delicately
   of it; but always hate it in every shape. If it come to thee as a
   little fox, take heed of it, for it will spoil the grapes; if it come
   to thee as a warring lion, seeking whom it may devour; or if it come
   with the hug of a bear, seeking by a pretended affection to entice thee
   into sin, smite it, for its hug is death, and its clasp destruction.
   Sin of every kind thou art to war with--of lip, of hand, of heart. Sin,
   however gilded over with profit, however varnished with the seemliness
   of morality, however much it may be complimented by the great, or
   however popular it may be with the multitude, thou art to hate it
   everywhere, in all its disguises, every day in the week, and in every
   place. War to the knife with sin! We are to draw the sword, and throw
   away the scabbard. With all thy hosts, O hell, with every brat of thy
   offspring, O Satan, we are to be at enmity. Not one sin are we to
   spare, but against the whole are we to proclaim an utter and entire war
   of extermination.

   In endeavoring to address you upon this subject, I shall first of all
   begin with it at home: Christian man, hate all evil in thyself. And
   then, secondly, we will let it go abroad: Christian man, hate all evil
   in other people, wherever thou seest it.

   I. First, then, CHRISTIAN MAN HATE ALL EVIL IN THYSELF. I will strive
   now to excite thy hate against it, and then I will try to urge thee and
   assist thee to destroy it.

   Thou hast good reason to hate all evil; greater reason than ever the
   most injured man could bring forward for the hatred of his enemies.
   Consider what evil has already done thee. Oh! what a world of mischief
   sin has brought into thy heart! Sin stopped up your eyes, so that you
   could not see the beauty of the Saviour; it thrust its finger into your
   ears, so that you could not hear the sweet invitations of Jesus: sin
   turned your feet into the way of evil, and filled your hands with
   filthiness. nay, worse than that sin poured poison into the very
   fountain of your being; it tainted your heart and made it "deceitful
   above all things and desperately wicked." Oh! what a creature thou wast
   when sin had done its utmost with thee before Divine grace began to
   mend thee! Thou wast an heir of wrath even as others; thou didst "run
   with the multitude to do evil;" thy mouth was an "open sepulcher." thou
   didst flatter with thy tongue, and there is nought that can be said of
   thy fellow-creature living in sin, that could not be said of thee. You
   must plead guilty to the charge, "such were some of you, but ye are
   washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the
   Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." Oh! you have good cause for
   hating sin when you look back to the rock whence ye were hewn, and to
   the hole of the pit whence ye were digged. Such mischief did evil do
   you that your soul would have been everlastingly lost, had not
   omnipotent love interfered to redeem you. Christian, hate evil. It has
   been your murderer; it has put its dagger to your heart; it has thrust
   poison into your mouth; it has done you all the mischief that hell
   itself could do--mischief which would have wrought your eternal
   undoing, had not the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ prevented. Thou
   hast good reason, then, to hate sin.

   Again, Christian, hate evil, for it would be unbecoming if thou didst
   not when thou considerest thy position in life. A Christian belongs to
   the blood royal of the universe. Beggars' children may run about the
   street with unkempt hair and shoeless feet; but should princes of the
   blood revel in uncleanness? We do not expect to see monarchs' children
   apparelled in rags; we do not expect to see them rolling themselves in
   the mire of the streets. And thou, Christian, thou art one of God's
   aristocracy, a prince of the blood of heaven, a friend of angels, yea,
   and a friend of God. Good reason hast thou to hate all evil. Why, man,
   thou art a Nazarite, dedicated to God. Now, to the Nazarite it was
   enjoined that not only he should not drink wine, but he was not even to
   eat the grape, nor might he so much as taste the bark of the vine, or
   anything whatsoever that grew upon it; he must neither touch nor handle
   it, or else he would be defiled. So is it with thee; thou art the
   Lord's Nazarite, set apart for himself. Avoid, then, every false way.
   Let the appearance of evil be kept from thee: it is beneath thy dignity
   to indulge in the sins which disgrace other men. Thou art not snob as
   they are; thou art of a nobler race, thou hast sprung from the loins of
   the Son of God: is he not shine everlasting Father, even he who is the
   Prince of Peace? I beseech thee, never demean thy royal lineage, nor
   let thy holy ancestry be stained. You are a peculiar people, a royal
   generation; wherefore, then, should ye stain your garments in the dust.
   "Ye that love the Lord, hate evil."

   Again, you have good reason to hate sin, because it weakens you. Go
   when you have committed a folly, retire to your chamber and fall upon
   your knees in prayer. Before the sin was committed, your prayer reached
   the ear of God and the blessings came down swift as the
   lightning-flash; but now your knees are weak, your heart refuses to
   desire, and your tongue refuses to express the faint desires you strive
   to reach. You attempt, but you fail; you groan, but heaven is shut
   against your cry; you weep, but your tear penetrates not so as to
   obtain an answer from the breast of God. There you are; you bring your
   wants before the throne, and you carry them away again. Prayer becomes
   a painful duty instead of a most gracious and excellent privilege. This
   is the result of sin. "Sin will make thee leave off praying, or else
   praying will make thee leave off sinning." Oh! thou canst never be
   strong in sin and strong in prayer. As long as thou indulgest in lust,
   or sin, or wantonness of any kind, thy power in prayer is taken away,
   and thy lips are shut when thou attemptest to approach thy God. Or if
   thou willest, try another exercise: after committing a sin, go into the
   world and seek to do good. Why, man, thou canst not do it; thou hast
   lost the power to cleanse others when them art impure thyself. What!
   can I with filthy fingers wash the face of others? Shall I essay to
   plough another man's field while my own is lying fallow, and the tall,
   rank thistle and weed are overspreading it? I am powerless to do good
   until I have first cleansed my own vessel and made that pure. An unholy
   minister must be an unsuccessful one, and an unholy Christian must be
   an unfruitful one. Unless thou desirest to have thy sinews loosed, to
   have the marrow of thy bones scorched from thee, unless thou willest
   that the sap of thy being should be dried up, I beseech thee, hate sin,
   for sin can debilitate and weaken thee so much that thou shalt drag
   along a miserable existence, the very skeleton of a soul instead of
   flourishing in the ways of thy God. "Ye that love the Lord, hate evil."

   In the next place. you will find it extremely useful if, in order to
   get rid of sin, you are not content with merely restraining it, but
   always seeking to have it taken clean away by the Holy Spirit. You
   know, mere moralists restrain their sins, like a river that has locks
   and dykes: the water is kept from flowing, but then it gradually swells
   upward and upward, till by-and-bye it overflows with terrible fury.
   Now, don't be content with mere restraining grace; that will never
   purge you, for the sin may be there though it break not out. Pray to
   God that your sin may be taken away, and that though the remnant and
   the root thereof remain, though the channel be there, yet the stream
   may be dried up like the stream of the Euphrates before the presence of
   the Lord your God.

   Again, ye have good reason to hate evil, for if you indulge in it you
   will have to smart for it. God will never kill his children, he has put
   his sword away; he sheathed that once for all in the breast of Christ,
   but he has a rod, and that rod sometimes he lays on with a very heavy
   hand, and maketh the whole body to tingle. The Lord will not be angry
   with his people so as to cast them off but he will be so angry with
   them that they shall have to cry, "Heal the bones that thou hast
   broken, and restore my soul. O Lord my God." Ah! you that ever have
   backslidden, you know what it is to be well scourged for when Christ's
   sheep run way from the shepherd he will not let them perish, but he
   will often allow the black dog to bring them back in his mouth; he will
   allow sore trouble and sharp affliction to lay hold upon them, so that
   they are cast down almost to the gates of hell. A Christian shall never
   be destroyed, but he shall almost be destroyed; his life shall not
   totally fail him, but he shall be so beaten and bruised that he shall
   scarcely know whether he has any life left in him at all. Hate sin, O
   Christian, unless thou desirest trouble. If thou wouldst strew thy path
   with thorns and put nettles in thy death pillow, then live in sin; but
   if thou wouldst dwell in the heavenly places, hearing the everlasting
   chimes of Paradise ringing in thine own heart, then walk in all the
   ways of holiness unto the end. Christian man, hate evil.

   So far, I have only addressed you selfishly; I have shown you how evil
   may hurt yourselves; now I will address you with another argument.
   Christian, hate evil; hate it in yourself, because evil in you will do
   hurt to others. What hurt the sin of a Christian does to the children
   of God! The sharpest trials God's church has ever had, has come from
   her own sons and daughters. I see her, I see her with her garments rent
   and defiled; I see her hands all bleeding, and her back scarred. O
   church of the living God, thou fairest among women, how art thou
   wounded! Where hast thou received these wounds? Has the infidel spit in
   thy face and reviled thee? Has the Arian rent thy garments? Has the
   Socinian cast filth upon the whiteness of thine apparel? Who hath
   wounded thy hands, and who hath scarred thy back? Hath this been done
   by the impious and profane? "No," saith she, "these are the wounds I
   have received in the house of my friends. Against my enemies I wear a
   secret armor, but my friends penetrate within it, and cut me to the
   very quick." The bishops of God's church, the professed leaders of the
   Lord's hosts, the pretended followers of the Redeemer, have done more
   damage to the church than all the church's enemies. If the church were
   not a divine thing, protected by God, she must have ceased to exist,
   merely through the failure and iniquity of her own professed friends. I
   do not wonder that the church of God survived martyrdom and death; but
   I do marvel that she has survived the unfaithfulness of her own
   children, and the cruel backsliding of her own members. O Christians,
   ye do not know how you cause God's name to be blasphemed, how you stain
   his church, and bring dishonor upon her escutcheon, when you indulge in
   sin. "Ye that love the Lord, hate evil"

   Again, hate it not only for the church's sake, but for the poor
   sinner's sake. How many sinners every year are driven away from all
   thought of religion by the inconsistency of professors! And have you
   ever noticed how the world always delights to chronicle the
   inconsistency of a professor? I saw only yesterday an account in the
   paper of a wretch who had committed lust, and it was said that "he had
   a very sanctified appearance." Ay, I thought, that is the way the press
   always likes to speak; but I very much question whether there are many
   editors that know what a sanctified appearance means; at least they
   will have to look a long time among their own class before they find
   many that have got much sanctification. However, the reporter put it
   down that the man had "a sanctified appearance;" and of course it was
   intended as a fling against all those who make a profession of
   religion, by making others believe that this man was a professor too.
   And really the world has had some grave cause for it, for we have seen
   professing Christians in these days that are an utter disgrace to
   Christianity, and there are things done in the name of Jesus Christ
   that it would be a shame to do in the name of Beelzebub. There are
   things done, too, by those who are accounted members of the church of
   our Lord Jesus, Methinks, so shameful that Pandemonium itself would
   scarcely own them. The world has had much cause to complain of the
   church; O children of God, be careful. The world has a lynx eye: it
   will see your faults; it will be impossible to hide them; and it will
   magnify your faults. It will slander you if you have none; give it at
   least no ground to work upon; "let your garments be always white;" walk
   in the fear of the Lord, and let this be your daily prayer, "Hold thou
   me up, and I shall be safe."

   Once more: I have one argument that methinks must touch your hearts and
   make you hate evil. You have a friend, the best friend you ever had. I
   know him, and have loved him, and he has loved me. There was a day, as
   I took my walks abroad, when I came hard by a spot for ever engraved
   upon my memory, for there I saw this friend my best, my only friend,
   murdered. I stooped down in sad affright and looked at him. He was
   basely murdered. I saw that his hands had been pierced with rough iron
   nails, and his feet had been rent with the same. There was misery in
   his dead countenance so terrible that I scarcely dared to look upon it.
   His body was emaciated with hunger, his back was red with bloody
   scourges, and his brow had a circle of wounds about it: clearly could
   one see that these had been pierced by thorns. I shuddered, for I had
   known this friend full well. He never had a fault; he was the purest of
   the pure, the holiest of the holy. Who could have injured him? For he
   never injured any man: all his life long he "went about doing good;" he
   had healed the sick, he had fed the hungry, he had raised the dead: for
   which of these works did they kill him? He had never breathed out
   anything else but love. And as I looked into the poor sorrowful face so
   full of agony and yet so full of love, I wondered who could have been a
   wretch so vile us to pierce hands like his. I said within myself "Where
   live these traitors? Where can they live? Who are these that could have
   smitten such an one as this?" Had they murdered an oppressor we might
   have forgiven them; had they slain one who had indulged in vice or
   villainy, it might have been his due desert; had it been a murderer and
   a rebel, or one who had committed sedition, we would have said, "Bury
   his corpse: justice has at last given him his due." But when thou wast
   slain, my best, my only beloved, where lodged the traitors? Let me
   seize them, and they shall be put to death. If there be torments that I
   can devise, surely they shall endure them all. Oh! what jealousy; what
   revenge I felt! If I might but find these murderers what would I do
   with them! And as I looked upon that corpse I heard a footstep, and
   wondered where it was. I listened, and I clearly perceived that the
   murderer was close at hand. It was dark, and I groped about to find
   him. I found that somehow or other wherever I put my hand I could not
   meet with him, for he was nearer to me than my hand would go. At last I
   put my hand upon my breast. "I have thee now," said I; for lo! he was
   in my own heart; the murderer was hiding within my own bosom, dwelling
   in the recesses of my inmost soul. Ah! then I wept indeed, that I, in
   the very presence of my murdered Master, should be harbouring the
   murderer; and I felt myself most guilty while I bowed over his corpse
   and sung that plaintive hymn:

   "Twere you my sins, my cruel sins,

   His chief tormentors were:

   Each of my crimes became a nail

   And unbelief the spear."

   Revenge! revenge! Ye that fear the Lord, and love his name, take
   vengeance on your sins, and hate all evil.

   Now, my beloved, my next endeavor must be to urge you to put your sins
   to death. What shall be done in order that you and I may get rid of our
   sins? There is the axe of the law; shall we bring that out and smite
   our sins with it? Alas! they will never die under the blow of Moses.

   "Law and terrors do but harden

   All the while they work alone."

   I have often striven to overcome sin by the thought of the punishment
   attached to it but I have very seldom found myself in a frame of mind
   in which my heart would receive that reason. I believe that to the most
   of us the terrors of the law, although they ought to be exceedingly
   terrible, have but little power to check us from sin. I met with a
   story the other day which showed me, if nothing else, the utter
   powerlessness of terror for curbing the heart from sin. It is pretended
   by some that it is necessary that men who commit murder should be
   capitally executed in order to deter others from crime. There is not,
   however I believe, the shadow of a hope that the execution of a
   murderer will ever produce any such effect. Three traitors were once
   executed in this country--Thistlewood was one of them,--and when the
   executioner smote off the head of the first man and held it up, saying,
   "this is the head of a traitor," there was a shudder running through
   the multitude, a chill, cold feeling which was perceptible even by the
   executioner. When he killed the next man, and held up the head in like
   manner, it was evidently looked upon with intense curiosity and awe,
   but with nothing like so much thrilling caution as the first. And
   strange to say, when the third head was smitten off, the man was about
   to hold it up, but he let it drop, and the crowd with one voice cried,
   "Aha! butter fingers!" and laughed. Would you have supposed that an
   English crowd, on seeing a poor man die, could have become so hardened
   in so short a time, as actually to have made a joke of such an
   incident? Yet so it is; law and terrors never do and never will produce
   any other effect than to drive men to sin and make them think lightly
   of it. I would not, therefore, advise a Christian, if he would get rid
   of his sins, to indulge continually in the thought of the punishment;
   but let him adopt a better process: let him go and sit down at the
   cross of Christ, and endeavor to draw evangelical repentance from the
   atonement which Christ has offered for our guilt. I know of no cure for
   sin in a Christian like an abundant intercourse with the Lord Jesus.
   Dwell much with him, and it is impossible for you to dwell much with
   sin. What! my Lord Jesus, can I sit at the foot of that tree accursed,
   and see thy blood flowing for my guilt, and after that indulge in
   transgression? Yes, I may do it, for I am vile enough for anything, but
   still this shall be the great clog upon the wheel of my sin, and this
   repress my lust the most of all,--the thought that Jesus Christ hath
   lived and died for me.

   Again, if you would cheek sin, endeavor to get as much light as you can
   upon it. The housewife, when she is busy about her house, with curtains
   drawn, she may have dusted all the tables, and think everything looks
   clean; but she opens a little corner of the window, and in streams a
   ray of light, in which ten thousand grains of dust are dancing up and
   down. "Ah!" she thinks, "my room is not so clean as I thought it was;
   here is dust where I thought there was none." Now, endeavor to get, not
   the farthing rushlight of your own judgment, but the sunlight of the
   Holy Spirit, streaming upon your heart, and it will help you to detect
   your sin--and detection of sin is half-way towards its cure. Look well
   at your transgressions and endeavor to find them out.

   Yet another thing, when you have fallen into one sin make confession of
   it, and let that lead you to search for all the rest. David, you know,
   never wrote so abject a confession as he did after he had committed one
   act of sin; then he was led to search his heart, and find out all the
   rest of his iniquities, and he made a complete confession of them all.
   When thou seest one sin, be quite sure there is a host there, for they
   always hunt in packs; and take care when thou dischargest thy
   confession against one, that there is enough powder and shot in thy
   confession to wound all thy sins and send them limping away. Be not
   content with overcoming one sin or one transgression, but labor to get
   rid of all.

   Again, there are many sins by which you will be enticed unless you
   always take care to strip sin of its disguises. Sin will sometimes come
   to you, wrapped up in a Babylonish garment, like Achan's wedge: pull
   off the covering and you will discover its iniquity. It will sometimes
   come to you like the iniquity of king Saul, under the form of a
   sacrifice; strip it and discover that rebellion is as the sin of
   witchcraft. Alas! sin is like Jezebel; it attires its head and paints
   its face and appears lovely to us; unmask it, see its vileness,
   discover its filthiness, disdain the profit with which it gilds itself,
   take away the applause with which it endeavors to plume itself, and let
   it stand in all its naked deformity, and then thou wilt not be so
   likely to run into it.

   Once again. Try always, when your mind is in a sanctified state, to
   estimate the weight of the evil of sin. When you are in a sinful state
   you will not feel the weight of the evil. A man that dives into the
   water may have a thousand tons of water above his head, and not feel
   the weight because the water is round about him; but take him out of
   the water, and if you put half a tubful on his head, it presses him
   down. Now, while you indulge in sin, you will not feel its weight; but
   when you are out of sin, after it is over, and the Spirit has applied
   the blood of sprinkling for your forgiveness, and the sanctifying work
   of the Spirit has begun to restore you, then labor to realize the
   enormity of your guilt, and by so doing you will be helped to hate it
   and to overcome it.

   With regard to some sins, if thou wouldst avoid them, take one piece of
   advice--run away from them. Sins of lust especially are never to be
   fought with, except after Joseph's way; and you know what Joseph
   did--he ran away. A French philosopher said, "Fly, fly, Telemaque;
   there remains no way of conquest but by flight." The true soldiers of
   Christ's cross will stand foot to foot with any sin in the world except
   this; but here they turn their backs and fly, and then they become
   conquerors. "Flee fornication," said one of old, and there was wisdom
   in the counsel; there is no way of overcoming it but by flight. If the
   temptation attack thee, shut thine eye and stop thy ear, and away, away
   from it; for thou art only safe when thou art beyond sight and earshot.
   "Ye that love the Lord, hate evil;" and endeavor with all your might to
   resist and overcome it in yourselves.

   Once again, ye that love the Lord, if ye would keep from sin, seek
   always to have a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit, never trust
   yourselves a single day without having a fresh renewal of your piety
   before you go forth to the day's duties. We are never safe except we
   are in the Lord's hands. No Christian, be he who he may or what he may,
   though he be renowned for his piety and prayerfulness, can exist a day
   without falling into great sin unless the Holy Spirit shall be his
   protector. Old master Dyer says, "Lock up your hearts by prayer every
   morning, and give God the key, so that nothing can get in; and then
   when thou unlockest thy heart at night, there will be a sweet fragrance
   and perfume of love, joy, and holiness." Take care of that. It is only
   by the Spirit that you can be preserved from sin.

   Above all, let us add, avoid all preachers who endeavor in any way to
   palliate sin; avoid all experiences and books of experience that give
   you a way of getting over the fact that the sin of God's people is a
   vile thing. I know some folks who talk of their sins as if they were
   proud of them; they speak of their falls, and their backslidings, and
   transgressions, as if they were blessed experiences: like the dog that
   had a bell round his neck because he was dangerous, they are proud of
   that very thing which is their shame. Remember, a nettle is bad
   anywhere but it is never so bad as in a flower garden, and sin is bad
   anywhere, but never so hateful as in a Christian. If as you are going
   home to day you see a boy breaking windows, very likely you will speak
   to him; but if it is your own boy you will severely chastise him as
   sure as he is your own son. So likewise doth God deal with his people.
   When sinners do mischief he rebukes them; when his people do the same
   he smites them. He will not pass over sin in his own children at any
   time; it shall never go unchastened. Ye that fear the Lord never
   palliate sin, for God will not do so; he hateth it with perfect hatred.

   II. My second point is, HATE SIN IN OTHERS. Mark it, do not hate
   others, but hate sin in others. As we have only a few minutes left I
   will occupy them with but one or two practical remarks.

   If you hate sin in others, it will be necessary for you never in any
   way to countenance it. There is many a Christian who does more mischief
   than he knows of by a smile. You have heard a young man telling a story
   of some of his freaks; perhaps it has been in a railway carriage, and
   he has been very witty, and you have smiled at him. He knows you, and
   he seems to think he has done a brave thing--didn't he make a Christian
   man smile at his sins? You have sometimes heard loose, lewd
   conversation proceeding from ungodly men, and you have not liked it; it
   has grated upon your ears; but you have sat very quietly, and others
   have said, "Ah well, he was still enough; he was sucking it in, and it
   was clear he liked it." Thus it was stamped at once with the seal of
   your approbation. Now, never let sin have your countenance. Wherever
   you are, let it be known that you not only cannot endure it, but that
   you positively hate it. Don't let people say, "Well, I don't think he
   likes it;" but let them know you hate it, that you are absolutely angry
   with it, that you cannot smile at it, but feel your anger rise at the
   very mention of such shameful things. In the last century it used to be
   even fashionable and honorable to commit sins, which are now looked
   upon with scorn, and in another hundred years, some things that are
   done to-day will be discovered to be desperately vile, and we shall
   look upon them with disdain also. Christian, I say, never stamp another
   man's sins with approval.

   Again, whenever you are called upon to do it--and that will be very
   often--take care to let your sentiments with regard to sin come out.
   Sinful silence may make you a partaker in a sinner's evil ways. If I
   saw a man breaking into a house and I were going by late in the
   evening, if I passed very gently, knowing that he was doing wrong, and
   did not give the alarm, I think I should be an accomplice in the crime.
   And so, if you are sitting in company where there is evil speaking, or
   where Christ is blasphemed, if you do not say a word for your Master,
   you are committing sin in your silence, you are an accomplice in the
   iniquity. Speak up for your Lord and Master. What if you should get
   upbraided for it and be called a Puritan? It is a grand name. What if
   some should say, You are too precise? There is good need that some
   should be too precise where a great many are far too lax; or if they
   should never welcome you in their company again, it will be a great
   gain to be out of it. What if they should speak evil of you? Know you
   not that you are to rejoice in that day when they shall say all manner
   of evil against you falsely for Christ's namesake? Always by your
   speaking boldly, let sin be put to the blush.

   Then again, when you see evil in any one, always seek, if you see the
   slightest hope of doing good, for an opportunity of telling him
   privately of it. I have heard of a gentleman who was swearing, and a
   godly man who stood by, instead of upbraiding him for it, publicly
   said, "Sir, I wish to speak to you a moment." "Well," said the
   gentleman, "you had better come into the coffee-room." They went
   accordingly; and the godly man said to the other, "My dear friend, I
   noticed that you took the name of God in vain I know you will excuse my
   mentioning it. I did not say a word about it when others could hear;
   but really it is a great sin, and no profit can come from it. Could you
   not avoid it in future?" The check was thankfully received; the
   gentleman bowed his acknowledgments, he confessed that it was the fault
   of his early education, and he trusted that the rebuke might do him
   good. Do you not think that very often we lose an opportunity of
   showing our hatred of evil by not endeavoring privately to speak to
   those whom we discover indulging in sin? Never let slip an opportunity
   of having a shot at the devil, be it where it may; always let fly at
   him whenever you see him. If you cannot do it in public, yet if you see
   a man doing evil, rebuke him in private for his sin.

   And yet another thing. If you hate evil, do not get into it yourself,
   because it is of no use your talking to others about evil unless your
   own life be blameless. They that live in glass houses must not throw
   stones. Get out of your own glass house, and then throw as many as you
   like. Speak to other people, when you have first of all endeavored to
   set your own life according to the compass of the Gospel.

   And now, beloved fellow-men, all of you who love the Saviour, are
   exhorted this morning to hate evil; and I will just enlarge once more
   upon this exhortation. Join heart and hand in the hatred of evil, with
   all men who seek to put it down. Wherever you see a society endeavoring
   to do good, encourage it. Let this be your doctrine--preach nothing up
   but Christ, and nothing down but evil. Help all those that are for the
   spread of the Redeemer's kingdom. There is nothing else that can put
   evil away so quickly as the proclamation of right. Help the minister of
   the Gospel; pray for him; hold up his hands; endeavor to strengthen
   him. As for yourself, become a tract distributor, a Sunday-school
   teacher, or a village preacher. Show your hatred to evil by active
   efforts in putting it down. Distribute Bibles, scatter the Word of God
   broadcast over the land. Send your missionaries to foreign parts and
   let them penetrate the dens and alleys of London. Go among the rags and
   filth of our own population and seek to bring some one or two of the
   Lord's precious jewels who are hidden in the dunghills of the
   metropolis. Thus, let the Lord Jesus Christ by your means get the
   victory, and let the evil of this world be cast out. How shall that be
   done but by the combined exertions of all Christ's church? In these
   days we have a great many men to fight Christ's battles, if they would
   but fight. Our churches are increasing at a great rate. There are an
   immense number of Christians now alive; but I think I would rather have
   the one hundred and twenty men that were in the upper chamber at the
   day of Pentecost, than I would have the whole lot of you. I do think
   those one hundred and twenty men had got more blood in them, more
   divine Christian blood and zeal, than as many millions of such poor
   creatures as we are. Why, in those days every member of the church was
   a missionary. The women did not preach, it is true; but they did what
   is better than preaching. they lived out the Gospel; and all the men
   had something to say. They did not leave it as you do to your minister
   serving God by proxy; they did not set deacons up, and leave them to do
   all God's work while they folded their arms. Oh! no; all Christ's
   soldiers went to battle. There was no drafting out one or two of them,
   and then leaving the others to tarry at home and share the spoil. No,
   every one fought, and great was the victory. Now, beloved Christians,
   all of you, at it, and always at it. O Spirit of the living God,
   descend on every heart, and bid every one of thy soldiers take his
   sword in his hand, and go straightway up to the victory. For when
   Zion's children shall feel their individual responsibility, then shall
   come the day of her triumph. Then shall the walls of Jericho fall flat
   to the ground, and every soldier of the living God shall be crowned a
   conqueror. "Ye that love the Lord, hate evil," henceforth and for ever.
     __________________________________________________________________

                              The Way of Salvation

   A Sermon

   (No. 209)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, August 15, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name
   under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."--Acts 4:12.

   IT IS A VERY HAPPY CIRCUMSTANCE when the servants of God are able to
   turn everything to account in their ministry. Now, the apostle Peter
   was summoned before the priests and Sadducees, the chief of his nation,
   to answer for having restored a man who was lame from his mother's
   womb. Whilst accounting for this case of cure, or, if I may use the
   expression, for this case of temporal salvation, the apostle Peter had
   this thought suggested to him, "While I am accounting for the salvation
   of this man from lameness, I have now a fine opportunity of showing to
   these people, who otherwise will not listen to us, the way of the
   salvation of the soul." So he proceeds from the less to the greater,
   from the healing of a man's limb to the healing of a man's spirit; and
   having informed them once that it was through the name of Jesus Christ
   that the impotent man had been made whole, he now announces that
   salvation,--the great salvation, must be wrought by the selfsame means;
   "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name
   under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

   What a great word that word "salvation" is! It includes the cleansing
   of our conscience from all past guilt, the delivery of our soul from
   all those propensities to evil which now so strongly predominate in us;
   it takes in, in fact, the undoing of all that Adam did. Salvation is
   the total restoration of man from his fallen estate; and yet it is
   something more than that, for God's salvation fixes our standing more
   secure than it was before we fell. It finds us broken in pieces by the
   sin of our first parent, defiled, stained, accursed: it first heals our
   wounds, it removes our diseases, it takes away our curse, it puts our
   feet upon the rock Christ Jesus, and having thus done, at last it lifts
   our heads far above all principalities. and powers, to be crowned for
   ever with Jesus Christ, the King of heaven. Some people, when they use
   the word "salvation," understand nothing more by it than deliverance
   from hell and admittance into heaven. Now, that is not salvation: those
   two things are the effects of salvation. We are redeemed from hell
   because we are saved, and we enter heaven because we have been saved
   beforehand. Our everlasting state is the effect of salvation in this
   life. Salvation, it is true, includes all that, because salvation is
   the mother of it, and carrieth it within its bowels; but still it were
   wrong for us to imagine that that is all the meaning of the word.
   Salvation begins with us as wandering sheep; it follows us through all
   our mazy wanderings; it puts us on the shoulders of the shepherd; it
   carries us into the fold; it calls together the friends and the
   neighbors; it rejoices over us; it preserves us in that fold through
   life; and then at last it brings us to the green pastures of heaven,
   beside the still waters of bliss, where we lie down for ever, in the
   presence of the Chief Shepherd, never more to be disturbed.

   Now our text tells us there is only one way of salvation. "Neither is
   there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven
   given among men, whereby we must be saved." I shall take first of all a
   negative truth taught here, namely, that there is no salvation out of
   Christ; and then, secondly, a positive truth inferred, namely, that
   there is salvation in Jesus Christ whereby we must be saved.

   I. First, then, A NEGATIVE FACT. "Neither is there salvation in any
   other." Did you ever notice the intolerance of God's religion? In olden
   times the heathen, who had different gods, all of them respected the
   gods of their neighbors. For instance, the king of Egypt would confess
   that the gods of Nineveh were true and real gods, and the prince of
   Babylon would acknowledge that the gods of the Philistines were true
   and real gods: but Jehovah, the God of Israel, put this as one of his
   first commandments, "Thou shalt have none other gods besides me;" and
   he would not allow them to pay the slightest possible respect to the
   gods of any other nation: "Thou shalt hew them in pieces, thou shalt
   break down their temples, and cut down their groves." All other nations
   were tolerant the one to the other, but the Jew could not be so. One
   part of his religion was, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one
   God;" and as the consequence of his belief that there was but one God,
   and that that one God was Jehovah, he felt it his bounden duty to call
   all pretended gods by nicknames, to spit upon them, to treat them with
   contumely and contempt. Now the Christian religion, you observe, is
   just as intolerant as this. If you apply to a Brahmin to know the way
   of salvation, he will very likely tell you at once, that all persons
   who follow out their sincere religious convictions will undoubtedly be
   saved. "There," says he, "are the Mohammedans; if they obey Mohammed,
   and sincerely believe what he has taught without doubt, Alla will
   glorify them at last." And the Brahmin turns round upon the Christian
   missionary, and says, "What is the use of your bringing your
   Christianity here to disturb us? I tell you our religion is quite
   capable of carrying us to heaven, if we are faithful to it." Now just
   hear the text: how intolerant is the Christian religion! "Neither is
   there salvation in any other." The Brahmin may admit, that there is
   salvation in fifty religions besides his own; but we admit no such
   thing. There is no true salvation out of Jesus Christ. The gods of the
   heathens may approach us with their mock charity, and tell us that
   every man may follow out his own conscientious conviction and be saved.
   We reply--No such thing: there is no salvation in any other; "for there
   is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be
   saved"

   Now, what do you suppose is the reason of this intolerance--if I may
   use the word again? I believe it is just because there is the truth
   both with the Jew and with the Christian. A thousand errors may live in
   peace with one another, but truth is the hammer that breaks them all in
   pieces. A hundred lying religions may sleep peaceably in one bed, but
   wherever the Christian religion goes as the truth, it is like a
   fire-brand, and it abideth nothing that is not more substantial than
   the wood, the hay, and the stubble of carnal error. All the gods of the
   heathen, and all other religions are born of hell, and therefore, being
   children of the same father, it would seem amiss that they should fall
   out, and chide, and fight; but the religion of Christ is a thing of
   God's--its pedigree is from on high, and, therefore, when once it is
   thrust into the midst of an ungodly and gainsaying generation, it hath
   neither peace, nor parley, nor treaty with them, for it is truth, and
   cannot afford to be yoked with error: it stands upon its own rights,
   and gives to error its due, declaring that it hath no salvation, but
   that in the truth, and in the truth alone, is salvation to be found.

   Again, it is because we have here the sanction of God. It would be
   improper in any man who had invented a creed of his own, to state that
   all others must he damned who do not believe it; that would be an
   overweening censoriousness and bigotry, at which we might afford to
   smile; but since this religion of Christ is revealed from heaven
   itself, God, who is the author of all truth, hath a right to append to
   this truth the dreadful condition, that who so rejecteth it shall
   perish without mercy; and in proclaiming that, apart from Christ, no
   man can be saved. We are not really intolerant, for we are but echoing
   the words of him that speaketh from heaven, and who declares, that
   cursed is the man who rejects this religion of Christ, seeing that
   there is no salvation out of him. "Neither is there salvation in any
   other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men,
   whereby we must be saved."

   Now I hear one or two persons saying, "Do you imagine then, sir, that
   none are saved apart from Christ?" I reply, I don t imagine it, but I
   have it here in my text plainly taught. "Well but," saith one, how is
   it concerning the death of infants? Do not infants die without actual
   sin? Are they saved? and if so, how?" I answer, saved they are beyond a
   doubt; all children dying in infancy are caught away to dwell in the
   third heaven of bliss for ever. But mark this--no infant was ever saved
   apart from the death of Christ. Christ Jesus hath with his blood bought
   all those who die in infancy; they are all regenerated, not in
   sprinkling, but probably in the instant of their death a marvellous
   change passes over them by the breathing of the Holy Spirit, the blood
   of Jesus is applied to them, and they are washed from all original
   corruption which they had inherited from their parents, and thus washed
   and cleansed they enter into the kingdom of heaven. Otherwise, beloved,
   infants would be unable to join in the everlasting song,."Unto him that
   loved us and washed us from our sins in his blood." If infants were not
   washed in the blood of Christ, they could not join in that universal
   song which perpetually surrounds the throne of God. We believe that
   they are all saved--every one of them without exception--but not apart
   from the one great sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Another says,
   "But how about the heathen? They know not Christ; are any of the
   heathen saved?" Mark, Holy Scripture saith but very little concerning
   the salvation of the heathen. There are many texts in Scripture which
   would lead us to infer that all the heathen perish; but there are some
   texts which, on the other hand, lead us to believe that there are some
   out of the heathen race who, led by God's secret spirit, are seeking
   after him in the dark, endeavoring to find out something they cannot
   discover in nature; and it may be that the God of infinite mercy who
   loves his creatures, is pleased to make to them these revelations in
   their own heart--dark and mysterious revelations concerning the things
   of heaven--so that even they may be made partakers of the blood of
   Jesus Christ, without having such an open vision as we have received,
   without beholding the cross visibly elevated, and Christ set forth
   crucified among them. It has been observed in many heathen lands, that
   before the missionaries have gone there, there has been a strong desire
   after the religion of Christ. In the Sandwich Islands, before our
   missionaries went there, there was a strange commotion in the minds of
   those poor barbarians; they did not know what it was, but they were all
   on a sudden discontented with their idolatries, and had a longing
   desire after something higher, better, and purer, than anything they
   had hitherto discovered; and no sooner was Jesus Christ preached, than
   they willingly renounced all their idolatries, and laid hold upon him
   to be their strength and their salvation. Now, we believe this was the
   Work of God's Spirit secretly inclining these poor creatures to seek
   after him; and we cannot tell but that in some sequestered spots where
   we had thought the gospel never has been preached, there may be some
   lone tract, some chapter of the Bible, some solitary verse of Holy Writ
   remembered, which may be sufficient to open blind eyes, and to guide
   poor benighted hearts to the foot of the cross of Christ. But this much
   is certain; no heathen, however moral--whether in the days of their old
   philosophy, or in the present time of their barbarism--ever did or ever
   could enter the kingdom of heaven apart from the name of Jesus Christ.
   "Neither is their salvation in any other." A man may seek after it and
   labor after it in his own way, but there he cannot possibly find it,
   "for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we
   must be saved."

   But after all, my dear friends, it is a great deal better, when we are
   dealing with these subjects, not to talk upon speculative matters, but
   to come home personally to ourselves. And let me now ask you this
   question, have you ever proved by experience the truth of this great
   negative fact, that there is no salvation in any other? I can speak
   what I do know, and testify what I have seen, when I solemnly declare
   in the presence of this congregation, that it is even so. Once I
   thought there was salvation in good works, and I labored hard, and
   strove diligently to preserve a character for integrity and
   uprightness; but when the Spirit of God came into my heart, "sin
   revived and I died," that which I thought had been good proved to be
   evil; wherein I thought I had been holy I found myself to be unholy. I
   discovered that my very best actions were sinful. that my tears needed
   to be wept over, and that my very prayers needed God's forgiveness. I
   discovered that I was seeking after salvation by the works of the law,
   that I was doing all my good works from a selfish motive, namely to
   save myself, and therefore they could not be acceptable to God. I found
   out that I could not be saved by good works for two very good reasons:
   first, I had not got any and secondly, if I had any, they could not
   save me. After that I thought, surely salvation might be obtained,
   partly by reformation, and partly by trusting in Christ; so I labored
   hard again, and thought if I added a few prayers here and there, a few
   tears of penitence, and a few vows of improvement, all would be well.
   But after forging on for many a weary day, like a poor blind horse
   toiling round the mill, I found I had got no farther, for there was
   still the curse of God hanging over me: "Cursed is every one that
   continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to
   do them;" and there was still an aching void in my heart the world
   could never fill--a void of distress and care, for I was sorely
   troubled because I could not attain unto the rest which my soul
   desired. Have you tried those two ways of getting to heaven? If you
   have, I trust the Lord, the Holy Spirit, has made you heartily sick of
   them, for you shall never enter the kingdom of heaven by the right
   door, until you have first of all been led to confess that all the
   other doors are barred in your teeth. No man ever will come to God
   through the straight and narrow way until he had tried all the other
   ways; and when we find ourselves beaten, and foiled, and defeated, then
   it is, that pressed by sore necessity, we betake ourselves to the one
   open fountain, and there wash ourselves, and are made clean.

   Perhaps I have in my presence this morning some who are trying to gain
   salvation by ceremonies. You have been baptized in your infancy; you
   regularly take the Lord's Supper; you attend your church or chapel; and
   if you knew any other ceremonies you would attend to them. Ah! my dear
   friends, all these things are as the chaff before the wind in the
   matter of salvation; they cannot help you one step towards acceptance
   in the person of Christ. As well might you labor to build your house
   with water, as to build salvation with such poor things as these. These
   are good enough for you when you are saved, but if you seek salvation
   in them, they shall be to your soul as wells without water, clouds
   without rain, and withered trees, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.
   Whatever is your way of salvation--for there are a thousand different
   inventions of men whereby they seek to save themselves--whatever it may
   be, hear thou its death. knell tolled from this verse: "Neither is
   there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven
   given among men, whereby we must be saved."

   II. Now, this brings me to the POSITIVE FACT which is inferred in the
   text, namely, that there is salvation in Jesus Christ. Surely, when I
   make that simple statement I might burst forth with the song of the
   angels, and say--"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good
   will towards men." Here are a thousand mercies all bound up in one
   bundle, in this sweet, sweet fact, that there is salvation in Jesus
   Christ. I shall endeavor now merely to deal with any soul here present
   who entertains a doubt as to his own salvation in Jesus Christ; I shall
   single him out, and address him affectionately and earnestly, and
   endeavor to show him that he may yet be saved, and that in Christ there
   is salvation for him.

   I know thee, sinner! Thou hast long been trying to find the road to
   heaven, and thou hast missed it. Hitherto thou hast had a thousand
   dazzling cheats to deceive thee, and never yet one solid ground of
   comfort for thy poor weary foot; and now, encompassed about by thy
   sins, thou art not able to look up. Guilt, like a heavy burden, is on
   thy back, and thy finger is on thy lip, for thou darest not yet cry for
   pardon; thou art afraid to speak, lest out of thine own mouth thou
   shouldest be condemned. Satan whispers in thine ear, "It is all over
   with thee; there is no mercy for such as thou art: thou art condemned,
   and condemned thou must be; Christ is able to save many, but not to
   save thee." Poor soul! what shall I say unto thee but this--Come with
   me to the cross of Christ, and thou shalt there see something which
   shall remove thine unbelief. Seest thou that man nailed to yonder tree?
   Dost thou know his character? He is without spot or blemish, or any
   such thing: he was no thief, that he should die a felon's death: he was
   no murderer and no assassin, that he should be crucified between two
   malefactors. No; his original was pure, without a sin; and his life was
   holy, without a flaw. Out of his mouth there proceeded only blessing;
   his hands were full of good deeds, and his feet were swift for acts of
   mercy; his heart was white with holiness. There was nought in him that
   man could blame; even his enemies, when they sought to accuse him,
   found false witnesses, but even they "agreed not together." Dost thou
   see him dying? Sinner, there must be merit in the death of such a man
   as that; for without sin himself, when he is put to grief, it must be
   for other men's sins. God would not afflict and grieve him when he
   deserved it not. God is no tyrant that he should crush the innocent; he
   is not unholy that he should punish the righteous. He suffered, then,
   for the sins of others.

   "For sins, not his own, he died to atone."

   Think of the purity of Christ, and then see whether there is not
   salvation in him. Come now With thy blackness about thee, and look at
   his whiteness; come with thy defilement, and look at his purity; and as
   thou lookest at that purity, like the lily, and thou seest the crimson
   of his blood overflowing it, let this whisper be heard in thine
   ear,--he is able to save thee, sinner, inasmuch as though he was
   "tempted in all points like as we are," yet he was "without sin;"
   therefore, the merit of his blood must be great. Oh, may God help thee
   to believe on him!

   But this is not the grand thing which should recommend him to thee.
   Remember, he who died upon the cross, was no less than the everlasting
   Son of God. Dost see him there? Come, turn thine eye once more to him.
   Seest thou his hands and feet trickling with streamlets of gore? That
   man is Almighty God. Those hands that are nailed to the tree, are hands
   that could shake the world; those feet that are there pierced have in
   them, if he willed to put it forth, a potency of strength that might
   make the mountains melt beneath their tread. That head, now bowed in
   anguish and in weakness, has in it the wisdom of the Godhead, and with
   its nod it could make the universe tremble. He who hangs upon the cross
   yonder, is he without whom was not anything made that was made: by him
   all things consist--Maker, Creator, Preserver, God of providence, and
   God of grace--he who died for thee is God over all, blessed for ever.
   And now, sinner, is there any power to save in such a Saviour as this?
   If he were a mere man, a Socinian's Christ, or an Arian's Christ, I
   would not bid thee trust him; but since he is none other than God
   himself incarnate in human flesh, I beseech thee cast thyself upon him;

   "He is able,

   He is willing, doubt no more."

   "He is able to save unto the uttermost, them that come unto God by
   him."

   Will you recollect again, as a further consolation for your faith that
   you may believe that God the Father has accepted the sacrifice of
   Christ. It is the Father's anger that you have the most cause to dread.
   The Father is angry with you, for you have sinned, and he has sworn
   with an oath that he will punish you for your offenses. Now, Jesus
   Christ was punished in the room, place, and stead of every sinner who
   hath repented. or ever shall repent. Jesus Christ stood as his
   substitute and scapegoat. God the Father hath accepted Christ in the
   stead of sinners. Oh, ought not this to lead you to accept him? If the
   Judge has accepted the sacrifice, sure you may accept it too; and if he
   be satisfied, sure you may be content also. If the creditor has written
   a full and free discharge; you, the poor debtor, may rejoice and
   believe that that discharge is satisfactory to you, because it is
   satisfactory to God. But do you ask me how I know that God has accepted
   Christ's atonement? I remind you that Christ rose again from the dead.
   Christ was put into the prison-house of the tomb after he died, and
   there he waited until God should have accepted the atonement.

   "If Jesus ne'er had paid the debt,

   He ne'er had been at freedom set."

   Christ would have been in the tomb at this very day, if God had not
   accepted his atonement for our justification; but the Lord looked down
   from heaven, and he surveyed the work of Christ, and said within
   himself, "It is very good; it is enough;" and turning to an angel, he
   said, "Angel, my Son is confined in prison, a hostage for my elect; he
   has paid the price; I know he will not break the prison down himself;
   go, angel, go and roll away the stone from the door of the sepulcher,
   and set him at liberty." Down flew the angel, and rolled away the
   massive stone; and rising from the shades of death the Saviour lived.
   "He died and rose again for our justification." Now, poor soul, thou
   seest God has accepted Christ; surely then, thou mayest accept him and
   believe on him.

   Another argument, which may perhaps come nearer to thine own soul is
   this--many have been saved who were as vile as thou art. and therefore
   there is salvation. "No," sayest thou, "none are so vile as I am." It
   is a mercy that thou thinkest so, but nevertheless it is quite certain
   that others have been saved, who have been as filthy as thyself. Have
   you been a persecutor? "Yes," you say. Ay, but you have not been more
   blood-thirsty than Saul! And yet that chief of sinners became the chief
   of saints. Have you been a swearer? Have you cursed the Almighty to his
   face? Ay; and such were some of us who now lift up our voices in
   prayer, and approach his throne with acceptance. Have you been a
   drunkard? Ay, and so have many of God's people been for many a day and
   many a year; but they have forsaken their filthiness, and they have
   turned unto the Lord with full purpose of heart. However great thy sin,
   I tell thee, man, there have been some saved as deep in sin as thou
   art. And if even none have been saved, who are such great sinners as
   thou art, so much the more reason why God should save thee, that he may
   go beyond all that he ever has done. The Lord always delights to be
   doing wonders; and if thou standest the chief of sinners, a little
   ahead of all the rest, I believe he will delight to save thee, that the
   wonders of his love and his grace may be the more manifestly known. Do
   you still say that you are the chief of sinners? I tell you I do not
   think it. The chief of sinners was saved years ago; that was the
   Apostle Paul: but even if you should exceed him, still that word
   "uttermost" goes a little beyond you. "He is able to save them to the
   uttermost that come unto God by him." Recollect, sinner, if thou dost
   not find salvation in Christ it will be because thou dost not look for
   it, for it certainly is there. If thou shalt perish without being saved
   through the blood of Christ, it will not be through a want of power in
   that blood to save thee, but entirely through a want of will on thy
   part--even that thou wilt not believe on him, but dost wantonly and
   wilfully reject his blood to thine own destruction. Take heed to
   thyself, for as surely as there is salvation in none other, so surely
   there is salvation in him.

   I could turn to you myself, and tell you that surely there must be
   salvation in Christ for you, since I have found salvation in Christ for
   myself. Often have I said, I will never doubt the salvation of any one,
   so long as I can but know that Christ has accepted me. Oh! how dark was
   my despair when I first sought his mercy seat, I thought then that if
   he had mercy on all the world, yet he would never have mercy on me; the
   sins of my childhood and my youth haunted me; I sought to get rid of
   them one by one, but I was caught as in an iron net of evil habits, and
   I could not overthrow them; and even when I could renounce my sin, yet
   the guilt still did cling to my garments--I could not wash myself
   clean; I prayed for three long years, I bent my knees in vain, and
   sought, but found no mercy. But, at last, blessed be his name, when I
   had given up all hope, and thought, that his swift anger would destroy
   me, and that the pit would open its mouth and swallow me up, then in
   the hour of my extremity did he manifest himself to me, and teach me to
   cast myself simply and wholly upon him. So shall it be with thee, only
   trust him, for there is salvation in him--rest assured of that.

   To quicken thy diligence, however, I will conclude by noting that if
   you do not find salvation in Christ, remember you will never find it
   elsewhere. What a dreadful thing it will be for you if you should lose
   the salvation provided by Christ! For "how shall you escape if you
   neglect so great salvation?" To-day, very probably I am not speaking to
   very many of the grossest of sinners, yet I know I am speaking to some
   even of that class; but whether we are gross sinners or not, how
   fearful a thing it will be for us to die without first having found an
   interest in the Saviour! Oh sinner! this should quicken thee in going
   to the mercy seat; this thought, that if thou findest no mercy at the
   feet of Jesus, thou canst never find it any where else. If the gates of
   heaven shall never open to thee, remember there is no other gate that
   ever can be opened for thy salvation. If Christ refuse thee thou art
   refused; if his blood be not sprinkled on thee thou art lost indeed.
   Oh! if he keeps thee waiting a little while, still continue in prayer;
   it is worth waiting for, especially when thou hast this thought to keep
   thee waiting, namely, that there is none other, no other way, no other
   hope, no other ground of trust, no other refuge. There I see the gate
   of heaven, and if I must enter it, I must creep on my hands and knees,
   for it is a low gate; there I see it, it is a strait and narrow one, I
   must leave my sins behind me, and my proud righteousness, and I must
   creep in through that wicket. Come sinner, what sayest thou? Wilt thou
   go beyond this strait and narrow gate, or wilt thou despise eternal
   life and risk eternal bliss? Or wilt thou go through it humbly hoping
   that he who gave himself for thee will accept thee in himself, and save
   thee now, and save thee everlastingly?

   May these few words have power to draw some to Christ, and I am
   content. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
   "For there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we
   must be saved."
     __________________________________________________________________

                    "As Thy Days, So Shall Thy Strength Be"

   A Sermon

   (No. 210)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, August 22, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "As thy days, so shall thy strength be;"--Deuteronomy 33:25.

   BELOVED, IT SEEMS A SAD THING that every day must die and be followed
   by a night. When we have seen the hills clad with verdure to their
   summit, and the seas laving their base with a silver glory; when we
   have stretched our eye faraway, and have seen the widening prospect
   full of loveliness and beauty we have felt sad that the sunlight should
   ever set upon such a scene, and that so much beauty should be shrouded
   in the oblivion of darkness. But how much reason have we to bless God
   for nights! for if it were not for nights how much of beauty never
   would be discovered. Never should I have considered the heavens the
   work of thy fingers, O my God, if thou hadst not first covered the sun
   with a thick mantle of darkness: the moon and the stars, which thou
   hast ordained, had never been bright in mine eyes, if thou hadst not
   hidden the light of the sun and bidden him retire within the curtains
   of the west. Night seems to be the great friend of the stars: they must
   be all unseen by eyes of men, were they not set in the foil of
   darkness. It is even so with winter. We might feel sad, that all the
   flowers of summer must die, and all the fruits of autumn must be
   gathered into their store-house, that every tree must be stripped. and
   that all the fields must lose their fair flowers. But were it not for
   winter we should never see the glistening crystals of the snow; we
   should never behold the beauteous festoons of the icicles that hang
   from the eaves. Much of God's marvellous miracles of hoar frost must
   have been hidden from us, if it had not been for the cold chill of
   winter, which, when it robs us of one beauty, gives us another,--when
   it takes away the emerald of verdure, it gives us the diamond of
   ice--when it casts from us the bright rubies of the flowers, it gives
   us the fair white ermine of snow. Well now, translate those two ideas,
   and you will see why it is that even our sin, our lost and ruined
   estate, has been made the means, in the hand of God, of manifesting to
   us the excellencies of his character. My dear friends, if you and I had
   been without trouble, we never could have had such a promise as this
   given to us:--"As thy days, so shall thy strength be." It is our
   weakness that has made room for God to give us such a promise as this.
   Our sins make room for a Saviour; our frailties make room for the Holy
   Spirit to correct them; all our wanderings make room for the good
   Shepherd, that he may seek us and bring us back. We do not love nights,
   but we do love stars; we do not love weakness, but we do bless God for
   the promise that is to sustain us in our weakness, we do not admire
   winter, but we do admire the glittering snow; we must shudder at our
   own trembling weakness, but we still do bless God that we are weak
   because it makes room for the display of his own invincible strength in
   fulfilling such a promise as this.

   In addressing you this morning, I shall first have to notice the
   self-weakness which is implied in our text; secondly, I shall come to
   the great promise of the text; and then I shall try and draw one or two
   inferences from it, ere I conclude.

   I. First, the SELF-WEAKNESS HINTED AT IN THE TEXT. To keep to my
   figure, if this promise be like a star, you know there is no seeing the
   stars in the daytime when we stand here upon the upper land; we must go
   down a deep well, and then we shall be able to discover them. Now,
   beloved, as this is day-time with our hearts, it will be necessary for
   us to go down the deep well of old recollections of our past trials and
   troubles. We must first get a good fair idea of the great depth of our
   own weakness, before we shall be able to behold the brightness of this
   rich and exceeding precious promise. A self-sufficient man can no more
   understand this promise, than a coal heaver can understand Greek: he
   has never been in a position in which to understand it; he has never
   learned his own need of another's strength, and therefore he cannot
   possibly understand the value of a promise which consists in giving to
   us a strength beyond our own. Let us for a few minutes consider our own
   weakness.

   Ye children of God, have ye not proved your own weakness in the day of
   duty? The Lord has spoken to you, and he has said, "Son of man, run,
   and do such and such a thing which I bid thee;" and you have gone to do
   it, but as you have been upon your way, a sense of great responsibility
   has bowed you down, and you have been ready to turn back even at the
   outset, and to cry, "Send by whomsoever thou wilt send, but not by me."
   Reinforced by strength, you have gone to the duty, but while performing
   it, you have at times felt your hands hanging exceeding heavy, and you
   have had to look up many a time and cry, "O Lord, give me more
   strength, for without thy strength this work must be unaccomplished, I
   cannot perform it myself." And when the work has been done, and you
   have looked back upon it you have either been filled with amazement
   that it should have been done at all by so poor and weak a worm as
   yourself, or else you have been overcome with horror because you have
   been afraid the work was marred, like the vessel on the potter's wheel,
   by reason of your own want of skilfulness. I confess in my own
   position, I have a thousand causes to confess my own weakness every
   day. In preparing for the pulpit how often do we discover our weakness
   when a hundred texts exhibit themselves, and we know not which to
   choose, and when we have selected our subject, distracting thoughts
   come in, and when we would concentrate our minds upon some holy topic,
   we find they are carried hither and thither, driven about like the
   minds of children by every wind of thought. And when we bow our knees
   to seek the Lord's help before we preach how often does our tongue
   refuse to give utterance to the earnestness of our hearts. And alas!
   how frequently too is our heart cold when we are about to enter upon an
   occupation which requires the heart to be hot like a furnace, and the
   lip to be burning like a live coal. Here in this pulpit I have often
   learned my weakness, when words have fled from me, and thoughts have
   departed too; and when that seal which I thought would have poured
   itself forth like a cataract, has trickled forth in unwilling drops
   like a sullen stream, the source of which doth almost fail, and which
   seemeth itself as if it longed to be dried up and dead. And after
   preaching, how have I cast myself upon my bed, and tossed to and fro,
   groaning because I thought I had failed to deliver my message, and had
   not preached my Master's Word as my Master would have me preach it. All
   of you, in your own callings I dare say, have had enough to prove that.
   I do not believe a Christian man can examine himself without finding
   every day that weakness is proven even in the doing of his duty. Your
   shop, however small, will be enough to prove to you your weakness, your
   business, however little, your cares, however light, your family, how
   ever small, will furnish you with enough proofs of the fact: "Without
   me ye can do nothing;" "He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same
   bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing."

   But, beloved, we prove our weakness, perhaps more visibly, when we come
   into the day of suffering. There it is that we are weak indeed. I have
   sat by the side of those who have been exceedingly sick, and have
   marked their patience; but I do not know that I ever wondered at the
   patience of a sick man so much as I do when I am sick myself: then
   patience is an extraordinary virtue. Women suffer, and suffer well; but
   I do think there are very few men who could bear the tithe of the
   suffering that many women endure, without exhibiting a hundred times as
   much impatience. Most of us who are gifted with strong constitutions,
   and have but little of sickness, have to chasten ourselves, that what
   little sickness we have to contend with is borne with so little
   resignation and with so much impatience; that we are so ready to
   repine, so prepared to bow our heads and wish we were dead, because a
   little pain is rending our body. Here it is that we prove our weakness
   indeed. Ah! people of God, it is one thing to talk about the furnace;
   it is another thing to be in it. It is one thing to look at the
   doctor's knife, but quite another thing to feel it. You will find it
   one thing to sip the cup of medicine, but quite another thing to lie in
   bed a dreary week or month, and to drink on, and on, and on of that
   nauseating draught. When you are on dry land most of you are good
   sailors; out at sea you are vastly different. There is many a man who
   makes a wonderfully brave soldier till he gets into the battle, and
   then he wishes himself miles away, and except his spurs there is no
   weapon he can use with much advantage. That man has never been sick who
   does not know his weakness, his want of patience and of endurance.

   Again, beloved, there is another thing which will very soon prove our
   weakness, if neither duty nor suffering will do it--namely, progress.
   You sit down to-morrow and you read the life of some eminent servant of
   God: perhaps the life of David Brainard, and how he gave up his life
   for his Master in the wilderness, or the heroic life of Henry Martin,
   and how he sacrificed all for Christ: and as you read you say within
   yourself, "I will endeavor to be like this man; I will seek to have his
   faith, his self denial, his love to never-dying souls" Try and get
   them, beloved, and you will soon find your own weakness. I have
   sometimes thought I would try to have more faith but I have found it
   very hard to keep as much as I had. I have thought, "I will love my
   Saviour more," and it was right that I should strive to do so; but when
   I sought to love him more I found that perhaps I was going backward
   instead of forward. How often do we find out our weakness when God
   answers our prayers!

   "I ask'd the Lord that I might grow

   In faith, and love, and every grace;

   Might more of his salvation know

   And seek more earnestly his face.

   I hop'd that in some favor'd hour

   At once he'd answer my request,

   And by his love's constraining power,

   Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

   Instead of this he made me feel

   The hidden evils of my heart,

   And let the angry power of hell

   Assault my soul in every part.

   'Lord why is this?' I trembling cried

   'Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?'

   'Tis in this way,' the Lord replied;

   'I answer prayer for grace and faith.'"

   That is, the Lord helps us to grow downward when we are only thinking
   about growing upward. Let any of you try to grow in grace, and seek to
   run the heavenly race, and make a little progress, and you will soon
   find, in such a slippery road as that which we have to travel, that it
   is very hard to go one step forward, though remarkably easy to go a
   great many steps backward.

   If neither of these three things will prove thy weakness, Christian, I
   will advise thee to try another. See what thou art in temptation. I
   have seen a tree in the forest that seemed to stand fast like a rock, I
   have stood beneath its widespreading branches, and have sought to shake
   its trunk, to see if I could, but it stood immovable. The sun shone
   upon it, and the rain descended, and many a winter's frost sprinkled
   its boughs with snow, but it still stood fast and firm. But one night
   there came a howling wind which swept through the forest, and the tree
   that seemed to stand so fast lay stretched along the ground, its gaunt
   arms which once were lifted up to heaven lying hopelessly broken, and
   the trunk snapped in twain. And so have I seen many a professor strong
   and mighty, and nothing seemed to move him; but I have seen the wind of
   persecution and temptation come against him, and I have heard him creak
   with murmuring, and at last have seen him break in apostasy and he has
   lain along the ground a mournful specimen of what every man must become
   who maketh not the Lord his strength, and who relieth not upon the Most
   High. "Ah!" says one, "I do not believe I could be tempted to sin." My
   friend, it depends upon what kind of temptation it should be. There are
   many of us who could not be tempted to drunkenness, and others who
   could not he tempted to lust. If the devil should set before some of
   you cups of the richest wines that ever came from the vintages of
   Burgundy or of Xeres, you would not care for them, if you did but sip
   them it would suffice you; it would be in vain to tempt you with the
   drunkard's song; nothing could induce you to lose your equilibrium by
   intoxicating liquors; but perhaps you are the very man whom a
   temptation of lust might overthrow. While there be other men whom
   neither lust nor wine can overcome, who may be led by a prospect of
   profit into that which is dishonest; and others again, whom neither
   profit, nor lust, nor wine, would turn aside, may be overthrown by
   anger, or envy, or malice. We have all our tender points. When Thetis
   dipped Achilles in the Styx, you remember she held him by the heel; he
   was made invulnerable wherever the water touched him, but his heel not
   being covered with the water, was vulnerable, and there Paris shot his
   arrow, and he died. It is even so with us. We may think that we are
   covered with virtue till we are totally invulnerable, but we have a
   heel somewhere; there is a place where the arrow of the devil can make
   way: hence the absolute necessity of taking to ourselves "the whole
   armor of God," so that there may not be a solitary joint in the harness
   that shall be unprotected against the arrows of the devil. Satan is
   very crafty; he knows the ins and outs of manhood. There is many an old
   castle that has stood against every attack, but at last some traitor
   from within has gone without, and said "I know an old deserted passage,
   a subterranean back way, that has not been used for many a-day. In such
   and such a field you will see an opening; clear away a heap of stones
   there, and I will lead you down the passage: you will then come to an
   old door, of which I have the key and I can let you in; and so by a
   back way I can lead you into the very heart of the citadel, which you
   may then easily capture." It is so with Satan. Man knoweth not himself
   so well as Satan knows him. There are back ways and subterranean
   passages into man's heart which the devil doth well understand. and he
   who thinketh that he is safe, let him take heed lest he fall. That is
   not a bad hymn of Dr. Watts, after all, where he tells us that Samson
   was very strong while he wore his hair, but

   "Samson, when his hair was lost,

   Met the Philistines to his cost:

   Shook his vain limbs with vast surprise,

   Made feeble fight, and lost his eyes."

   The reason was, because there was a back way into Samson's heart. The
   Philistines could not overcome him: "Heaps upon heaps, with the
   jaw-bone of an ass, have I slain a thousand men." Come on, Philistines,
   he will rend you in pieces as he did the young lion; bind him with
   green withes, and he will snap them as tow; weave his locks with a
   weaver's beam, and he will carry away loom and all, and go out like a
   giant refreshed with new wine. But, O Delilah, he hath a back way to
   his heart; thou hast found it out, and now thou canst overthrow him.
   Tremble, for ye may yet be overcome! Ye are as weak as water if God
   shall leave you alone.

   Now, I think, if we have well surveyed these different points of our
   moral standing on earth, every child of God will be ready to confess
   that he is weak. I imagine there may be some of you ready to say, "Sir,
   I am nothing." Then I shall reply, "Ah! you are a young Christian."
   There will be others of you who will say, "Sir, I am less than
   nothing." And I shall say, "Ah! you are an old Christian;" for the
   older Christians get, the less they become in their own esteem, the
   more they feel their own weakness, and the more entirely they rely upon
   the strength of God.

   II. Having thus dwelt upon the first point, we shall now come to the
   second--THE GREAT PROMISE,--"As thy days, so shall thy strength be."

   In the first place, this is a well-guaranteed promise. A promise is
   nothing unless I have good security that it shall be fulfilled. It is
   in vain for men to promise largely unless their fulfillment shall be as
   large as their promise, for the largeness of their promise is just the
   largeness of deception. But here every word of God is true. God has
   issued no more notes for the bank of heaven than he can cash in an hour
   if he wills. There is enough bullion in the vaults of Omnipotence to
   pay off every bill that ever shall be drawn by the faith of man or the
   promises of God. Now look at this one--"As thy days, so shall thy
   strength be." Beloved, God has a strong reserve with which to pay off
   this promise; for is he not himself omnipotent, able to do all things?
   Believer, till thou canst drain dry the ocean of omnipotence, till thou
   canst break into pieces the towering mountains of almighty strength,
   thou never needest to fear. Until thine enemy can stop the course of a
   whirlwind with a reed, till he can twist the hurricane from its path by
   a word of his puny lip, thou needest not think that the strength of man
   shall ever be able to overcome the strength which is in thee, namely,
   the strength of God. Whilst the earth's huge pillars stand, thou hast
   enough to make thy faith firm. The same God who guides the stars in
   their courses, who directs the earth in its orbit, who feeds the
   burning furnace of the sun, and keeps the stars perpetually burning
   with their fires--the same God has promised to supply thy strength.
   While he is able to do all these things, think not that he shall be
   unable to fulfill his own promise. Remember what he did in the days of
   old, in the former generations. Remember how he spoke and it was done;
   how he commanded, and it stood fast. Do you not see him in the black
   eternity? When there was nothing but grim darkness, there he stood--the
   mighty Artificer: upon the anvil there he cast a hot mass of flame, and
   hammering it with his own ponderous arm, each spark that flew from it
   made a world; there those sparks are glittering now, the offspring of
   the anvil of the eternal purposes, and the hymned of his own majestic
   might. And shall he, that created the world, grow weary? Shall he fail?
   Shall he break his promises for want of strength? He hangeth the world
   upon nothing; he fixed the pillars of heaven in silver sockets of light
   and thereon he hung the golden lamps, the sun and the moon, and shall
   he that did all this be unable to support his children? Shall he be
   unfaithful to his word for want of power in his arm or strength in his
   will? Remember again, thy God, who has promised to be thy strength, is
   the God who upholdeth all things by the power of his hand. Who feedeth
   the ravens? Who supplies the lions? Doth not he do it? And how? He
   openeth his hand and supplieth the want of every living thing. He has
   to do nothing more than simply to open his hand. Who is it that
   restrains the tempest? Doth not he say that he rides upon the wings of
   the wind, that he maketh the clouds his chariots, and holds the water
   in the hollow of his hand? Shall he fail thee? When he has put such a
   promise as this on record, shalt thou for a moment indulge the thought
   that he has out-promised himself, and gone beyond his power to fulfill?
   Ah! no. Who was it that cut Rahab in pieces, and wounded the dragon?
   Who divided the Red Sea, and made the waters thereof stand upright as a
   heap? Who led the people through the wilderness? Who was it that did
   oust Pharoah into the depths of the sea, his chosen captains also, in
   the depth of the Red Sea? Who rained fire and brimstone out of heaven
   upon Sodom and Gomorrah? Who chased out the Canaanite with the hornet,
   and made a way of escape for his people Israel? Who was it that brought
   them again from their captivity and did settle them again in their own
   land? Who is he that hath put down kings, yea and slew mighty kings,
   that he might make room for his people wherein they might dwell in a
   quiet habitation? Hath not the Lord done it: and is his arm shortened
   that he cannot save: or is his ear heavy that he cannot hear? O thou
   who art my God and my strength, I can believe that this promise shall
   be fulfilled for the boundless reservoir of thy grace can never be
   exhausted, and the unlimitable storehouse of thy strength can never be
   emptied or rifled by the enemy. It is, then, a well guaranteed promise.

   But now I want you to notice it is a limited promise. "What!" says one,
   "limited" Why it says, As thy days, so shall thy strength be.' " Ay, it
   is limited. I know it is unlimited in our troubles, but still it is
   limited. First, it says our strength is to be as our days are; it does
   not say our strength is to be as our desires are. Oh! how often have we
   thought, "How I wish I were as strong as so and so"--one who had a
   great deal of faith. Ah! but then you would have rather more faith than
   you wanted, and what would be the good of that? It would be like the
   manna the children of Israel had--if they did not eat it in the day it
   bred worms and stank. "Still," says one, "if I had faith like
   so-and-so, I think I should do wonders." Yes, but you would get the
   glory of them. That is why God does not let you have the faith, because
   he does not want you to do wonders. That is reserved for God, not for
   you,--"He only doeth wondrous things." Once more, it does not say, our
   strength shall be as our fears. God often leaves us to shift alone with
   our fears,--never with our troubles. Many of God's people have a
   manufactory at the back of their houses in which they manufacture
   troubles; and home-made troubles, like other home made things, last a
   very long while, and generally fit very comfortably. Troubles of God's
   sending are always suitable--the right sort for our backs; but those
   that we make are of the wrong sort, and they always last us longer than
   God's; I have known an old lady sit and fret because she believed she
   should die in a workhouse and she wanted God to give her grace
   accordingly; but what would have been the good of that? because the
   Lord meant that she should die in her own quiet bedroom? I have heard
   of and known men who, being sick, believed they were dying, and wanted
   grace to die complacently; but God would not give it because he
   intended them to live, and why should he give them dying grace till
   they came to die? And we have known others who said they wanted grace
   to endure many troubles which they expected to come upon them. They
   were going to fail in a fortnight or so, but they did not fail and it
   was no wonder they had not grace given to carry them through it,
   because they did not require it. The promise is "As thy days, so shall
   thy strength be." "When your vessel gets empty then will I fill it; I
   will not give you any extra, over and above. When you are weak then I
   will make you strong; but I will not give you any extra strength to lay
   by: strength enough to bear your sufferings, and to do your duty; but
   no strength to play at matches with your brethren and sisters in order
   to get the glory to yourselves." Oh! if we had strength according to
   our wishes we should soon all of us be like Jeshurun,--wax fat, and
   begin to kick against the Most High. Then again, there is another
   limit. It says "As thy days so shall thy strength be." It does not any,
   "as thy weeks," or "months," but "as thy days." You are not going to
   have Monday's grace given you on a Sunday, nor Tuesday's grace on a
   Monday. You shall have Monday's grace given you on Monday morning as
   soon as you rise and want it; you shall not have it given you on
   Saturday night; you shall have it "day by day"--no more than you want,
   no less than you want. I do not believe God's people are to be trusted
   with a week's grace all at once. They are like many of our London
   workman: they get their wages on Saturday night, and then the rascals
   go and have Saint Monday and Saint Tuesday, and never do a stroke of
   work till Wednesday, when they go to the pawnbrokers with their tools
   to help them over till the next Saturday night. Now, I think God's
   children would do the same. If they had grace given them on Saturday to
   last them all through the week, I question whether the devil would not
   get a good deal of it,--whether they would not be pawning some of their
   old evidences before the week was out, in order to live upon them:
   spending all their grace on Monday and Tuesday. spending very much of
   their strength in indulging in pride and boasting, instead of walking
   humbly with their God. No, "as thy days, so shall thy strength be."

   Now, having said that the promise is limited, perhaps I am bound to
   add--what an extensive promise this is! "As thy days, so shall thy
   strength be." Some days are very little things, in our pocket book we
   have very little to put down, for there was nothing done of any
   importance. But some days are very big days. Ah! I have known a big
   day--a day of great duties, when great things had to be done for
   God--too great, it seemed, for one man to do; and when great duty was
   but half done there came great trouble, such as my poor heart had never
   felt before.

   Oh! what a great day it was! there was a night of lamentation in this
   place, and the cry of weeping, and of mourning, and of death. Ah! but
   blessed be God's name, though the day was big with tempest, and though
   it swelled with horror, yet as that day was, so was God's strength.
   Look at poor Job. What a great day he had once! "Master," says one,
   "The oxen were ploughing, and the asses feeding beside them, and the
   Sabeans fell upon them and took them away." In comes another and he
   says, "The fire of God hath fallen on the sheep." "Oh," says another
   "the Chaldeans have fallen upon the camels and taken them away, and I,
   only I, am left to tell thee." Still, you see, grace kept growing with
   the day. Still strength grew as the trouble grew. At last comes the
   back stroke: "A great wind came from the wilderness, and smote the
   house where thy sons and daughters were feasting, and they are dead,
   and I, only I, am left to tell thee." Grace still kept growing, and at
   last the grace did overflow the trouble, and the poor old patriarch
   cried, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the
   name of the Lord." Ah! Job, that was a big day indeed, and it was big
   grace that went with that big day. Satan sometimes blows up our days
   with his black breath till they grow to such a cursed height that we
   know not how great the days must be. Our head whirls at the thought of
   passing through such a sea of trouble in so short a space of time. But
   oh! how sweet it is to think that the bed of grace is never shorter
   than a man can stretch himself upon it; nor is the covering of Almighty
   love ever shorter than that it may cover us. We never need be afraid.
   If our troubles should become high as mountains. God's grace would
   become like Noah s flood: it would go twenty cubits higher till the
   mountains were covered. If God should send to you and to me a day such
   as there was none like it, neither should be any more, he would send us
   strength such as there was none like it, neither should there be any
   more. Do you see Martin Luther riding into Worms? There is a solitary
   monk going before a great council: he knows they will burn him; did not
   they burn John Huss, and Jerome of Prague? Both those men had a safe
   conduct, and it was violated and they were put to death by Papists, who
   said that no faith was to be kept with heretics. Luther placed very
   little reliance on his safe conduct; and you would have expected as he
   rode into Worms that he would have a dejected countenance. Not so. No
   sooner does he catch sight of Worms, than some one advises him not to
   go into the city. Said he, "If there were as many devils in Worms as
   there are tiles on the roofs of the houses, I would enter." And he does
   ride in. He goes to the inn, and eats his bread and drinks his beer, as
   complacently as if he were at his own fire-side; and then he goes
   quietly to bed. When summoned before the council, and asked to retract
   his opinion, he does not want time to consider, or debate about it; but
   he says, "These things that I have written are the truth of God, and by
   them will I stand till I die; so help me God!" The whole assembly
   trembles, but there is not a flush upon the cheek of the brave monk,
   nor do his knees knock together. He is in the midst of armed men and
   those that seek his blood. There sit fierce cardinals and bloodthirsty
   bishops and the Pope's legate; like spiders longing to suck his blood.
   He cares for none of them; he walks away, and is confident that "God is
   his refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." "Ah! but,"
   you say, "I could not do that."" Yea you could, if God called you to
   it. Any child of God can do what any other child of God has done, if
   God gives him the strength. You could not do what you are doing even
   now, without God's strength; and you could do ten thousand times more,
   if he should be pressed to fill you with his might. What an expansive
   promise this is!

   Once more, what a varying promise it is! I do not mean that the promise
   varies but adapts itself to all our changes. "As thy days, so shall thy
   strength be." Here is a fine sunshiny morning; all the world is
   laughing; everything looks glad; the birds are singing, the trees seem
   to be all alive with music. "My strength shall be as my day is," says
   the pilgrim. Ah! pilgrim, there is a little black cloud gathering. Soon
   it increases; the flash of lightning wounds the heaven, and it begins
   to bleed in showers. Pilgrim, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
   The birds have done singing, and the world has done laughing; but "as
   thy days, so shall thy strength be." Now the dark night comes on, and
   another day approaches--a day of tempest, and whirlwind, and storm.
   Dost thou tremble, pilgrim?--"As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
   "But there are robbers in the wood."--"As thy days, so shall thy
   strength be." "But there are lions which shall devour me."--"As thy
   days. so shall thy strength be." "But there are rivers: how shall I
   swim them?" Here is a boat to carry thee over: "As thy days, so shall
   thy strength be." "But there are fires: how shall I pass through them?"
   Here is the garment that will protect thee: "As thy days so shall thy
   strength be." "But there are arrows that fly by day." Here is thy
   shield: "As thy days so shall thy strength be." "But there is the
   pestilence that walketh in darkness." Here is thy antidote: "As thy
   days so shall thy strength be." Wherever you may be, and whatever
   trouble awaits you, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be." Children
   of God, cannot you say that this has been true hitherto? I can. It
   might seem egotistical if I were to talk of the evidence I have
   received of this during the past week, but nevertheless I cannot help
   recording my praise to God. I left this pulpit last Sunday as sick as
   any man ever left the pulpit, and I left this country too as ill as I
   could be, but no sooner had I set my foot upon the other shore, where I
   was to preach the gospel, than my wonted strength entirely returned to
   me. I had no sooner buckled on the harness to go forth and fight my
   Master's battle, than every ache and pain was gone, and all my sickness
   fled; and as my day was, so certainly was my strength. I believe if I
   were lying upon a dying couch, if God called me to preach in America,
   and I had but faith to be carried down to the boat, I should have
   strength given me, though I seemed to be dying, to minister as the Lord
   had appointed me. And so would each of you, wherever you might be find
   that as your day was, so your strength should be.

   And, in conclusion, what a long promise this is! You may live till you
   are never so old, but this promise will outlive you. When thou comest
   into the depths of the river Jordan, "as thy days, so shall thy
   strength be;" thou shalt have confidence to face the last grim tyrant,
   and grace to smile even in the jaws of the grave. And when thou shalt
   rise again in the terrible morning of the resurrection, "as thy days,
   so shall thy strength be:" though the earth be reeling with dismay thou
   shalt know no fear; though the heavens are tottering with confusion
   thou shalt know no trouble. "As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
   And when thou shalt see God face to face, though thy weakness were
   enough to make thee die, thou shalt have strength to bear the beatific
   vision: thou shalt see him face to face, and thou shalt live; thou
   shalt lie in the bosom of thy God; immortalized and made full of
   strength, thou shalt be able to bear even the brightness of the Most
   High.

   III. What INFERENCE shall I draw except this? Children of the living
   God, be rid of your doubts, be rid of your trouble and your fear. Young
   Christians, do not be afraid to set forward on the heavenly race. You
   bashful Christians, that, like Nicodemus, are ashamed to come out and
   make an open profession, don't be afraid, "As your day is, so shall
   your strength be." Why need you fear? You are afraid of disgracing your
   profession, you shall not; your day shall never be more troublesome, or
   more fun of temptation, than your strength shall be full of
   deliverance.

   And as for you that have not God to be yours, I must draw one inference
   for you. Your strength is decaying. You are growing old, and your old
   age will not be like your youth, You have strength--strength which you
   prostitute to the cause of Satan, which you misuse in the service of
   the devil. When you grow old, as you will do, unless your wickedness
   shall bring you to an early grave; they that look out of the windows
   must be darkened, and the grasshopper must be burden to you; and your
   strength shall not be as your day. And when you come to die, as die you
   must, then you shall have no strength to die with; you must die alone;
   you must hear yon iron gates creak on their hinges, and no guardian
   angel to comfort you as you go through the dreary vault. And you must
   stand at God's great bar at the day of resurrection, and no one to
   strengthen you there. How will your cheek blanch with terror! How will
   your soul be affrighted with horror when you shall hear it said,
   "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire in hell, prepared for the
   devil and his angels." You have no such promise as this to cheer you
   onward, but you have this to drive you to despair: your days shall
   become heavier, but your strength shall become lighter; your sorrows
   shall be multiplied, and your joys shall be diminished; your days shall
   shorten, and your nights shall lengthen; your summers shall become
   dimmer and your winters shall become blacker; all your hopes shall die,
   and your fears shall live. Ye shall reap the harvest of your sins in
   the dreadful vintage of eternal wrath. May God give us all grace, so
   that when days and years are past, we all may meet in heaven. There are
   some people here that I have seen a great many times, and I thought
   they would have been converted before now. I ask them one question,
   (there are some of them whom I sincerely respect) and it is this--what
   will you do in the swellings of Jordan? When death shall get hold upon
   you? What, what will you do then? May God help you to answer and
   prepare to meet Him!
     __________________________________________________________________

                        The Voice of the Blood of Christ

   A Sermon

   (No. 211)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, August 29, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "The blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of
   Abel."--Hebrews 12:24.

   OF all substances blood is the most mysterious, and in some senses the
   most sacred. Scripture teacheth us,--and after all there is very much
   philosophy in Scripture,--that "the blood is the life thereof,"--that
   the life lieth in the blood. Blood, therefore, is the mysterious link
   between matter and spirit. How it is that the soul should in any degree
   have an alliance with matter through blood, we cannot understand; but
   certain it is that this is the mysterious link which unites these
   apparently dissimilar things together, so that the soul can inhabit the
   body, and the life can rest in the blood. God has attached awful
   sacredness to the shedding of blood. Under the Jewish dispensation,
   even the blood of animals was considered as sacred. Blood might never
   be eaten by the Jews; it was too sacred a thing to become the food of
   man. The Jew was scarcely allowed to kill his own food: certainly he
   must not kill it except he poured out the blood as a sacred offering to
   Almighty God. Blood was accepted by God as the symbol of the atonement.
   "Without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin, because, I
   take it, blood hath such an affinity with life, that inasmuch as God
   would accept nought but blood, be signified that there must be a life
   offered to him, and that his great and glorious Son must surrender his
   life as a sacrifice for his sheep.

   Now, we have in our text "blood" mentioned--two-fold blood. We have the
   blood of murdered Abel, and the blood of murdered Jesus. We have also
   two things in the text:--a comparison between the blood of sprinkling,
   and the blood of Abel; and then a certain condition mentioned. Rather,
   if we read the whole verse in order to get its meaning, we find that
   the righteous are spoken of as coming to the blood of sprinkling, that
   speaketh better things than the blood of Abel; so that the condition
   which will constitute the second part of our discourse, is coming to
   that blood of sprinkling for our salvation and glory.

   I. Without further preface I shall at once introduce to you the
   CONTRAST AND COMPARISON IMPLIED IN THE TEXT. "The blood of sprinkling,
   that speaketh better things than that of Abel." I confess I was very
   much astonished when looking at Dr. Gill and Albert Barnes, and several
   of the more eminent commentators, while studying this passage, to find
   that they attach a meaning to this verse which had never occurred to me
   before. They say that the meaning of the verse is not that the blood of
   Christ is superior to the blood of murdered Abel, although that is
   certainly a truth, but that the sacrifice of the blood of Christ is
   better, and speaketh better things than the sacrifice which Abel
   offered. Now, although I do not think this is the meaning of the text
   and I have my reasons for believing that the blood here contrasted with
   that of the Saviour, is the blood of the murdered man Abel, yet on
   looking to the original there is so much to be said on both sides of
   the question, that I think it fair in explaining the passage to give
   you both the meanings. They are not conflicting interpretations; there
   is indeed a shade of difference but still they amount to the same idea.

   First, then, we may understand here a comparison between the offerings
   Abel presented, and the offerings Jesus Christ presented, when he gave
   his blood to be a ransom for the flock.

   Let me describe Abel's offering. I have no doubt Adam had from the very
   first of his expulsion from the garden of Eden offered a sacrifice to
   God; and we have some dim hint that this sacrifice was of a beast, for
   we find that the Lord God made Adam and Eve skins of beasts to be their
   clothing, and it is probable that those skins were procured by the
   slaughter of victims offered in sacrifice. However, that is but a dim
   hint: the first absolute record that he have of an oblatory sacrifice
   is the record of the sacrifice offered by Abel. Now, it appears that
   very early there was a distinction among men. Cain was the
   representative of the seed of the serpent, and Abel was the
   representative of the seed of the woman. Abel was God's elect, and Cain
   was one of those who rejected the Most High. However, both Cain and
   Abel united together in the outward service of God. They both of them
   brought on a certain high day a sacrifice. Cain took a different view
   of the matter of sacrifice from that which presented itself to the mind
   of Abel. Cain was proud and haughty: he said "I am ready to confess
   that the mercies which we receive from the soil are the gift of God,
   but I am not ready to acknowledge that I am a guilty sinner, deserving
   God's wrath, therefore," said he, "I will bring nothing but the fruit
   of the ground." "Ah, but" said Abel, "I feel that while I ought to be
   grateful for temporal mercies, at the same time I have sins to confess,
   I have iniquities to be pardoned, and I know that without shedding of
   blood there is no remission of sin; therefore," said he, "O Cain, I
   will not be content to bring an offering of the ground, of the ears of
   corn, or of first ripe fruits, but I will bring of the firstlings of my
   flock, and I will shed blood upon the altar, because my faith is, that
   there is to come a great victim who is actually to make atonement for
   the sins of men, and by the slaughter of this lamb, I express my solemn
   faith in him." Not so Cain; he cared nothing for Christ; he was not
   willing to confess his sin; he had no objection to present a
   thank-offering, but a sin-offering he would not bring. He did not mind
   bringing to God that which he thought might be acceptable as a return
   for favors received, but he would not bring to God an acknowledgment of
   his guilt, or a confession of his inability to make atonement for it,
   except by the blood of a substitute. Cain, moreover, when he came to
   the altar, came entirely without faith. He piled the unhewn stones, as
   Abel did, he laid his sheaves of corn upon the altar, and there he
   waited, but it was to him a matter of comparative indifference whether
   God accepted him or not. He believed there was a God, doubtless, but he
   had no faith in the promises of that God. God had said that the seed of
   the woman should bruise the serpent's head--that was the gospel as
   revealed to our first parents; but Cain had no belief in that
   gospel--whether it were true or not, he cared not--it was sufficient
   for him that he acquired enough for his own sustenance from the soil;
   he had no faith. But holy Abel stood by the side of the altar, and
   while Cain the infidel perhaps laughed and jeered at his sacrifice, he
   boldly presented there the bleeding lamb as a testimony to all men,
   both of that time and all future times, that he believed in the seed of
   the woman--that he looked for him to come who should destroy the
   serpent, and restore the ruins of the fall. Do you see holy Abel,
   standing there, ministering as a priest at God's altar? Do you see the
   flush of joy which comes over his face, when he sees the heavens
   opened, and the living fire of God descend upon the victims? Do you
   note with what a grateful expression of confident faith he lifts to
   heaven his eye which had been before filled with tears, and cries, "I
   thank thee O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast accepted
   my sacrifice, inasmuch as I presented it through faith in the blood of
   thy Son, my Saviour, who is to come."

   Abel's sacrifice, being the first on record, and being offered in the
   teeth of opposition, has very much in it which puts it ahead of many
   other of the sacrifices of the Jews. Abel is to be greatly honored for
   his confidence and faith in the coming Messiah. But compare for a
   moment the sacrifice of Christ with the sacrifice of Abel, and the
   sacrifice of Abel shrinks into insignificance. What did Abel bring? He
   brought a sacrifice which showed the necessity of blood-shedding but
   Christ brought the blood-shedding itself. Abel taught the world by his
   sacrifice that he looked for a victim, but Christ brought the actual
   victim. Abel brought but the type and the figure, the Lamb which was
   but a picture of the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the
   world; but Christ was that Lamb. He was the substance of the shadow,
   the reality of the type. Abel's sacrifice had no merit in it apart from
   the faith in the Messiah with which he presented it; but Christ's
   sacrifice had merit of itself; it was in itself meritorious. What was
   the blood of Abel's lamb? It was nothing but the blood of a common lamb
   that might have been shed anywhere, except that he had faith in Christ
   the blood of the lamb was but as water, a contemptible thing; but the
   blood of Christ was a sacrifice indeed, richer far than all the blood
   of beasts that ever were offered upon the altar of Abel, or the altar
   of all the Jewish high priests. We may say of all the sacrifices that
   were ever offered, however costly they might be, and however acceptable
   to God, though they were rivers of oil and tens of thousands of fat
   beasts, yet they were less than nothing, and contemptible, in
   comparison with the one sacrifice which our high priest hath offered
   once for all, whereby he hath eternally perfected them that are
   sanctified.

   We have thus found it very easy to set forth the difference between the
   blood of Christ's sprinkling and the blood which Abel sprinkled. But
   now I take it that there is a deeper meaning than this, despite what
   some commentators have said. I believe that the allusion here is to the
   blood of murdered Abel. Cain smote Abel, and doubtless his hands and
   the altar were stained with the blood of him who had acted as a priest.
   "Now," says our apostle, "that blood of Abel spoke." We have evidence
   that it did, for God said to Cain, "The voice of thy brother's blood
   crieth unto me from the ground," and the apostle's comment upon that in
   another place is--"By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent
   sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was
   righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet
   speaketh," speaketh through his blood, his blood crying unto God from
   the ground. Now, Christ's blood speaks too. What is the difference
   between the two voices?--for we are told in the text that it "speaketh
   better things than that of Abel."

   Abel's blood spoke in a threefold manner. It spoke in heaven; it spoke
   to the sons of men; it spoke to the conscience of Cain. The blood of
   Christ speaks in a like threefold manner, and it speaks better things.

   First, the blood of Abel spoke in heaven. Abel was a holy man, and all
   that Cain could bring against him was, "His own works were evil, and
   his brother's were righteous." You see the brothers going to the
   sacrifice together. You mark the black scowl upon the brow of Cain,
   when Abel's sacrifice is accepted while his remains untouched by the
   sacred fire. You note how they begin to talk together--how quietly Abel
   argues the question, and how ferociously Cain denounces him. You note
   again how God speaks to Cain, and warns him of the evil which he knew
   was in his heart; and you see Cain, as he goes from the presence
   chamber of the Most High, warned and forewarned; but yet with the
   dreadful thought in his heart that he will imbrue his hands in his
   brother's blood. He meets his brother; he talks friendly with him: he
   gives him, as it were, the kiss of Judas; he entices him into the field
   where he is alone; he takes him unawares; he smites him, and smites him
   yet again, till there lies the murdered bleeding corpse of his brother.
   O earth! earth! earth! cover not his blood. This is the first murder
   thou hast ever seen; the first blood of man that ever stained thy soil.
   Hark! there is a cry heard in heaven, the angels are astonished; they
   rise up from their golden seats, and they enquire, "What is that cry?"
   God looketh upon them, and he saith, "It is the cry of blood, a man
   hath been slain by his fellow; a brother by him who came from the
   bowels of the self-same mother has been murdered in cold blood, through
   malice. One of my saints has been murdered, and here he comes, And Abel
   entered into heaven blood-red, the first of God's elect who had entered
   Paradise, and the first of God's children who had worn the blood red
   crown of martyrdom. And then the cry was heard, loud and clear and
   strong; and thus it spoke--"Revenge! revenge! revenge!" And God
   himself, upstarting from his throne, summoned the culprit to his
   presence, questioned him, condemned him out of his own mouth, and made
   him henceforth a fugitive and a vagabond, to wander over the surface of
   the earth, which was to be sterile henceforth to his plough.

   And now, beloved, just contrast with this the blood of Christ. That is
   Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God; he hangs upon a tree; he is
   murdered--murdered by his own brethren. "He came unto his own, and his
   own received him not, but his own led him out to death." He bleeds; he
   dies; and then is heard a cry in heaven. The astonished angels again
   start from their seats, and they say," What is this? What is this cry
   that we hear?" And the Mighty Maker answers yet again, "It is the cry
   of blood; it is the cry of the blood of my only-begotten and
   well-beloved Son!" And God, uprising from his throne, looks down from
   heaven and listens to the cry. And what is the cry? It is not revenge;
   but the voice crieth, "Mercy! mercy! mercy!" Did you not hear it? It
   said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Herein,
   the blood of Christ "speaketh better things than that of Abel," for
   Abel's blood said, "Revenge!" and made the sword of God start from its
   scabbard; but Christ's blood cried "Mercy!" and sent the sword back
   again, and bade it sleep for ever.

   "Blood hath a voice to pierce the skies,

   'Revenge!' the blood of Abel cries;

   But the rich blood of Jesus slain,

   Speaks peace as loud from every vein."

   You will note too that Abel's blood cried for revenge upon one man
   only--upon Cain; it required the death of but one man to satisfy for
   it, namely. the death of the murderer. "Blood for blood!" The murderer
   must die the death. But what saith Christ's blood in heaven? Does it
   speak for only one? Ah! no, beloved; "the free gift hath come upon
   many." Christ's blood cries mercy! mercy! mercy! not on one, but upon a
   multitude whom no man can number--ten thousand times ten thousand.

   Again: Abel's blood cried to heaven for revenge, for one transgression
   of Cain that for ought that Cain had done, worthless and vile before,
   the blood of Abel did not demand any revenge: it was for the one sin
   that blood clamoured at the throne of God, and not for many sins. Not
   so the voice of the blood of Christ. It is "for many offenses unto
   justification." Oh, could ye hear that cry, that all-prevailing cry, as
   now it comes up from Calvary's summit--"Father, forgive them!" not one,
   but many. "Father, forgive them." And not only forgive them this
   offense, but forgive them all their sins, and blot out all their
   iniquities. Ah! beloved, we might have thought that the blood of Christ
   would have demanded vengeance at the hands of God. Surely, if Abel be
   revenged seven fold, then must Christ be revenged seventy times seven.
   If the earth would not swallow up the blood of Abel, till it had had
   its fill, surely we might have thought that the earth never would have
   covered the corpse of Christ, until God had struck the world with fire
   and sword, and banished all men to destruction. But, O precious blood!
   thou sayest not one word of vengeance! All that this blood cries is
   peace! pardon! forgiveness! mercy! acceptance! Truly it "speaketh
   better things than that of Abel."

   Again: Abel's blood had a second voice. It spoke to the whole world.
   "He being dead yet speaketh"--not only in heaven, but on earth. God's
   prophets are a speaking people. They speak by their acts and by their
   words as long as they live, and when they are buried they speak by
   their example which they have left behind. Abel speaks by his blood to
   us. And what does it say? When Abel offered up his victim upon the
   altar he said to us, "I believe in a sacrifice that is to be offered
   for the sins of men," but when Abel's own blood was sprinkled on the
   altar he seemed to say, "Here is the ratification of my faith; I seal
   my testimony with my own blood; you have now the evidence of my
   sincerity, for I was prepared to die for the defense of this truth
   which I now witness unto you." It was a great thing for Abel thus to
   ratify his testimony with his blood. We should not have believed the
   martyrs half so easily if they had not been ready to die for their
   profession. The Gospel in ancient times would never have spread at such
   a marvellous rate, if it had not been that all the preachers of the
   gospel were ready at any time to attest their message with their own
   blood. But Christ's blood "speaketh better things than that of Abel."
   Abel's blood ratified his testimony, and Christ's blood has ratified
   his testimony too; but Christ's testimony is better than that of Abel.
   For what is the testimony of Christ? The covenant of grace--that
   everlasting covenant. He came into this world to tell us that God had
   from the beginning chosen his people--that he had ordained them to
   eternal life, and that he had made a covenant with his son Jesus Christ
   that if he would pay the price they should go free--if he would suffer
   in their stead they should be delivered. And Christ cried e'er "he
   bowed his head and gave up the ghost"--"It is finished." The covenant
   purpose is finished. That purpose was "to finish the transgression, and
   to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to
   bring in everlasting righteousness." Such was the testimony of our Lord
   Jesus Christ, as his own blood gushed from his heart, to be the
   diestamp, and seal, that the covenant was ratified. When I see Abel die
   I know that his testimony was true; but when I see Christ die I know
   that the covenant is true.

   "This covenant, O believer, stands

   Thy rising fears to quell;

   'Tis signed and sealed and ratified,

   In all things ordered well."

   When he bowed his head and gave up the ghost, he did as much as say,
   "All things are made sure unto the seed by my giving myself a victim."
   Come, saint, and see the covenant all blood-bestained, and know that it
   is sure. He is "the faithful and true witness, the prince of the kings
   of the earth." First of martyrs, my Lord Jesus, thou hadst a better
   testimony to witness than they all, for thou hast witnessed to the
   everlasting covenant; thou hast witnessed that thou art the shepherd
   and bishop of souls; thou hast witnessed to the putting away of sin by
   the sacrifice of thyself Again: I say, come, ye people of God, and read
   over the golden roll. It begins in election--it ends in everlasting
   life, and all this the blood of Christ crieth in your ears. All this is
   true; for Christ's blood proves it to be true, and to be sure to all
   the seed. It "speaketh better things than that of Abel."

   Now we come to the third voice, for the blood of Abel had a three-fold
   sound. It spoke in the conscience of Cain. Hardened though he was, and
   like a very devil in his sin, yet he was not so deaf in his conscience
   that he could not hear the voice of blood. The first thing that Abel's
   blood said to Cain was this: Ah! guilty wretch, to spill thy brother's
   blood! As he saw it trickling from the wound and flowing down in
   streams, he looked at it, and as the sun shone on it, and the red glare
   came into his eye, it seemed to say, "Ah! cursed wretch, for the son of
   thine own mother thou hast slain. Thy wrath was vile enough, when thy
   countenance fell, but to rise up against thy brother and take away his
   life, Oh! how vile!" It seemed to say to him, "What had he done that
   thou shouldst take his life? Wherein had he offended thee? Was not his
   conduct blameless, and his conversation pure? If thou hadst smitten a
   villain or a thief, men might not have blamed thee; but this blood is
   pure, clean, perfect blood; how couldest thou kill such a man as this?"
   And Cain put his hand across his brow, and felt there was a sense of
   guilt there that he had never felt before. And then the blood said to
   him again, "Why, whither wilt thou go? Thou shalt be a vagabond as long
   as thou livest." A cold chill ran through him, and he said, "Whosoever
   findeth me will kill me." And though God promised him he should live,
   no doubt he was always afraid. If he saw a company of men together, he
   would hide himself in a thicket, or if in his solitary wanderings he
   saw a man at a distance, he started back, and sought to bury his head,
   so that none should observe him. In the stillness of the night he
   started up in his dreams. It was but his wife that slept by his side;
   but he thought he felt some one's hands gripping his throat, and about
   to take away his life. Then he would sit up in his bed and took around
   at the grim shadows, thinking some fiend was haunting him and seeking
   after him. Then, as he rose to go about his business, he trembled. He
   trembled to be alone, he trembled to be in company. When he was alone
   he seemed not to be alone; the ghost of his brother seemed staring him
   in his face; and when he was in company he dreaded the voice of men,
   for he seemed to think every one cursed him, and he thought every one
   knew the crime he had committed, and no doubt they did, and every man
   shunned him. No man would take his hand, for it was red with blood, and
   his very child upon his knee was afraid to look up into his father's
   face, for there was the mark which God had set upon him. His very wife
   could scarcely speak to him,--for she was afraid that from the lips of
   him who had been cursed of God some curse might fall on her. The very
   earth cursed him. He no sooner put his foot upon the ground, than where
   it had been a garden before it suddenly turned into a desert, and the
   fair rich soil became hardened into an arid rock. Guilt, like a grim
   chamberlain, with fingers bloody red, did draw the curtain of his bed
   each night. His crime refused him sleep. It spoke in his heart, and the
   walls of his memory reverberated the dying cry of his murdered brother.
   And no doubt that blood spoke one more thing to Cain. It said, "Cain,
   although thou mayest now be spared there is no hope for thee; thou art
   a man accursed on earth, and accursed for ever, God hath condemned thee
   here, and he will damn thee hereafter." And so wherever Cain went, he
   never found hope. Though he searched for it in the mountain top, yet he
   found it not there. Hope that was left to all men, was denied to him: a
   hopeless, houseless, helpless vagabond, he wandered up and down the
   surface of the earth. Oh! Abel's brood had a terrible voice indeed.

   But now see the sweet change as ye listen to the blood of Christ. It
   "speaketh better things than that of Abel." Friend! hast thou ever
   heard the blood of Christ in thy conscience? I have, and I thank God I
   ever heard that sweet soft voice.

   Once a sinner near despair;

   Sought the mercy seat by prayer."

   He prayed: he thought he was praying in vain. The tears gushed from his
   eyes; his heart was heavy within him; he sought, but he found no mercy.
   Again, again, and yet again, he besieged the throne of the heavenly
   grace and knocked at mercy's door Oh! who can tell the mill-stone that
   lay upon his beating heart, and the iron that did eat into his soul. He
   was a prisoner in sore bondage; deep, as he thought, in the bondage of
   despair was he chained, to perish for ever. That prisoner one day heard
   a voice, which said to him, "Away, away to Calvary!" Yet he trembled at
   the voice, for he said, "Why should I go thither, for there my blackest
   sin was committed; there I murdered the Saviour by my trangressions?
   Why should I go to see the murdered corpse of him who became my brother
   born for adversity?" But mercy beckoned, and she said, "Come, come
   away, sinner!" And the sinner followed. The chains were on his legs and
   on his hands, and he could scarcely creep along. Still the black
   vulture Destruction seemed hovering in the air. But he crept as best he
   could, till he came to the foot of the hill of Calvary. On the summit
   he saw a cross; blood was distilling from the hands, and from the feet,
   and from the side, and mercy touched his ears and said, "Listen!" and
   he heard that blood speak; and as it spoke the first thing it said was,
   "Love!" And the second thing it said was, "Mercy!" The third thing it
   said was, "Pardon." The next thing it said was, "Acceptance." The next
   thing it said was, "Adoption." The next thing it said was, "Security."
   And the last thing it whispered was, "Heaven." And as the sinner heard
   that voice, he said within himself, "And does that blood speak to me?"
   And the Spirit said, "To thee--to thee it speaks." And he listened, and
   oh what music did it seem to his poor troubled heart, for in a moment
   all his doubts were gone. He had no sense of guilt. He knew that he was
   vile, but he saw that his vileness was all washed away; he knew that he
   was guilty, but he saw his guilt all atoned for, through the precious
   blood that was flowing there. He had been full of dread before; he
   dreaded life, he dreaded death; but now he had no dread at all; a
   joyous confidence took possession of his heart. He looked to Christ,
   and he said, "I know that my Redeemer liveth;" he clasped the Saviour
   in his arms, and he began to sing:--"Oh! confident am I; for this blest
   blood was shed for me." And then Despair fled and Destruction was
   driven clean away. and instead thereof came the bright white-winged
   angel of Assurance, and she dwelt in his bosom, saying evermore to him,
   "Thou art accepted in the Beloved: thou art chosen of God and precious:
   thou art his child now, and thou shalt be his favourite throughout
   eternity." "The blood of Christ speaketh better things than that of
   Abel."

   And now I must have you notice that the blood of Christ bears a
   comparison with the blood of Abel in one or two respects, but it
   excelleth in them all.

   The blood of Abel cried "Justice!" It was but right that the blood
   should be revenged. Abel had no private pique against Cain; doubtless
   could Abel have done so, he would have forgiven his brother; but the
   blood spoke justly, and only asked its due when it shouted "Vengeance!
   vengeance! vengeance!" And Christ's blood speaketh justly, when it
   saith, "Mercy!" Christ has as much right to demand mercy upon sinners,
   as Abel's blood had to cry vengeance against Cain. When Christ saves a
   sinner, he does not save him on the sly, or against law or justice, but
   he saves him justly. Christ has a right to save whom he will save, to
   have mercy on whom he will have mercy, for he can do it justly, he can
   be just, and yet be the justifier of the ungodly.

   Again, Abel's blood cried effectively. It did not cry in vain. It said,
   "Revenge!" and revenge it had. And Christ's blood, blessed be his name,
   never cries in vain. It saith, "Pardon;" and pardon every believer
   shall have it saith, "Acceptance," and every penitent is accepted in
   the Beloved. If that blood cry for me, I know it cannot cry in vain.
   That all-prevailing blood of Christ shall never miss its due; it must,
   it shall be heard. Shall Abel's blood startle heaven, and shall not the
   blood of Christ reach the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth?

   And again, Abel's blood cries continually, there is the mercy-seat, and
   there is the cross, and the blood is dropping on the mercy-seat. I have
   sinned a sin. Christ says, "Father, forgive him." There is one drop. I
   sin again: Christ intercedes again. There is another drop. In fact, it
   is the drop that intercedes, Christ need not speak with his mouth; the
   drops of blood as they fall upon the mercy-seat, each seemeth to say,
   "Forgive him! forgive him! forgive him!"

   Dear friend, when thou hearest the voice of conscience, stop and try to
   hear the voice of the blood too. Oh! what a precious thing it is to
   hear the voice of the blood of Christ. You who do not know what that
   means, do not know the very essence and joy of life; but you who
   understand that, can say, "The dropping of the blood is like the music
   of heaven upon earth." Poor sinner! I would ask thee to come and listen
   to that voice that distils upon thy ears and thy heart to-day. Thou art
   full of sin; the Saviour bids thee lift thine eyes to him. See, there,
   his blood is flowing from his head, his hands, his feet, and every drop
   that falls, still cries, "Father, O forgive them! Father, O forgive
   them." And each drop seems to cry also as it falls, "It is finished: I
   have made an end of sin, I have brought in everlasting righteousness."
   Oh! sweet, sweet language of the dropping of the blood of Christ" It
   "speaketh better things than that of Abel."

   II. Having thus, I trust, sufficiently enlarged upon this subject I
   shall now close by addressing you with a few earnest words concerning
   the second point.--The CONDITION INTO WHICH EVERY CHRISTIAN IS BROUGHT.
   He is said to be "come to the blood of sprinkling." I shall make this a
   very brief matter, but a very solemn and pointed one. My hearers, have
   you come to the blood of Christ? I do not ask you whether you have come
   to a knowledge of doctrine, or of an observance of ceremonies, or of a
   certain form of experience; but I ask you if you have come to the blood
   of Christ. If you have, I know how you come. You must come to the blood
   of Christ with no merits of your own. Guilty, lost, and helpless, you
   must come to that blood, and to that blood alone, for your hopes; you
   come to the cross of Christ and to that blood too, I know, with a
   trembling and an aching heart. Some of you remember how you first came,
   cast down and full of despair; but that blood recovered you. And this
   one thing I know: if you have come to that blood once, you will come to
   it every day. Your life will be just this--"Looking unto Jesus." And
   your whole conduct will be epitomized in this--"To whom coming as unto
   a living stone." Not to whom I have come, but to whom I am always
   coming. If thou hast ever come to the blood of Christ thou wilt feel
   thy need of coming to it every day. He that does not desire to wash in
   that fountain every day, has never washed in it at all. I feel it every
   day to be my joy and my privilege that there is still a fountain
   opened. I trust I came to Christ years ago but ah! I could not trust to
   that, unless I could come again to-day. Past experiences are doubtful
   things to a Christian; it is present coming to Christ that must give us
   joy and comfort. Did you not, some of you, sing twenty years age that
   hymn,

   "My faith doth lay her hand

   On that dear head of thine

   While like a penitent I stand,

   And there confess my sin."

   Why, beloved you can sing it as well to-day as you did then. I was
   reading the other day some book, in which the author states, that we
   are not to come to Christ as sinners as long as we live; he says we are
   to grow into saints. Ah! he did not know much, I am sure; for saints
   are sinners still, and they have always to come to Christ as sinners.
   If ever I go to the throne of God as a saint, I get repulsed; but when
   I go just as a poor humble seeking sinner, relying upon nothing but thy
   blood, O Jesus, I never can get a repulse, I am sure. To whom coming as
   unto "blood that speaketh better things than that of Abel." Let this be
   our experience every day.

   But there are some here who confess that they never did come. I cannot
   exhort you, then, to come every day, but I exhort you to come now for
   the first time. But you say, "May I come?" Yes, if thou art wishing to
   come thou mayest come; if thou feelest that thou hast need to come thou
   mayest come.

   "All the fitness he requireth,

   Is to feel your need of him;"

   And even

   This he gives you,

   'Tis his Spirit's rising beam."

   But you say, "I must bring some merits." Hark to the blood that speaks!
   It says, "Sinner, I am full of merit: why bring thy merits here?" "Ah!
   but," thou sayest "I have too much sin." Hark to the blood: as it
   falls, it cries, "Of many offenses unto justification of life." "Ah!
   but," thou sayest, "I know I am too guilty." Hark to the blood! "Though
   your sins be as scarlet I will make them as wool; though they be red
   like crimson they shall be whiter than snow." "Nay," says one, "but I
   have such a poor desire, I have such a little faith." Hark to the
   blood! "The bruised reed I will not break, and smoking flax I will not
   quench." "Nay, but," thou sayest, "I know he will cast me out, if I do
   come." Hark to the blood! "All that the Father giveth me shall come to
   me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." "Nay, but,"
   sayest thou, "I know I have so many sins that I cannot be forgiven."
   Now, hear the blood once more, and I have done. "The blood of Jesus
   Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin." That is the blood's
   testimony, and its testimony to thee. "There are three that bear
   witness on earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood;" and behold
   the blood's witness is--"The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth
   us from all sin." Come, poor sinner, cast thyself simply on that truth.
   Away with your good works and all your trustings! Lie simply flat on
   that sweet word of Christ. Trust his blood; and if thou canst put thy
   trust alone in Jesus, in his sprinkled blood, it shall speak in thy
   conscience better things than that of Abel.

   I am afraid there are many that do not know what we mean by believing.
   Good Dr. Chalmers once visiting a poor old woman, told her to believe
   in Christ, and she said, "But that is just the thing I do not know what
   you mean by." So Dr. Chalmers said, "Trust Christ." Now, that is just
   the meaning of believing. Trust him with your soul; trust him with your
   sins; trust him with the future; trust him with the past; trust him
   with everything. Say,

   "A guilty, weak, and worthless worm,

   On Christ's kind arms I fall

   Be thou my strength and righteousness,

   My Jesus and my all."

   May the Lord now give you his blessing; for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                 The New Heart

   A Sermon

   (No. 212)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, September 5, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within
   you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will
   give you an heart of flesh."--Ezekiel 36:26.

   BEHOLD A WONDER of divine love. When God maketh his creatures, one
   creation he regardeth as sufficient, and should they lapse from the
   condition in which he has created them, he suffers them, as a rule, to
   endure the penalty of their transgression, and to abide in the place
   into which they are fallen. But here he makes an exception; man, fallen
   man, created by his Maker, pure and holy, hath wilfully and wickedly
   rebelled against the Most High, and lost his first estate, but behold,
   he is to be the subject of a new creation through the power of God's
   Holy Spirit. Behold this and wonder! What is man compared with an
   angel? Is he not little and insignificant? "And the angels which kept
   not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved
   in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great
   day." God hath no mercy upon them; he made them pure and holy, and they
   ought to have remained his, but inasmuch as they wilfully rebelled, he
   cast them down from their shining seats for ever; and without a single
   promise of mercy, he hath bound them fast in the fetters of destiny, to
   abide in eternal torment. But wonder, ye heavens, the God who destroyed
   the angels stoops from his highest throne in glory, and speaks to his
   creature man, and thus saith unto him, "Now, thou hast fallen from me
   even as the angels did; thou hast grossly erred, and gone astray from
   my ways--not for thy sake do I this, but for mine own name's
   sake--behold I will undo the mischief which thine own hand hath done; I
   will take away that heart which has rebelled against me. Having made
   thee once, thou hast unmade thyself--I will make thee over again. I
   will put my hand a second time to the work; once more shalt thou
   revolve upon the pottery wheel, and I will make thee a vessel of honor,
   fit for my gracious use. I will take away thy stony heart, and give
   thee a heart of flesh; a new heart will I give thee; a new spirit will
   I put within thee." Is not this a wonder of divine sovereignty and of
   infinite grace, that mighty angels should be cast into the fire for
   ever, and yet God hath made a covenant with man that he will renew and
   restore him?

   And now, my dear friends I shall attempt this morning, first of all, to
   show the necessity for the great promise contained in my text, that God
   will give us a new heart and a new spirit, and after that, I shall
   endeavor to show the nature of the great work which God works in the
   soul, when he accomplishes this promise; afterwards, a few personal
   remarks to all my hearers.

   I. In the first place, it is my business to endeavor to show THE
   NECESSITY FOR THIS GREAT PROMISE. Not that it needs any showing to the
   quickened and enlightened Christian; but this is for the conviction of
   the ungodly, and for the humbling of our carnal pride. O that this
   morning the gracious Spirit may teach us our depravity, that we may
   thereby be driven to seek the fulfillment of this mercy, which is most
   assuredly and abundantly necessary, if we would he saved. You will
   notice that in my text God does not promise to us that he will improve
   our nature, that he will mend our broken hearts. No, the promise is
   that he will give us new hearts and right spirits. Human nature is too
   far gone ever to be mended. It is not a house that is a little out of
   repair, with here and there a slate blown from the roof, and here and
   there a piece of plaster broken down from the ceiling. No, it is rotten
   throughout, the very foundations have been sapped; there is not a
   single timber in it which has not been eaten by the worm, from its
   uppermost roof to its lowest foundation; there is no soundness in it;
   it is all rottenness and ready to fall. God doth not attempt to mend,
   he does not shore up the walls, and re-paint the door; he does not
   garnish and beautify, but he determines that the old house shall be
   entirely swept away, and that he will build a new one. It is too far
   gone, I say, to be mended. If it were only a little out of repair, it
   might be mended If only a wheel or two of that great thing called
   "manhood" were out of repair, then he who made man might put the whole
   to rights; he might put a new cog where it had been broken off, and
   another wheel where it had gone to ruin and the machine might work
   anew. But no, the whole of it is out of repair; there is not one 1ever
   which is not broken; not one axle which is not disturbed; not one of
   the wheels which act upon the others. The whole head is sick, and the
   whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot, to the crown of the
   head, it is all wounds and bruises and putrifying sores. The Lord,
   therefore, does not attempt the repairing of this thing; but he says,
   "I will give you a new heart, and a right spirit will I put within you;
   I will take away the heart of stone, I will not try to soften it, I
   will let it be as stony as ever it was, but I will take it away, and I
   will give you a new heart, and it shall be a heart of flesh."

   Now I shall endeavor to show that God is justified in this, and that
   there was an abundant necessity for his resolution so to do. For in the
   first place, if you consider what human nature has been, and what it
   is, you will not be very long before you will say of it, "Ah, it is a
   hopeless case indeed."

   Consider, then, for a moment how bad human nature must be if we think
   how ill it has treated its God. I remember William Huntingdon says in
   his autobiography, that one of the sharpest sensations of pain that he
   felt after he had been quickened by divine grace was this, "He felt
   such pity for God." I do not know that I ever met with the expression
   elsewhere, but it is a very expressive one; although I might prefer to
   say sympathy with God and grief that he should be so evil entreated.
   Ah, my friends, there are many men that are forgotten, that are
   despised, and that are trampled on by their fellows; but there never
   was a man who was so despised as the everlasting God has been. Many a
   man has been slandered and abused, but never was man abused as God has
   been. Many have been treated cruelly and ungratefully, but never one
   was treated as our God has been. Let us look back upon our past
   1ives--how ungrateful have we been to him! It was he who gave us beings
   and the first utterance of our lips should have been in his praise; and
   so long as we were here, it was our duty to have perpetually sung his
   glory; but Instead of that, from our birth we spoke that which was
   false and untrue, and unholy; and since then we have continued to do
   the same. We have never returned his mercies into his bosom with
   gratitude and thankfulness; but we have let them lie forgotten without
   a single hallelujah, from our carelessness concerning the Most High,
   that he had entirely forgotten us, and that therefore we were trying to
   forget him. It is so very seldom that we think of him that one would
   imagine that surely he never gave us occasion to think of him. Addison
   said,--

   "When all thy mercies, O my God,

   My rising soul surveys,

   Transported with the view I'm lost

   In wonder, love, and praise."

   But I think if we look back with the eye of penitence we shall be lost
   in wonder shame, and grief, for our cry will be, "What! could I treat
   so good a friend so ill? Have I had so gracious a benefactor, and have
   I been so unmindful of him; and so devoted a father, and yet have I
   never embraced him? Have I never given him the kiss of my affectionate
   gratitude? Have I never studied to do something whereby I might let him
   know that I was conscious of his kindness, and that I felt a grateful
   return in my bosom for his love?"

   But worse than this, we have not only been forgetful of him, but we
   have rebelled against him. We have assailed the Most High. If we knew
   that anything was God-like we hated it at once; we have despised his
   people, we have called them cants, and hypocrites, and Methodists. We
   have despised his day; he set it apart on purpose for our good, and
   that day we take for our own pleasure and our own labor instead of
   consecrating it to him. He gave us a book as a love-token. and he
   desired us to read it, for it was full of love to us; and we have kept
   it fast closed till the very spiders have spun their cobwebs over the
   leaves. He opened a house of prayer and bade us go there, and there
   would he meet with us and speak to us from off the mercy seat; but we
   have often preferred the theater to God's house and have been found
   listening to any sound rather than the voice which speaketh from
   heaven.

   Ah, my friends, I say again there never was a man treated by his
   fellow-creatures, even by the worst of men, so bad as God has been, and
   yet while men have been ill-treating him, he has still continued to
   bless them; he has put breath into the nostrils of man, even while he
   has been cursing him; has given him food to eat even while he has been
   spending the strength of his body in warfare against the Most High; and
   on the very Sabbath, when you have been breaking his commandment and
   spending the day on your own lusts, it is he who has given light to
   your eyes, breath to your lungs, and strength to your nerves and
   sinews; blessing you even while you have been cursing him. Oh! it is a
   mercy that he is God and changeth not, or else we sons of Jacob would
   long ago have been consumed, and justly too.

   You may picture to yourselves, if you like, a poor creature dying in a
   ditch. I trust that such a thing never happens in this land, but such a
   thing might happen as a man who had been rich on a sudden becoming
   poor, and all his friends deserting and leaving him; he begs for bread
   and no man will help him, until at last, without a rag to cover him,
   his poor body yields up life in a ditch. This, I think, is the very
   extreme of human negligence to mankind; but Jesus Christ, the Son of
   God, was treated even worse than this. It would have been a thousand
   mercies to him if they had permitted him to die unregarded in a ditch;
   but that would have been too good for human nature. He must know the
   very worst, and therefore God allowed human nature to take Christ and
   nail him to the tree. He allowed it to stand and mock his thirst and
   offer him vinegar, and taunt and jeer him in the extreme of his
   agonies; it allowed human nature to make him its jest and scorn, and
   stand staring with lascivious and cruel eyes upon his stripped and
   naked body.

   Oh! shame on manhood: never could there have been a creature worse than
   man. The very beasts are better than man, for man has all the worst
   attributes of the beasts and none of their best. He has the fierceness
   of the lion without its nobility; he has the stubbornness of an ass
   without its patience; he has all the devouring gluttony of the wolf,
   without the wisdom which bids it avoid the trap. He is a carrion
   vulture but he is never satisfied; he is a very serpent with the poison
   of asps beneath his tongue, but he spits his venom afar off as well as
   nigh. Ah, if you think of human nature as it acts towards God, you will
   say indeed it is too bad to be mended, it must be made anew.

   Again, there is another aspect in which we may regard the sinfulness of
   human nature: that is its pride. It is the very worst phase of
   man--that he is so proud. Beloved, pride is woven into the very warp
   and woof of our nature, and we shall never get rid of it until we are
   wrapped in our winding sheet. It is astonishing, that when we are at
   our prayers--when we try to make use of humble expressions, we are
   betrayed into pride. It was but the other day, I found myself on my
   knee, making use of such an expression as this: "O Lord, I grieve
   before thee, that ever I should have been such a sinner as I have been.
   Oh that I should ever have revolted and rebelled as I have done." There
   was pride in that; for who am I? Was there any wonder in it? I ought to
   have known that I was myself so sinful that there was no wonder that I
   should have gone astray. The wonder was, that I had not been even worse
   and there the credit was due to God, not to myself. So that when we are
   trying to be humble, we may be foolishly rushing into pride. What a
   strange thing it is to see a sinful, guilty wretch proud of his
   morality! and yet that is a thing you may see every day. A man who is
   an enemy to God, proud of his honesty, and yet he is robbing God; a man
   proud of his chastity, and yet if he knew his own thoughts, they are
   full of lasciviousness and uncleanness; a man proud of the praise of
   his fellows, while he knows himself that he has the blame of his own
   conscience and the blame of God Almighty. It is a wild, strange thing
   to think that man should be proud, when he has nothing to be proud of.
   A living, animated lump of clay--defiled and filthy, a living hell, and
   yet proud. I, a base-born son of one that robbed his Master's garden of
   old, and went astray and would not be obedient; of one that sunk his
   whole estate for the paltry bribe of a single apple! and yet proud of
   my ancestry! I, who am living on God's daily charity to be proud of my
   wealth! when I have not a single farthing with which to bless myself,
   unless God chooses to give it to me. I, that came naked into this
   world, and must go naked out of it. I, proud of my riches--what a
   strange thing! I, a wild asses colt, a fool that knoweth nothing, proud
   of my learning! Oh, what a strange thing, that the fool called man,
   should call himself a doctor, and make himself a master of all arts
   when he is a master of none, and is most a fool when be thinks his
   wisdom culminates to its highest point. And oh, strangest of all, that
   man who has a deceitful heart--full of all manner of evil
   concupiscence, and adultery, idolatry, and lust, should yet talk about
   being a good-hearted fellow, and should pride himself upon having at
   least some good points about him, which may deserve the veneration of
   his fellows, if not, some consideration from the Most High. Ah, human
   nature, this is, then, thine own condemnation, that thou art insanely
   proud, while thou hast nothing to be proud of. Write "Ichabod" upon it.
   The glory has departed for ever from human nature. Let it be put away,
   and let God give us something new for the old can never be made better.
   It is helplessly insane, decrepid, and defiled.

   Furthermore, it is quite certain that human nature cannot be made
   better, for many have tried it, but they have always failed. A man,
   trying to improve human nature, is like trying to change the position
   of a weathercock, by turning it round to the east when the wind is
   blowing west; he has but to take his hand off and it will be back again
   to its place. So have I seen a man trying to restrain nature--he is an
   angry bad-tempered man, and he is trying to cure himself a bit and he
   does, but it comes out, and if it does not burn right out, and the
   sparks do not fly abroad, yet it burns within his bones till they grow
   white with the heat of malice and there remains within his heart a
   residuum of the ashes of revenge. I have seen a man trying to make
   himself religious, and what a monstrosity he makes himself in trying to
   do it, for his legs are not equal, and he goes limping along in the
   service of God; he is a deformed and ungainly creature, and all who
   look at him can very soon discover the inconsistencies of his
   profession. Oh! we say, it is vain for such a man to try to appear
   white, as well might the Ethiopian think he could make his skin appear
   white by applying cosmetics to it, or as well might the leopard think
   that his spots might be brushed away as for this man to imagine that he
   can conceal the baseness of his nature by any attempts at religion.

   Ah, I know I tried a long time to improve myself, but I never did make
   much of it; I found I had a devil within me when I began, and I had ten
   devils when I left off. Instead of becoming better, I became worse; I
   had now got the devil of self-righteousness, of self-trust, and
   self-conceit, and many others had come and taken up their
   lodging-place. While I was busy sweeping my house, and garnishing it,
   behold the one that I sought to get rid of, and which had only gone for
   a little season, returned and brought with him seven other spirits more
   wicked than himself, and they entered in and dwelt there. Ah, you may
   try and reform, dear friends, but you will find you cannot do it, and
   remember even if you could, still it would not be the work which God
   requires; he will not have reformation, he will have renovation, he
   will have a new heart, and not a heart changed a little for the better.

   But, once again, you will easily perceive we must have a new heart when
   you consider what are the employments and the enjoyments of the
   Christian religion. The nature that can feed on the garbage of sin, and
   devour the carrion of iniquity, is not the nature that ever can sing
   the praises of God and rejoice in his holy name. The raven yonder has
   been feeding on the most loathsome food, do you expect that she shall
   have all the kindliness of the dove and toy with the maiden in her
   bower. Not unless you could change the raven into a dove; for as long
   as it is a raven its old propensities will cling to it and it will be
   incapable of anything above the raven's nature. Ye have seen the
   vulture gorge to his very full with the very filthiest of flesh, and do
   you expect to see that vulture sitting on the spray singing God's
   praises with its hoarse screaming and croaking throat? and do you
   imagine you will see it feeding like the barn-door fowl on the clean
   grain, unless its character and disposition be entirely changed?
   Impossible. Can you imagine that the lion will lie down with the ox,
   and eat straw like the bullock, so long as it is a lion? No; there must
   be a change. You may put on it the sheep's clothing but you cannot make
   it a sheep unless the lion-like nature be taken away. Try and improve
   the lion as long as ye like--Van Amburgh himself, if he had improved
   his lions for a thousand years, could not have made them into sheep.
   And you may try to improve the raven or the vulture as long as you
   please, but you cannot improve them into a dove--there must be a total
   change of character, and you ask me, then, whether it can be possible
   for a man that has sung the lascivious song of the drunkard, and has
   defiled his body with uncleanness, and has cursed God, to sing the high
   praises of God in heaven as well as he who has long loved the ways of
   purity and communion with Christ? I answer, no, never, unless his
   nature be entirely changed. For if his nature remain what it is,
   improve it as you may, you can make nothing better of it. So long as
   his heart is what it is, you can never bring it to be capable of the
   high delights of the spiritual nature of the child of God. Therefore,
   beloved, there must assuredly be a new nature put into us.

   And yet once again, and I will have concluded upon this point. God
   hates a depraved nature, and therefore it must be taken away, before he
   can be accepted in him. God does not hate our sin so much as he does
   our sinfulness. It is not the overflowing of the spring, it is the well
   itself. It is not the arrow that doth shoot from the bow of our
   depravity; it is the arm itself that doth hold the bow of sin, and the
   motive that wings the arrow against God. The Lord is angry not only
   against our overt acts, but against the nature which dictates the acts.
   God is not so short-sighted as merely to look at the surface, he looks
   at the source and fountain. He saith, "in vain shall it be, though thou
   shouldst make the fruit good, if the tree remain corrupt. In vain shalt
   thou attempt to sweeten the waters, so long as the fountain itself is
   defiled." God is angry with man's heart; he has a hatred against man's
   depraved nature, and he will have it taken away, he will have it
   totally cleansed before he will admit that man into any communion with
   himself--and above all, into the sweet communion of Paradise. There is,
   therefore, a demand for a new nature, and that we must have, or
   otherwise we can never see his face with acceptance.

   II. And now it shall be my joyful business to endeavor, in the second
   place, to set before you very briefly THE NATURE OF THIS GREAT CHANGE
   WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT WORKS IN US.

   And, I may begin by observing, that it is a divine work from first to
   last. To give a man a new heart and a new spirit is God's work, and the
   work of God alone. Arminianism falls to the ground when we come to this
   point. Nothing will do here but that old-fashioned truth men call
   Calvinism. "Salvation is of the Lord alone;" this truth will stand the
   test of ages and can never be moved, because it is the immutable truth
   of the living God. And all the way in salvation we have to learn this
   truth, but especially when we come here to this particular and
   indispensable part of salvation, the making of a new heart within us.
   That must be God's work; man may reform himself, but how can man give
   himself a new heart? I need not enlarge upon the thought it will strike
   you in a moment, that the very nature of the change, and the terms in
   which it is mentioned here, put it beyond all power of man. How can man
   put into himself a new heart, for the heart being the motive power of
   all life, must exert itself before anything can be done? But how could
   the exertions of an old heart bring forth a new heart? Can you imagine
   for a moment a tree with a rotten heart, by its own vital energy,
   giving to itself a new young heart? You cannot suppose such a thing. If
   the heart were originally right, and the defects were only in some
   branch of the tree, you can conceive that the tree, through the vital
   power of its sap within its heart, might rectify the wrong. We have
   heard of some kind of insects that have lost their limbs, and by their
   vital power have been able to recover them again. But take away the
   seat of the vital power--the heart, lay the disease there, and what
   power is there that can, by any possibility, rectify it, unless it be a
   power from without--in fact, a power from above? Oh, beloved, there
   never was a man yet, that did so much as the turn of a hair towards
   making himself a new heart. He must lie passive there--he shall become
   active afterwards--but in the moment when God puts a new life into the
   soul, the man is passive: and if there be aught of activity, it is an
   active resistance against it, until God, by overcoming victorious
   grace, gets the mastery over man's will.

   Once, again, this is a gracious change. When God puts a new heart into
   man, it is not because man deserves a new heart--because there was
   anything good in his nature, that could have prompted God to give him a
   new spirit. The Lord simply gives a man a new heart because he wishes
   to do it; that is his only reason. "But," you say, "suppose a man cries
   for a new heart?" I answer, no man ever did cry for a new heart until
   he had got one, for the cry for a new heart proves that there is a new
   heart there already. But, says one "Are we not to seek for a right
   spirit?" Yes, I know it is your duty,--but I equally know it is a duty
   you will never fulfill. You are commanded to make to yourselves new
   hearts, but I know you will never attempt to do it, until God first of
   all moves you thereunto. As soon as you begin to seek a new heart, it
   is presumptive evidence that the new heart is there already in its
   germ, for there would not be this germinating in prayer, unless the
   seeds were there before it.

   "But," says one, "suppose the man has not a new heart, and were
   earnestly to seek one, would he have it?" You must not make impossible
   suppositions; so long as the man's heart is depraved and vile, he never
   will do such a thing. I cannot, therefore, tell you what might happen,
   if he did what he never will do. I cannot answer your suppositions; if
   you suppose yourself into a difficulty you must suppose yourself out of
   it. But the fact is, that no man ever did, or ever will seek a new
   heart, or a right spirit, until, first of all, the grace of God begins
   with him. If there be a Christian here, who began with God, let him
   publish it to the world; let us hear for once that there was a man who
   was beforehand with his Maker. But I have never met with such a case;
   all Christian people declare that God was first with them, and they
   will all sing,

   "Twas the same love that spread the feast,

   That sweetly forced me in

   Else I had still refused to taste,

   And perished in my sin."

   It is a gracious change, freely given without any merit of the
   creature, without any desire or good-will coming beforehand. God doeth
   it of his own pleasure, not according to man's will.

   Once more, it is a victorious effort of divine grace. When God first
   begins the work of changing the heart, he finds man totally averse to
   any such a thing. Man by nature kicks and struggles against God; he
   will not be saved. I must confess I never would have been saved, if I
   could have helped it. As long as ever I could I rebelled and revolted,
   and struggled against God. When he would have me pray, I would not
   pray: when he would have me listen to the sound of the ministry, I
   would not. And when I heard, and the tear rolled down my cheek, I wiped
   it away and defied him to melt my heart. When my heart was a little
   touched, I tried to divert it with sinful pleasures. And when that
   would not do I tried self-righteousness, and would not then have been
   saved, until I was hemmed in, and then he gave me the effectual blow of
   grace, and there was no resisting that irresistible effort of his
   grace. It conquered my depraved will, and made me bow myself before the
   scepter of his grace. And so it is in every case. Man revolts against
   his Maker and his Saviour; but where God determines to save, save he
   will. God will have the sinner, if he designs to have him. God never
   was thwarted yet in any one of his purposes. Man does resist with all
   his might, but all the might of man, tremendous though it be for sin,
   is not equal to the majestic might of the Most High, when he rideth
   forth in the chariot of his salvation. He doth irresistibly save and
   victoriously conquer man's heart.

   And furthermore, this change is instantaneous. To sanctify a man is the
   work of the whole life; but to give a man a new heart is the work of an
   instant in one solitary second, swifter than the lightning flash, God
   can put a new heart into a man, and make him a new creature in Christ
   Jesus. You may be sitting where you are to-day, an enemy to God, with a
   wicked heart within; hard as a stone, and dead and cold; but if the
   Lord wills it, the living spark shall drop into your soul, and in that
   moment you will begin to tremble--begin to feel; you will confess your
   sin, and fly to Christ for mercy. Other parts of salvation are done
   gradually but regeneration is the instantaneous work of God's
   sovereign, effectual, and irresistible grace.

   III. Now we have in this subject a grand field of hope and
   encouragement to the very vilest of sinners. My hearers, let me very
   affectionately address you pouring out my heart before you for a moment
   or two. There are some of you here present who are seeking after mercy,
   for many-a-day you have been in prayer in secret, till your very knees
   seemed sore with the oftenness of your intercession. Your cry to God
   has been, "Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within
   me." Let me comfort you by this reflection, that your prayer is already
   heard. You have a new heart and a right spirit; perhaps you will not be
   able to perceive the truth of this utterance for months to come,
   therefore continue in prayer till God shall open your eyes, so that you
   may see that the prayer is answered; but rest assured it is answered
   already. If thou hatest sin, that is not human nature; if thou longest
   to be a friend of God, that is not human nature; if thou desirest to be
   saved by Christ, it is not human nature if thou desirest that without
   any stipulations of thine own, if thou art this day willing that Christ
   should take thee to be his own, to have and to hold, through life and
   through death, if thou art willing to live in his service, and if
   needful to die for his honor, that is not of human nature--that is the
   work of divine graces. There is something good in thee already; the
   Lord hath begun a good work in thy heart, and he will carry it, on even
   unto the end. All these feelings of thine are more than thou ever
   couldst have attained of thyself. God has helped thee up this divine
   ladder of grace, and as sure as he has brought thee up so many staves
   of it, he will carry thee to the very summit, till he grasps thee in
   the arms of his love in glory everlasting.

   There are others of you here however, who have not proceeded so far,
   but you are driven to despair. The devil has told you that you cannot
   be saved; you have been too guilty, too vile. Any other people in the
   world might find mercy, but not you, for you do not deserve to be
   saved. Hear me then, dear friend. Have I not tried to make it as plain
   as the sunbeam all through this service, that God never saves a man for
   the sake of what he is, and that he does not either begin or carry on
   the work in us because there is anything good in us. The greatest
   sinner is just as eligible for divine mercy as the very least of
   sinners. He who has been a ringleader in crime, I repeat, is just as
   eligible for God's sovereign grace, as he that has been a very paragon
   of morality. For God wants nothing of us. It is not as it is with the
   ploughman; he does not desire to plough all day upon the rocks, and
   send his horses upon the sand; he wants a fertile soil to begin with,
   but God does not. He will begin with the rocky soil, and he will pound
   that rocky heart of yours until it turns into the rich black mould of
   penitential grief, and then he will scatter the living seed in that
   mould, till it brings forth a hundredfold. But he wants nothing of you,
   to begin with. He can take you, a thief, a drunkard, a harlot, or
   whoever you may be; he can bring you on your knees, make you cry for
   mercy, and then make you lead a holy life, and keep you unto the end.
   "Oh!" says one, "I wish he would do that to me, then." Well, soul, if
   that be a true wish, he will. If thou desirest this day that thou
   shouldest be saved, there never was an unwilling God where there was a
   willing sinner. Sinner, if thou willest to be saved, God willeth not
   the death of any, but rather that they should come to repentance; and
   thou are freely invited this morning to turn thine eye to the cross of
   Christ. Jesus Christ has borne the sins of men, and carried their
   sorrows; thou art bidden to look there, and trust there, simply and
   implicitly. Then thou art saved. That very wish, if it be a sincere
   one, shows that God has just now been begetting thee again to a lively
   hope. If that sincere wish shall endure, it will be abundant evidence
   that the Lord hath brought thee to himself, and that thou art and shall
   be his.

   And now reflect every one of you--you that are not converted--that we
   are all this morning in the hands of God. We deserve to be damned: if
   God damneth us, there is not a single word that will be heard against
   his doing it. We cannot save ourselves; we lie entirely in his hands;
   like a moth that lies under the finger, he can crush us now, if he
   pleases, or he can let us go and save us. What reflections ought to
   cross our mind, if we believe that. Why, we ought to cast ourselves on
   our faces, as soon as we reach our homes, and cry, "Great God, save me,
   a sinner! Save me! I renounce all merit for I have none; I deserve to
   be lost; Lord, save me, for Christ's sake;" and as the Lord my God
   liveth, before whom I stand, there is not one of you that shall do this
   who shall find my God shut the gates of mercy against you. Go and try
   him, sinner; go and try him! Fall upon thy knees in thy chamber this
   day, and try my Master. See if he will not forgive you. You think too
   harshly of him. He is a great deal kinder than you think he is. You
   think he is a hard master, but he is not. I thought he was severe and
   angry, and when I sought him, "Surely," I said, "if he accepteth all
   the world beside, he will reject me." But I know he took me to his
   bosom; and when I thought he would spurn me for ever, he said, "I have
   blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy
   sins," and I wondered how it was, and I do wonder now. But it shall be
   so in your case. Only try him, I beseech thee. The Lord help thee to
   try him, and to him shall be the glory, and to thee shall be happiness
   and bliss, for ever and ever.
     __________________________________________________________________

                             The Fatherhood of God

   A Sermon

   (No. 213)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, September 12, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "Our Father which art in heaven."--Matthew 6:9.

   I THINK there is room for very great doubt, whether our Saviour
   intended the prayer, of which our text forms a part, to be used in the
   manner in which it is commonly employed among professing Christians. It
   is the custom of many persons to repeat it as their morning prayer, and
   they think that when they have repeated these sacred words they have
   done enough. I believe that this prayer was never intended for
   universal use. Jesus Christ taught it not to all men, but to his
   disciples, and it is a prayer adapted only to those who are the
   possessors of grace, and are truly converted. In the lips of an ungodly
   man it is entirely out of place. Doth not one say, "Ye are of your
   father the devil, for his works ye do?" Why, then, should ye mock God
   by saying, "Our Father which art in heaven." For how can he be your
   Father? Have ye two Fathers? And if he be a Father, where is his honor?
   Where is his love? You neither honor nor love him, and yet you
   presumptuously and blasphemously approach him, and say, "Our Father,"
   when your heart is attached still to sin, and your life is opposed to
   his law, and you therefore prove yourself to be an heir of wrath, and
   not a child of grace! Oh! I beseech you, leave off sacrilegiously
   employing these sacred words; and until you can in sincerity and truth
   say, "Our Father which art in heaven," and in your lives seek to honor
   his holy name, do not offer to him the language of the hypocrite, which
   is an abomination to him.

   I very much question also, whether this prayer was intended to be used
   by Christ's own disciples as a constant form of prayer. It seems to me
   that Christ gave it as a model, whereby we are to fashion all our
   prayers, and I think we may use it to edification, and with great
   sincerity and earnestness, at certain times and seasons. I have seen an
   architect form the model of a building he intends to erect of plaster
   or wood; but I never had an idea that it was intended for me to live
   in. I have seen an artist trace on a piece of brown paper, perhaps, a
   design which he intended afterwards to work out on more costly stuff;
   but I never imagined the design to be the thing itself. This prayer of
   Christ is a great chart, as it were: but I cannot cross the sea on a
   chart. It is a map; but a man is not a traveler because he puts his
   fingers across the map. And so a man may use this form of prayer, and
   yet be a total stranger to the great design of Christ in teaching it to
   his disciples. I feel that I cannot use this prayer to the omission of
   others. Great as it is, It does not express all I desire to say to my
   Father which is in heaven. There are many sins which I must confess
   separately and distinctly; and the various other petitions which this
   prayer contains require, I feel, to be expanded, when I come before God
   in private; and I must pour out my heart in the language which his
   Spirit gives me; and more than that, I must trust in the Spirit to
   speak the unutterable groanings of my spirit, when my lips cannot
   actually express all the emotions of my heart. Let none despise this
   prayer; it is matchless, and if we must have forms of prayer, let us
   have this first, foremost, and chief; but let none think that Christ
   would tie his disciples to the constant and only use of this. Let us
   rather draw near to the throne of the heavenly grace with boldness, as
   children coming to a father, and let us tell forth our wants and our
   sorrows in the language which the Holy Spirit teacheth us.

   And now, coming to the text, there are several things we shall have to
   notice here. And first, I shall dwell for a few minutes upon the double
   relationship mentioned: "Our Father which art in heaven." There is
   sonship--"Father;" there is brotherhood, for it says, "Our Father;" and
   if he be the common father of us, then we must be brothers; for there
   are two relationships, sonship and brotherhood. In the next place, I
   shall utter a few words upon the spirit which is necessary to help us
   before we are able to utter this--"The spirit of adoption," whereby we
   can cry, "Our Father which art in heaven." And then, thirdly, I shall
   conclude with the double argument of the text, for it is really an
   argument upon which the rest of the prayer is based. "Our Father which
   art in heaven," is, as it were, a strong argument used before
   supplication itself is presented.

   I. First, THE DOUBLE RELATIONSHIP IMPLIED IN THE TEXT.

   We take the first one. Here is sonship--"Our Father which art in
   heaven." How are we to understand this, and in what sense are we the
   sons and daughters of God? Some say that the Fatherhood of God is
   universal, and that every man, from the fact of his being created by
   God, is necessarily God's son, and that therefore every man has a right
   to approach the throne of God, and say, "Our Father which art in
   heaven." To that I must demur. I believe that in this prayer we are to
   come before God, looking upon him not as our Father through creation,
   but as our Father through adoption and the new birth. I will very
   briefly state my reasons for this.

   I have never been able to see that creation necessarily implies
   fatherhood. I believe God has made many things that are not his
   children. Hath he not made the heavens and the earth, the sea and the
   fullness thereof? and are they his children? You say these are not
   rational and intelligent beings; but he made the angels, who stand in
   an eminently high and holy position, are they his children? "Unto which
   of the angels said he at any time, thou art my son?" I do not find, as
   a rule, that angels are called the children of God; and I must demur to
   the idea that mere creation brings God necessarily into the
   relationship of a Father. Doth not the potter make vessels of clay? But
   is the potter the father of the vase, or of the bottle? No, beloved, it
   needs something beyond creation to constitute the relationship, and
   those who can say, "Our Father which art in heaven," are something more
   than God's creatures: they have been adopted into his family. He has
   taken them out of the old black family in which they were born; he has
   washed them. and cleansed them, and given them a new name and a new
   spirit, and made them "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;" and
   all this of his own free, sovereign, unmerited, distinguishing grace.

   And having adopted them to be his children, he has in the next place,
   regenerated them by the Spirit of the living God. He has "begotten them
   again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
   dead," and no man hath a right to claim God as his Father, unless he
   feeleth in his soul, and believeth, solemnly, through the faith of
   God's election, that he has been adopted into the one family of which
   is in heaven and earth, and that he has been regenerated or born again.

   This relationship also involves love, If God be my Father, he loves me.
   And oh, how he loves me! When God is a Husband he is the best of
   husbands. Widows, somehow or other, are always well eared for. When God
   is a Friend, he is the best of friends, and sticketh closer than a
   brother; and when he is a Father he is the best of fathers. O fathers!
   perhaps ye do not know how much ye love your children. When they are
   sick ye find it out, for ye stand by their couches and ye pity them, as
   their little frames are writhing in pain. Well, "like as a father
   pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." Ye know
   how ye love your children too, when they grieve you by their sin; anger
   arises, and you are ready to chasten them, but no sooner is the tear in
   their eye, than your hand is heavy, and you feel that you had rather
   smite yourself than smite them; and every time you smite them you seem
   to cry, "Oh that I should have thus to afflict my child for his sin! Oh
   that I could suffer in his stead!" And God, even our Father, "doth not
   afflict willingly." Is not that a sweet thing? He is, as it were,
   compelled to it; even the Eternal arm is not willing to do it; it is
   only his great love and deep wisdom that brings down the blow. But if
   you want to know your love to your children, you will know it most if
   they die. David knew that he loved his son Absalom, but he never knew
   how much he loved him till he heard that he had been slain, and that he
   had been buried by Joshua "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the
   death of his saints." He knows then how deep and pure is the love that
   death can never sever, and the terrors of eternity never can unbind.
   But, parents, although ye love your children much, and ye know it, ye
   do not know, and ye cannot tell how deep is the unfathomable abyss of
   the love of God to you. Go out at midnight and consider the heavens,
   the work of God's fingers, the moon and the stars which he hath
   ordained; and I am sure you will say, "What is man, that thou shouldst
   be mindful of him?" But, more than all, you will wonder, not at your
   loving him, but that while he has all these treasures, he should set
   his heart upon so insignificant a creature as man. And the sonship that
   God has given us is not a mere name; there is all our Father's great
   heart given to us in the moment when be claims us as his sons.

   But if this sonship involves the love of God to us, it involves also,
   the duty of love to God. Oh! heir of heaven, if thou art God's child,
   wilt thou not love thy Father? What son is there that loveth not his
   father? Is he not less than human if he loveth not his sire? Let his
   name be blotted from the book of remembrance that loveth not the woman
   that brought him forth, and the father that begat him. And we, the
   chosen favourites of heaven, adopted and regenerated, shall not we
   loose him? Shall we not say, "Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there
   is none upon earth that I desire in comparison with thee? My father, I
   will give thee my heart; thou shalt be the guide of my youth; thou dost
   love me, and the little heart that I have shall be all thine own for
   ever."

   Furthermore, if we say "Our Father which art in heaven," we must
   recollect that our being sons involves the duty of obedience to God.
   When I say "My Father," it is not for me to rise up and go in rebellion
   against his wishes; if he be a father, let me note his commands, and
   let me reverentially obey; if he hath said "Do this," let me do it, not
   because I dread him, but because I love him; and if he forbids me to do
   anything, let me avoid it. There are some persons in the world who have
   not the spirit of adoption, and they can never be brought to do a thing
   unless they see some advantage to themselves in it; but with the child
   of God, there is no motive at all; he can boldly say, "I have never
   done a right thing since I have followed Christ because I hoped to get
   to heaven by it, nor have I ever avoided a wrong thing because I was
   afraid of being damned." For the child of God knows his good works do
   not make him acceptable to God, for he was acceptable to God by Jesus
   Christ long before he had any good works; and the fear of hell does not
   affect him, for he knows that he is delivered from that, and shall
   never come into condemnation, having passed from death unto life. He
   acts from pure love and gratitude, and until we come to that state of
   mind, I do not think there is such a thing as virtue; for if a man has
   done what is called a virtuous action because he hoped to get to heaven
   or to avoid hell by it, whom has he served? Has he not served himself?
   and what is that but selfishness? But the man who has no hell to fear
   and no heaven to gain, because heaven is his own and hell he never can
   enter, that man is capable of virtue; for he says--

   "Now for the love I bear his name,

   What was my gain I count my loss;

   I pour contempt on all my shame,

   And nail my glory to his cross"--

   to his cross who loved, and lived, and died for me who loved him not,
   but who desires now to love him with all my heart, and soul, and
   strength.

   And now permit me to draw your attention to one encouraging thought
   that may help to cheer the downcast and Satan-tempted child of God.
   Sonship is a thing which all the infirmities of our flesh, and all the
   sins into which we are hurried by temptation, can never violate or
   weaken. A man hath a child; that child on a sudden is bereaved of its
   senses; it becomes an idiot. What a grief that is to a father, for a
   child to become a lunatic or an idiot, and to exist only as an animal,
   apparently without a soul! But the idiot child is a child, and the
   lunatic child is a child still; and if we are the fathers of such
   children they are ours, and all the idiocy and all the lunacy that can
   possibly befall them can never shake the fact that they are our sons.
   Oh! what a mercy, when we transfer this to God's case and ours! How
   foolish we are sometimes--how worse than foolish! We may say as David
   did, "I was as a beast before thee." God brings before us the truths of
   his kingdom; we cannot see their beauty, we cannot appreciate them; we
   seem to be as if we were totally demented ignorant, unstable, weary,
   and apt to slide. But, thanks be unto God, we are his children still!
   And if there be anything worse that can happen to a father than his
   child becoming a lunatic or an idiot, it is when he grows up to be
   wicked. It is well said, "Children are doubtful blessings." I remember
   to have heard one say, and, as I thought, not very kindly, to a mother
   with an infant at her breast--"Woman! you may be suckling a viper
   there." It stung the mother to the quick, and it was not needful to
   have said it. But how often is it the fact, that the child that has
   hung upon its mother's breast, when it grows up, brings that mother's
   grey hairs with sorrow to the grave!

   "Oh! sharper than a serpent's tooth

   To have a thankless child!"

   ungodly, vile, debauched--a blasphemer! But mark, brethren: if he be a
   child he cannot lose his childship, nor we our fatherhood, be he who or
   what he may. Let him be transported beyond the seas, he is still our
   son; let us deny him the house because his conversation might lead
   others of our children into sin, yet our son he is, and must be, and
   when the sod shall cover his head and ours, "father and son" shall
   still be on the tombstone. The relationship never can be severed as
   lone as time shall last. The prodigal was his father's son, when he was
   amongst the harlots, and when he was feeding swine; and God's children
   are God's children anywhere and everywhere, and shall be even unto the
   end. Nothing can sever that sacred tie, or divide us from his heart.

   There is yet another thought that may cheer the Little-faiths and
   Feeble minds. The fatherhood of God is common to all his children. Ah!
   Little-faith, you have often looked up to Mr. Great-heart, and you have
   said, "Oh that I had the courage of Great-heart, that I could wield his
   sword and cut old giant Grim in pieces! Oh that I could fight the
   dragons, and that I could overcome the lions! But I am stumbling at
   every straw, and a shadow makes me afraid." List thee, Little-faith.
   Great-heart is God's child, and you are God's child too; and
   Great-heart is not a whit more God's child than you are. David was the
   son of God, but not more the son of God than thou. Peter and Paul, the
   highly-favored apostles, were of the family of the Most High; and so
   are you. You have children yourselves; one is a son grown up, and out
   in business, perhaps, and you have another, a little thing still in
   arms. Which is most your child the little one or the big one? "Both
   alike," you say. "This little one is my child near my heart and the big
   one is my child too." And so the little Christian is as much a child of
   God as the great one.

   "This cov'nant stands secure,

   Though earth's old pillars bow;

   The strong, the feeble, and the weak,

   Are one in Jesus now;"

   and they are one in the family of God, and no one is ahead of the
   other. One may have more grace than another, but God does not love one
   more than another. One may be an older child than another, but he is
   not more a child; one may do more mighty works, and may bring more
   glory to his Father, but he whose name is the least in the kingdom of
   heaven is as much the child of God as he who stands among the king's
   mighty men. Let this cheer and comfort us, when we draw near to God and
   say, "Our Father which art in heaven."

   I will make but one more remark before I leave this point, namely,
   this,--that our being the children of God brings with it innumerable
   privileges. Time would fail me, if I were to attempt to read the long
   roll of the Christian's joyous privileges. I am God's child: if so, he
   will clothe me; my shoes shall be iron and brass; he will array me with
   the robe of my Saviour's righteousness, for he has said, "Bring forth
   the best robe and put it on him," and he has also said that he will put
   a crown of pure gold upon my head and inasmuch as I am a king's son, I
   shall have a royal crown. Am I his child? Then he will feed me; my
   bread shall be given me, and my water shall be sure; he that feeds the
   ravens will never let his children starve. If a good husbandman feeds
   the barn-door fowl, and the sheep and the bullocks, certainly his
   children shall not starve. Does my Father deck the lily, and shall I go
   naked? Does he feed the fowls of the heaven that sow not, neither do
   they reap, and shall I feel necessity? God forbid! My Father knoweth
   what things I have need of before I ask him, and he will give me all I
   want. If I be his child, then I have a portion in his heart here, and I
   shall have a portion in his house above. for "if children then heirs,
   heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ," "If we suffer with him we
   shall be also glorified together." And oh! brethren, what a prospect
   this opens up! The fact of our being heirs of God and joint-heirs with
   Christ, proves that all things are ours--the gift of God, the purchase
   of a Saviour's blood.

   "This world is ours, and worlds to come;

   Earth is our lodge, and heaven our home."

   Are there crowns? They are mine if I be an heir. Are there thrones? Are
   there dominions? Are there harps, palm branches, white robes? Are there
   glories that eye hath not seen? and is there music that ear hath not
   heard? All these are mine, if I be a child of God. "And it doth not yet
   appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we
   shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." Talk of princes, and
   kings, and potentates: Their inheritance is but a pitiful foot of land,
   across which the bird's wing can soon direct its flight; but the broad
   acres of the Christian cannot be measured by eternity. He is rich,
   without a limit to his wealth. he is blessed, without a boundary to his
   bliss. All this, and more than I can enumerate, is involved in our
   being able to say, "Our Father which art in heaven."

   The second tie of the text is brotherhood. It does not say my Father,
   but our Father. Then it seems there are a great many in the family. I
   will be very brief on this point.

   "Our Father." When you pray that prayer, remember you have a good many
   brothers and sisters that do not know their Father yet, and you must
   include them all; for all God's elect ones, though they be uncalled as
   yet, are still his children, though they know it not. In one of
   Krummacher's beautiful little parables there is a story like this:
   "Abraham sat one day in the grove at Mamre, leaning his head on his
   hand, and sorrowing. Then his son Isaac came to him, and said, My
   father, why mournest thou? what aileth thee?' Abraham answered and
   said, My soul mourneth for the people of Canaan, that they know not the
   Lord, but walk in their own ways, in darkness and foolishness.' Oh, my
   father,' answered the son, is it only this? Let not thy heart be
   sorrowful; for are not these their own ways?' Then the patriarch rose
   up from his seat, and said, Come now, follow me.' And he led the youth
   to a hut. and said to him, Behold.' There was a child which was an
   imbecile, and the mother sat weeping by it. Abraham asked her, Why
   weepest thou? Then the mother said, Alas, this my son eateth and
   drinketh, and we minister unto him; but he knows not the face of his
   father, nor of his mother. Thus his life is lost, and this source of
   joy is sealed to him.' " Is not that a sweet little parable, to teach
   us how we ought to pray for the many sheep that are not yet of the
   fold, but which must be brought in? We ought to pray for them, because
   they do not know their Father. Christ has bought them, and they do not
   know Christ; the Father has loved them from before the foundation of
   the world, and yet, they know not the face of their Father. When thou
   sayest "Our Father," think of the many of thy brothers and sisters that
   are in the back streets of London, that are in the dens and caves of
   Satan. Think of thy poor brother that is intoxicated with the spirit of
   the devil; think of him, led astray to infamy, and lust, and perhaps to
   murder, and in thy prayer pray thou for them who know not the Lord.

   "Our Father." That, then, includes those of God's children who differ
   from us in their doctrine. Ah! there are some that differ from us as
   wide as the poles; but yet they are God's children. Come, Mr. Bigot, do
   not kneel down, and say, "My Father," but "Our Father." "If you please,
   I cannot put in Sir. So-and-So, for I think he is a heretic." Put him
   in, sir. God has put him in, and you must put him in too, and say, "Our
   Father." Is it not remarkable how very much alike all God's people are
   upon their knees? Some time ago at a prayer-meeting I called upon two
   brothers in Christ to pray one after another, the one a Wesleyan and
   the other a strong Calvinist, and the Wesleyan prayed the most
   Calvinistic prayer of the two, I do believe--at least, I could not tell
   which was which. I listened to see if I could not discern some
   peculiarity even in their phraseology, but there was none. "Saints in
   prayer appear as one." for when they get on their knees, they are all
   compelled to say "Our Father," and all their language afterwards is of
   the same sort.

   When thou prayest to God put in the poor; for is he not the Father of
   many of the poor, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom, though they
   be poor in this world. Come my sister, if thou bowest thy knee amid the
   rustling of silk and satin, yet remember the cotton and the print. My
   brother, is there wealth in thy hand, yet I pray thee, remember thy
   brethren of the horny hand and the dusty brow; remember those who could
   not wear what thou wearest, nor eat what thou eatest, but are as
   Lazarus compared with thee, while thou art as Dives. Pray for them; put
   them all in the same prayer and say, "Our Father."

   And pray for those that are divided from us by the sea--those that are
   in heathen lands, scattered like precious salt in the midst of this
   world's putrefaction. Pray for all that name the name of Jesus, and let
   thy prayer be a great and comprehensive one. "Our Father, which art in
   heaven." And after thou hast prayed that rise up and act it. Say not
   "Our Father," and then look upon thy brethren with a sneer or a frown.
   I beseech thee, live like a brother, and act like a brother Help the
   needy; cheer the sick; comfort the faint-hearted; go about doing good,
   minister unto the suffering people of God, wherever thou findest them,
   and let the world take knowledge of thee, that thou art when on thy
   feet what thou art upon thy knees--that thou art a brother unto all the
   brotherhood of Christ, a brother born for adversity, like thy Master
   himself.

   II. Having thus expounded the double relationship, I have left myself
   but little time for a very important part of the subject, namely, THE
   SPIRIT OF ADOPTION.

   I am extremely puzzled and bewildered how to explain to the ungodly
   what is the spirit with which we must be filled, before we can pray
   this prayer. If I had a foundling here, one who had never seen either
   father or mother, I think I should have a very great difficulty in
   trying to make him understand what are the feelings of a child towards
   its father. Poor little thing, he has been under tutors and governors;
   he has learned to respect them for their kindness, or to fear them for
   their austerity, but there never can be in that child's heart that love
   towards tutor or governor, however kind he may be, that there is in the
   heart of another child towards his own mother or father. There is a
   nameless charm there: we cannot describe or understand it: it is a
   sacred touch of nature, a throb in the breast that God has put there,
   and that cannot be taken away. The fatherhood is recognized by the
   childship of the child. And what is that spirit of a child--that sweet
   spirit that makes him recognize and love his father? I cannot tell you
   unless you are a child yourself, and then you will know. And what is
   "the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father?" I cannot tell
   you; but if you have felt it you will know it. It is a sweet compound
   of faith that knows God to be my Father, love that loves him as my
   Father, joy that rejoices in him as my Father, fear that trembles to
   disobey him because he is my Father and a confident affection and
   trustfulness that relies upon him, and casts itself wholly upon him,
   because it knows by the infallible witness of the Holy Spirit, that
   Jehovah, the God of earth and heaven, is the Father of my heart. Oh!
   have you ever felt the spirit of adoption? There is nought like it
   beneath the sky. Save heaven itself there is nought more blissful than
   to enjoy that spirit of adoption. Oh! when the wind of trouble is
   blowing and waves of adversity are rising, and the ship is reeling to
   the rock how sweet then to say "My Father," and to believe that his
   strong hand is on the helm!--when the bones are aching, and when the
   loins are filled with pain, and when the cup is brimming with wormwood
   and gall, to say "My Father," and seeing that Father's hand holding the
   cup to the lip, to drink it steadily to the very dregs because we can
   say, "My Father, not my will, but thine be done." Well says Martin
   Luther, in his Exposition of the Galatians, "there is more eloquence in
   that word, Abba. Father,' than in all the orations of Demosthenes or
   Cicero put together." "My Father!" Oh! there is music there; there is
   eloquence there; there is the very essence of heaven's own bliss in
   that word, " My Father," when applied to God, and when said by us with
   an unfaltering tongue, through the inspiration of the Spirit of the
   living God.

   My hearers, have you the spirit of adoption? If not, ye are miserable
   men. May God himself bring you to know him! May he teach you your need
   of him! May he lead you to the cross of Christ, and help you to look to
   your dying Brother! May he bathe you in the blood that flowed from his
   open wounds, and then, accepted in the beloved, may you rejoice that
   you have the honor to be one of that sacred family.

   III. And now, in the last place, I said that there was in the title, A
   DOUBLE ARGUMENT. "Our Father." That is, "Lord, hear what I have got to
   say. Thou art my Father." If I come before a judge I have no right to
   expect that he shall hear me at any particular season in aught that I
   have to say. If I came merely to crave for some boon or benefit to
   myself, if the law were on my side, then I could demand an audience at
   his hands; but when I come as a law-breaker, and only come to crave for
   mercy, or for favors I deserve not, I have no right to expect to be
   heard. But a child, even though he is erring, always expects his father
   will hear what he has to say. "Lord, if I call thee King thou wilt say,
   Thou art a rebellious subject; get thee gone.' If I call thee Judge
   thou wilt say, Be still, or out of thine own mouth will I condemn
   thee.' If I call thee Creator thou wilt say unto me It repenteth me
   that I made man upon the earth.' If I call thee my Preserver thou wilt
   say unto me, I have preserved thee, but thou hast rebelled against me.'
   But if I call thee Father, all my sinfulness doth not invalidate my
   claim. If thou be my Father, then thou lovest me; if I be thy child,
   then thou wilt regard me, and poor though my language be, thou wilt not
   despise it." If a child were called upon to speak in the presence of a
   number of persons, how very much alarmed he would be lest he should not
   use right language. I may sometimes feel when I have to address a
   mighty auditory, lest I should not select choice words, full well
   knowing that if I were to preach as I never shall, like the mightiest
   of orators I should always have enough of carping critics to rail at
   me. But if I had my Father here and if you could all stand in the
   relationship of father to me, I should not be very particular what
   language I used. When I talk to my Father I am not afraid he will
   misunderstand me; if I put my words a little out of place he
   understands my meaning somehow. When we are little children we only
   prattle; still our father understands us. Our children talk a great
   deal more like Dutchmen than Englishmen when they begin to talk, and
   strangers come in and my, "Dear me, what is the child talking about?"
   But we know what it is and though in what they say there may not be an
   intelligible sound that any one could print, and a reader make it out,
   we know they have got certain little wants, and having a way of
   expressing their desires, and we can understand them. So when we come
   to God, our prayers are little broken things; we cannot put them
   together but our Father, he will hear us. Oh! what a beginning is "Our
   Father," to a prayer full of faults, and a foolish prayer perhaps, a
   prayer in which are going to ask what we ought not to ask for! "Father,
   forgive the language! forgive the matter!" As one dear brother said the
   other day at the prayer meeting. He could not get on in prayer, and he
   finished up on a sudden by saying, "Lord, I cannot pray to-night as I
   should wish; I cannot put the words together; Lord, take the meaning
   take the meaning," and sat down. That is just what David said once,
   "Lo, all my desire is before thee"--not my words, but my desire, and
   God could read it. We should say, "Our Father," because that is a
   reason why God should hear what we have to say.

   But there is another argument. "Our Father." "Lord, give me what I
   want." If I come to a stranger, I have no right to expect he will give
   it me. He may out of his charity; but if I come to a father, I have a
   claim, a sacred claim. My Father, I shall have no need to use arguments
   to move thy bosom; I shall not have to speak to thee as the beggar who
   crieth in the street: for because thou art my Father thou knowest my
   wants, and thou art willing to relieve me. It is thy business to
   relieve me; I can come confidently to thee, knowing thou wilt give me
   all I want. If we ask our Father for anything when we are little
   children, we are under an obligation certainly; but it is an obligation
   we never feel. If you were hungry and your father fed you, would you
   feel an obligation like you would if you went into the house of a
   stranger? You go into a stranger's house trembling, and you tell him
   you are hungry. Will he feed you? He says yes, he will give you
   somewhat; but if you go to your father's table, almost without asking,
   you sit down as a matter of course, and feast to your full, and you
   rise and go, and feel you are indebted to him; but there is not a
   grievous sense of obligation. Now, we are all deeply under obligation
   to God, but it is a child's obligation--an obligation which impels us
   to gratitude, but which does not constrain us to feel that we have been
   demeaned by it. Oh! if he were not my Father, how could I expect that
   he would relieve my wants? But since he is my Father, he will, he must
   hear my prayers, and answer the voice of my crying, and supply all my
   needs out of the riches of his fullness in Christ Jesus the Lord.

   Has your father treated you badly lately? I have this word to you,
   then; your father loves you quite as much when he treats you roughly as
   when he treats you kindly. There is often more love in an angry
   father's heart than there is in the heart of a father who is too kind.
   I will suppose a case. Suppose there were two fathers, and their two
   sons went away to some remote part of the earth where idolatry is still
   practiced. Suppose these two sons were decoyed and deluded into
   idolatry. The news comes to England, and the first father is very
   angry. His son, his own son, has forsaken the religion of Christ and
   become an idolater. The second father says, "Well, if it will help him
   in trade I don't care, if he gets on the better by it, all well and
   good." Now, which loves most, the angry father, or the father who
   treats the matter with complacency? Why, the angry father is the best.
   He loves his son; therefore he cannot give away his son's soul for
   gold. Give me a father that is angry with my sins, and that seeks to
   bring me back, even though it be by chastisement. Thank God you have
   got a father that can be angry, but that loves you as much when he is
   angry as when he smiles upon you.

   Go away with that upon your mind, and rejoice. But if you love not God
   and fear him not, go home, I beseech you, to confess your sins, and to
   seek mercy through the blood of Christ; and may this sermon be made
   useful in bringing you into the family of Christ though you have
   strayed from him long; and though his love has followed you long in
   vain, may it now find you, and bring you to his house rejoicing!
     __________________________________________________________________

                              His Name--Wonderful!

   A Sermon

   (No. 214)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, September 19, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "His name shall be called Wonderful."--Isaiah 9:6.

   ONE EVENING LAST WEEK I stood by the sea-shore when the storm was
   raging. The voice of the Lord was upon the waters; and who was I that I
   should tarry within doors, when my Master's voice was heard sounding
   along the water? I rose and stood to behold the flash of his
   lightnings, and listen to the glory of his thunders. The sea and the
   thunders were contesting with one another; the sea with infinite clamor
   striving to hush the deep-throated thunder, so that his voice should
   not be heard; yet over and above the roar of the billows might be heard
   that voice of God, as he spoke with flames of fire, and divided the way
   for the waters. It was a dark night, and the sky was covered with thick
   clouds, and scarce a star could be seen through the rifts of the
   tempest; but at one particular time, I noticed far away on the horizon,
   as if miles across the water, a bright shining, like gold. It was the
   moon hidden behind the clouds, so that she could not shine upon us; but
   she was able to send her rays down upon the waters, far away, where no
   cloud happened to intervene. I thought as I read this chapter last
   evening, that the prophet seemed to have stood in a like position, when
   he wrote the words of my text. All round about him were clouds of
   darkness; he heard prophetic thunders roaring, and he saw flashes of
   the lightnings of divine vengeance; clouds and darkness, for many a
   league, were scattered through history; but he saw far away a bright
   spot--one place where the clear shining came down from heaven. And he
   sat down, and he penned these words: "The people that walked in
   darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the
   shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined;" and though he looked
   through whole leagues of space, where he saw the battle of the warrior
   "with confused noise and garments rolled in blood," yet he fixed his
   eye upon one bright spot in futurity, and he declared, that there he
   saw hope of peace, prosperity and blessedness; for said he, "Unto us a
   child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shad be upon
   his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful."

   My dear friends, we live to-day upon the verge of that bright spot. The
   world has been passing through these clouds of darkness, and the light
   is gleaming on us now, like the glintings of the first rays of morning.
   We are coming to a brighter day, and "at evening time it shall be
   light." The clouds and darkness shall be rolled up as a mantle that God
   needs no longer, and he shall appear in his glory, and his people shall
   rejoice with him. But you must mark, that all the brightness was the
   result of this child born, this son given, whose name is called
   Wonderful; and if we can discern any brightness in our own hearts, or
   in the world's history, it can come from nowhere else, than from the
   one who is called "Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God."

   The person spoken of in our text, is undoubtedly the Lord Jesus Christ.
   He is a child born, with reference to his human nature; he is born of
   the virgin, a child. But he is a son given, with reference to his
   divine nature, being given as well as born. Of course. the Godhead
   could not be born of woman. That was from everlasting, and is to
   everlasting. As a child he was born, as a son he was given. "The
   government is upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called
   Wonderful." Beloved, there are a thousand things in this world, that
   are called by names that do not belong to them; but in entering upon my
   text, I must announce at the very opening, that Christ is called
   Wonderful, because he is so. God the Father never gave his Son a name
   which he did not deserve. There is no panegyric here, no flattery. It
   is just the simple name that he deserves, they that know him best will
   say that the word doth not overstrain his merits, but rather falleth
   infinitely short of his glorious deserving. His name is called
   Wonderful. And mark, it does not merely say, that God has given him the
   name of Wonderful--though that is implied; but "his name shall be
   called" so. It shall be; it is at this time called Wonderful by all his
   believing people, and it shall be. As long as the moon endureth, there
   shall be found men, and angels, and glorified spirits, who shall always
   call him by his right name. "His name shall be called Wonderful."

   I find that this name may bear two or three interpretations. The word
   is sometimes in Scripture translated "marvellous." Jesus Christ may be
   called marvellous; and a learned German interpreter says, that without
   doubt, the meaning of miraculous is also wrapt up in it. Christ is the
   marvel of marvels, the miracle of miracles. "His name shall be called
   Miraculous," for he is more than a man, he is God's highest miracle.
   "Great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh." It
   may also mean separated, or distinguished. And Jesus Christ may well be
   called this; for as Saul was distinguished from all men, being head and
   shoulders taller than they, so is Christ distinguished above all men;
   he is anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows, and in his
   character, and in his acts he is infinitely separated from all
   comparison with any of the sons of men. "Thou art fairer than the
   children of men; grace is poured into thy lips." He is "the chief among
   ten thousand and altogether lovely." "His name shall be called the
   Separated One," the distinguished one, the noble one, set apart from
   the common race of mankind.

   We shall, however, this morning, keep to the old version, and simply
   read it thus, "His name shall be called Wonderful." And first I shall
   notice that Jesus Christ deserveth to be called Wonderful for what he
   was in the past; secondly, that he is called Wonderful by all his
   people for what he is in the present; and in the third place, that he
   shall be called Wonderful, for what he shall be in the future.

   I. First, Christ shall be called Wonderful for WHAT HE WAS IN THE PAST.
   Gather up your thoughts, my brethren. for a moment, and center them all
   on Christ, and you will soon see how wonderful he is. Consider his
   eternal existence, "begotten of his Father from before all worlds,"
   being of the same substance with his Father: begotten, not made,
   co-equal, co-eternal, in every attribute, "very God of very God." For a
   moment remember that he who became an infant of a span long, was no
   less than the King of ages, the everlasting Father, who was from
   eternity. and is to be to all eternity. The divine nature of Christ is
   indeed wonderful. Just think for a moment, how much interest clusters
   round the life of an old man. Those of us who are but as children in
   years, look up to him with wonder and astonishment, as he tells us the
   varied stories of the experience through which he has passed; but what
   is the life of an aged man--how brief it appears when compared with the
   life of the tree that shelters him. It existed long before that old
   man's father crept a helpless infant into the world. How many storms
   have swept over its brow! how many kings have come and gone! how many
   empires have risen and fallen since that old oak was slumbering in its
   acorn cradle! But what is the life of the tree compared with the soil
   on which it grows? What a wonderful story that soil might tell! What
   changes it has passed through in all the eras of time that have elapsed
   since "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." There
   is a wonderful story connected with every atom of black mould which
   furnishes the nourishment of the oak. But whilst is the history of that
   soil compared with the marvellous history of the rock on which it
   rests--the cliff on which it lifts its head. Oh! what stories might it
   tell, what records lie hidden in its bowels. Perhaps it could tell the
   story of the time when "the earth was without form and void, and
   darkness was upon the face of the earth." Perhaps it might speak and
   tell us of those days when the morning and the evening were the first
   day, and the morning and the evening were the second day, and could
   explain to us the mysteries of how God made this marvellous piece of
   miracle,--the world. But what is the history of the cliff, compared
   with that of the sea that rolls at its base--that deep blue ocean, over
   which a thousand navies have swept, without leaving a furrow Upon its
   brow! But what is the history of the sea, compared with the history of
   the heavens that are stretched like a curtain over that vast basin!
   What a history is that of the hosts of heaven--of the everlasting
   marches of the sun, moon, and stars! Who can tell their generation, or
   who can write their biography? But what is the history of the heavens,
   compared with the history of the angels? They could tell you of the day
   when they saw this world wrapped in swaddling bands of mist--when, like
   a newborn infant, the last of God's offspring, it came forth from him,
   and the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for
   joy. But what is the history of the angels that excel in strength,
   compared with the history of the Lord Jesus Christ? The angel is but of
   yesterday, and he knoweth nothing; Christ, the Eternal One, chargeth
   even his angels with folly, and looks upon them as his ministering
   spirits, that come and go at his good pleasure. Oh, Christians, gather
   with reverence and mysterious awe around the throne of him who is your
   great Redeemer; for "his name is called Wonderful," since he has
   existed before all things, and "by him all things were made; and
   without him was not anything made that was made."

   Consider, again, the incarnation of Christ, and you will rightly say,
   that his name deserveth to be called "Wonderful." Oh! what is that I
   see? Oh! world of wonders, what is that I see? The Eternal of ages,
   whose hair is white like wool, as white as snow, becomes an infant. Can
   it be? Ye angels, are ye not astonished? He becomes an infant, hangs at
   a virgin's breast, draws his nourishment from the breast of woman. Oh
   wonder of wonders! Manger of Bethlehem, thou hast miracles poured into
   thee. This is a sight that surpasses all others. Talk ye of the sun,
   moon, and stars; consider ye the heavens, the work of God's fingers,
   the moon and the stars that he hath ordained; but all the wonders of
   the universe shrink into nothing, when we come to the mystery of the
   incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a marvellous thing when
   Joshua bade the sun to stand still, but more marvellous when God seemed
   to stand still, and no longer to move forward, but rather, like the sun
   upon the dial of Ahaz, did go back ten degrees, and veil his splendor
   in a cloud. There have been sights matchless and wonderful, at which we
   might look for years, and yet turn away and say, "I cannot understand
   this; here is a deep into which I dare not dive; my thoughts are
   drowned; this is a steep without a summit; I cannot climb it; it is
   high, I cannot attain it!" But all these things are as nothing,
   compared with the incarnation of the Son of God. I do believe that the
   very angels have never wondered but once and that has been incessantly
   ever since they first beheld it. They never cease to tell the
   astonishing story, and to tell it with increasing astonishment too,
   that Jesus Christ. the Son of God, was born of the Virgin Mary, and
   became a man. Is he not rightly called Wonderful? Infinite, and an
   infant--eternal, and yet born of a woman--Almighty, and yet hanging on
   a woman's breast supporting the universe, and yet needing to be carried
   in a mother's arms--king of angels, and yet the reputed son of
   Joseph--heir of all things and yet the carpenter's despised son.
   Wonderful art thou O Jesus, and that shall be thy name for ever.

   But trace the Saviours course, and all the way he is wonderful. Is it
   not marvellous that he submitted to the taunts and jeers of his
   enemies--that for a long life he should allow the bulls of Bashan to
   gird him round, and the dogs to encompass him? Is it not surprising
   that he should have bridled in his anger when blasphemy was uttered
   against his sacred person? Had you or I been possessed of his matchless
   might, we should have dashed our enemies down the brow of the hill, if
   they had sought to cast us there; we should never have submitted to
   shame and spitting; no, we would have looked upon them, and with one
   fierce look of wrath, have dashed their spirits into eternal torment.
   But he hears it all--keeps in his noble spirit--the lion of the tribe
   of Judah, but bearing still the lamb-like character of

   "The humble man before his foes,

   A weary man, and full of woes."

   I do believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the king of heaven, and yet he
   was a poor, despised, persecuted, slandered man; but while I believe it
   I never can understand it. I bless him for it; I love him for it; I
   desire to praise his name while immortality endures for his infinite
   condescension in thus suffering for me; but to understand it, I can
   never pretend. His name must all his life long be called Wonderful.

   But see him die. Come O my brothers, ye children of God, and gather
   round the cross. See your Master. There he hangs. Can you understand
   this riddle: God was manifest in the flesh, and crucified of men? My
   Master, I cannot understand how thou couldst stoop thine awful head to
   such a death as this--how then couldst take from thy brow the coronet
   of stars which from old eternity had shone resplendent there; but how
   thou shouldest permit the thorn-crown to gird the temples astonishes me
   far more. That thou shouldest cast away the mantle of thy glory, the
   azure of thine everlasting empire, I cannot comprehend; but how thou
   shouldest have become veiled in the ignominious purple for awhile, and
   then be bowed to by impious men, who mocked thee as a pretended king,
   and how thou shouldest be stripped naked to thy shame, without a single
   covering, this is still more incomprehensible. Truly thy name is
   Wonderful. Oh thy love to me is wonderful, passing the love of woman.
   Was ever grief like thine? Was ever love like thine, that could open
   the flood gates of such grief. Thy grief is like a river; but was there
   ever spring that poured out such a torrent? Was ever love so mighty as
   to become the fount from which such an ocean of grief could come
   rolling down? Here is matchless love--matchless love to make him
   suffer, matchless power to enable him to endure all the weight of his
   Father's wrath. Here is matchless justice, that he himself should
   acquiesce in his Father's will, and not allow men to be saved without
   his own sufferings; and here is matchless mercy to the chief of
   sinners, that Christ should suffer even for them. "His name shall be
   called Wonderful."

   But he died. He died! See Salem's daughters weep around. Joseph of
   Arimathea takes up the lifeless body after it has been taken down from
   the cross. They bear it away to the sepulcher. It is put in a garden.
   Do you can him Wonderful now?

   "Is this the Saviour long foretold

   To usher in the age of gold?"

   And is he dead? Lift his hands! They drop motionless by his side. His
   foot exhibits still the nail-print; but there is no mark of life.
   "Aha," cries the Jew, "is this the Messiah? He is dead; he shall see
   corruption in a little space of time. Oh! watchman, keep good ward lest
   his disciples steal his body. His body can never come forth, unless
   they do steal it; for he is dead. Is this the Wonderful the
   Counsellor?" But God did not leave his soul in Hades; nor did he suffer
   his body--"his holy one"--to see corruption? Yes, he is wonderful, even
   in his death. That clay-cold corpse is wonderful. Perhaps this is the
   greatest wonder of all, that he who is "Death of death and hell's
   destruction" should for awhile endure the bonds of death. But here is
   the wonder. He could not be holden of those bonds. Those chains which
   have held ten thousand of the sons and daughters of Adam, and which
   have never been broken yet by any man of human mould, save by a
   miracle, were but to him as green withes. Death bound our Samson fast
   and said, "I have him now, I have taken away the locks of his strength;
   his glory is departed, and now he is mine; but the hands that kept the
   human race in chains were nothing to the Saviour; the third day he
   burst them, and he rose again from the dead, from henceforth to die no
   more. Oh! thou risen Saviour--thou who couldst not see corruption--thou
   art wonderful in thy resurrection. And thou art wonderful too in thine
   ascension--as I see thee leading captivity captive and receiving gifts
   for men. "His name shall be called Wonderful."

   Pause here one moment, and let us think--Christ is surpassingly
   wonderful. The little story I have told you just now--not little in
   itself, but little as I have told it--has in it something surpassingly
   wonderful. All the wonders that you ever saw are nothing compared with
   this. As we have passed through various countries we have seen a
   wonder, and some older traveler than ourselves has said, "Yes this is
   wonderful to you. but I could show you something that utterly eclipses
   that." Though we have seen some splendid landscapes, with glorious
   hills, and we have climbed up where the eagle seemed to knit the
   mountain and the sky together in his flight, and we have stood and
   looked down, and said, "How wonderful!" Saith he, "I have seen fairer
   lands than these, and wider and richer prospects far." But when we
   speak of Christ, none can say they ever saw a greater wonder than he
   is. You have come now to the very summit of everything that may be
   wondered at. There are no mysteries equal to this mystery, there is no
   surprise equal to this surprise; there is no astonishment, no
   admiration that should equal the astonishment and admiration that we
   feel when we behold Christ in the glories of the past. He surpasses
   everything.

   And yet again. Wonder is a short-lived emotion; you know, it is
   proverbial that a wonder grows gray-headed in nine days. The longest
   period that a wonder is found to last is about that time. It is such a
   short-lived thing. But Christ is and ever shall be wonderful. You may
   think of him through three-score years and ten, but you shall wonder at
   him more at the end than at the beginning. Abraham might wonder at him,
   when he saw his day in the distant future; but I do mat think that even
   Abraham himself could wonder at Christ so much as the very least in the
   kingdom of heaven of to-day wonders at him, seeing that we know more
   than Abraham, and therefore wonder more. Think again for one moment,
   and you will say of Christ that he deserves to be called Wonderful, not
   only because he is always wonderful, and because he is surpassingly
   wonderful, but also because he is altogether wonderful. There have been
   some great feats of skill in the arts and sciences; for instance, if we
   take a common wonder of the day, the telegraph--how much there is about
   that which is wonderful! But there are a great many things in the
   telegraph that we can understand. Though there are many mysteries in
   it, still there are parts of it that are like keys to the mysteries, so
   that if we cannot solve the riddle wholly, yet it is disrobed of some
   of the low garments of its mystery. But now if you look at Christ
   anyhow, anywhere, anyway, he is all mystery, he is altogether
   wonderful, always to be looked at and always to be admired.

   And again, he is universally wondered at. They tell us that the
   religion of Christ is very good for old women. I was once complimented
   by a person, who told me he believed my preaching would be extremely
   suitable for blacks--for negroes. He did not intend it as a compliment,
   but I replied, "Well sir, if it is suitable for blacks I should think
   it would be very suitable for whites; for there is only a little
   difference of skin, and I do not preach to people's skins, but to their
   hearts." Now, of Christ we can say that he is universally a wonder, the
   strongest intellects have wonderful at him. Our Lockes and our Newtons
   have felt themselves to be as little children when they have come to
   the foot of the cross. The wonder has not been confined to ladies, to
   children, to old women and dying men, the highest intellects, and the
   lustiest minds have all wondered at Christ. I am sure it is a difficult
   task to make some people wonder. Hard thinkers and close mathematicians
   are not easily brought to wonder: but such men have covered their faces
   with their hands and cast themselves in the dust, and confessed that
   they have been lost in wonder and amazement. Well then may Christ be
   called Wonderful.

   II. "His name shall be called Wonderful." He is wonderful for WHAT HE
   IS IN THE PRESENT. And here I will not diverge, but will just appeal to
   you personally. Is he wonderful to you? Let me tell the story of my own
   wonderment at Christ, and in telling it, I shall be telling the
   experience of all God's children. There was a time when I wondered not
   at Christ. I heard of his beauties, but I had never seen them; I heard
   of his power, but it was nought to me; it was but news of something
   done in a far country--I had no connection with it, and therefore I
   observed it not. But once upon a time, there came one to my house of a
   black and terrible aspect. He smote the door; I tried to bolt it--to
   hold it fast. He smote again and again, till at last he entered, and
   with a rough voice he summoned me before him; and he said, "I have a
   message from God for thee; thou art condemned on account of thy sins."
   I looked at him with astonishment; I asked him his name. He said, "My
   name is the Law." and I fell at his feet as one that was dead. "I was
   alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived,
   and I died." As I lay there, he smote me. He smote me till every rib
   seemed as if it must break, and the bowels be poured forth. My heart
   was melted like wax within me; I seemed to be stretched upon a rack--to
   be pinched with hot irons--to be beaten with whips of burning wire. A
   misery extreme dwelt and reigned in my heart. I dared not lift up mine
   eyes, but I thought within myself, "There may be hope, there may be
   mercy for me. Perhaps the God whom I have offended may accept my tears
   and my promises of amendment, and I may live." But when that thought
   crossed me, heavier were the blows and more poignant my sufferings than
   before, till hope entirely failed me, and I had nought wherein to
   trust. Darkness black and dense gathered round me; I heard a voice as
   it were, of rushing to and fro, and of wailing and gnashing of teeth. I
   said within my soul, "I am cast out from his sight, I am utterly
   abhorred of God, he hath trampled me in the mire of the streets in his
   anger." And there came one by, of sorrowful but of loving aspect, and
   he stooped over me, and he said, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise
   from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." I arose in
   astonishment, and he took me, and he led me to a place where stood a
   cross, and he seemed to vanish from my sight. But he appeared again
   hanging there. I looked upon him as he bled upon that tree. His eyes
   darted a glance of love unutterable into my spirit, and in a moment,
   looking at him, the bruises that my soul had suffered were healed; the
   gaping wounds were cured; the broken bones rejoiced; the rags that had
   covered me were all removed; my spirit was white as the spotless snows
   of the far-off north; I had melody within my spirit, for I was saved,
   washed, cleansed, forgiven, through him that did hang upon the tree.
   Oh, how I wondered that I should be pardoned! It was not the pardon
   that I wondered at so much; the wonder was that it should come to me. I
   wondered that he should be able to pardon such sins as mine; such
   crimes, so numerous and so black, and that after such an accusing
   conscience he should have power to still every wave within my spirit,
   and make my soul like the surface of a river, undisturbed, quiet, and
   at ease. His name then to my spirit was Wonderful. But, brethren and
   sisters, if you have felt this, you can say you thought him wonderful
   then--if you are feeling it, a sense of adoring wonder enraptures your
   heart even now.

   And has he not been wonderful to you since that auspicious hour, when
   first you heard Mercy's voice spoken to you? How often have you been in
   sadness, sickness, and sorrow! But your pain has been light, for Jesus
   Christ has been with you on your sick-beds; your care has been no care
   at all, for you have been able to cast your burden upon him. The trial
   which threatened to crush you, rather lifted you up to heaven, and you
   have said "How wonderful that Jesus Christ's name should give me such
   comfort, such joy, such peace, such confidence." Various things bring
   to my recollection a period now removed by the space of nearly two
   years. Never shall we forget, beloved, the judgments of the Lord, when
   by terrible things in righteousness he answered our prayer that he
   would give us success in this house. We cannot forget how the people
   were scattered--how some of the sheep were slain, and the shepherd
   himself was smitten. I may not have told in your hearing the story of
   my own woe. Perhaps never soul went so near the burning furnace of
   insanity, and yet came away unharmed. I have walked by that fire until
   these locks seemed to be crisp with the heat thereof. My brain was
   racked. I dared not look up to God, and prayer that was once my solace,
   was cause of my affright and terror, if I attempted it. I shall never
   forget the time when I first became restored to myself. It was in the
   garden of a friend. I was walking solitary and alone, musing upon my
   misery, much cheered as that was by the kindness of my loving friend,
   yet far too heavy for my soul to bear, when on a sudden the name of
   Jesus flashed through my mind. The person of Christ seemed visible to
   me. I stood still. The burning lava of my soul was cooled. My agonies
   were hushed. I bowed myself there, and the garden that had seemed a
   Gethsemane became to me a Paradise. And then it seemed so strange to
   me, that nought should have brought me back but that name of Jesus. I
   thought indeed at that time that I should love him better all the days
   of my life. But there were two things I wondered at. I wondered that he
   should be so good to me, and I wondered more that I should have been so
   ungrateful to him. But his name has been from that time "Wonderful" to
   me, and I must record what he has done for my soul.

   And now, brothers and sisters, you shall all find, every day of your
   life, whatever your trials and troubles, that he shall always be made
   the more wonderful by them. He sends your troubles to be like a black
   foil, to make the diamond of his name shine the brighter. You would
   never know the wonders of God if it were not that you find them out in
   the furnace. "They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business
   in great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in
   the deep," and we shall never see the wonders of God except in that
   deep; we must go into the deeps before we know how wonderful his power
   and his might to save.

   I must not leave this point without one more remark. There have been
   times when you and I have said of Christ, "His name is wonderful
   indeed, for we have been by it transported entirely above the world,
   and carried upward to the very gates of heaven itself." I pity you,
   beloved, if you do not understand the rhapsody I am about to use. There
   are moments when the Christian feels the charms of earth all broken,
   and his wings are loosed, and he begins to fly; and up he soars, till
   he forgets earth's sorrows and leaves them far behind, and up he goes
   till he forgets earth's joys, and leaves them like the mountain tops
   far below, as when the eagle flies to meet the sun; and up, up, up he
   goes, with his Saviour full before him almost in vision beatific. His
   heart is full of Christ; his soul beholds his Saviour, and the cloud
   that darkened his view of the Saviour's face seems to be dispersed. At
   such a time the Christian can sympathise with Paul. He says, "Whether
   in the body or out of the body I cannot tell--God knoweth!" but I am,
   as it were, "caught up to the third heaven." And how is this rapture
   produced? By the music of flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds
   of instruments? No. How then? By riches? By fame? By wealth? Ah, no. By
   a strong mind? By a lively disposition? No. By the name of Jesus. That
   one name is all sufficient to lead the Christian into heights of
   transport that verge upon the region where the angels fly in cloudless
   day.

   III. I have no more time to stay upon this point, although the text is
   infinite, and one might preach upon it for ever. I have only to notice
   that his name shall be called Wonderful IN THE FUTURE.

   The day is come, the day of wrath, the day of fire. The ages are ended;
   the last century, like the last pillar of a dilapidated temple, has
   crumbled to its fall. The clock of time is verging to its last hour. It
   is on the stroke. The time is come when the things that are made must
   disappear. Lo, I see earth's bowels moving. A thousand hillocks give up
   the slumbering dead. The battle fields are clothed no more with the
   rich harvests that have been manured with blood; but a new harvest has
   sprung up. The fields are thick with men. The sea itself becomes a
   prolific mother, and though she hath swallowed men alive, she gives
   them up again, and they stand before God, an exceeding great army.
   Sinners! ye have risen from your tombs; the pillars of heaven are
   reeling; the sky is moving to and fro; the sun, the eye of this great
   world, is rolling like a maniac's, and glaring with dismay. The moon
   that long has cheered the night now makes the darkness terrible, for
   she is turned into a clot of blood. Portents, and signs, and wonders
   past imagination, make the heavens shake, and make men's hearts quail
   within them. Suddenly upon a cloud there comes one like unto the Son of
   Man. Sinners! picture your astonishment and your wonder when you see
   him. Where art thou, Voltaire? Thou saidst, "I will crush the wretch."
   Come and crush him now! "Nay" saith Voltaire, "he is not the man I
   thought he was." Oh how will he wonder when he finds out what Christ
   is! Now, Judas, come and give him a traitor's kiss! "Ah! nay," says he,
   "I knew not what I kissed: I thought I kissed only the son of Mary, but
   lo! he is the everlasting God." Now, ye kings and princes, that stood
   up and took counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed,
   saying, "Let us break his bands asunder, and cast his cords from us!"
   Come now, take counsel once more; rebel against him now! Oh! can ye
   picture the astonishment, the wonder the dismay, when careless, godless
   infidels and Socinians find out what Christ is? "Oh!" they will say,
   "this is wonderful, I thought not he was such as this;" while Christ
   shall say to them, "thou thoughtest that I was altogether such as
   yourselves; but I am no such thing; I am come in all my Father's glory
   to judge the quick and dead."

   Pharaoh led his hosts into the midst of the Red Sea. The path was dry
   and shingly, and on either shore stood like a wall of alabaster the
   clear white water stiff as with the breath of frost, consolidated into
   marble. There it stood. Can ye guess the astonishment and dismay of the
   hosts of Pharaoh, when they saw those walls of water about to close
   upon them? "Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish!" Such will be
   your astonishment, when Christ, whom ye have despised to-day--Christ,
   whom ye would not have to be your Saviour--Christ whose Bible ye left
   unread, whose Sabbath ye despised--Christ, whose gospel ye rejected,
   shall come in the glory of his Father, and all his holy angels with
   him. Ay, then indeed will ye "behold, and wonder, and perish," and you
   shall say, "His name is Wonderful."

   But perhaps, the most wonderful part of the day of judgment is this, do
   you see all the horrors yonder--the black darkness the horrid night,
   the clashing comets the pale stars, sickly and wan, falling like figs
   from the fig tree? Do you hear the cry, "Rocks, hide us, mountains, on
   us fall?" "Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise;" but
   there never was a battle like this. This is with fire and smoke indeed.
   But do ye see yonder? All is peaceful all serene and quiet. The myriads
   of the redeemed, are they shrieking, crying, wailing? No; see them!
   They are gathering--gathering round the throne. That very throne that
   seems to scatter, as with a hundred hands, death and destruction on the
   wicked, becomes the sun of light and happiness to all believers. Do you
   see them coming robed in white, with their bright wings? while
   gathering round him they veil their faces. Do ye hear them cry, "Holy,
   holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, for thou wast slain, and thou hast risen
   from the dead; worthy art thou to live and reign, when death itself is
   dead?" Do ye hear them? It is all song, and no shriek. Do ye see them?
   It is all joy, and no terror. His name to them is Wonderful; but it is
   the wonder of admiration the wonder of ecstacy, the wonder of
   affection, and not the wonder of horror and dismay. Saints of the Lord!
   ye shall know the wonders of his name, when ye shall see him as he is,
   and shall be like him in the day of his appearing. Oh! my enraptured
   spirit, thou shalt bear thy part in thy Redeemer's triumph, unworthy
   though thou art, the chief of sinners, and less than the least of
   saints. Thine eye shall see him and not another; "I know that my
   Redeemer liveth, and when he shall stand in the latter day upon the
   earth, though worms devour this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God."
   Oh! make your selves ready, ye virgins! Behold the bridegroom cometh.
   Arise and trim your lamps, and go ye out to meet him. He comes--he
   comes--he comes; and when he comes, you shall well say of him as you
   meet him with joy, "Thy name is called Wonderful. All hail! all hail!
   all hail!"
     __________________________________________________________________

                            His Name--The Counsellor

   A Sermon

   (No. 215)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, September 26, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the
   government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called
   Wonderful, Counsellor."--Isaiah 9:6.

   LAST SABBATH MORNING we considered the first title, "His name shall be
   called Wonderful:" this morning we take the second word, "Counsellor."
   I need not repeat the remark, that of course these titles belong only
   to the Lord Jesus Christ, and that we cannot understand the passage
   except by referring it to Messiah--the Prince. It was by a Counsellor
   that this world was ruined. Did not Satan mask himself in the serpent,
   and counsel the woman with exceeding craftiness, that she should take
   unto herself of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, in
   the hope that thereby she should be as God? Was it not that evil
   counsel which provoked our mother to rebel against her Maker, and did
   it not as the effect of sin, bring death into this world with all its
   train of woe? Ah! beloved, it was meet that the world should have a
   Counsellor to restore it, if it had a Counsellor to destroy it. It was
   by counsel that it fell and certainly, without counsel it never could
   have arisen. But mark the difficulties that surrounded such a
   Counsellor. Tis easy to counsel mischief; but how hard to counsel
   wisely! To cast down is easy, but to build up how hard! To confuse this
   world, and bring upon it all its train of ills was, an easy thing. A
   woman plucked the fruit and it was done; but to restore order to this
   confusion, to sweep away the evils which brooded over this fair earth,
   this was work indeed, and "Wonderful" was that Christ who came forward
   to attempt the work, and who in the plentitude of his wisdom hath
   certainly accomplished it, to his own honor and glory, and to our
   comfort and safety.

   We shall now enter upon the discussion of this title which is given to
   Christ, a title peculiar to our Redeemer; and you will see why it
   should be given to him and why there was a necessity for such a
   Counsellor.

   Now, our Lord Jesus Christ is a Counsellor in a three-fold sense.
   First, he is God's Counsellor; he sits in the cabinet council of the
   King of heaven; he has admittance into the privy chamber, and is the
   Counsellor with God. In the second place, Christ is a Counsellor in the
   sense which the Septuagint translation appends to this term. Christ is
   said to be the angel of the great council. He is a Counsellor in that
   he communicates to us in God's behalf, what has been done in the great
   council before the foundation of the world. And thirdly, Christ is a
   Counsellor to us and with us, because we can consult with him, and he
   doth counsel and advise us as to the right way and the path of peace.

   I. Beginning then, with the first point, Christ may well be called
   Counsellor, for he is a COUNSELLOR WITH GOD. And here let us speak with
   reverence, for we are about to enter upon a very solemn subject. It
   hath been revealed to us that before the world was, when as yet God had
   not made the stars, long ere space sprang into being, the Almighty God
   did hold a solemn conclave with himself; Father, Son and Spirit held a
   mystic council with each other, as to what they were about to do. That
   council, although we read but little of it in Scripture, was
   nevertheless most certainly held; we have abundant traces of it, for
   though it is a doctrine obscure through the effulgence of that light to
   which no man can approach, and not simply and didactically explained,
   as some other doctrines are, yet we have continual tracings and
   incidental mentionings of that great, eternal and wonderful council,
   which was held between the three glorious persons of Trinity before the
   world began. Our first question with ourselves is, why did God hold a
   council at all? And here, we must answer, that God did not hold a
   council because of any deficiency in his knowledge, for God
   understandeth all things from the beginning; his knowledge is the sum
   total of everything that is noble, and infinite is that sum total,
   infinitely above everything that is counted noble. Thou, O God, hast
   thoughts that are unsearchable, and thou knowest what no mortal ken can
   ever attain unto. Nor, again, did God hold any consultation for the
   increase of his satisfaction. Sometimes men, when they have determined
   what to do, will nevertheless seek counsel of their friends, because
   they say, "If their advice agrees with mine it adds to my satisfaction.
   and confirms me in my resolution." But God is everlastingly satisfied
   with himself, and Knoweth not the shadow of a doubt to cloud his
   purpose; therefore, the council was not held with any motive or intent
   of that sort. Nor, again, was it held with a view of deliberation; Men
   take weeks and months and sometimes years, to think out a thing that is
   surrounded with difficulties; they have to find the clue with much
   research; enveloped in folds of mystery, they have to take off first
   one garment and then another, before they find out the naked glorious
   truth. Not so God. God's deliberations are as flashes of lightning;
   they are as wise as if he had been eternally considering, but the
   thoughts of his heart, though swift as lightning, are as perfect as the
   whole system of the universe. The reason why God is represented as
   holding a council, if I think rightly, is this: that we might
   understand how wise God is. "In the multitude of counsellors there is
   wisdom." It is for us to think that in the council of the Eternal
   Three, each Person in the undivided Trinity being omniscient and full
   of wisdom, there must have been the sum total of all wisdom. And again,
   it was to show the unanimity and co-operation of the sacred persons:
   God the Father hath done nothing alone in creation or salvation. Jesus
   Christ hath done nothing alone; for even the work of his redemption,
   albeit that he suffered in some sense alone, needed the sustaining hand
   of the Spirit, and the accepting smile of the Father, before it could
   be completed. God said not, "I will make man," but "Let us make man in
   our own image." God saith not merely, "I will save," but the inference
   from the declarations of Scripture is, that the design of the three
   persons of the blessed Trinity was to save a people to themselves, who
   should show forth their praise. It was, then, for our sakes, not for
   God's sake, the council was held--that we might know the unanimity of
   the glorious persons, and the deep wisdom of their devices.

   Yet another remark concerning the council. It may be asked, "What were
   the topics deliberated upon at that first council, which was held
   before the day-star knew its place, and planets ran their round?" We
   reply, "The first topic was creation." We are told in the passage we
   have read, (Proverbs viii,) that the Lord Jesus Christ, who represents
   himself as Wisdom, was with God before the world was created, and we
   have every reason to believe that we are to understand this as meaning,
   that he was not only with God in company, but with God in co-operation.
   Besides, we have other Scriptures to prove that "all things were made
   by him and without him was not any thing made that was made." And to
   quote yet another passage that clinches this truth. God said, "Let us
   make man;" so that a part of the consultation was with reference to the
   making of worlds, and the creatures that should inhabit them. I believe
   that in the sovereign council of eternity, the mountains were weighed
   in scales, and the hills in balances; then was it fixed in sovereign
   council how far the sea should go, and where should be its bounds--when
   the sun should arise and come forth, like a giant from the chambers of
   his darkness, and when he should return again to his couch of rest.
   Then did God decree the moment when he should say, "Let there be
   light," and the moment when the sun should be turned into darkness, and
   the moon into a clot of blood. Then did he ordain the form and size of
   every angel, and the destinies of every creature; then did he sketch in
   his infinite thought, the eagle as he soared to heaven and the worm as
   he burrowed into the earth. Then the little as well as the great, the
   minute as well as the immense, came under the sovereign decree of God.
   There was that book written, of which Dr. Watts sings--

   "Chained to his throne a volume lies,

   With all the fates of men,

   With every angel's form and size,

   Drawn by th' eternal pen."

   Christ was a Counsellor in the matter of creation; with none else took
   he counsel; none else instructed him. Christ was the Counsellor for all
   the wondrous works of God.

   The second topic that was discussed in this council was the work of
   Providence. God does not act towards this world like a man who makes a
   watch, and lets it have its own way till it runs down; he is the
   controller of every wheel in the machine of providence. He has left
   nothing to itself. We talk of general laws, and philosophers tell us
   that the world is governed by laws, and then they put the Almighty out
   of the question. Now, how can a nation be governed by laws apart from a
   sovereign, or apart from magistrates and rulers to carry out the laws?
   All the laws may be in the statute book, but put all the police away,
   take away every magistrate, remove the high court of parliament, what
   is the use of laws? Laws cannot govern without active agency to carry
   them out; nor could nature proceed in its everlasting cycles, by the
   mere force of law. God is the great motive-power of all things; he is
   in everything. Not only did he make all things, but by him all things
   consist. From all eternity, Christ was the Counsellor of his Father
   with regard to providence--when the first man should be born, when he
   should wander, and when he should be restored--when the first monarchy
   should rise, and when its sun should set--where his people should be
   placed, how long they should be placed, and where they should be moved.
   Was it not the Most High who divided to the nations their inheritance?
   Hath he not appointed the bounds of our habitation? Oh! heir of heaven,
   in the day of the great council Christ counselled his Father as to the
   weight of thy trials, as to the number of thy mercies, if they be
   numerable, and as to the time, the way, and the means whereby thou
   shouldst be brought to himself. Remember, there is nothing that happens
   in your daily life, but what was first of all devised in eternity, and
   counselled by Jesus Christ for your good and in your behalf, that all
   things might work together for your lasting benefit and profit. But, my
   friends, what unfathomable depths of wisdom must have been involved,
   when God consulted with himself with regard to the great book of
   providence! Oh, how strange providence seems to you and to me! Does it
   not look like a zig-zag line, this way and that way, backward and
   forward, like the journeyings of the children of Israel in the
   wilderness? Ah! my brethren, but to God it is a straight line.
   Directly, God always goes to his object. and yet to us, he often seems
   to go round about. Ah! Jacob, the Lord is about to provide for thee in
   Egypt, when there is a famine in Canaan, and he is about to make thy
   son Joseph great and mighty. Joseph must be sold for a slave; he must
   be accused wrongfully, he must be put into the pit, and in the
   round-house prison he must suffer. But God was going straight to his
   purpose all the while: he was sending Joseph before them into Egypt
   that they might be provided for, and when the good old patriarch said,
   "All these things are against me," he did not perceive the providence
   of God, for there was not a solitary thing in the whole list that was
   against him, but everything was ruled for his weal. Let us learn to
   leave providence in the hand of the Counsellor, let us rest assured
   that he is too wise to err in his predestination, and too good to be
   unkind, and that in the council of eternity, the best was ordained that
   could have been ordained--that if you and I had been there, we could
   not have ordained half so well, but that we should have made ourselves
   eternal fools by meddling therewith. Rest certain, that in the end we
   shall see that all was well, and must be well for ever. He is
   "Wonderful, the Counsellor," for he counselled in matters of
   providence.

   And now with regard to matters of grace. These were also discussed in
   the everlasting council. When the Three Divine Persons in the solemn
   seclusion of their own loneliness consulted together with reference to
   the works of grace, one of the first things they had to consider was,
   how God should be just and yet the justifier of the ungodly--how the
   world should be reconciled unto God. Hence you read in the book of
   Zechariah, if you turn to the sixth chapter and the thirteenth verse,
   this passage--"The council of peace shall be between them both." The
   Son of God with his Father and the Spirit, ordained the council of
   peace. Thus was it arranged. The Son must suffer, he must be the
   substitute, must bear his people's sins and be punished in their stead;
   the Father must accept the Son's substitution and allow his people to
   go free, because Christ had paid their debts. The Spirit of the living
   God must then cleanse the people whom the blood had pardoned, and so
   they must be accepted before the presence of God, even the Father. That
   was the result of the great council. But O my brethren, if it had not
   been for that council, what a question would have been left unsolved?
   Neither you nor I could ever have thought how the two should meet
   together--how mercy and justice should kiss each other over the
   mountain of our sins. I have always thought that one of the greatest
   proofs that the gospel is of God, is its revelation that Christ died to
   save sinners. That is a thought so original, so new so wonderful; you
   have not got it in any other religion in the world; so that it must
   have come from God. As I remember to have heard an un-schooled and
   illiterate man say, when I first told him the simple story of how
   Christ was punished in the stead of his people: he burst out with an
   air of surprise, "Faith! that's the gospel, I know; no man could have
   made that up; that must be of God." That wonderful thought, that a God
   himself should die, that he himself should bear our sins, that so God
   the Father might be able to forgive and yet exact the utmost penalty,
   is super-human, super-angelic; not even the cherubim and seraphim could
   have been the inventors of it: but that thought was first struck out
   from the mind of God in the councils of eternity, when the "Wonderful,
   the Counsellor," was present with his Father.

   Again, another part of the great council was this--who should be saved,
   Now my friends, you that like not old Calvinistic doctrine will perhaps
   be horrified but that I cannot help; I will never modify a doctrine I
   believe to please any man that walks upon earth; but I will prove from
   Scripture that I have the warrant of God in this matter, and that it is
   not my own invention. I say that one part of the council of eternity
   was the predestination of those whom God had determined to save, and I
   will read you the passage that proves it. "In whom also we have
   obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose
   of him that worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." The
   predestination of everyone of God's people was arranged at the eternal
   council, where God's will sat as the sovereign umpire and undisputed
   president. There was it said of each redeemed one, "At such an hour I
   will call him by my grace, for I have loved him with an everlasting
   love, and by my lovingkindness will I draw him." There was it
   originated when the peace-speaking blood shall be laid to that elect
   one's conscience, when the Spirit of the living God shall breathe joy
   and consolation into his heart. There was it settled how that chosen
   one should be "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation;
   and there was it determined and settled by two immutable things,
   wherein it is impossible for God to lie, that everyone of these should
   be eternally saved, beyond the shadow of a risk of perishing. The
   apostle Paul was not like some preachers, who are afraid to say a word
   about the everlasting council, for he says in his epistle to the
   Hebrews--"God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise
   the immutability of his council, confirmed it by an oath." Now, you
   hear some talk about the immutability of the promise: that is good. But
   the immutability of God's counsel,--that is to fathom to the very
   uttermost the doctrines of grace. The council of God from all eternity
   is immutable; not one purpose has he ever altered, not one decree has
   he ever changed, he has nailed his decrees against the pillars of
   eternity, and though the devils have sought to rend them down from the
   posts of his magnificent palace, yet, saith he, "have I set my king
   upon my holy hill of Zion;" the decree shall stand; I will do all my
   pleasure. Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth, thou, Lord,
   in the beginning hast made the heavens and laid the foundations of the
   earth, thou hast determined thy plans and purposes, and they stand fast
   for ever and ever.

   I think I have sufficiently declared how Christ was the Counsellor, in
   the transcendent affairs of nature, providence, and grace, in the
   everlasting council-chamber of eternity. But now I would have you
   notice what a mercy it was that there was such a Counsellor with God,
   and how fit Christ was to be the Counsellor. Christ himself is wisdom.
   He chargeth his angels with folly; but he is God only wise himself. If
   a fool undertake to be a counsellor, his counsel is folly, but when
   Christ counselled, his counsel was full of wisdom. But there is another
   qualification necessary for a counsellor. However wise a man be, he has
   no right to be a counsellor with a king, unless he has some dignity and
   standing. There may happen to be in my congregation some person of
   great talent, but if my friend should present himself at the cabinet
   council and give his advice, he would most probably be unceremoniously
   dismissed, for they would say, "Art thou of the king's council; if not,
   what right hast thou to stand here?" Now Christ was glorious; he was
   equal with his Father, therefore he had a right to counsel God--to
   counsel with God. Had an angel offered his advice to God it would have
   been as insufferable impertinence; had the cherubim or seraphim
   volunteered to give so much as one word of counsel it would have been
   blasphemy. He would take no counsel from his creatures. Why should
   wisdom stoop from its throne, to counsel with created folly? But
   because Christ was far above all principalities and powers and every
   name that is named, therefore he had a right, not only from his wisdom,
   but from his rank, to be a Counsellor with God.

   But there is one thing that is always necessary in a man, before we can
   rejoice in his being a counsellor. There are some counsellors
   concerning the legislation of our country in whom you or I could not
   rejoice much, because we feel that in their counsels the most of us
   would be forgotten. Our farming friends would probably rejoice in them;
   they will consult their interests, there is not much doubt; but whoever
   heard of a counsellor yet who counselled for the poor? or who has these
   many years heard as much as an inkling of the name of a man who really
   counselled for economy and for the good of his nation. We have plenty
   of men who promise us that they will counsel for us--abundance of men
   who, if we would but return them to parliament would most assuredly
   pour forth such wisdom in our behalf that without doubt we should be
   the most happy and enlightened people in the world according to their
   promise. but alas! when they get into office they have no hearty
   sympathy with us; they belong to a different rank from the most of us,
   they do not sympathize with the wants and the desires of the middle
   class and of the poor. But, with regard to Christ, we can put every
   confidence in him, for we know that in that council from eternity he
   symphathized with man. He says, "My delights were with the sons of
   men." Happy men to have a counsellor who delights in them! Moreover, he
   then though he was not man, yet foresaw that he was to be "bone of our
   bone and flesh of our flesh," and therefore in the counsels of eternity
   he pleaded his own cause when he pleaded our cause, for he well knew
   that he was to be tempted in all points like as we are, and was to
   suffer our sufferings and to be our covenant head in union with
   ourselves. Sweet Counsellor! I love to think thou wast in the
   everlasting council, my friend, my brother born for adversity!

   II. Having thus discussed the first point, I shall proceed to consider
   briefly the second, according to the translation of the Septuagint.
   Christ is THE ANGEL OF THE GREAT COUNCIL. Do you and I want to know
   what was said and done in the great council of eternity? Yes, we do. I
   will defy any man, whoever he may be, not to want to know something
   about destiny. What means the ignorance of the common people, when they
   appeal to the witch, the pretender? when they enquire of the
   astrologer, and read the book of the pretended soothsayer? Why, it
   means that man wants to know something about the everlasting council.
   And what mean all the perplexing researches of certain persons into the
   prophecies? I consider very often that the inferences drawn from
   prophecy are very little better, after all, than the guesses of the
   Norwood gipsey, and that some people who have been so busy in
   foretelling the end of the world, would have been better employed if
   they had foretold the end of their own books, and had not imposed on
   the public by predictions, assaying to interpret the prophecies,
   without the shadow of a foundation. But, from their credulity we may
   learn, that among the higher class as well as among the more ignorant,
   there is a strong desire to know the councils of eternity. Beloved,
   there is only one glass through which you and I can look back to the
   dim darkness of the shrouded past, and read the counsels of God, and
   that glass is the person of Jesus Christ. Do I want to know what God
   ordained with regard to the salvation of man from before the foundation
   of the world? I look to Christ; I find that it was ordained in Christ
   that he should be the first elect, and that a people should be chosen
   in him. Do you ask the way in which God ordained to save? I answer, he
   ordained to save by the cross. Do you ask how God ordained to pardon?
   The answer comes, he ordained to pardon through the sufferings of
   Christ, and to justify through his resurrection from the dead.
   Everything that you want to know with regard to what God ordained,
   everything that you ought to know, you can find out in the person of
   Jesus Christ. And again, do I long to know the great secret of destiny?
   I must look to Christ. What mean these wars, this confusion, these
   garments rolled in blood? I see Christ born of a virgin, and then I
   read the world's history backwards, and I see that all this led to
   Christ's coming. I see that all these leaned one upon another, as I
   have sometimes seen clusters of rocks leaning on each other, and Christ
   the great leading rock bearing up the superincumbent mass of all past
   history. And if I want to read the future I look at Christ, and I learn
   that he who has gone up to heaven, is to come again from heaven in like
   manner as he went up to heaven. So all the future is clear enough to
   me. I do not know whether the Pope of Rome is to obtain universal
   empire or not; I do not mind whether the Russian empire is to swallow
   up all the nations of the continent; there is one thing I know, God
   will overturn, overturn, overturn, till he shall come whose right it is
   to reign; and I know that though the worms devour my body, yet when he
   shall stand in the latter day upon the earth, in my flesh shall I see
   God, and there is enough in that for me. All the rest of history is
   unimportant compared with its end, its issues, its purpose. The end of
   the first Testament is the first advent of Christ; the end of this
   second Testament of modern history is the second advent of the Saviour
   and then shall the book of time be closed. But none could open the Old
   Testament history and make it out, except through Christ. Abraham could
   understand it, for he knew that Christ was to come; Christ opened the
   book for him. And so modern history is never to be understood except
   through Christ. None but the Lamb can take the book and open every
   seal; but he who believeth in Christ and looks for his glorious advent,
   he may open the book and read therein, and have understanding, for in
   Christ there is a revelation of the eternal councils.

   "Now," says one, "Sir, I want to know one thing, and if I knew that, I
   would not care what happened. I want to know whether God from all
   eternity ordained me to be saved." Well, friend, I will tell you how to
   find that out, and you may find it out to a certainty. "Nay," says one,
   "but how can I know that? You cannot read the book of fate; that is
   impossible." I have heard of some divine, of a very hyper school
   indeed, who said, "Ah! blessed be the Lord, there are some of God's
   dear people here; I can tell them by the very look of their faces. I
   know that they are among God's elect." He was not half so discreet as
   Rowland Hill, who when he was advised to preach to none but the elect,
   said, "He would certainly do so if some one would chalk them all on the
   back first." That was never attempted by anybody, so Rowland Hill went
   on preaching the gospel to every creature, as I desire to do. But you
   may find out whether you are among his chosen ones. "How?" says one.
   Why, Christ is the angel of the covenant, and you can find it out by
   looking to him. Many people want to know their election before they
   look to Christ. Beloved you cannot know your election, except as you
   see it in Christ. If you want to know your election, thus shall you
   assure your hearts before God.--Do you feel yourself this morning to be
   a lost, guilty sinner? go straightway to the cross of Christ, and tell
   Christ that, and tell him that you have read in the Bible, "That him
   that cometh unto him he will in no wise cast out." Tell him that he has
   said, "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that
   Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom you are
   chief." Look to Christ and believe on him, and you shall make proof of
   your election directly, for so surely as thou believest thou art elect.
   If thou wilt give thyself wholly up to Christ and trust him, then thou
   art one of God's chosen ones; but if you stop and say, "I want to know
   first whether I am elect," that is impossible. If there be something
   covered up, and I say, "Now, before you can see this you must lift the
   veil;" and you say, "Nay, but I want to see right through that veil,"
   you cannot. Lift the veil first and you shall see. Go to Christ guilty,
   just as you are. Leave all curious inquiry about thy election alone. Go
   straight away to Christ, just as you are, black, naked, penniless and
   poor, and say,

   "Nothing in my hands I bring,

   Simply to thy cross I cling,"

   and you shall know your election. The assurance of the Holy Spirit
   shall be given to you, so that you shall be able to say, "I know whom I
   have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I
   have committed to him." Now do notice this. Christ was at the
   everlasting council: he can tell you whether you were chosen or not,
   but you cannot find that out anyhow else. You go and put your trust in
   him, and I know what the answer will be. His answer will be--"I have
   loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore in lovingkindness have I
   drawn thee." There will be no doubt about his having chosen you, when
   you shall feel no doubt about having chosen him.

   So much for the second point. Christ is the Counsellor. He is the angel
   of the council, because he tells out God's secrets to us. "The secret
   of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his
   covenant."

   III. The last point was, Christ is A COUNSELLOR TO US. And here I shall
   want to give some practical hints to God's people. Some how or other,
   brethren, it is not good for man to be alone. A lonely man must be, I
   think, a miserable man, and a man without a Counsellor, I think, must
   of necessity go wrong. "Where there is no counsellor," says Solomon,
   "the people fall." I think most persons will find it so. A man says,
   "Well, I'll have my own way, and I will ask nobody." Have it,
   sir,--have it--and you will find that in having your own way you have
   probably had the worst way you could. We all feel our need at times of
   a counsellor. David was a man after God's own heart and dealt much with
   his God; but he had his Ahithophel, with whom he took sweet council,
   and they walked to the house of God in company. Kings must have some
   advisers. Woe unto the man that hath got a bad counsellor. Rehoboam
   took counsel of the young men, and not of the old men, and they
   counselled him so that he lost ten-twelfths of his empire. Some take
   counsel of stocks and stones. We know many who counsel at the hands of
   foolish charms, instead of going to Christ. They shall have to learn
   that there is but one Christ, who is to be trusted; and that however
   necessary a Counsellor may be, yet none other shall be found to fulfill
   the necessity, but Jesus Christ the Counsellor. Let me make a remark or
   two with regard to this Counsellor, Jesus Christ.

   And, first, Christ is a necessary Counsellor. So sure as we do anything
   without asking counsel of God we fall into trouble. Israel made a
   league with Gibeon, and it is said, they took of their victuals, and
   they asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord, and they found out
   that the Gibeonites had deceived them. If they had asked counsel first,
   no cunning deception could have imposed on them in the matter. Saul,
   the son of Kish, died before the Lord upon the mountains of Gilboa, and
   in the book of Chronicles it is written, he died because he asked not
   counsel of God, but sought unto the wizards. Joshua, the great
   commander, when he was appointed to succeed Moses, was not left to go
   alone, but it is written, "And Eliezer the priest shall be his
   counsellor, and he shall ask counsel of the Lord for him." And all the
   great men of olden times, when they were about to do an action, paused,
   and they said to the priest, "Bring hither the ephod," and he put on
   the Urim and the Thummim, and appealed to God, and the answer came, and
   sound advice was vouchsafed. You and I will have to learn how necessary
   it is always to take advice of God. Did you ever seek God's advice on
   your knees about a difficulty and then go amiss? Brethren, I can
   testify for my God that when I have submitted my will to his directing
   Spirit, I have always had reason to thank him for his wise counsel. But
   when I have asked at his hands, having already made up my own mind, I
   have had my own way, but like as he fed the Israelites with the quails
   of heaven, while the meat was yet in their mouth, the wrath of God came
   upon them. Let us take heed always that we never go before the cloud.
   He that goes before the cloud goes a fool's errand, and will be glad to
   get back again. An old puritan used to say, "He that carves for himself
   will cut his fingers. Leave God to carve for you in providence, and all
   shall be well. Seek God's guidance and nothing can go amiss." It is
   necessary counsel.

   In the next place, Christ's counsel is faithful counsel. When
   Ahithophel left David, it proved that he was not faithful, and when
   Hushai went to Absalom and counselled him, he counselled him craftily,
   so that the good counsel of Ahithophel was brought to nought. Ah! how
   often do our friends counsel us craftily! We have known them do so.
   They have looked first to their own advantage, and then they have said,
   "If I can get him to do so-and-so it will be the best for me." That was
   not the question we asked them. It was what would be best for
   ourselves. But we may trust Christ, that in his advice to us there
   never will be any self-interest. He will be quite certain to advise us
   with the most disinterested motives, so that the good shall be to us,
   and the profit to ourselves.

   Again, Christ's counsel is hearty counsel. I hate to go to a lawyer
   above all people, to talk with him upon matters of business. The worst
   kind of conversation is, I think, conversation with a lawyer. There is
   your case! Dear me, what an interest you feel in it! You spread it out
   before him, and he says, "There is a word upon the second page not
   quite correct." You look at it, and you say, "Ah! that is totally
   unimportant; that does not signify." He turns to another clause and he
   says, "Ah! there is a good deal here!" "My dear fellow, you any, "I do
   not care about those petty clauses, whether it says lands, properties,
   or hereditaments: what I want you to do is to set this difficulty right
   in point of law." "Be patient" he says; you must go through a great
   many consultations before he will come the point, and all the while
   your poor heart is boiling over because you feel such an interest in
   the main point. But he is as cool as possible; you think you are asking
   counsel of a block of marble. No doubt his advice will come out all
   right at last, and it is pretty certain it will be good for you; but it
   is not hearty. He does not enter into the sympathies of the matter with
   you. What is it to him whether you succeed or not--whether the object
   of your heart shall be accomplished or not. It is but a professional
   interest he takes. Now, Solomon says, "As ointment for perfume, so is
   hearty counsel." When a man throws his own soul into your ease, and
   says, "My dear friend, I'll do anything I can to help you. let me look
   at it," and he takes as deep an interest in it as you do yourself. "If
   I were in your position," he says, "I should do so-and-so, by-the-bye,
   there is a word wrong there." Perhaps he tells you so, but he only
   tells you because he is anxious to have it all right; and you can see
   that his drift is always towards the same end you are seeking, and that
   he is only anxious for your good. Oh! for a Counsellor that could tie
   your heart into unison with his own! Now Christ is such a Counsellor as
   that. He is a hearty Counsellor. His interests and your interests are
   bound up together, and he is hearty with you.

   But there is another kind of counsel still. David says of one, who
   afterwards became his enemy, "We took sweet counsel together."
   Christian, do you know what sweet counsel is? You have gone to your
   Master in the day of trouble, and in the secret of your chamber you
   have poured out your heart before him. You have laid your case before
   him, with all its difficulties, as Hezekiah did Rabshakeh's letter, and
   you have felt, that though Christ was not there in flesh and blood, yet
   he was there in spirit, and he counselled you. You felt that his was
   counsel that came from the very heart. But he was something better than
   that. There was such a sweetness coming with his counsel, such a
   radiance of love, such a fullness of fellowship, that you said, " Oh
   that I were in trouble every day, if I might have such sweet counsel as
   this!" Christ is the Counsellor whom I desire to consult every hour,
   and I would that I could sit in his secret chamber all day and all
   night long, because to counsel with him is to have sweet counsel,
   hearty counsel, and wise counsel, all at the same time. Why, you may
   have a friend that talks very sweetly with you, and you will say,
   "Well, he is a kind, good soul, but I really cannot trust his
   judgment." You have another friend, who has a good deal of judgment,
   and yet you say of him, "Certainly, he is a man of prudence above a
   great many, but I cannot find out his sympathy; I never get at his
   heart, if he were ever so rough and untutored, I would sooner have his
   heart without his prudence, than his prudence without his heart," But
   we go to Christ, and we get wisdom; we get love, we get sympathy, we
   get everything that can possibly be wanted in a Counsellor.

   And now we must close by noticing that Christ has special councils for
   each of us this morning, and what are they? Tried child of God, your
   daughter is sick; your gold has melted in the fire; you are sick
   yourself, and your heart is sad. Christ counsels you, and he says,
   "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, he will sustain thee; he will never
   suffer the righteous to be moved." Young man, you that are seeking to
   be great in this world, Christ counsels you this morning. "Seekest thou
   great things for thyself? seek them not." I shall never forget
   Midsummer Common. I was ambitious; I was seeking to go to college, to
   leave my poor people in the wilderness that I might become something
   great; and as I was walking there that text came with power to my
   heart--"Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not." I
   suppose about forty pounds a year was the sum total of my income, and I
   was thinking how I should make both ends meet, and whether it would not
   be a great deal better for me to resign my charge and seek something
   for the bettering of myself, and so forth. But this text ran in my ears
   "Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not." "Lord," said I,
   "I will follow thy counsel and not my own devices;" and I have never
   had cause to regret it. Always take the Lord for thy guide, and thou
   shalt never go amiss. Backslider! thou that hast a name to live, and
   art dead, or nearly dead, Christ gives thee counsel. "I counsel thee to
   buy of me, gold tried in the fire and white raiment, that thou mayest
   be clothed." And sinner! thou that art far from God, Christ gives thee
   counsel. "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I
   will give you rest," Depend on it, it is loving counsel. Take it. Go
   home and cast yourself upon your knees. Seek Christ, obey his counsel,
   and you shall have to rejoice that you ever listened to his voice, and
   heard it, and lived.
     __________________________________________________________________

                           Confession and Absolution

   A Sermon

   (No. 216)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, October 3, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

   "And the publican, standing afar off would not lift up so much as his
   eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to
   me a sinner."--Luke 18:13.

   THE HEROES OF OUR Saviour's stories are most of them selected to
   illustrate traits of character entirely dissimilar to their general
   reputation. What would you think of a moral writer of our own day,
   should he endeavor in a work of fiction, to set before us the gentle
   virtue of benevolence by the example of a Sepoy? And yet, Jesus Christ
   has given us one of the finest examples of charity in the case of a
   Samaritan. To the Jews, a Samaritan was as proverbial for his bitter
   animosity against their nation, as the Sepoy is among us for his
   treacherous cruelty, and as much an object of contempt and hatred; but
   Jesus Christ, nevertheless, chose his hero from the Samaritans, that
   there should be nothing adventitious to adorn him, but that all the
   adorning might be given to the grace of charity. Thus, too in the
   present instance, our Saviour, being desirous of setting before us the
   necessity of humiliation in prayer, has not selected some distinguished
   saint who was famed for his humility, but he has chosen a tax-gatherer,
   probably one of the most extortionate of his class, for the Pharisee
   seems to hint as much; and I doubt not he cast his eye askance at this
   publican, when he observed, with selfgratulation, "God, I thank thee,
   that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or
   even as this publican." Still, our Lord, in order that we might see
   that there was nothing to predispose in the person, but that the
   acceptance of the prayer might stand out, set even in a brighter light
   by the black foil of the publican's character, has selected this man to
   be the pattern and model of one who should offer an acceptable prayer
   unto God. Note that, and you will not be surprised to find the same
   characteristic exhibited very frequently in the parables of our Lord
   Jesus Christ. As for this publican, we know but little of his previous
   career, but we may, without perilling any serious error, conjecture
   somewhat near the truth. He may have been, and doubtless he was a Jew,
   piously brought up and religiously trained, but, perhaps like Levi, he
   ran away from his parents, and finding no other trade exactly suited to
   his vicious taste, he became one of that corrupt class who collected
   the Roman taxes, and, ashamed to be known as Levi any longer, he
   changed his name to Matthew, lest anyone should recognize in the
   degraded cast of the publican, the man whose parents feared God, and
   bowed their knees before Jehovah. It may be that this publican had in
   his youth forsaken the ways of his fathers, and given himself up to
   lasciviousness, and then found this unworthy occupation to be most
   accordant with his vicious spirit. We cannot tell how often he had
   ground the faces of the poor, or how many curses had been spilled upon
   his head when he had broken into the heritage of the widow, and had
   robbed the friendless, unprotected orphan. The Roman government gave a
   publican far greater power than he ought to possess, and he was never
   slow to use the advantage for his own enrichment. Probably half of all
   he had was a robbery, if not more, for Zaccheus seems to hint as much
   in his own instance, when he says--"Behold, Lord, the half of my goods
   I give to the poor and if I have gotten anything of any man by false
   accusation, I restore it unto him four-fold." It was not often that
   this publican troubled the temple; the priests very seldom saw him
   coming with a sacrifice; it would have been an abomination, and he did
   not bring it. But so it happened, that the Spirit of the Lord met with
   the publican; and had made him think upon his ways, and their peculiar
   blackness: he was full of trouble, but he kept it to himself, pent up
   in his own bosom, he could scarcely rest at night nor go about his
   business by day, for day and night the hand of God was heavy upon him.
   At last, unable to endure his misery any longer, he thought of that
   house of God at Zion, and of the sacrifice that was daily offered
   there. "To whom, or where should I go," said he, "but to God?--and
   where can I hope to find mercy, but where the sacrifice is offered." No
   sooner said than done. He went; his unaccustomed feet bent their steps
   to the sanctuary, but he is ashamed to enter. Yon Pharisee holy man as
   he appeared to be, goes up unblushingly to the court of the Israelites.
   he goes as near as he dare to the very precincts, within which the
   priesthood alone might stand; and he prays with boastful language. But
   as for the publican, he chooses out for himself some secluded corner
   where he shall neither be seen nor heard, and now he is about to pray,
   not with uplifted hands as yonder Pharisee, not with eyes turned up to
   heaven with a sanctimonious gaze of hypocrisy, but fixing his eyes upon
   the ground, the hot tears streaming from them, not daring to lift them
   up to heaven. At last his stifled feelings found utterance; yet that
   utterance was a groan, a short prayer that must all be comprehended in
   the compass of a sigh: "God be merciful to me a sinner." It is done; he
   is heard; the angel of mercy registers his pardon, his conscience is at
   peace;he goes down to his house a happy man, justified rather than the
   Pharisee, and rejoicing in the justification that the Lord had given to
   him. Well then, my business this morning is to invite, to urge, to
   beseech you to do what the publican did, that you may receive what he
   obtained. There are two particulars upon which I shall endeavor to
   speak solemnly and earnestly: the first is confession, the second is
   absolution.

   I. Brethren, let us imitate the publican, first of all in his
   CONFESSION. There has been a great deal of public excitement during the
   last few weeks and months about the confessional. As for that matter,
   it is perhaps a mercy that the outward and visible sign of Popery in
   the Church of England has discovered to its sincere friends the inward
   and spiritual evil which had long been lurking there. We need not
   imagine that the confessional, or priestcraft, of which it is merely an
   offshoot, in the Church of England is any novelty: it has long been
   there, those of us who are outside her borders have long observed and
   mourned over it, but now we congratulate ourselves on the prospect that
   the Church of England herself will be compelled to discover her own
   evils; and we hope that God may give her grace and strength to cut the
   cancer out of her own breast before she shall cease to be a Protestant
   Church, and God shall cast her away as an abhorred thing. This morning,
   however, I have nothing to do with the confessional. Silly women may go
   on confessing as long as they like, and foolish husbands may trust
   their wives if they please to such men as those. Let those that are
   fools show it; let those that have no sense do as they please about it;
   but as for myself, I should take the greatest care that neither I nor
   mine have ought to do with such things. Leaving that, however, we come
   to personal matters, endeavoring to learn, even from the errors of
   others, how to act rightly ourselves.

   Note the publican's confession; to whom was it presented? "God be
   merciful to me a sinner." Did the publican ever think about going to
   the priest to ask for mercy, and confessing his sins? The thought may
   have crossed his mind, but his sin was too great a weight upon his
   conscience to be relieved in any such way, so he very soon dismissed
   the idea. "No," saith he, "I feel that my sin is of such a character
   that none but God can take it away; and even if it were right for me to
   go and make the confession to my fellow creature, yet I should think it
   must be utterly unavailing in my case, for my disease is of such a
   nature, that none but an Almighty Physician ever can remove it." So he
   directs his confession and his prayer to one place, and to one
   alone--"God be merciful to me a sinner." And you will note in this
   confession to God, that it was secret: all that you can hear of his
   confession is just that one word--"a sinner." Do you suppose that was
   all he confessed? No, beloved, I believe that long before this, the
   publican had made a confession of all his sins privately, upon his
   knees in his own house before God. But now, in God's house, all he has
   to say for man to hear, is--"I am a sinner." And I counsel you, If ever
   you make a confession before man, let it be a general one but never a
   particular one. You ought to confess often to your fellow creatures,
   that you have been a sinner, but to tell to any man in what respect you
   have been a sinner, is but to sin over again, and to help your fellow
   creature to transgress. How filthy must be the soul of that priest who
   makes his ear a common sewer for the filth of other men's hearts. I
   cannot imagine even the devil to be more depraved, than the man who
   spends his time in sitting with his ear against the lips of men and
   women, who, if they do truly confess, must make him an adept in every
   vice, and school him in iniquities that he otherwise never could have
   known. Oh, I charge you never pollute your fellow creature; keep your
   sin to yourself, and to your God. He cannot be polluted by your
   iniquity; make a plain and full confession of it before him; but to
   your fellow creature, add nothing to the general confession--"I am a
   sinner!"

   This confession which he made before God, was spontaneous, There was no
   question put to this man as to whether he were a sinner or no; as to
   whether he had broken the seventh commandment, or the eighth, or the
   ninth, or the tenth; no, his heart was full of penitence and it melted
   out in this breathing--"God be merciful to me a sinner." They tell us
   that some people never can make a full confession, except a priest
   helps them by questions. My dear friends, the very excellence of
   penitence is lost, and its spell broken, if there be a question asked:
   the confession is not true and real unless it be spontaneous. The man
   cannot have felt the weight of sin, who wants somebody to tell him what
   his sins are. Can you imagine any man with a burden on his back, who,
   before he groaned under it, wanted to be told that he had got one
   there? Surely not. The man groans under it, and he does not want to be
   told--"There it is on your back," he knows it is there. And if, by the
   questioning of a priest, a full and thorough confession could be drawn
   from any man or woman, it would be totally useless, totally vain before
   God, because it is not spontaneous. We must confess our sins, because
   we cannot help confessing them; it must come out, because we cannot
   keep it in; like fire in the bones, it seems as if it would melt our
   very spirit, unless we gave vent to the groaning of our confession
   before the throne of God. See this publican, you cannot hear the abject
   full confession that he makes; all that you can hear is his simple
   acknowledgment that he is a sinner; but that comes spontaneously from
   his lips; God himself has not to ask him the question but he comes
   before the throne, and freely surrenders himself up to the hands of
   Almighty Justice, confessing that he is a rebel and a sinner. That is
   the first thing we have to note in his confession--that he made it to
   God secretly and spontaneously; and all he said openly was that he was
   "a sinner."

   Again: what did he confess? He confessed, as our text tells us that he
   was a sinner. Now, how suitable is this prayer for us! For is there a
   lip here present that this confession will not suit--"God be merciful
   to me a sinner?" Do you say,--"the prayer will suit the harlot, when,
   after a life of sin, rottenness is in her bones and she is dying in
   despair--that prayer suits her lips?" Ay, but my friend, it will suit
   thy lips and mine too. If thou knowest thine heart, and I know mine,
   the prayer that will suit her will suit us also. You have never
   committed the sins which the Pharisee disowned; you have neither been
   extortionate, nor unjust, nor an adulterer; you have never been even as
   the publican, but nevertheless the word "sinner" will still apply to
   you; and you will feel it to be so if you are in a right condition.
   Remember how much you have sinned against light. It is true the harlot
   hath sinned more openly than you, but had she such light as you have
   had? Do you think she had such an early education and such training as
   you have received? Did she ever receive such checkings of conscience
   and such guardings of providence, as those which have watched over your
   career? This much I must confess for myself--I do, and must feel a
   peculiar heinousness in my own sin, for I sin against light, against
   conscience, and more, against the love of God received, and against the
   mercy of God promised. Come forward, thou greatest among saints, and
   answer this question,--dost not this prayer suit thee? I hear thee
   answer, without one moment's pause--"Ay, it suits me now; and until I
   die, my quivering lips must often repeat the petition, Lord have mercy
   upon me a sinner.' " Men and brethren, I beseech you use this prayer
   to-day, for it must suit you all. Merchant, hast thou no sins of
   business to confess? Woman, hast thou no household sins to acknowledge?
   Child of many prayers, hast thou no offense against father and mother
   to confess? Have we loved the Lord our God with all our heart, with all
   our soul, with all our strength; and have we each loved our neighbor as
   ourself. Oh, let us close our lips as to any boasting, and when we open
   them, let these be the first words that escape from them, "I have
   sinned, O Lord; I have broken thy commandments; Lord, have mercy upon
   me a sinner." But mark, is it not a strange thing that the Holy Spirit
   should teach a man to plead his sinnership before the throne of God?
   One would think that when we come before God we should try to talk a
   little of our virtues. Who would suppose that when a man was asking for
   mercy he would say of himself, "I am a sinner?" Why surely reason would
   prompt him to say, "Lord have mercy upon me; there is some good point
   about me: Lord have mercy upon me; I am not worse than my neighbors:
   Lord have mercy upon me. I will try to be better." Is it not against
   reason, is it not marvellously above reason, that the Holy Spirit
   should teach a man to urge at the throne of grace, that which seems to
   be against his plea, the fact that he is a sinner? And yet, dear
   brethren, if you and I want to be heard, we must come to Christ as
   sinners. Do not let us attempt to make ourselves better than we are.
   When we come to God's throne, let us not for one moment seek to gather
   any of the false jewels of our pretended virtues; rags are the garments
   of sinners. Confession is the only music that must come from our lips;
   "God be merciful to ME--a sinner;" that must be the only character in
   which I can pray to God. Now, are there not many here who feel that
   they are sinners, and are groaning, sighing, and lamenting, because the
   weight of sin lies on their conscience? Brother, I am glad thou feelest
   thyself to be a sinner, for thou hast the key of the kingdom in thy
   hands. Thy sense of sinnership is thy only title to mercy. Come. I
   beseech thee, just as thou art--thy nakedness is thy only claim on
   heaven's wardrobe; thy hunger is thy only claim on heaven's granaries,
   thy poverty is thy only claim on heaven's eternal riches. Come just as
   thou art, with nothing of thine own, except thy sinfulness, and plead
   that before the throne--"God be merciful to me a sinner." This is what
   this man confessed, that he was a sinner, and he pleaded it, making the
   burden of his confession to be the matter of his plea before God.

   Now again, how does he come? What is the posture that he assumes? The
   first thing I would have you notice is that he "stood afar off." What
   did he do that for? Was it not because he felt himself a separated man?
   We have often made general confessions in the temple, but there never
   was a confession accepted, except it was particular, personal, and
   heartfelt. There were the people gathered together for the accustomed
   service of worship; they join in a psalm of praise, but the poor
   publican stood far away from them. Anon, they unite in the order of
   prayer, still he could not go near them. No, he was come there for
   himself, and he must stand by himself. Like the wounded hart that seeks
   the deepest glades of the forest where it may bleed and die alone in
   profound solitude, so did this poor publican seem to feel he must be
   alone. You notice he does not say anything about other people in his
   prayer. "God be merciful to me," he says. He does not say "one of a
   company of sinners," but "a sinner," as if there were not another
   sinner in all the world. Mark this, my hearer, that thou must feel
   thyself solitary and alone, before thou canst ever pray this prayer
   acceptably. Has the Lord ever picked thee out in a congregation? Has it
   seemed to you in this Hall as if there were a great black wall round
   about you, and you were closed in with the preacher and with your God,
   and as if every shaft from the preacher's bow was levelled at you, and
   every threatening meant for you, and every solemn upbraiding was an
   upbraiding for you? If thou hast felt this, I will congratulate thee.
   No man ever prayed this prayer aright unless he prayed alone, unless he
   said "God be merciful to me," as a solitary, lonely sinner. "The
   publican stood afar off."

   Note the next thing. "He would not lift up so much as his eyes unto
   heaven." That was because he dare not, not because he would not; he
   would have done it if he dared. How remarkable it is that repentance
   takes all the daring out of men. We have seen fellows very dare-devils
   before they were touched by sovereign grace, who have become
   afterwards, the most trembling and conscientious men with the tenderest
   conscience that one could imagine. Men who were careless, bragging and
   defying God, have become as humble as little children, and even afraid
   to lift their eyes to heaven, though once they sent their oaths and
   curses there. But why did he not dare to lift his eyes up? It was
   because he was dejected in his "spirit," so oppressed and burdened that
   he could not look up. Is that thy case my friend this morning? Are you
   afraid to pray? Do you feel as if you could not hope that God would
   have mercy on you, as if the least gleam of hope was more light than
   you could possibly bear; as if your eyes were so used to the darkness
   of doubt and despondency, that even one stolen ray seemed to be too
   much for your poor weak vision? Ah! well, fear not, for happy shall it
   be for thee; thou art only following the publican in his sad experience
   now, and the Lord who helps thee to follow him in the confession, shall
   help thee to rejoice with him in the absolution.

   Note what else he did. He smote upon his breast. He was a good
   theologian he was a real doctor of divinity. What did he smite his
   breast for? Because he knew where the mischief lay--in his breast. He
   did not smite upon his brow as some men do when they are perplexed, as
   if the mistake were in their understanding. Many a man will blame his
   understanding, while he will not blame his heart, and say, "Well, I
   have made a mistake. I have certainly been doing wrong, but I am a
   good-hearted fellow at the bottom." This man knew where the mischief
   lay, and he smote the right place.

   "Here on my heart the burden lies."

   He smote upon his breast as if he were angry with himself. He seemed to
   say, "Oh! that I could smite thee, my ungrateful heart, the harder,
   that thou hast loved sin rather than God."" He did not do penance, and
   yet it was a kind of penance upon himself when he smote his breast
   again and again, and cried "Alas! alas! woe is me that I should ever
   have sinned against my God"--"God be merciful to a sinner." Now, can
   you come to God like this, my dear friend? Oh, let us all draw near to
   God in this fashion. Thou hast enough, my brother, to make thee stand
   alone for there have been sins in which thou and I have stood each of
   us in solitary guilt. There are iniquities known only to ourselves,
   which we never told to the partner of our own bosom, not to our own
   parents or brothers, nor yet to the friend with whom we took sweet
   counsel. If we have sinned thus alone, let us go to our chambers, and
   confess alone, the husband apart, and the wife apart, the father apart,
   and the child apart. Let us each one wail for himself. Men and
   brethren, leave off to accuse one another. Cease from the bickerings of
   your censoriousness. and from the slanders of your envy. Rebuke
   yourselves and not your fellows. Rend your own hearts, and not the
   reputation of your neighbors. Come, let each man now look to his own
   case, and not to the case of another, let each cry, "Lord, have mercy
   upon me, as here I stand alone, a sinner." And hast thou not good
   reason to cast down thine eyes? Does it not seem sometimes too much for
   us ever to look to heaven again. We have blasphemed God, some of us,
   and even imprecated curses on our own limbs and eyes; and when those
   things come back to our memory we may well be ashamed to look up. Or if
   we have been preserved from the crime of open blasphemy--how often have
   you and I forgotten God! how often have we neglected prayer! how have
   we broken his Sabbaths and left his Bible unread! Surely these things
   as they flash across our memory, might constrain us to feel that we
   cannot lift up so much as our eyes towards heaven. And as for smiting
   on our breast, what man is there among us that need not do it? Let us
   be angry with ourselves, because we have provoked God to be angry with
   us. Let us be in wrath with the sins that have brought ruin upon our
   souls, let us drag the traitors out, and put them at once to a summary
   death; they deserve it well; they have been our ruin; let us be their
   destruction. He smote upon his breast and said, "God, be merciful unto
   me a sinner."

   There is one other feature in this man's prayer, which you must not
   overlook. What reason had he to expect that God would have any mercy
   upon him? The Greek explains more to us than the English does, and the
   original word here might be translated--"God be propitiated to me a
   sinner." There is in the Greek word a distinct reference to the
   doctrine of atonement. It is not the Unitarian's prayer--"God be
   merciful to me," it is more than that--it is the Christian's prayer,
   "God be propitiated towards me, a sinner." There is, I repeat it, a
   distinct appeal to the atonement and the mercy-seat in this short
   prayer, Friend, if we would come before God with our confessions, we
   must take care that we plead the blood of Christ. There is no hope for
   a poor sinner apart from the cross of Jesus. We may cry, "God be
   merciful to me," but the prayer can never be answered apart from the
   victim offered, the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.
   When thou hast thine eye upon the mercy-seat, take care to have thine
   eye upon the cross too. Remember that the cross is, after all "the
   mercy seat; that mercy never was enthroned, until she did hang upon the
   cross crowned with thorns. If thou wouldst find pardon, go to dark
   Gethsemane, and see thy Redeemer sweating, in deep anguish, gouts of
   gore. If thou wouldst have peace of conscience, go to Gabbatha, the
   pavement, and see thy Saviour's back flooded with a stream of blood. If
   thou wouldst have the last best rest to thy conscience, go to Golgotha;
   see the murdered victim as he hangs upon the cross, with hands and feet
   and side all pierced, as every wound is gaping wide with misery
   extreme. There can be no hope for mercy apart from the victim
   offered--even Jesus Christ the Son of God. Oh, come; let us one and all
   approach the mercy-seat, and plead the blood. Let us each go and say,
   "Father, I have sinned; but have mercy upon me, through thy Son." Come,
   drunkard, give me thy hand; we will go together. Harlot, give me thy
   hand too; and let us likewise approach the throne. And you, professing
   Christians, come ye also, be not ashamed of your company. Let us come
   before his presence with many tears, none of us accusing our fellows,
   but each one accusing himself; and let us plead the blood of Jesus
   Christ, which speaketh peace and pardon to every troubled conscience.

   Careless man, I have a word with thee before I have done on this point.
   You say, "Well, that is a good prayer, certainly, for a man who is
   dying. When a poor fellow has the cholera, and sees black death staring
   him in the face, or when he is terrified and thunderstruck in the time
   of storm, or when he finds himself amidst the terrible confusion and
   alarm of a perilous catastrophe or a sudden accident, while drawing
   near to the gates of death, it is only right that he should say, Lord
   have mercy upon me." Ah, friend, the prayer must be suitable to you
   then, if you are a dying man; it must be suitable to you, for you know
   not how near you are to the borders of the grave. Oh, if thou didst but
   understand the frailty of life and the slipperiness of that poor prop
   on which thou art resting, thou wouldst say, "Alas for my soul! if the
   prayer will suit me dying, it must suit me now; for I am dying, even
   this day, and know not when I may come to the last gasp." "Oh," says
   one, "I think it will suit a man that has been a very great sinner."
   Correct, my friend, and therefore, if you knew yourself; it would suit
   you. You are quite correct in saying, that it won't suit any but great
   sinners; and if you don't feel yourself to be a great sinner, I know
   you will never pray it. But there are some here that feel themselves to
   be what you ought to feel and know that you are. Such will, constrained
   by grace, use the prayer with an emphasis this morning, putting a tear
   upon each letter, and a sigh upon each syllable, as they cry, "God be
   merciful to me, a sinner." But mark, my friend, thou mayest smile
   contemptuously on the man that makes this confession, but he shall go
   from this house justified, while thou shalt go away still in thy sins,
   without a hope, without a ray of joy to cheer thy unchastened spirit.

   II. Having thus briefly described this confession, I come more briefly
   still to notice the ABSOLUTION which God gave. Absolution from the lips
   of man I do believe is little short of blasphemy. There is in the
   Prayer Book of the Church of England an absolution which is essentially
   Popish, which I should think must be almost a verbatim extract from the
   Romish missal. I do not hesitate to say, that there was never anything
   more blasphemous printed in Holywell Street, than the absolution that
   is to be pronounced by a clergyman over a dying man; and it is
   positively frightful to think that any persons calling themselves
   Christians should rest easy in a church until they have done their
   utmost to get that most excellent book thoroughly reformed and revised,
   and to get the Popery purged out of it. But there is such a thing as
   absolution, my friends, and the publican received it. "He went to his
   house justified rather than the other." The other had nought of peace
   revealed to his heart, this poor man had all, and he went to his house
   justified. It does not say that he went to his house, having eased his
   mind; that is true, but more: he went to his house "justified." What
   does that mean? It so happens that the Greek word here used is the one
   which the apostle Paul always employs to set out the great doctrine of
   the righteousness of Jesus Christ--even the righteousness which is of
   God by faith. The fact is, that the moment the man prayed the prayer,
   every sin he had ever done was blotted out of God's book, so that it
   did not stand on the record against him; and more, the moment that
   prayer was heard in heaven, the man was reckoned to be a righteous man.
   All that Christ did for him was cast about his shoulders to be the robe
   of his beauty, that moment all the guilt that he had ever committed
   himself was washed entirely away and lost for ever. When a sinner
   believes in Christ, his sins positively cease to be, and what is more
   wonderful they all cease to be, as Kent says in those well known
   lines--

   "Here's pardon for transgressions past,

   It matters not how black their cast,

   And, O my soul with wonder view

   For sins to come here's pardon too."

   They are all swept away in one solitary instant; the crimes of many
   years; extortions, adulteries, or even murder, wiped away in an
   instant; for you will notice the absolution was instantaneously given.
   God did not say to the man--"Now you must go and perform some good
   works, and then I will give you absolution." He did not say as the Pope
   does, "Now you must swelter awhile in the fires of Purgatory, and then
   I will let you out." No, he justified him there and then; the pardon
   was given as soon as the sin was confessed. "Go, my son, in peace; I
   have not a charge against thee; thou art a sinner in thine own
   estimation, but thou art none in mine; I have taken all thy sins away,
   and cast them into the depth of the sea, and they shall be mentioned
   against thee no more for ever." Can you tell what a happy man the
   publican was, when all in a moment he was changed? If you may reverse
   the figure used by Milton, he seemed himself to have been a loathsome
   toad, but the touch of the Father's mercy made him rise to angelic
   brightness and delight; and he went out of that house with his eye
   upward, no longer afraid. Instead of the groan that was on his heart,
   he had a song upon his lip. He no longer walked alone, he sought out
   the godly and he said, "Come and hear, ye that fear God, and I will
   tell you what he has done for my soul." He did not smite upon his
   breast, but he went home to get down his harp, and play upon the
   strings, and praise his God. You would not have known that he was the
   same man, if you had seen him going out, and all that was done in a
   minute. "But," says one, " do you think he knew for certain that all
   his sins were forgiven? Can a man know that?" Certainly he can. And
   there be some here that can bear witness that this is true. They have
   known it themselves. The pardon which is sealed in heaven is re-sealed
   in our own conscience. The mercy which is recorded above is made to
   shed its light into the darkness of our hearts. Yes, a man may know on
   earth that his sins are forgiven, and may be as sure that he is a
   pardoned man as he is of his own existence. And now I hear a cry from
   some one saying, "And may I be pardoned this morning? and may I know
   that I am pardoned? May I be so pardoned that all shall be forgotten--I
   who have been a drunkard, a swearer, or what not? May I have all my
   transgressions washed away? May I be made sure of heaven, and all that
   in a moment?" Yes, my friend, If thou believest in the Lord Jesus
   Christ, if thou wilt stand where thou art, and just breathe this prayer
   out, "Lord, have mercy! God be merciful to me a sinner, through the
   blood of Christ." I tell thee man, God never did deny that prayer yet;
   if it came out of honest lips he never shut the gates of mercy on it.
   It is a solemn litany that shall be used as long as time shall last,
   and it shall pierce the ears of God as long as there is a sinner to use
   it. Come, be not afraid, I beseech you, use the prayer before you leave
   this Hall. Stand where you are; endeavor to realize that you are an
   alone, and if you feel that you are guilty. now let the prayer ascend.
   Oh, what a marvellous thing, it from the thousands of hearts here
   present, so many thousand prayers might go up to God! Surely the angels
   themselves never had such a day in Paradise, as they would have to-day,
   if every one of us could unfeignedly make that confession. Some are
   doing it; I know they are; God is helping them. And sinner, do you stay
   away? You, who have most need to come, do you refuse to join with us.
   Come, brother come. You say you are too vile. No, brother, you cannot
   be too vile to say, "God be merciful to me." Perhaps you are no viler
   than we are; at any rate, this we can say--we feel ourselves to be
   viler than you, and we want you to pray the same prayer that we have
   prayed. "Ah," says one, "I cannot; my heart won't yield to that; I
   cannot." But friend, if God is ready to have mercy upon thee, thine
   must be a hard heart, if it is not ready to receive his mercy. Spirit
   of God, breathe on the hard heart, and melt it now! Help the man who
   feels that carelessness is overcoming him--help him to get rid of it
   from this hour. You are struggling against it; you are saying, "Would
   to God I could pray that I could go back to be a boy or a child again,
   and then I could; but I have got hardened and grown grey in sin, and
   prayer would be hypocrisy in me. No, brother, no, it would not. If thou
   canst but cry it from thy heart, I beseech thee say it. Many a man
   thinks he is a hypocrite, when he is not, and is afraid that he is not
   sincere, when his very fear is a proof of his sincerity. "But," says
   one, "I have no redeeming trait in my character at all." I am glad you
   think so; still you may use the prayer, "God be merciful to me." "But
   it will be a useless prayer," says one. My brother, I assure thee not
   in my own name, but in the name of God, my Father and your Father, it
   shall not be a useless prayer. As sure as God is God, him that cometh
   unto Christ he will in no wise cast out. Come with me now, I beseech
   thee; tarry no longer; the bowels of God are yearning over thee. Thou
   art his child, and he will not give thee up. Thou hast run from him
   these many years, but he has never forgotten thee; thou hast resisted
   all his warnings until now, and he is almost weary, but still he has
   said concerning thee, "How shall I make thee as Admah; how shall I set
   thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are
   kindled together."

   "Come humbled sinner, in whose breast

   A thousand thoughts revolve;

   Come with thy guilt and fear oppressed,

   And make this last resolve:

   I'll go to Jesus; though my sin

   Hath like a mountain rose,

   I know his courts; I'll enter in,

   Whatever may oppose.

   Prostrate I'll lie before his face,

   And there my sins confess;

   I'll tell him I'm a wretch undone,

   Without his sov'reign grace."

   Go home to your houses: let everyone--preacher, deacon, people, ye of
   the church, and ye of the world, everyone of you, go home, and ere you
   feast your bodies, pour out your hearts before God, and let this one
   cry go up from all our lips, "God be merciful to me a sinner."

   I pause. Bear with me.

   I must detain you a few moments. Let us use this prayer as our own now.
   Oh that it might come up before the Lord at this time as the earnest
   supplication of every heart in this assembly! I will repeat it,--not as
   a text, but as a prayer,--as my own prayer, as your prayer. Will each
   one of you take it personally for himself? Let everyone, I entreat you,
   who desires to offer the prayer, and can join in it, utter at its close
   an audible "Amen."

   Let us pray,

   "GOD-BE-MERCIFUL-TO-ME-A-SINNER."

   [And the people did with deep solemnity say] "AMEN."

   P.S.--The preacher hopes that he who reads will feel constrained most
   solemnly to do likewise.
     __________________________________________________________________

                           Declension from First Love

   A Sermon

   (No. 217)

   Delivered on Sabbath Evening, September 26, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

   "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy
   first love."--Revelation 2:4.

   IT IS A GREAT THING to have as much said in our commendation as was
   said concerning the church at Ephesus. Just read what "Jesus Christ,
   who is the faithful witness," said of them--"I know thy works, and thy
   labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are
   evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are
   not, and hast found them liars: and hast borne, and hast patience, and
   for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted." Oh, my dear
   brothers and sisters, we may feel devoutly thankful if we can humbly,
   but honestly say, that this commendation applies to us. Happy the man
   whose works are known and accepted of Christ. He is no idle Christian,
   he has practical godliness; he seeks by works of piety to obey God's
   whole law, by works of charity to manifest his love to the brotherhood,
   and by works of devotion to show his attachment to the cause of his
   Master. "I know thy works." Alas! some of you cannot get so far as
   that. Jesus Christ himself can bear no witness to your works, for you
   have not done any. You are Christians by profession, but you are not
   Christians as to your practice. I say again, happy is that man to whom
   Christ can say, "I know thy works." It is a commendation worth a world
   to have as much as that said of us. But further, Christ said, "and thy
   labour." This is more still. Many Christians have works, but only few
   Christians have labour. There were many preachers in Whitfield's day
   that had works, but Whitfield had labour. He toiled and travailed for
   souls. He was "in labours more abundant." Many were they in the
   apostle's days who did works for Christ; but pre-eminently the apostle
   Paul did labour for souls. It is not work merely, it is anxious work;
   it is casting forth the whole strength, and exercising all the energies
   for Christ. Could the Lord Jesus say as much as that of you--"I know
   thy labour?" No. He might say, "I know thy loitering; I know thy
   laziness; I know thy shirking of the work; I know thy boasting of what
   little thou dost; I know thine ambition to be thought something of ,
   when thou art nothing." But ah! friends, it is more than most of us
   dare to hope that Christ could say, "I know thy labour."

   But further, Christ says, "I know thy patience." Now there be some that
   labour, and they do it well. But what does hinder them? They only
   labour for a little season, and then they cease to work and begin to
   faint. But this church had laboured on for many years; it had thrown
   out all its energies--not in some spasmodic effort, but in a continual
   strain and unabated zeal for the glory of God. "I know thy patience." I
   say again, beloved, I tremble to think how few out of this congregation
   could win such praise as this. "I know thy works, and thy labour, and
   thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil." The
   thorough hatred which the church had of evil doctrine, of evil
   practice, and its corresponding intense love for pure truth and pure
   practice--in that I trust some of us can bear a part. "And thou hast
   tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found
   them liars." Here, too, I think some of us may hope to be clear. I know
   the difference between truth and error. Arminianism will never go down
   with us; the doctrine of men will not suit our taste. The husks, the
   bran, and the chaff, are not things that we can feed upon. And when we
   listen to those who preach another gospel, a holy anger burns within
   us, for we love the truth as it is in Jesus; and nothing but that will
   satisfy us. "And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake
   hast laboured, and hast not fainted." They had borne persecutions,
   difficulties, hardships, embarrassments, and discouragements, yet had
   they never flagged, but always continued faithful. Who among us here
   present could lay claim to so much praise as this? What Sunday-school
   teacher have I here who could say, "I have laboured, and I have borne,
   and have had patience, and have not fainted." Ah, dear friends, if you
   can say it, it is more than I can. Often have I been ready to faint in
   the Master's work; and though I trust I have not been tired of it, yet
   there has sometimes been a longing to get from the work to the reward,
   and to go from the service of God, before I had fulfilled, as a
   hireling, my day. I am afraid we have not enough of patience, enough of
   labour, and enough of good works, to get even as much as this said of
   us. But it is in our text, I fear the mass of us must find our
   character. "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou
   hast left thy first love." There may be a preacher here present. Did
   you ever hear of a minister who had to preach his own funeral sermon?
   What a labour that must have been, to feel that he had been condemned
   to die, and must preach against himself, and condemn himself! I stand
   here to-night, not in that capacity, but in one somewhat similar. I
   feel that I who preach shall this night condemn myself; and my prayer
   before I entered this pulpit was, that I might fearlessly discharge my
   duty, that I might deal honestly with my own heart, and that I might
   preach, knowing myself to be the chief culprit, and you each in your
   measure to have offended in this respect, even though none of you so
   grievously as I have done. I pray that God the Holy Spirit, through his
   renewings, may apply the word, not merely to your hearts, but to mine,
   that I may return to my first love, and that you may return with me.

   In the first place, what was our first love? Secondly, how did we lose
   it? And thirdly, let me exhort you to get it again.

   I. First, WHAT WAS OUR FIRST LOVE? Oh, let us go back--it is not many
   years with some of us. We are but youngsters in God's ways, and it is
   not so long with any of you that you will have very great difficulty in
   reckoning it. Then if you are Christians, those days were so happy that
   your memory will never forget them, and therefore you can easily return
   to that first bright spot in your history. Oh, what love was that which
   I had to my Saviour the first time he forgave my sins. I remember it.
   You remember each for yourselves, I dare say, that happy hour when the
   Lord appeared to us, bleeding on his cross, when he seemed to say, and
   did say in our hearts, "I am thy salvation; I have blotted out like a
   cloud thine iniquities, and like a thick cloud thy sins." Oh, how I
   loved him! Passing all loves except his own was that love which I felt
   for him then. If beside the door of the place in which I met with him
   there had been a stake of blazing faggots, I would have stood upon them
   without chains; glad to give my flesh, and blood, and bones, to be
   ashes that should testify my love to him. Had he asked me then to give
   all my substance to the poor, I would have given all and thought myself
   to be amazingly rich in having beggared myself for his name's sake. Had
   he commanded me then to preach in the midst of all his foes, I could
   have said:--

   "There's not a lamb amongst thy flock

   I would disdain to feed,

   There's not a foe before whose face

   I'd fear thy cause to plead."

   I could realize then the language of Rutherford, when he said, being
   full of love to Christ, once upon a time, in the dungeon of
   Aberdeen--"Oh, my Lord, if there were a broad hell betwixt me and thee,
   if I could not get at thee except by wading through it, I would not
   think twice but I would plunge through it all, if I might embrace thee
   and call thee mine."

   Now it is that first love that you and I must confess I am afraid we
   have in a measure lost. Let us just see whether we have it. When we
   first loved the Saviour how earnest we were; there was not a single
   thing in the Bible, that we did not think most precious; there was not
   one command of his that we did not think to be like fine gold and
   choice silver. Never were the doors of his house open without our being
   there. if there were a prayer meeting at any hour in the day we were
   there. Some said of us that we had no patience, we would do too much
   and expose our bodies too frequently--but we never thought of that "Do
   yourself no harm," was spoken in our ears; but we would have done
   anything then. Why there are some of you who cannot walk to the Music
   Hall on a morning, it is too far. When you first joined the church, you
   would have walked twice as far. There are some of you who cannot be at
   the prayer meeting--business will not permit; yet when you were first
   baptized, there was never a prayer meeting from which you were absent.
   It is the loss of your first love that makes you seek the comfort of
   your bodies instead of the prosperity of your souls. Many have been the
   young Christians who have joined this church, and old ones too, and I
   have said to them, "Well, have you got a ticket for a seat?" "No, sir."
   "Well, what will you do? Have you got a preference ticket?" "No, I
   cannot get one; but I do not mind standing in the crowd an hour, or two
   hours. I will come at five o'clock so that I can get in. Sometimes I
   don't get in, sir; but even then I feel that I have done what I ought
   to do in attempting to get in." "Well," but I have said, "you live five
   miles off, and there is coming and going back twice a day--you cannot
   do it." "Oh, sir," they have said "I can do it; I feel so much the
   blessedness of the Sabbath and so much enjoyment of the presence of the
   Saviour." I have smiled at them; I could understand it, but I have not
   felt it necessary to caution them--and now their love is cool enough.
   That first love does not last half so long as we could wish. Some of
   you stand convicted even here; you have not that blazing love, that
   burning love, that ridiculous love as the worldling would call it,
   which is after all the love to be most coveted and desired. No, you
   have lost your first love in that respect. Again, how obedient you used
   to be. If you saw a commandment, that was enough for you--you did it.
   But now you see a commandment, and you see profit on the other side;
   and how often do you dally with the profit and choose the temptation,
   instead of yielding an unsullied obedience to Christ.

   Again, how happy you used to be in the ways of God. Your love was of
   that happy character that you could sing all day long; but now your
   religion has lost its lustre, the gold has become dim; you know that
   when you come to the Sacramental table, you often come there without
   enjoying it. There was a time when every bitter thing was sweet;
   whenever you heard the Word, it was all precious to you. Now you can
   grumble at the minister. Alas! the minister has many faults, but the
   question is, whether there has not been a greater charge in you than
   there has been in him. Many are there who say, "I do not hear Mr.
   So-and-so as I used to,"--when the fault lies in their own ears. Oh,
   brethren, when we live near to Christ, and are in our first love, it is
   amazing what a little it takes to make a good preacher to us. Why, I
   confess I have heard a poor illiterate Primitive Methodist preach the
   gospel, and I felt as if I could jump for joy all the while I was
   listening to him, and yet he never gave me a new thought or a pretty
   expression, nor one figure that I could remember, but he talked about
   Christ; and even his common things were to my hungry spirit like dainty
   meats. And I have to acknowledge, and, perhaps, you have to acknowledge
   the same--that I have heard sermons from which I ought to have
   profited, but I have been thinking on the man's style, or some little
   mistakes in grammar. When I might have been holding fellowships with
   Christ in and through the ministry, I have, instead thereof, been
   getting abroad in my thoughts even to the ends of the earth. And what
   is the reason for this, but that I have lost my first love.

   Again: when we were in our first love, what would we do for Christ; now
   how little will we do. Some of the actions which we performed when we
   were young Christians, but just converted, when we look back upon them,
   seem to have been wild and like idle tales. You remember when you were
   a lad and first came to Christ, you had a half-sovereign in your
   pocket; it was the only one you had, and you met with some poor saint
   and gave it all away. You did not regret that you had done it, your
   only regret was that you had not a great deal more, for you would have
   given all. You recollected that something was wanted for the cause of
   Christ. Oh! we could give anything away when we first loved the
   Saviour. If there was a preaching to be held five miles off, and we
   could walk with the lay-preacher to be a little comfort to him in the
   darkness, we were off. If there was a Sunday-school, however early it
   might be, we would be up, so that we might be present. Unheard-of
   feats, things that we now look back upon with surprise, we could
   perform them. Why cannot we do them now? Do you know there are some
   people who always live upon what they have been. I speak very plainly
   now. There is a brother in this church who may take it to himself; I
   hope he will. It is not very many years ago since he said to me, when I
   asked him why he did not do something--"Well, I have done my share; I
   used to do this, and I have done the other; I have done so-and-so." Oh,
   may the Lord deliver him, and all of us, from living on "has beens!" It
   will never do to say we have done a thing. Suppose, for a solitary
   moment, the world should say, "I have turned round; I will stand
   still." Let the sea say, "I have been ebbing and flowing, lo! these
   many years; I will ebb and flow no more." Let the sun say, "I have been
   shining, and I have been rising and setting so many days; I have done
   this enough to earn me a goodly name; I will stand still;" and let the
   moon wrap herself up in veils of darkness, and say, "I have illuminated
   many a night, and I have lighted many a weary traveller across the
   moors; I will shut up my lamp and be dark forever." Brethren, when you
   and I cease to labour, let us cease to live. God has no intention to
   let us live a useless life. But mark this; when we leave our first
   works, there is no question about having lost our first love; that is
   sure. If there be strength remaining, if there be still power mentally
   and physically, if we cease from our office, if we abstain from our
   labours, there is no solution of this question which an honest
   conscience will accept, except this, "Thou hast lost thy first love,
   and, therefore, thou hast neglected thy first works." Ah! we were all
   so very ready to make excuses for ourselves. Many a preacher has
   retired from the ministry, long before he had any need to do so. He has
   married a rich wife. Somebody has left him a little money, and he can
   do without it. He was growing weak in the ways of God, or else he would
   have said,

   "My body with my charge lay down,

   And cease at once to work and live."

   And let any man here present who was a Sunday-school teacher and who
   has left it, who was a tract distributor and who has given it up, who
   was active in the way of God but is now idle, stand to-night before the
   bar of his conscience, and say whether he be not guilty of this charge
   which I bring against him, that he has lost his first love.

   I need not stop to say also, that this may be detected in the closet as
   well as in our daily life; for when first love is lost, there is a want
   of that prayerfulness which we have. I remember the day I was up at
   three o'clock in the morning. Till six, I spent in prayer, wrestling
   with God. Then I had to walk some eight miles, and started off and
   walked to the baptism. Why, prayer was a delight to me then. My duties
   at that time kept me occupied pretty well from five o'clock in the
   morning till ten at night, and I had not a moment for retirement, yet I
   would be up at four o'clock to pray; and though I feel very sleepy
   now-a-days, and I feel that I could not be up to pray, it was not so
   then, when I was in my first love. Somehow or other, I never lacked
   time then. If I did not get it early in the morning, I got it late at
   night. I was compelled to have time for prayer with God; and what
   prayer it was! I had no need then to groan because I could not pray;
   for love, being fervent, I had sweet liberty at the throne of grace.
   But when first love departs, we begin to think that ten minutes will do
   for prayer, instead of an hour, and we read a verse or two in the
   morning, whereas we used to read a portion, but never used to go into
   the world without getting some marrow and fatness. Now, business has so
   increased, that we must get into bed as soon as we can; we have not
   time to pray. And then at dinner time, we used to have a little time
   for communion; that is dropped. And then on the Sabbath-day, we used to
   make it a custom to pray to God when we got home from his house, for
   just five minutes before dinner, so that what we heard we might profit
   by; that is dropped. And some of you that are present were in the habit
   of retiring for prayer when you went home; your wives have told that
   story; the messengers have heard it when they have called at your
   houses, when they have asked the wife--"What is your husband?" "Ah!"
   she has said, "he is a godly man; he cannot come home to his breakfast
   but he must slip upstairs alone. I know what he is doing--he is
   praying. Then when he is at table, he often says--"Mary, I have had a
   difficulty to-day, we must go and have a word or two of prayer
   together." And some of you could not take a walk without prayer, you
   were so fond of it you could not have too much of it. Now where is it?
   You know more than you did; you have grown older; you have grown
   richer, perhaps. You have grown wiser in some respects; but you might
   give up all you have got, to go back to

   "Those peaceful hours you once enjoyed,

   How sweet their memory still!"

   Oh, what would you give if you could fill

   "That aching void,

   The world can never fill,"

   but which only the same love that you had at first, can ever fully
   satisfy!

   II. And now, beloved, WHERE DID YOU AND I LOSE OUR FIRST LOVE, if we
   have lost it? Let each one speak for himself, or rather, let me speak
   for each.

   Have you not lost your first love in the world some of you? You used to
   have that little shop once, you had not very much business; well, you
   had enough, and a little to spare. However, there was a good turn came
   in business; you took two shops, and you are getting on very well. Is
   it not marvellous, that when you grew richer and had more business, you
   began to have less grace?

   Oh, friends, it is a very serious thing to grow rich? Of all the
   temptations to which God's children are exposed it is the worst,
   because it is one that they do not dread, and therefore it is the more
   subtle temptation. You know a traveller if he is going a journey, takes
   a staff with him, it is a help to him; but suppose he is covetous, and
   says, "I will have a hundred of these sticks," that will be no help to
   him at all; he has only got a load to carry, and it stops his progress
   instead of assisting him. But I do believe there are many Christians
   that lived near to God, when they were living on a pound a week, that
   might give up their yearly incomes with the greatest joy, if they could
   have now the same contentment, the same peace of mind, the same
   nearness of access to God, that they had in times of poverty. Ah, too
   much of the world is a bad thing for any man! I question very much
   whether a man ought not sometimes to stop, and say, "There is an
   opportunity of doing more trade, but it will require the whole of my
   time, and I must give up that hour I have set apart for prayer; I will
   not do the trade at all; I have enough, and therefore let it go. I
   would rather do trade with heaven than trade with earth."

   Again: do you not think also that perhaps you may have lost your first
   love by getting too much with worldly people? When you were in your
   first love, no company suited you but the godly; but now you have got a
   young man that you talk with, who talks a great deal more about
   frivolity, and gives you a great deal more of the froth and scum of
   levity, than he ever gives you of solid godliness. Once you were
   surrounded by those that fear the Lord, but now you dwell in the tents
   of "Freedom," where you hear little but cursing. But, friends, he that
   carrieth coals in his bosom must be burned; and he that hath ill
   companions cannot but be injured. Seek, then, to have godly friends,
   that thou mayest maintain thy first love.

   But another reason. Do you not think that perhaps you have forgotten
   how much you owe to Christ? There is one thing, that I feel from
   experience I am compelled to do very often, viz., to go back to where I
   first started:--

   " I, the chief of sinners am,

   But Jesus died for me."

   You and I get talking about our being saints; we know our election, we
   rejoice in our calling, we go on to sanctification; and we forget the
   hole of the pit whence we were digged. Ah, remember my brother, thou
   art nothing now but a sinner saved through grace; remember what thou
   wouldst have been, if the Lord had left thee. And surely, then, by
   going back continually to first principles, and to the great foundation
   stone, the cross of Christ, thou wilt be led to go back to thy first
   love.

   Dost thou not think, again, that thou hast lost thy first love by
   neglecting communion with Christ? Now preacher, preach honestly, and
   preach at thyself. Has there not been, sometimes, this temptation to do
   a great deal for Christ, but not to live a great deal with Christ? One
   of my besetting sins, I feel, is this. If there is anything to be done
   actively for Christ, I instinctively prefer the active exercise to the
   passive quiet of his presence. There are some of you, perhaps, that are
   attending a Sunday school, who would be more profitably employed to
   your own souls if you were spending that hour in communion with Christ.
   Perhaps, too, you attend the means so often, that you have no time in
   secret to improve what you gain in the means. Mrs. Bury once said, that
   if "all the twelve apostles were preaching in a certain town, and we
   could have the privilege of hearing them preach, yet if they kept us
   out of our closets, and led us to neglect prayer, better for us never
   to have heard their names, than to have gone to listen to them." We
   shall never love Christ much except we live near to him. Love to Christ
   is dependent on our nearness to him. It is just like the planets and
   the sun. Why are some of the planets cold? Why do they move at so slow
   a rate? Simply because they are so far from the sun: put them where the
   planet Mercury is, and they will be in a boiling heat, and spin round
   the sun in rapid orbits. So, beloved, if we live near to Christ, we
   cannot help loving him: the heart that is near Jesus must be full of
   his love. But when we live days and weeks and months without personal
   intercourse, without real fellowship, how can we maintain love towards
   a stranger? He must be a friend, and we must stick close to him, as he
   sticks close to us--closer than a brother; or else, we shall never have
   our first love.

   There are a thousand reasons that I might have given, but I leave each
   of you to search your hearts, to find out why you have lost, each of
   you, your first love.

   III. Now, dear friends, just give me all your attention for a moment,
   while I earnestly beseech and implore of you to SEEK TO GET YOUR FIRST
   LOVE RESTORED. Shall I tell you why? Brother, though thou be a child of
   God, if thou hast lost thy first love, there is some trouble near at
   hand. "Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth," and he is sure to chasten
   thee when thou sinnest. It is calm with you to night, is it? Oh! but
   dread that calm, there is a tempest lowering. Sin is the harbinger of
   tempest: read the history of David. All David's life, in all his
   troubles, even in the rocks of the wild goats, and in the caves of
   Engedi, he was the happiest of men till he lost his first love; and
   from the day when his lustful eye was fixed upon Bathsheba, even to the
   last, he went with broken bones sorrowing to his grave. It was one long
   string of afflictions: take heed it be not so with thee. "Ah, but," you
   say, "I shall not sin as David did." Brother, you cannot tell: if you
   have lost your first love, what should hinder you but that you should
   lose your first purity? Love and purity go together. He that loveth is
   pure; he that loveth little shall find his purity decrease, until it
   becomes marred and polluted. I should not like to see you, my dear
   friends, tried and troubled: I do weep with them that weep. If there be
   a child of yours sick, and I hear of it, I can say honestly, I do feel
   something like a father to your children, and as a father to you. If
   you have sufferings and afflictions, and I know them, I desire to feel
   for you, and spread your griefs before the throne of God. Oh, I do not
   want my heavenly Father to take the rod out to you all; but he will do
   it, if you fall from your first love. As sure as ever he is a Father,
   he will let you have the rod if your love cools. Bastards may escape
   the rod. If you are only base-born professors you may go happily along;
   but the true-born child of God, when his love declines, must and shall
   smart for it.

   There is yet another thing, my dear friends, if we lose our first
   love--what will the world say of us if we lose our first love? I must
   put this, not for our name's sake, but for God's dear name's sake. O
   what will the world say of us? There was a time, and it is not gone
   yet, when men must point at this church, and say of it, "There is a
   church, that is like a bright oasis in the midst of a desert, a spot of
   light in the midst of darkness." Our prayer meetings were prayer
   meetings indeed, the congregations were as attentive as they were
   numerous. Oh, how you did drink in the words; how your eyes flashed
   with a living fire, whenever the name of Christ was mentioned! And
   what, if in a little time it shall be said, "Ah, that church is quite
   as sleepy as any other; look at them when the minister preaches, why
   they can sleep under him, they do not seem to care for the truth. Look
   at the Spurgeonites, they are just as cold and careless as others; they
   used to be called the most pugnacious people in the world, for they
   were always ready to defend their Master's name and their Master's
   truth, and they got that name in consequence, but now you may swear in
   their presence and they will not rebuke you: how near these people once
   used to live to God and his house, they were always there; look at
   their prayer meetings, they would fill their seats as full at a prayer
   meeting as at an ordinary service; now they are all gone back." "Ah,"
   says the world, "just what I said; the fact is, it was a mere spasm, a
   little spiritual excitement, and it has all gone down." And the
   worldling says, "Ah, ah, so would I have it, so would I have it!" I was
   reading only the other day of an account of my ceasing to be popular;
   it was said my chapel was now nearly empty, that nobody went to it: and
   I was exceedingly amused and interested. "Well, if it come to that," I
   said, "I shall not grieve or cry very much; hut if it is said the
   church has left its zeal and first love, that is enough to break any
   honest pastor's heart." Let the chaff go, but if the wheat remain we
   have comfort. Let those who are the outer-court worshippers cease to
   hear, what signifieth? let them turn aside, but O, ye soldiers of the
   Cross, if ye turn your backs in the day of battle, where shall I hide
   my head? what shall I say for the great name of my Master, or for the
   honour of his gospel? It is our boast and joy, that the old-fashioned
   doctrine has been revived in these days, and that the truth that Calvin
   preached, that Paul preached, and that Jesus preached, is still mighty
   to save, and far surpasses in power all the neologies and new-fangled
   notions of the present time. But what will the heretic say, when he
   sees it is all over? "Ah," he will say, "that old truth urged on by the
   fanaticism of a foolish young man, did wake the people a little; but it
   lacked marrow and strength, and it all died away!" Will ye thus
   dishonour your Lord and Master, ye children of the heavenly king? I
   beseech you do not so--but endeavour to receive again as a rich gift of
   the Spirit your first love.

   And now, once again, dear friends, there is a thought that ought to
   make each of us feel alarmed, if we have lost our first love. May not
   this question arise in our hearts--Was I ever a child of God at all?
   Oh, my God, must I ask myself this question? Yes, I will. Are there not
   many of whom it is said, they went out from us because they were not of
   us; for if they had been of us, doubtless they would have continued
   with us? Are there not some whose goodness is as the morning cloud and
   as the early dew--may that not have been my case? I am speaking for you
   all. Put the question--may I not have been impressed under a certain
   sermon, and may not that impression have been a mere carnal excitement?
   May it not have been that I thought I repented but did not really
   repent? May it not have been the case, that I got a hope somewhere but
   had not a right to it? And I never had the loving faith that unites me
   to the Lamb of God. And may it not have been that I only thought I had
   love to Christ, and never had it, for if I really had love to Christ
   should I be as I now am? See how far I have come down! May I not keep
   on going down until my end shall be perdition, and the never-dying
   worm, and the fire unquenchable? Many have gone from heights of a
   profession to the depths of damnation, and may not I be the same? May
   it not be true of me that I am as a wandering star for whom is reserved
   blackness of darkness for ever? May I not have shone brightly in the
   midst of the church for a little while, and yet may I not be one of
   those poor foolish virgins who took no oil in my vessel with my lamp,
   and therefore my lamp will go out? Let me think, if I go on as I am, it
   is impossible for me to stop, if I am going downwards I may go on going
   downwards. And O my God, if I go on backsliding for another year--who
   knows where I may have backslidden to? Perhaps into some gross sin.
   Prevent, prevent it by thy grace! Perhaps I may backslide totally. If I
   am a child of God I know I cannot do that. But still, may it not happen
   that I only thought I was a child of God, and may I not so far go back
   that at last my very name to live shall go because I always have been
   dead? Oh! how dreadful it is to think and to see in our church, members
   who turn out to be dead members! If I could weep tears of blood, they
   would not express the emotion that I ought to feel, and that you ought
   to feel, when you think there are some among us that are dead branches
   of a living vine. Our deacons find that there is much of unsoundness in
   our members. I grieve to think that because we cannot see all our
   members, there are many who have backslidden. There is one who says, "I
   joined the church, it is true, but I never was converted. I made a
   profession of being converted, but I was not, and now I take no delight
   in the things of God. I am moral, I attend the house of prayer, but I
   am not converted. My name may be taken off the books; I am not a godly
   man." There are others among you who perhaps have gone even further
   than that--have gone into sin, and yet I may not know it. It may not
   come to my ears in so large a church as this. Oh! I beseech you, my
   dear friends, by him that liveth and was dead, let not your good be
   evil spoken of, by losing your first love.

   Are there some among you that are professing religion, and not
   possessing it? Oh, give up your profession, or else get the truth and
   sell it not. Go home, each of you, and cast yourselves on your faces
   before God, and ask him to search you, and try you, and know your ways,
   and see if there be any evil way in you, and pray that he may lead you
   in the way everlasting. And if hitherto you have only professed, but
   have not possessed, seek ye the Lord while he may be found, and call ye
   upon him while he is near. Ye are warned, each one of you; you are
   solemnly told to search yourselves and make short work of it. And if
   any of you be hypocrites, at God's great day, guilty as I may be in
   many respects, there is one thing I am clear of--I have not shunned to
   declare the whole counsel of God. I do not believe that any people in
   the world shall be damned more terribly than you shall if you perish;
   for of this thing I have not shunned to speak--the great evil of making
   a profession without being sound at heart. No, I have even gone so near
   to personality, that I could not have gone further without mentioning
   your names. And rest assured, God's grace being with me, neither you
   nor myself shall be spared in the pulpit in any personal sin that I may
   observe in any one of you. But oh, do let us be sincere! May the Lord
   sooner split this church till only a tenth of you remain, than ever
   suffer you to be multiplied a hundred-fold unless you be multiplied
   with the living in Zion, and with the holy flock that the Lord himself
   hath ordained, and will keep unto the end. To-morrow morning, we shall
   meet together and pray, that we may have our first love restored; and I
   hope many of you will be found there to seek again the love which you
   have almost lost.

   And as for you that never had that love at all, the Lord breathe it
   upon you now for the love of Jesus. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                Self-Examination

   A Sermon

   (No. 218)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, October 10, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.
   Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye
   be reprobates."--2 Corinthians 13:5.

   I HAD INTENDED to address you this morning from the third title given
   to our blessed Redeemer, in the verse we have considered twice
   before--"Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God;" but owing to
   excruciating pain and continual sickness, I have been unable to gather
   my thoughts together, and therefore I feel constrained to address you
   on a subject which has often been upon my heart and not unfrequently
   upon my lips, and concerning which, I dare say, I have admonished a
   very large proportion of this audience before. You will find the text
   in the thirteenth chapter of the second epistle to the Corinthians, at
   the fifth verse--"Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove
   your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is
   in you, except ye be reprobates?"--a solemn text, that we cannot preach
   too impressively, or too frequently meditate.

   The Corinthians were the critics of the apostles' age. They took to
   themselves great credit for skill in learning and in language, and as
   most men do who are wise in their own esteem, they made a wrong use of
   their wisdom and learning--they began to criticise the apostle Paul.
   They criticised his style. "His letters," say they, "are weighty and
   powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible."
   Nay, not content with that, they went so far as to deny his
   apostleship, and for once in his life, the apostle Paul found himself
   compelled to "become a fool in glorying; for," says he, "ye have
   compelled me: for I ought to have been commended of you: for in nothing
   am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing." The
   apostle wrote two letters to them; in both he is compelled to upbraid
   them while he defends himself, and when he had fully disarmed his
   opponents, and wrested the sword of their criticism out of their hands,
   he pointed it at their own breasts, saying, "Examine yourselves.' You
   have disputed my doctrine; examine whether ye be in the faith. You have
   made me prove my apostleship; prove your own selves.' Use the powers
   which you have been so wrongfully exercising upon me for a little
   season upon your own characters."

   And now, my dear friends, the fault of the Corinthians is the fault of
   the present age. Let not any one of you, as he goeth out of the house
   of God, say unto his neighbour. "How did you like the preacher? What
   did you think of the sermon this morning?" Is that the question you
   should ask as you retire from God's house? Do you come here to judge
   God's servants? I know it is but a small thing unto us to be judged of
   man's judgment; for our judgment is of the Lord our God; to our own
   Master we shall stand or fall. But, O men! ye should ask a question
   more profitable unto yourselves than this. Ye should say, "Did not
   such-and-such a speech strike me? Did not that exactly consort with my
   condition? Was that not a rebuke that I deserve, a word of reproof or
   of exhortation? Let me take unto myself that which I have heard, and
   let me not judge the preacher, for he is God's messenger to my soul: I
   came up here to be judged of God's Word, and not to judge God's Word
   myself." But since there is in all our hearts a great backwardness to
   self-examination, I shall lay out myself for a few minutes this
   morning, earnestly to exhort myself, and all of you, to examine
   ourselves whether we be in the faith.

   First, I shall expound my text; secondly, I shall enforce it; and
   thirdly, I shall try and help you to carry it into practice here and on
   the spot.

   I. First, I shall EXPOUND MY TEXT; though in truth it needs no
   exposition, for it is very simple, yet by studying it, and pondering
   it, our hearts may become more deeply affected with its touching
   appeal. "Examine yourselves." Who does not understand that word? And
   yet, by a few suggestions you may know its meaning more perfectly.

   "Examine:" that is a scholastic idea. A boy has been to school a
   certain time, and his master puts him through his paces--questions him,
   to see whether he has made any progress,--whether he knows anything.
   Christian, catechise your heart; question it, to see whether it has
   been growing in grace; question it, to see if it knows anything of
   vital godliness or not. Examine it: pass your heart through a stern
   examination as to what it does know and what it does not know, by the
   teaching of the Holy Spirit.

   Again: it is a military idea. "Examine yourselves," or renew
   yourselves. Go through the rank and file of your actions, and examine
   all your motives. Just as the captain on review-day is not content with
   merely surveying the men from a distance, but must look at all their
   accoutrements, so do you look well to yourselves; examine yourselves
   with the most scrupulous care.

   And once again, this is a legal idea. "Examine yourselves." You have
   seen the witness in the box, when the lawyer has been examining him,
   or, as we have it, cross-examining him. Now, mark: never was there a
   rogue less trustworthy or more deceitful than your own heart, and as
   when you are cross-examining a dishonest person--one that hath bye-ends
   to serve, you set traps for him to try and find him out in a lie, so do
   with your own heart. Question it backward and forward, this way and
   that way; for if there be a loophole for escape, if there he any
   pretence for self-deception, rest assured your treacherous heart will
   be ready enough to avail itself of it.

   And yet once more: this is a traveller's idea. I find in the original,
   it has this meaning: "Go right through yourselves." As a traveller, if
   he has to write a book upon a country, is not content to go round its
   borders merely, but goes, as it were, from Dan to Beersheba, right
   through the country. He climbs the hill top, where he bathes his
   forehead in the sunshine: he goes down into the deep valleys, where he
   can only see the blue sky like a strip between the lofty summits of the
   mountains. He is not content to gaze upon the broad river unless he
   trace it to the spring whence it rises. He will not be satisfied with
   viewing the products of the surface of the earth, but he must discover
   the minerals that lie within its bowels. Now, do the same with your
   heart. "Examine yourselves." Go right through yourselves from the
   beginning to the end. Stand not only on the mountains of your public
   character, but go into the deep valleys of your private life. Be not
   content to sail on the broad river of your outward actions, but go
   follow back the narrow nil till you discover your secret motive. Look
   not only at your performance, which is but the product of the soil, but
   dig into your heart and examine the vital principle. "Examine
   yourselves." This is a very big word--a word that needs thinking over;
   and I am afraid there be very few, if any of us, who ever come up to
   the full weight of this solemn exhortation--"Examine yourselves."

   There is another word you will see a little further on, if you will
   kindly look at the text. "Prove your own selves." That means more than
   self-examination: let me try to show the difference between the two. A
   man is about to buy a horse; he examines it; he looks at it; he thinks
   that possibly he may find out some flaw, and therefore he carefully
   examines it; but after he has examined it, if he be a prudent man, he
   says to the person of whom he is about to buy--"I must prove this
   horse: will you let me have it for a week, for a month, or for some
   given time, that I may prove the animal before I actually invest in
   him? You see, there is more in proof than in examination; it is a
   deeper word, and goes to the very root and quick of the matter. I saw
   but yesterday an illustration of this. A ship, before she is launched,
   is examined; when launched she is carefully looked at; and yet before
   she is allowed to go far out to sea, she takes a trial trip; she is
   proved and tried, and when she has roughed it a little, and it has been
   discovered that she will obey the helm, that the engines will work
   correctly, and that all is in right order, she goes out on her long
   voyages. Now, "prove yourselves." Do not merely sit in your closet and
   look at yourselves alone, but go out into this busy world and see what
   kind of piety you have. Remember, many a man's religion will stand
   examination that will not stand proof. We may sit at home and look at
   our religion, and say, "Well, I think this will do!" It is like cotton
   prints that you can buy in sundry shops; they are warranted fast
   colours, and so they seem when you look at them, but they are not
   washable when you get them home. There is many a man's religion like
   that. It is good enough to look at, and it has got the "warranted"
   stamped upon it; but when it comes out into actual daily life, the
   colours soon begin to run, and the man discovers that the thing was not
   what he took it to be. You know, in Scripture we have an account of
   certain very foolish men that would not go to a great supper; but,
   foolish as they were, there was one of them who said, "I have bought a
   yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them." Thus he had at least worldly
   wisdom, enough to prove his oxen. So do you prove yourselves. Try to
   plough in the furrows of duty: see whether you can be accustomed to the
   yoke of gospel servitude; be not ashamed to put yourselves through your
   paces; try yourself in the furnace of daily life, est haply the mere
   examination of the chamber should detect you to be a cheat, and you
   should after all prove to be a castaway. "Examine yourselves; prove
   your own selves."

   There is a sentence which I omitted, namely, this one: "Examine
   yourselves, whether ye be in the faith." Oh! says one, "You may examine
   me whether I am in the faith; I am an orthodox Christian, fully up to
   the standard, good genuine weight; there is no fear whatever of my
   coming up to the mark, and going a little beyond it too." Ah! but, my
   friend, that is not the question; I would have you orthodox, for a man
   who is heterodox in his opinions, will most likely be heterodox in his
   actions; but the question now is not whether you believe the truth--but
   whether you are in the truth? Just to give you an illustration of what
   I mean. There is the ark; and a number of men around it. "Ah!" says
   one, I believe that ark will swim." "Oh!" says another, "I believe that
   ark is made of gopher-wood, and is strong from stem to stern; I am
   quite sure that ark will float, come what may; I am a firm believer in
   that ark." Ay, but when the rain descended, and the flood came, it was
   not believing the ark as a matter of fact--it was being in the ark that
   saved men, and only those that were in it escaped in that dread day of
   deluge. So there may be some of you that say of the gospel of Christ,
   "I believe it to be of a particular character," and you may be quite
   correct in your judgment; you may say, "I think it to be that which
   honours God, and casts down the pride of man;" herein too you may think
   quite right; but mark, it is not having an orthodox faith, but it is
   being in the faith, being in Christ, taking refuge in Him as in the
   ark; for he that only has the faith as a thing ab extra, and without
   being in the faith, shall perish in the day of God's anger; but he that
   lives by faith, he who feels that faith operates upon him, and is to
   him a living principle; he who realises that faith is his dwelling
   place, that there he can abide, that it is the very atmosphere he
   breathes and the very girdle of his loins to strengthen him,--such a
   man is in the faith. But, we repeat again, all the orthodoxy in the
   world, apart from its effect upon the heart as a vital principle, will
   not save a man. "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove
   your own selves."

   "Know ye not your own selves?" If you do not, you have neglected your
   proper study. What avails all else that you do know, if you know not
   yourself? You have been roaming abroad, while the richest treasure was
   lying at home; you have been busying yourself with irrelevant affairs,
   while the main business has been neglected and ruined. "Know ye not
   your own selves?" And especially know ye not this fact, that Jesus
   Christ must be in your heart, formed and living there, or else ye are
   reprobates? That is, ye are worthless persons, vain pretenders,
   spurious professors; your religion is but a vanity and a show.
   "Reprobate silver shall men call you, because the Lord hath rejected
   you."

   Now, what is it to have Jesus Christ in you? The Roman Catholic hangs
   the cross on his bosom; the true Christian carries the cross in his
   heart; and a cross inside the heart, my friends, is one of the sweetest
   cares for a cross on the back. If you have a cross in your
   heart--Christ crucified in you, the hope of glory--all the cross of
   this world's troubles will seem to you light enough, and you will
   easily he able to sustain it. Christ in the heart means Christ believed
   in, Christ beloved, Christ trusted, Christ espoused, Christ communed
   with, Christ as our daily food, and ourselves as the temple and palace
   wherein Jesus Christ daily walks. Ah! there are many here that are
   total strangers to the meaning of this phrase. They do not know what it
   is to have Jesus Christ in them. Though ye know a little about Christ
   on Calvary, ye know nothing about Christ in the heart. Now, remember,
   that Christ on Calvary will save no man, unless Christ be in the heart.
   The Son of Mary, born in the manger, will not save a soul, unless he be
   also born in your hearts, and live there--your joy, your strength, and
   your consolation. "Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ
   is in you, except ye be reprobates?"

   II. The second point was to ENFORCE THE TEXT. I have proved it; now I
   am to enforce it; and here is the tug of war. May the Spirit of the
   living God drive the sword in up to its very hilt this morning, that
   now the power of God may be felt in every heart, searching and trying
   the reins. "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith."

   "Examine yourselves," first, because it is a matter of the very highest
   importance. Small tradesmen may take coppers over the counter without
   much examination; but when it comes to gold, they will ring it well,
   for they could not afford to lose a sovereign out of their little
   gains; and if it comes to a five pound note, there is an anxious
   holding it up to the window to see if the water mark be there, and
   whether all be correct, for it might be ruin to the man if he lost a
   sum to him so large. Ah! but, merchants and tradesmen, if ye be
   deceived in the matter of your own souls, ye are deceived indeed. Look
   well to the title deeds of your estate; look well to your life
   policies, and to all the business that you do; but, remember, all the
   gold and silver you have, are but as the rack and scum of the furnace,
   compared with the matter now in hand. It is your soul, your own soul,
   your never dying soul! Will you risk that? In times of panic, men will
   scarcely trust their fellows; I would to God there was a panic this
   day, so that no man would trust himself. Ye may trust your fellows far
   more safely than ye may trust yourselves. Will ye think, men and
   brethren, what your soul is? "The life is more than meat, and the body
   than raiment;" but the soul is as much more to be accounted of than the
   body, as the body is more important than the raiment. Here are my
   clothes: let me be robbed of my garments; if my body be secure, what
   signifies it? And as for my body, what is it, after all, but the rag
   that enshrines and covers my soul? Let that be sick, let that become
   like a worn-out vesture, I can afford to lose my body; but, O God, I
   cannot afford to have my soul cast into hell. What a frightful hazard
   is that which you and I are running, if we do not examine ourselves! It
   is an everlasting hazard; it is a hazard of heaven or of hell, of God's
   eternal favour, or of his everlasting curse. Well might the apostle
   say, "Examine yourselves."

   Again: "Examine yourselves," because if ye make a mistake ye can never
   rectify it, except in this world. A bankrupt may have lost a fortune
   once, and yet may make another; but make bankruptcy--spiritual
   bankruptcy in this life, and you will never have an opportunity to
   trade again for heaven. A great general may lose one battle, but with
   skill and courage he may retrieve his honour by winning another; but
   get defeated in the battle of this life, and you can no more gird on
   your armour, you are defeated for ever; the day is lost, and there is
   no hope of your being able to gain it again, or so much as to make the
   attempt. Now, or never, man! remember that. Thy soul's eternal state
   hangs on the turn of to-day. Loiter thy time away, waste thine
   abilities, take thy religion at second hand, of thy priest, of thy
   minister, or of thy friend, and in the next world thou shalt
   everlastingly rue the error, but thou shalt have no hope of amending
   it.

   "Fix'd is their everlasting state,

   Could man repent, tis then too late.

   There are no acts of pardon pass'd

   In the cold grave, to which we haste;

   But darkness, death, and long despair,

   Reign in eternal silence there."

   "Examine yourselves," again, because many have been mistaken. That is a
   matter which I will undertake to affirm upon my own authority, certain
   that each one of you can confirm it by your own observation. How many
   in this world think themselves to be godly when they are not? You have
   in the circle of your own friends, persons making a profession, of whom
   you often stand in astonishment, and wonder how they dare to do it.
   Friend, if others have been mistaken, may not you be? If some here and
   there fall into an error, may not you also do the same? Are you better
   than they? No, in nowise. You may be mistaken also. Methinks I see the
   rocks on which many souls have been lost--the rocks of presumption, and
   the syren song of self-confidence entices you on to those rocks this
   morning. Stay, mariner, stay, I beseech thee! Let you bleached bones
   keep thee back. Many have been lost, many are lost now, and are wailing
   at this present hour their everlasting ruin, and their loss is to be
   traced to nothing more than this, that they never examined themselves
   whether they were in the faith.

   And here let me appeal to each person now present. Do not tell me that
   you are an old church member; I am glad to hear it; but still, I
   beseech you, examine yourself, for a man may be a professor of religion
   thirty or forty years, and yet there may come a trial-day, when his
   religion shall snap after all and prove to be a rotten bough of the
   forest. Tell me not you are a deacon: that you may be, and yet you may
   be damnably deceived. Ay, and whisper not to me that you are a
   minister. My brethren in the ministry,--we may lay aside our cassocks
   to wear belts of flame in hell; we may go from our pulpit, having
   preached to others what we never knew ourselves, and have to join the
   everlasting wailings of souls we have helped to delude. May God save us
   from such a doom as that! But let no man fold his arms, and say, "I
   need not examine myself;" for there is not a man here, or anywhere, who
   has not good cause to test and try himself to-day.

   Furthermore: examine yourselves, because God will examine you. In the
   hand of God there is the scale and the balance: you shall not be taken
   into heaven for what you profess to be; but you shall be weighed--every
   one of you put into the scale. What a moment will that be with me and
   with you, when we are in God's great scale; surely where it not for
   faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and for a certainty that we shall be
   clothed in his righteousness at last, we might all tremble at the
   thought of ever being there, lest we should have to come out of the
   scale with this verdict, "Tekel,"--("Mene, mene, tekel,
   upharsin")--"thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting."
   God will not take his gold and silver by appearance, but every vessel
   must be purified in the fire. We must each one of us pass through a
   most searching test and scrutiny. Beloved, if our hearts condemn us,
   how much more shall God condemn us? If we are afraid to examine
   ourselves, what cause have we to tremble at the thought of the dread
   searching of God? Some of you feel that you are condemned this very day
   by a poor creature like myself: how much more, then, shall you be
   condemned when God, in thunder robed, shall summon you and all your
   fellows to the last infallible judgment. Oh! may God help us now to
   examine ourselves!

   And I have yet one more reason to give. Examine yourselves, my dear
   friends, because, if you are in doubt now, the speediest way to get rid
   of your doubts and fears is by self-examination I believe that many
   persons are always doubting their eternal condition, because they do
   not examine themselves. Self-examination is the safest cure for one
   half the doubts and fears that vex God's people. Look at the captain
   over yonder. He is in his ship, and he says to the sailors, "You must
   sail very warily and carefully, and be upon your watch, for to tell you
   the truth, I do not know where I am; I do not exactly know my latitude
   and longitude, and there may be rocks very close ahead, and we may soon
   have the ship broken up." He goes down into the cabin, he searches the
   chart, he takes an inspection of the heavens, he comes up again, and he
   says, "Hoist every sail, and go along as merrily as you please, I have
   discovered where we are; the water is deep, and there is a wide sea
   room; there is no need for you to be in any trouble, searching has
   satisfied me." And how happy will it be with you, if, after having
   searched yourself you can say, "I know in whom I have believed, and am
   persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto
   him." Why, then you will go along merrily and joyfully, because the
   search has had a good result. And what if it should have a bad result?
   Better that you should find it out now than find it out too late. One
   of the prayers I often pray, and desire to pray as long as I live, is
   this,--"Lord, let me know the worst of my case. If I have been living
   in a false comfort, Lord, rend it away; let me know just what I am and
   where I am, and rather let me think too harshly of my condition before
   thee than think too securely, and so be ruined by presumption." May
   that be a prayer of each heart, and be heard in heaven!

   III. And now HOW ARE YOU TO SEARCH YOURSELVES? I am to try and help
   you, though it must be very briefly.

   First, if you would examine yourselves, begin with your public life.
   Are you dishonest? Can you thieve? Can you swear? Are you given to
   drunkenness, uncleanness, blasphemy, taking God's name in vain, and
   violation of his holy day? Make short work with yourself; there will be
   no need to go into any further tests. "He that doeth these things, hath
   no inheritance in the kingdom of God." You are reprobate; the wrath of
   God abideth on you. Your state is fearful; you are accursed now, and
   except you repent you must be accursed for ever.

   And yet, Christian, despite thy many sins, canst thou say, "By the
   grace of God I am what I am; but I seek to live a righteous, godly, and
   sober life, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation."
   Remember, professor, by thy works thou shalt be judged at last. Thy
   works cannot save thee, but they can prove that thou art saved; or if
   they be evil works, they can prove that thou art not saved at all. And
   here I must say, every one of us has good cause to tremble, for our
   outward acts are not what we would have them to be. Let us go to our
   houses, and fall upon our face, and cry again, "God be merciful to me a
   sinner;" and let us seek for more grace, that henceforth our lives may
   be more consistent, and more in accordance with the spirit of Christ.

   Again: another set of tests--private tests. How about your private
   life? Do you live without prayer, without searching the Scriptures? Do
   you live without thoughts of God? Can you live as an habitual stranger
   to the Most High, having no love to him, and no fear of him? If so, I
   make short work of the matter: you are "in the gall of bitterness, and
   in the bonds of iniquity." But if thou art right at heart, thou wilt be
   able to say, "I could not live without prayer; I have to weep over my
   prayers, but still I should weep ten times more if I did not pray; I do
   love God's word, it is my meditation all the day; I love his people; I
   love his house; and I can say that my hands are often lifted upward
   towards him; and when my heart is busy with this world's affairs, it is
   often going up to his throne." A good sign, Christian, a good sign for
   thee; if thou canst go through this test, thou mayest hope that all is
   well.

   But go a little deeper. Hast thou ever wept over thy lost condition?
   Hast thou ever bemoaned thy lost estate before God? Say, hast thou ever
   tried to save thyself, and found it a failure? and hast thou been
   driven to rely simply, wholly, and entirely on Christ? If so, then thou
   hast passed the test well enough. And hast thou now faith in Christ--a
   faith that makes thee love him; a faith that enables thee to trust him
   in the darkest hour? Canst thou say of a truth that thou hast a secret
   affection towards the Most High--that thou lovest his Son, that thy
   desire is after his ways, that thou feelest the influence of the Divine
   Spirit, and seekest every day to experience the fellowship of the Holy
   Spirit more and more?

   And lastly, canst thou say that Jesus Christ is in thee? If not, thou
   art reprobate. Sharp though that word be, thou art a reprobate. But if
   Jesus Christ be in thy heart, though thy heart sometimes be so dark
   that thou canst scarcely tell he is there, yet thou art accepted in the
   beloved, and thou mayest "rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of
   glory."

   I intended to have enlarged; but it is impossible for me to go further;
   I must therefore dismiss you with a sacred blessing.
     __________________________________________________________________

                              An Appeal To Sinners

   A Sermon

   (No. 219)

   Delivered on Sabbath Evening, September 14th, 1856, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at Exeter Hall, Strand.

   DEARLY BELOVED,

   It hath pleased the Lord by a painful illness to interrupt for a little
   while my usual labors. As I was unable to preach last Lord's day,
   accept this week the issue of an old sermon. Though it has been buried
   in my publisher's warehouse for two years, I pray God it may bud afresh
   and bring forth fruit, even as old corn after having been entombed in
   Egyptian sepulchres for centuries will often germinate again and yield
   an abundant crop. Ye have prayed for me. The Lord hath visited me in
   the chamber of affliction. I am recovering; and God knoweth "I long to
   see you, and impart unto you some spiritual gift;" and I trust that ere
   long "through your prayers I shall be given unto you."

   Yours in much affection,

   C. H. S.

   "This man receiveth sinners."--Luke 15:2.

   IT WAS A SINGULAR GROUP which had gathered round our Saviour, when
   these words were uttered; for we are told by the evangelist--"Then drew
   near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him." The
   publicans--the very lowest grade, the public oppressors, scorned and
   hated by the meanest Jew--these, together with the worst of characters,
   the scum of the streets and the very riff-raff of the society of
   Jerusalem, came around this mighty preacher, Jesus Christ, in order to
   listen to his words. On the outside of the throng there stood a few
   respectable people, who in those days were called Pharisees and
   Scribes--men who were highly esteemed in the synagogues as rulers, and
   governors, and teachers. These looked with scorn upon the Preacher; and
   watched him with invidious eyes, to find some fault. If they could find
   none in him personally, yet they could easily find it in his
   congregation; his deportment towards them shocked their false notion of
   propriety, and when they observed that he was affable with the very
   worst of characters, that he spoke loving words to the most fallen of
   mankind, they said of him what they intended for a disgrace, albeit it
   was highly to his honour: "This man receiveth sinners." I believe that
   our Saviour could not have wished to have had a sentence uttered
   concerning him, more evidently true or more thoroughly consistent with
   his sacred commission. It is the exact portrait of his character; the
   hand of a master seems to have limned him to the very life. He is the
   man who "receiveth sinners." Many a true word has been spoken in jest,
   and many a true word has been spoken in slander. Men have said
   sometimes in jest, "There goes a saint;" but it has been true. They
   have said, "There goes one of your chosen ones, one of your elect,"
   they meant it as a slander, but the doctrine they scandalized was to
   the person who received it a comfort; it was his glory and his honour.
   Now the Scribes and Pharisees wished to slander Christ; but in so doing
   they outstripped their intentions, and bestowed upon him a title of
   renown. "This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them."

   This evening I shall divide my observations to you into three parts.
   First, the doctrine, that Christ receiveth sinners, which is a doctrine
   of holy writ. Secondly, the encouragement it affords the sinner; and
   thirdly, the exhortation naturally springing from it, to the same
   character.

   I. First, then, THE DOCTRINE. The doctrine is, not that Christ
   receiveth everybody, but that he "receiveth sinners." By that term we,
   in common parlance, understand everybody. It is in the present day
   quite fashionable for everybody to lie against what he believes, and to
   say he is a sinner, even when he believes himself to be a very
   respectable, well-to-do man, and does not conceive that he ever did
   anything very amiss in his life. It is a sort of orthodox confession
   for men to make, when they say that they are sinners; though they might
   just as well use one formula as another, or repeat words in a foreign
   tongue; for they mean no deep and heartfelt contrition. They have no
   true apprehension that they are sinners at all. These Scribes and
   Pharisees did virtually assert, that they were not sinners; they marked
   out the Publicans and the harlots, and the worthless, and they said,
   "These are sinners, we are not." "Very well," said Christ, "I endorse
   the distinction you have made. In your own opinion, you are not
   sinners; well, you shall stand exempt for the time from being called
   sinners--I endorse your distinction. But I beg to inform you, that I
   came to save those very persons who, in their own estimation and in
   yours, are reckoned to be sinners." It is my belief that the doctrine
   of the text is this--that Christ receives not the self-righteous, not
   the good, not the whole-hearted, not those who dream that they do not
   need a Saviour; but the broken in spirit, the contrite in heart--those
   who are ready to confess that they have broken God's laws, and have
   merited his displeasure. These and these alone, Christ came to save;
   and I reassert the subject of last Sabbath evening--that Jesus has died
   for such, and for none other; that he has shed his blood for those who
   are ready to confess their sins, and who do seek mercy through the open
   veins of his wounded body, but for none other did he designedly offer
   up himself upon the cross.

   Now, let us remark, beloved, that there is a very wise distinction on
   the part of God, that he hath been pleased thus to choose and call
   sinners to repentance, and not others. For this reason, none but these
   ever do come to him. There has never been such a miracle as a
   self-righteous man coming to Christ for mercy; none but those who want
   a Saviour ever did come. It stands to reason, that when men do not
   consider themselves in need of a Saviour, they never will approach his
   throne; and surely it is satisfactory enough for all purposes, that
   Christ should say he receiveth sinners, seeing that sinners are the
   only persons who will ever come to him for mercy, and therefore it
   would be useless for him to say that he would receive any but those who
   most assuredly will come.

   And mark, again, none but those can come; no man can come to Christ
   until he truly knows himself to be a sinner. The self-righteous man
   cannot come to Christ; for what is implied in coming to Christ?
   Repentance, trust in his mercy, and the denial of all confidence in
   one's self. Now, a self-righteous man cannot repent, and yet be
   self-righteous. He conceives that he has no sin; why, then, should he
   repent? Tell him to come to Christ with humble penitence, and he
   exclaims--"Ay! you insult my dignity. Why should I approach to God?
   Wherein have I sinned? My knee shall not bend to seek for pardon,
   wherein I have not offended; this lip shall not seek forgiveness when I
   do not believe myself to have transgressed against God; I shall not ask
   for mercy." The self-righteous man cannot come to God; for his coming
   to God implies that he ceases to be self-righteous. Nor can a
   self-righteous man put his trust in Christ; why should he? Shall I
   trust in a Christ whom I do not require? It I be self-righteous, I need
   no Christ to save me in my own opinion. How, then, can I come with such
   a confession as this,

   "Nothing in my hands I bring,"

   when I have got my hands full. How can I say, "Wash me," when I believe
   myself white? How can I say "Heal me," when I think that I never was
   sick? How can I cry, "Give me freedom, give me liberty," when I believe
   I never was a slave, and "never in bondage to any man?" It is only the
   man who knows his slavery by reason of the bondage of sin, and the man
   who knows himself to be sick even unto death by reason of the sense of
   guilt: it is only the man who feels he cannot save himself, who can
   with faith rely upon the Saviour. Nor can the self-righteous man
   renounce himself, and lay hold of Christ; because in the renunciation
   of himself he would at once become the very character whom Christ says
   he will receive. He would then put himself in the place of the sinner,
   when he cast away his own righteousness. Why, sirs, coming to Christ
   implies the taking off the polluted robe of our own righteousness, and
   putting on Christ's. How can I do that, if I wittingly wrap my own
   garment about me? and if in order to come to Christ I must forsake my
   own refuge and all my own hope, how can I do it, if I believe my hope
   to be good, and my refuge to be secure; and if I suppose that already I
   am clothed sufficiently to enter into the marriage supper of the Lamb?
   Nay, beloved, it is the sinner, and the sinner only, who can come to
   Christ; the self-righteous man cannot do it; it is quite out of his
   way--he would not do it if he could. His very self-righteousness
   fetters his foot, so that he cannot come; palsies his arm, so that he
   cannot take hold of Christ; and blinds his eye, so that be cannot see
   the Saviour.

   Yet another reason: if these people, who are not sinners, would come to
   Christ, Christ would get no glory from them. When the physician openeth
   his door for those who are sick, let me go there full of health; he can
   win no honour from me, because he cannot exert his skill upon me. The
   benevolent man may distribute all his wealth to the poor; but let some
   one go to him who has abundance, and he shall win no esteem from him
   for feeding the hungry, or for clothing the naked; since the applicant
   is neither hungry nor naked. If Jesus Christ proclaims that he giveth
   his grace unto all who come for it, surely it is sufficient, seeing
   that none will or can come for it, but those whose pressing necessities
   prompt them. Ay! sufficient; it is quite sufficient for his honour. A
   great sinner brings great glory to Christ when he is saved. A man who
   is no sinner, if he could attain to heaven would glorify himself, but
   he would not glorify Christ. The man who has no stains may plunge into
   the fountain; but he cannot magnify its cleansing power for he hath no
   stains to wash away. He that hath no guilt can never magnify the word
   "forgiveness." It is the sinner then, and the sinner only, who can
   glorify Christ; and hence "this man receiveth sinners," but it is not
   said that he receiveth any else. "He came not to call the righteous,
   but sinners to repentance." This is the doctrine of the text.

   But allow us just to amplify that word: "this man receiveth sinners."
   Now, by that we understand that he receives sinners to all the benefits
   which he has purchased for them. If there be a fountain, he receives
   sinners to wash them in it; if there be medicine for the soul, he
   receives sinners to heal their diseases; if there be a house for the
   sick, an hospital, a lazar-house for the dying, he receives such into
   that retreat of mercy. All that he hath of love, all that he hath of
   mercy, all that he hath of atonement, all that he hath of
   sanctification, all that he bath of righteousness--to all these he
   receives the sinner. Yea, more; not content with taking him to his
   house, he receives him to his heart. He takes the black and filthy
   sinner, and having washed him--"There," he says, "thou art my beloved;
   my desire is towards thee." And to consummate the whole, at last he
   receives the saints to heaven. Saints, I said, but I meant those who
   were sinners, for none can be saints truly, but those who once were
   sinners, and have been washed in the blood of Christ, and made white
   through the sacrifice of the lamb.

   Observe it then, beloved, that in receiving sinners we mean the whole
   of salvation; and this word in my text, "Christ receiveth sinners,"
   graspeth in the whole of the covenant. He receives them to the joys of
   paradise, to the bliss of the beatified, to the songs of the glorified,
   to an eternity of happiness for ever. "This man receiveth sinners;" and
   I dwell with special emphasis on this point,--he receives none else. He
   will have none else to be saved but those who know themselves to be
   sinners. Full, free salvation is preached to every sinner in the
   universe; but I have no salvation to preach to those who will not
   acknowledge themselves to be sinners. To them I must preach the law,
   telling them that their righteousness is but as filthy rags, that their
   goodness shall pass away as the spider's web, and shall be broken in
   pieces, even as the egg of the ostrich is broken by the foot of the
   horse. "This man receiveth sinners," and receiveth none else.

   II. Now, then, THE ENCOURAGEMENT. If this man receiveth sinners, poor
   sin-sick sinner, what a sweet word this is for thee! Sure, then, he
   will not reject thee. Come, let me encourage thee this night to come to
   my Master, to receive his great atonement, and to be clothed with all
   his righteousness. Mark: those whom I address, are the bona fide, real,
   actual sinners; not the complimentary sinners; not those who say they
   are sinners by way of pacifying, as they suppose, the religionists of
   the day; but I speak to those who feel their lost, ruined, hopeless
   condition. All these are now frankly and freely invited to come to
   Jesus Christ, and to be saved by him. Come, poor sinner, come.

   Come, because he has said he will receive you; I know your fears; we
   all felt them once, when we were coming to Christ. I know thou sayest
   in thy heart, "He will reject me. If I present my prayer, he will not
   hear me; if I cry unto him, yet peradventure the heavens will he as
   brass; I have been so great a sinner, that he will never take me into
   his house to dwell with him." Poor sinner! say not so; he hath
   published the decree. It is enough between man and man usually, if we
   count our fellow creatures honest, to obtain a promise. Sinner! is this
   not enough between thyself and the Son of God? He has said, "Him that
   cometh I will in nowise cast out." Durst thou not venture on that
   promise? Wilt thou not go to sea in a ship as staunch as this; he hath
   said it? It has been often and again the only comfort of the saints; on
   this they have lived, on this they have died: he hath said it. What!
   dost thou think Christ will lie unto thee? Would he tell thee he will
   receive thee, and yet not do so? Would he say, "My fatlings are killed,
   come ye to the supper," and yet shut the door in your face? No, if be
   has said he will cast out none that come to him; rest assured he
   cannot, he will not cast you out. Come, then, try his love on this
   ground, that he has said it.

   Come, and fear not, because remember, if thou feelest thyself to be a
   sinner, that feeling is God's gift; and therefore thou mayest very
   safely come to one who has already done so much to draw thee. A
   stranger calls at my house, he asks for alms, and he tells me at first
   very plainly, that he never saw me before, that he has no claim upon my
   generosity, but he throws himself entirely upon any benevolent feeling
   that I may chance to have in my breast. But if I had done anything for
   him before, he might say, supposing I were a rich man, "Sir, you have
   done so much for me, I think you will not give me up at last; I believe
   you will not let me starve, after so much love." Poor sinner! if thou
   feelest thy need of a Saviour, Christ made thee feel it; if thou hast a
   wish to come after Christ, Christ gave thee that wish; if thou hast any
   desire after God, God gave thee that desire; if thou canst sigh after
   Christ, Christ made thee sigh; if thou canst weep after Christ, Christ
   made thee weep. Ay, if thou canst only wish for him with the strong
   wish of one that fears he never can find, yet hopes he may--if thou
   canst but hope for him, he has given thee that hope. And oh! wilt not
   thou come to him? Thou hast some of the king's bounties about thee now;
   come and plead what he hath done, there is no suit that can ever fail
   with God, when ye plead this. Tell him his past mercies urge you to try
   him in the future. Down on your knees, sinner, down on your knees; tell
   him this--"Lord, I thank thee that I know myself to be a sinner; thou
   hast taught me that; I bless thee that I do not wrap up my sin, that I
   know it, that I feel it; that it is ever before me. Lord, wouldst thou
   make me see my sin, and not let me see my Saviour? What! wilt thou open
   the wound, and put in the lancet, and yet not heal me? What, Lord! hast
   thou said, I kill?' And hast thou not said in the same breath, I make
   alive.' Hast thou killed me, and wilt thou not make me alive?" Plead
   that, poor sinner, and thou wilt find it true, that "this man receiveth
   sinners."

   Doth not this suffice thee? Then here is another reason. I am sure
   "this man receiveth sinners," because he has received many, many,
   before you. See, there is Mercy's door; mark how many have been to it;
   you can almost hear the knocks upon the door now, like echoes of the
   past. You may remember how many way-worn travellers have called there
   for rest, how many famished souls have applied there for bread. Go,
   knock at Mercy's door, and ask the porter this question, "Was there
   ever one applied to the door that was refused?" I can assure you of the
   answer: "No, not one."

   "No sinner was ever empty sent back,

   Who came seeking mercy for Jesus's sake."

   And shalt thou be the first? Dost thou think God will forfeit his good
   name, by turning thee away? Mercy's gate has been open night and day,
   ever since man sinned; dost thou think it will be shut in thy face for
   the first time? Nay, man, go and try it; and if thou findest it is,
   come back and say, "Thou hast not read the Bible as thou oughtest to
   have done;" or else say thou hast found one promise there which has not
   been fulfilled--for he said, "Him that cometh I will in nowise cast
   out." I do not believe there ever was in this world one who was
   suffered by God to say that he sought mercy of him sincerely, and did
   not find it. Nay more, I believe that such a being never shall exist,
   but whosoever cometh unto Christ shall most assuredly find mercy. What
   greater encouragement do you want? Do you want a salvation for those
   that will not come to be saved? Do you want blood sprinkled on those
   that will not come to Christ? You must want it, then; I will not preach
   it to you. I find it not in God's Word, and therefore I dare not.

   And now, sinner, I have yet another plea to urge with thee why thou
   shouldst believe that Christ will receive all sinners who come to him.
   It is this, that he calls all such. Now if Christ calls us and bids us
   come, we may be sure he will not turn us away when we do come. Once on
   a time a blind man sat by the wayside begging. He heard--for he could
   not see--he heard the trampling of the many feet that were passing by
   him. He asked what all this meant: they said that Jesus of Nazareth
   passed by. Loudly did he cry, "Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on
   me!" The ear of mercy was apparently deaf, and the Saviour walked on
   and heeded not the prayer. The poor man sat still then, but cried
   aloud, though he did not move. Yet when the Saviour said, "Come
   hither," ah! then he did not delay an instant. They said, "Arise, he
   calleth thee;" and, pushing them all aside, he made his way through the
   crowd, and offered the prayer, "Lord, let me receive my sight." Well,
   then, thou who feelest thyself to be lost and ruined, arise and speak;
   he calleth for thee. Convinced sinner, Christ says, "Come;" and that
   thou mayest be sure he says it, let us quote that Scripture again, "I
   came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Thou art
   called, man; then come. If Her Majesty were riding by, thou mightest
   scarcely presume to speak to her; but if thy name were called, and by
   her own lips, wouldst thou not go to her carriage, and what she had to
   say to thee wouldst not thou listen to? Now, the King of heaven says,
   "Come." Yes, the same lips that will one day say, "Come, ye blessed,"
   say this night, "Come, ye poor distressed sinners, come to me, and I
   will save you." There is not a distressed soul in this hall, if his
   distress be the work of God's Holy Spirit, that shall not find
   salvation in the wounds of Christ. Believe then, sinner, believe in
   Jesus, that he is able to save even thee unto the very uttermost.

   And now just one point more, to commend this encouragement to you.
   Indeed, poor souls, I know when ye are under a sense of sin it is very
   hard to believe. We sometimes say, "Only believe;" but believing is
   just the hardest thing in the world when sin lies heavy on your
   shoulders. We say, "Sinner, only trust in Christ." Ah, ye do not know
   what a great "only" that is. It is a work so great, that no man can do
   it unaided by God; for faith is the gift of God, and he gives it only
   to his children. But if anything can call faith into exercise, it is
   this last thing I shall mention. Sinner, remember that Christ is
   willing to receive thee, for he came all the way from heaven to seek
   thee and find thee out in thy wanderings, and to save thee and rescue
   thee from thy miseries; he hath given proof of his hearty interest in
   thy welfare, in that he hath shed his very heart's blood to redeem thy
   soul from death and hell. If he had wanted the companionship of saints,
   he might have stopped in heaven, for there were many there. Abraham,
   and Isaac, and Jacob were with him there in glory; but he wanted
   sinners. He had a thirst after perishing sinners. He wanted to make
   them trophies of his grace. He wanted black souls, to wash them white.
   He wanted dead souls, to make them alive. His benevolence wanted
   objects on which to exert itself; and therefore

   "Down from the shining seats above,

   With joyful haste he fled,

   Entered the grave in mortal flesh,

   And dwelt among the dead."

   Oh, sinner, look there, and see that cross. Mark yonder man upon it!

   "See from his head, his hands, his feet,

   Sorrow and love flow mingled down!

   Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,

   Or thorns compose so rich a crown?"

   Dost thou note that eye? Canst thou see languid pity for thy soul
   floating in it? Dost thou mark that side? It is opened that thou mayest
   hide thy sins therein. See those drops of crimson blood; every drop is
   trickling down for thee. Hearest thou that death-shriek, "Eloi, Eloi,
   lama sabachthani?" That shriek in all its deep-toned solemnity is for
   thee. Yes, for thee, if thou art a sinner; if thou dost this night say
   unto God, "Lord, I know I have offended thee; have mercy upon me for
   Jesus' sake." If now, taught by the Spirit, thou art led to abhor
   thyself in dust and ashes, because thou hast sinned, verily, before
   God--I tell thee in his sight, as his servant, thou shalt be saved; for
   Jesus would not die for thee and yet let thee perish.

   III. Now the last point is AN EXHORTATION. If it be true that Christ
   came only to save sinners, my beloved hearers, labour, strive, agonize,
   to get a sense in your souls of your own sinnership. One of the most
   distressing things in the world is to feel yourself a sinner; but that
   is no reason why I should not exhort you to seek it, for while
   distressing, it is only the distress of the bitter medicine which will
   effectually work the cure. Do not seek to get high ideas of yourself.
   Seek to get a low opinion of yourself; do not try to deck yourself with
   ornaments; let it not be your endeavour to array yourself in gold and
   silver; do not seek to be made good in yourself, but seek to strip
   yourself; seek to humble yourself. Do not soar high, but sink low. Do
   not go up, but go down. Ask God to let thee see that thou art nothing
   at all. Ask him to bring thee to this, that thou mayest have nothing to
   say but

   "I the chief of sinners am;"

   and if God hear your prayer, very likely Satan will tell you that you
   cannot be saved because you are a sinner. But as Martin Luther said,
   "Once, when I was racked with pain and sin, Satan said, Luther, thou
   canst not be saved, for thou art a sinner. Nay,' said Martin Luther, I
   will cut thine head off with thine own sword. Thou sayest I am a
   sinner; I thank thee for it. Thou art a holy Satan,' (he says it in
   mockery no doubt,) when thou sayest I am a sinner. Well, then, Satan,
   Christ died for sinners, therefore he died for me. Ah,' said he, if
   thou canst but prove that to me, Satan, I will thank thee for it; and
   so far from groaning, I will begin to sing, for all we want is to know
   and feel that we are sinners." Let us feel that; let us know that, and
   we may receive this as an undoubted fact of revelation, that we have a
   right to come unto Christ, and to believe on him, and receive him as
   all our salvation, and all our desire. No doubt Conscience will come
   and stop you; but do not try to stop the mouth of Conscience, but tell
   Conscience you are much obliged to him for all that he says Oh, you
   have been a desperate fellow; you sinned when you were young; you have
   sinned even until now. How many sermons have been wasted on you! How
   many Sabbaths you have broken! How many warnings you have despised! Oh,
   you are a desperate sinner.' Tell Conscience that you thank him, for
   the more you can prove yourself to be a sinner, not by outward acts,
   but in your inmost heart, the more you know yourself to be really
   guilty, the more reason have you to come to Christ and say, "Lord, I
   believe thou hast died for the guilty; I believe thou intendest to save
   the worthless. I Cast myself on thee; Lord, save me!" That does not
   suit some of you, does it? It is not the kind of doctrine that flatters
   man much. No; ye would like to be good people, and help Christ a
   little, ye like that theory which some ministers are always
   proclaiming. "God has done a great deal for you; you do the rest, and
   then you will be saved." That is a very popular kind of doctrine; you
   do one part, and God will do the other part; but that is not God's
   truth, it is only a delirious dream; God says, "I will do the whole;
   come and prostrate thyself at my feet; give up thy doings; let me
   undertake for thee; afterwards, I will make thee live to my glory. Only
   in order that thou mayest be holy, I desire thee to confess that thou
   art unholy; in order that thou mayest be sanctified, thou must confess
   that thou art as yet unsanctified. Oh, do that my hearers. Fall down
   before the Lord; cast yourselves down. Do not stand up with pride; but
   fall down before God in humility; tell him you are undone without his
   sovereign grace; tell him you have nothing, you are nothing, you never
   will be anything more than nothing, but that you know Christ does not
   want anything of you, for he will take you just as you are. Do not seek
   to come to Christ with anything, besides your sin; do not seek to come
   to Christ with your prayers for a recommendation; do not come to him
   even with professions of your faith; come to him with your sin, he will
   give you faith. If you stop away from Christ, and think that you will
   have faith apart from him, you have made an error. It is Christ that
   saves us; we must come to Christ for all we want.

   "Thou, O Christ, art all I want;

   All in All in thee I find:

   Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,

   Heal the sick, and lead the blind."

   Jesus will do so and more also; but you must come as blind, you most
   come as sick, you must come as lost, or else you cannot and must not
   come at all.

   Come then, to Jesus, I beseech you, whatever may up to this time have
   kept you away. Your doubts would keep you away, but say, "Stand back,
   Unbelief; Christ says he died for sinners: and I know I am a sinner."

   "My faith will on that promise live,

   Will on that promise die."

   And there is one thing I want to say, before I have done. Do not stop
   away from Christ, when you know yourself to be a sinner, because you
   think you do not understand every point of theology. Very often I get
   young converts with me, and they say, "I do not understand this or that
   doctrine." Well, I am very glad, so far as I am able, to explain it to
   them. But sometimes I get, not young converts, but young convicts,
   those who are under Conviction of sin; and when I am trying to bring
   them to this, that if they are but sinners they may believe in Christ,
   they begin with this knotty point, and that knotty point--and they seem
   to imagine that they cannot be saved till they are thorough
   theologians. Now, if you expect to understand all theology before you
   put your faith in Christ, I can only tell you you never will; for live
   as long as ever you may, there will be some depths you cannot explore.
   There are certain unquestionable facts which you must hold; but there
   will always be some difficulties through which you will not be able to
   see. The most favoured saint on earth does not understand everything;
   but you want to understand all things before you come to Christ. One
   man asks me how sin came into the world, and he will not come unto
   Christ till he knows that. Why, he will be lost beyond hope of
   recovery, if he waits till he knows it; for nobody will ever know it. I
   have no reason to believe that it is even revealed to those who are in
   heaven. Another wants to know how it is that men are bidden to
   come,--and yet we are taught in Scripture that no man can come,--and he
   must have that cleared up; just as if the poor man who had a withered
   arm, when Christ said, "Stretch out thine arm," had replied, "Lord, I
   have got a difficulty in my mind; I want to know how you can tell me to
   stretch out my arm when it is withered." Suppose when Christ had said
   to Lazarus, "Come forth," Lazarus could have said, "I have a difficulty
   in my mind; how can a dead man come forth?" Why, know this, vain man!
   when Christ says "Stretch out thine arm," he gives you power to stretch
   out your arm with the command, and the difficulty is solved in
   practice; though I believe it never will be solved in theory. If men
   want to have theology mapped out to them, as they would have a map of
   England; if they want to have every little village and every hedgerow
   in the gospel kingdom mapped out to them, they will not find it
   anywhere but in the Bible; and they will find it so mapped out there
   that the years of a Methuselah would not suffice to find out every
   little thing in it. We must come to Christ and learn, not learn and
   then come to Christ. "Ah! but," saith another, "that is not the ground
   of my misgivings; I do not perplex myself much about theological
   points; I have got a worse anxiety than that: I feel I am too bad to be
   saved." Well, I believe you are wrong then; that is all I can say in
   reply to you; for I will believe Christ before I will believe you. You
   say you are too bad to be saved; Christ says, "Him that cometh he will
   in no wise cast out." Now, which shall be right? Christ saith he will
   receive the very worst; you say he will not. What then? "Let God be
   true, and every man a liar." But there is one matter of counsel I wish
   you would accept; I desire of God that he may bring you to come and try
   the Lord Jesus Christ, and see whether he will turn you away. What
   concern is it to me, that I am so often reproached for making my
   appeals to the worst of Sinners? It is said that I direct my ministry
   to drunkards, harlots, blasphemers, and sinners of the grosser sort.
   And what if the finger of scorn he pointed at me, or if I shall be
   accounted as a fool before the public; do you think I shall be deterred
   by their irony? Do you think I shall stand abashed at their ungenerous
   ridicule? Oh, no: like David, when he danced before the ark of the
   Lord, and Michal, Saul's daughter, jeered at him and taunted him as a
   shameless fellow, I shall only reply, if this be vile, I purpose to be
   more vile yet. While I see the foot-tracks of my Master before me, and
   while I see still more his gracious sanctions following my labours;
   while I behold his name magnified, his glory increased, and perishing
   souls saved, (as thanks be to God we have witness everyday;) while this
   gospel warrants me, while the Spirit of God moves me, and while signs
   following do multiply the seals of my commission,--who am I that I
   should stay myself for man, or resist the Holy Ghost for any flesh that
   breatheth? Oh, then, ye chief of sinners, ye vilest of the vile, ye who
   are the scum of the city, the refuse of the earth, the dregs of
   creation, whom no man seeketh after, ye whose characters are destroyed,
   and whose inmost souls are polluted, so black that no fuller on earth
   can whiten you, so debased that ye have sunk beyond the hope of any
   moralist to reclaim you! come ye--come ye to Christ. Come ye at his own
   invitation. Come, and you shall be surely received with a hearty
   welcome. My Master said that he received sinners. His enemies said it
   of him, "This man receiveth sinners." In deed and in truth we know of a
   surety that he does receive sinners, the enemies themselves being
   witnesses. Come now, and yield the fullest credit to his word, his
   invitation, his promise. Do you object that it was only during a few
   days' grace in the time of his sojourn on earth that he received
   sinners? No, not so; it is confirmed by all subsequent experience. The
   apostles of Jesus echoed it after he had ascended into heaven, in terms
   as unqualified as he himself expressed it when on earth. Will ye not
   believe this: "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?" Ye despisers, go away and laugh at this; go away, and
   scorn the preached gospel if you will, but one day we shall meet each
   other, face to face, before our Maker, and it may, perhaps, go hard
   then with all those who have despised Christ, and laughed at his
   gracious words. Is there an infidel here who says he shall be well
   enough off if he shall die the death of annihilation, and shall not
   live in a future world? Well, my friend, suppose all men die like dogs,
   I shall be as well off as you are, and I think a little better off,
   even as to happiness and peace in this world. But if; (and mark you I
   do not put it so, because I doubt it)--if it be true that there is a
   world to come. I would not like to stand in your place in the next
   world. Be it so that there is a judgment-seat; let there be a hell--(l
   put it hypothetically, not because I have a doubt about it, but because
   you tell me you doubt it; though I do not think you really do)--if
   there be such a place, what will ye do then? Why, even now ye shake if
   a leaf falls in the night; ye are terrified if the cholera is in the
   street; ye are alarmed if ye are a little sick, and ye rush to the
   physician, and anyone can impose upon you with his physic, because you
   are afraid of death. What will you do in the swellings of Jordan, when
   death gets hold on you? If a little pain affrights you now, what will
   you do when your body shall shake, and your knees shall knock together
   before your Maker? What wilt thou do, my hearer, when his burning eyes
   shall eat into thy very soul? What wilt thou do, when, amid ten
   thousand thunders, he shall say, "Depart, depart?" I cannot tell thee
   what thou wilt do; but I will tell thee one thing that thou durst not
   do; that is, thou durst not say, that I have not as simply as ever I
   could tried to preach the gospel to the very chief of sinners. Hear it
   again--"He that believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved." To
   believe is to trust in Christ; to drop into those blessed arms that can
   catch the heaviest laden sinner that ever breathed; to fall flat on the
   promise; to let him do all for you, until he has quickened you, and
   enabled you to work out what he has before worked in you, "your own
   salvation;" and even this must be "with fear and trembling." God
   almighty grant, that some poor soul may he blessed to-night! You that
   are on shore, I do not expect to do you any good. If I have a rocket to
   send abroad into the sea, it is only the stranded vessel, the
   shipwrecked mariner that will rejoice at the rope. You that think
   yourselves safe, I have no necessity to preach to you; you are all so
   perilously good in your own sight, it is no use trying to make you
   better; you are all so awfully righteous, you can go on your way well
   enough, without warning from me. You must excuse me, therefore, if I
   have nothing to say to you except this, "Woe unto you Scribes and
   Pharisees, hypocrites!" and allow me to turn myself to another class of
   people, the vilest of the vile. I should not care if I gained the
   cognomen of the preacher to the basest and the vilest; I should not
   blush to be reviled like Rowland Hill, as the preacher to the lowest
   orders; for they want the gospel as much as any creatures under heaven;
   and if nobody will preach it to them, God helping me, I will endeavour
   to preach it to them in words that they can understand. And if genteel
   people do not like preaching in that style, they have the option of
   leaving it. If they want to hear men preach in intellectual strains,
   above the capacity of common sinners, let them go and hear them; I must
   content myself with following my Lord, who "made himself of no
   reputation,"--to go after out-of-the-way sinners, in an out-of-the-way
   fashion. I would sooner do violence to pulpit decorum, and break
   through pulpit decency, than not break through hard hearts. I count
   that sort of preaching to be the right sort, that does reach the heart
   somehow or other, and I am not particular how I do it. I confess, if I
   could not preach in one way, I would in another; if nobody would come
   to hear me in a black coat, they should be attracted by my wearing a
   red one. Somehow or other, I would make them hear the gospel if I
   could; and I would labour so to preach, that the meanest understanding
   should be able to get hold of this one fact: "This man receiveth
   sinners," God bless you all, for Christ's sake!
     __________________________________________________________________

                        God's Barriers Against Man's Sin

   A Sermon

   (No. 220)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, November 16th, 1856, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

   BELOVED FRIENDS AND KINDRED IN CHRIST,

   The days seem like weeks and the weeks seem like months since I went up
   to the house of the Lord. My heart and my flesh are crying out for the
   assembly of the saints. Oh how I long to hear once more the solemn
   shout of the festal throng who with the voice of joy and praise keep
   holy day!

   I am slowly rallying. My great struggle now is with weakness. I feel as
   if my frail bark had weathered a heavy storm which has made every
   timber creak. Do not attribute this illness to my having laboured too
   hard for my Master. For his dear sake, I would that I may yet be able
   to labour more. Such toils as might be hardly noticed in the ramp for
   the service of one's country, would excite astonishment in the church
   for the service of our God.

   And now, I entreat you for love's sake to continue in prayer for me.
   When ye find access to God, remember me. Mind it is not by the words of
   your mouth, nor yet by the cravings of your heart, but it is by the
   precious blood of Christ ye must draw nigh to God. And when ye find his
   sweet presence and are bedewed with his holy anointing, then pour out
   your souls before him, and make mention of me in your supplications.

   Yours to love and serve in the Gospel,

   C. H. SPURGEON.

   Clapham, Tuesday Evening, 26th October, 1858.

   "Fear ye not me? saith the Lord; will ye not tremble at my presence,
   which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual
   decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss
   themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they
   not pass over it? But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious
   heart; they are revolted and gone."--Jeremiah 5:22-23.

   THE MAJESTY OF God, as displayed in creation and providence, ought to
   stir up our hearts in adoring wonder and melt them down in willing
   obedience to his commands. The Almighty power of Jehovah, so clearly
   manifest in the works if his hands, should constrain us, his creatures,
   to fear his name and prostrate ourselves in humble reverence before his
   throne. When we know that the sea, however tempestuous, is entirely
   submissive to the behests of God; that when he saith, "Hitherto shalt
   thou come, but no further," it dares not encroach--"the pride of its
   waves is stayed." When we know that God bridles the tempest, though
   "nature rocks beneath his tread," and curbs the boisterous storm--he
   ought to be feared--verily, he is a God before whom it is no dishonour
   for us to bow ourselves in the very dust. The contemplation of the
   marvellous works which he doth upon "the great and wide sea," where he
   tosseth the waves to and fro, and yet keepeth them in their ordained
   courses, should draw forth our devoutest emotions, and I could almost
   say, inspire us with homage. Great art thou, O Lord God; greatly art
   thou to be praised; let the world which thou hast made, and all that
   therein is, declare thy glory! I can scarcely conceive a heart so
   callous that it feels no awe, or a human mind so dull and destitute of
   understanding, as fairly to view the tokens of God's omnipotent power,
   and then turn aside without some sense of the fitness of obedience. One
   might think the impression would be spontaneous in every breast, and if
   not, only let reason do her office, and by slower process every mind
   should yet be convinced. Let your eyes behold the stars; God alone can
   tell their numbers, yet he calls them all by names; by him they are
   marshalled in their spheres, and travel through the aerial universe
   just as he gives them charge; they are all his servants, who with
   cheerful haste perform the bidding of their Lord. You see how the
   stormy wind and tempest like slaves obey his will; and you know that
   the great pulse of ocean throbs and vibrates with its ebb and flow
   entirely under his control. Have these great things of God, these
   wondrous works of his, no lesson to teach us? Do they not while
   declaring his glory reveal our duty? Our poets, both the sacred and the
   uninspired, have feigned consciousness to those inanimate agents that
   they might the more truthfully represent their honourable service. But
   if because we are rational and intelligent beings, we withhold our
   allegiance from our rightful Sovereign, then our privileges are a
   curse, and our glory is a shame. Alas, then the instincts of men very
   often guide them to act by impulse more wisely than they commonly do by
   a settled conviction. Where is the man that will not bend the knee in
   time of tempest? Where is the man that does not acknowledge God when he
   hears the terrible voice of his deep-toned thunder, and sees with alarm
   the shafts of his lightning fly abroad, cleaving the thick darkness of
   the atmosphere? In times of plague, famine, and pestilence, men are
   prone to take refuge in religion--they will make confession, like
   Pharaoh, when he said, "I have sinned this time: the lord is righteous,
   and I and my people are wicked;" but like him, when "the rain, and the
   hail, and the thunders have ceased," when the plagues are removed, then
   they sin yet more, and their hearts are hardened. Hence their sin
   becomes exceeding sinful, since they sin against truths which even
   nature itself teaches us are most just. We might learn, even without
   the written oracles of Scripture, that we ought to obey God, if our
   foolish hearts were not so darkened; thus unbelief of the Almighty
   Creator is a crime of the first magnitude. If it were a petty Sovereign
   against whom ye rebelled, it might be pardonable; if he were a man like
   yourselves, ye might expect that your faults would easily find
   forgiveness; but since he is the God who reigns alone where clouds and
   darkness are round about him, the God to whom all nature is obedient,
   and whose high behests are obeyed both in heaven and in hell, it
   becomes a crime, the terrible character of which words cannot pourtray,
   that you should ever sin against a God so marvellously great. The
   greatness of God enhances the greatness of our sin. I believe this is
   one lesson which the prophet intended to teach us by the text. He asks
   us in the name of God, or rather, God asks us through him--"Fear ye not
   me? saith the Lord: will ye not tremble at my presence?"

   But while it is a lesson, I do not think it is the lesson of the text.
   There is something else which we are to learn from it. God here
   contrasts the obedience of the strong, the mighty the untamed sea, with
   the rebellious character of his own people. "The sea," saith he, "obeys
   me; it never breaks its boundary; it never leapeth from its channel; it
   obeys me in all its movements. But man, poor puny man, the little
   creature whom I could crush as the moth, will not be obedient to me.
   The sea obeys me from shore to shore, without reluctance, and its
   ebbing floods, as they retire from its bed, each of them says to me, in
   the voices of the pebbles, O Lord, we are obedient to thee, for thou
   art our master.' But my people," says God, "are a revolting and a
   rebellious people; they go astray from me." And is it not, my brethren,
   a marvellous thing, that the whole earth is obedient to God, save man?
   Even the mighty Leviathan, who maketh the deep to be hoary, sinneth not
   against God, but his course is ordered according to his Almighty
   Master's decree. Stars, those wondrous masses of light, are easily
   directed by the very wish of God; clouds, though they seem erratic in
   their movement, have God for their pilot; "he maketh the clouds his
   chariot;" and the winds, though they seem restive beyond control, yet
   do they blow, or cease to blow just as God willeth. In heaven, on
   earth, even in the lower regions, I had almost said, we could scarcely
   find such a disobedience as that which is practised by man; at least,
   in heaven, there is a cheerful obedience; and in hell there is
   constrained submission to God, while on earth man makes the base
   exception, he is continually revolting and rebelling against his Maker.

   Still there is another thought in the text, and this I shall endeavour
   to dilate upon. Let us read it again. "Fear ye not me? saith the Lord:
   will ye not tremble at my presence?"--now here is the pith of the
   matter--"which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a
   perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof
   toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they soar, yet can
   they not pass over it? But this people hath a revolting and a
   rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone." "The sea," says God, "is
   not only obedient, but it is rendered obedient by the restraint merely
   of sand." It is not the rock of adamant that restrains the sea one half
   so easily as just that little belt of sand and shingle which preserves
   the dry land from the inundations of the ocean. "The sea obeys me, and
   has for its only check the sand; and yet," says he, "my people, though
   they have restraints the strongest that reason could imagine, are a
   revolting and a rebellious people, and scarcely can my commands, my
   promises, my love, my judgment, my providence or my word restrain them
   from sin."

   That is the point we shall dwell upon this morning. The sea is easily
   restrained by a belt of sand; but we, notwithstanding all the
   restraints of God, are a people bent on revolting from him.

   The doctrine of the text, seems to me to be this--that without
   supernatural means God can make all creatures obedient save man; but
   man is so disobedient in his heart, that only some supernatural agency
   can make him obedient to God, while the simple agency of sand can
   restrain the sea, without any stupendous effort of divine power more
   than he ordinarily puts out in nature: he can not thus make man
   obedient to his will.

   Now, my brethren, let us look back into history, and see if it has not
   been so. What has been a greater problem, if we may so speak concerning
   the Divine mind, than that of restraining men from sin? How many
   restraints God has put upon man! Adam is in the garden, pure and holy;
   he has restraints that one would think strong enough to prevent his
   committing a sin so contemptible and apparently unprofitable as that by
   which he fell. He is to have the whole garden in perpetuity, if he will
   not eat of that tree of life; his God will walk with him, and make him
   his friend; moreover, in the cool of the day, he shall hold converse
   with angels, and with the Lord, the Master of angels; and yet he dares
   eat of that holy fruit which God had set forth not to be touched by
   man. Then he must die. One would think it was enough, to promise reward
   for obedience, and punishment for sin; but no, the check fails. Man,
   left to his own free will, touches the fruit, and he falls. Man cannot
   be restrained, even in his purity, so easily as the mighty sea. Since
   that time, mark what God has done by way of restraint. The world has
   become corrupt it is altogether covered with iniquity. Forth comes a
   prophet. Enoch prophesies of the coming of the Lord, declaring that he
   sees him coming with ten thousand of his saints to judge the world.
   That world goes on, as profane and unheeding as before. Another prophet
   is raised up, and cries, "Yet a little while, and this earth shall be
   drowned in a flood of water." Do men cease from sin? No; profligacy,
   crime, iniquities of the vilest class, are as prevalent as before. Man
   rushes on to his destruction; the deluge comes and destroys all but a
   favoured few. The new family goes out to people the earth: will not the
   world now be clean and holy? Wait a little, and ye shall see. One of
   these men will do a deed which shall render him a curse for ever, and
   his son Canaan shall in after years inherit his father's curse. Not
   long after that you see Sodom and Gomorrah devoured with fire which God
   rains out of heaven. But what of this? What though in later years
   Pharaoh and his chariots are drowned in the Red sea? What though
   Sennacherib and his hosts perish at midnight by the blast of an
   archangel? What though the world reel to and fro, and stagger like a
   drunken man, being drunken with the wine of God's wrath? What though
   the earth be scarred and burned by war? What though it be deluged with
   floods? What though it be oppressed with famines, pestilences, and
   diseases? She still goes on in the same manner; at this hour the world
   is a sinful, rebellious world, and until God shall work a work in our
   day, such as we shall scarce believe, though a man tell it to us, the
   world shall never be pure and holy. The sea is restrained by sand; we
   admire the beautiful poetic fact; but man, being naturally more
   ungovernable than the storm and more impetuous than the ocean, is not
   to be tamed; he will not bend his neck to the Lord, nor will he be
   obedient to the God of the whole earth.

   "But what of this fact?"--you say--"we know it is true; we do not doubt
   it." Stay awhile; I am now coming to deal with your hearts and
   consciences; and may the Holy Spirit help me in doing so! I shall
   divide, as God would divide them,--saints and sinners.

   First of all, ye saints, I have a word to say to you. I want you to
   look at this as a doctrine not more evident in the history of mankind
   at large, than abundantly verified in your own case. Come, now, I want
   to ask of you this morning, whether it cannot be said of you
   truly--"The sea is bound by sand; but I am one of those people who are
   bent on revolting from God, neither can any of his restraints keep me
   from sin." Let us review, for a few moments, the various restraints
   which God has put upon his people to keep them from sins which,
   nevertheless, are altogether ineffectual, without the accompanying
   power of irresistible grace.

   First, then, remember there is a restraint of gratitude which, to the
   lowly regenerated heart, must necessarily form a very strong motive to
   obedience. I can conceive of nothing that ought so much to prompt me to
   obedience as the thought that I owe so much to God. O heir of heaven!
   thou canst look back to eternity and see thy name in life's fair book
   set down; thou canst sing of electing love; thou dost believe that a
   covenant was made with Christ in thy behalf, and that thy salvation was
   made secure in that moment when the hands of the Eternal Son grasped
   the stylus and signed his name as the representative of all the elect.
   Thou believest that on Calvary thy sins were all atoned for; thou hast
   in thy soul the conviction that thy sins, past, present, and to come,
   were all numbered on the scape-goat's head of old, and carried away for
   ever; thou believest that neither death nor hell can ever divide thee
   from thy Saviour's breast; thou knowest that there is laid up for thee
   a crown of life which fadeth not away, and thine expectant soul
   anticipates that with branches of palms in thine hands, with crowns of
   gold on thine head, and streets of gold beneath thy feet, thou shalt be
   happy for ever. Thou believest thyself to be one of the favoured of
   heaven, a special object of divine solicitation; thou thinkest that all
   things work together for thy good, yea, thou art persuaded that
   everything in providence has a special regard to thee, and to thy
   favoured brethren. I ask thee, O saint, is not this a bond strong
   enough to keep thee from sin? If it were not for the desperate
   unstableness of thy heart, wouldst thou not be restrained from sin by
   this? Is not thy sin exceeding sinful, because it is sin against
   electing love, against redeeming peace, against all-surpassing mercy,
   against matchless affection, against shoreless grace, against spotless
   love? Ah! sin has reached its climax, when it dares to sin against such
   love as this. O Christian! thine affection to thy Lord and Master
   should restrain thee from iniquity. And is it not a fearful proof of
   the terrible character of thine heart, of thine heart even now, for
   still thou hast evil remaining in it, that all the ties of gratitude
   are still incapable of keeping thee from unholiness. The sins of
   yesterday rise to thy memory now. Oh! look back on them. Do they not
   tell thee that thou dost sin most ungratefully? O saint! didst thou not
   yesterday use thy Master's name in vain, and not thy Master's only, but
   thy Father's name? Hadst thou not yesterday an unbelieving heart? Wast
   thou not petulant when girded with favours that ought to make a living
   man unwilling to complain? Wast thou not, when God hath forgiven thee
   ten thousand talents, angry with thy neighbour, who owed thee a hundred
   pence? Ah Christian! thou art not yet free from sin, nor wilt thou be,
   until thou hast washed thy garments in death's black stream, and then
   thou shalt be holy, as holy as the glorified and pure and spotless,
   even as the angels around the throne, but not till then. I ask thee, O
   saint, viewing thy sins as sins against love and mercy, against
   covenant promises, covenant oaths, covenant engagements, ay, and
   covenant fulfilments, is not thy sin a desperate thing, and art not
   thou thyself a rebellious and revolting being, seeing that thou canst
   not be restrained by such a barrier of adamant as thy soul
   acknowledges?

   Next notice, that the saint has not only this barrier against sin, but
   many others. He has the whole of God's Word given him by way of
   warning; its pages he is accustomed to read; he reads there, that if he
   break the statutes and keep not the commandments of the Lord, his
   Father will visit his transgressions with a rod, and his iniquity with
   stripes. He has before him in God's Word abundant examples. He finds a
   David going with broken bones to his grave after his sin; he finds a
   Samson shorn of his locks, and with his eyes put out; he sees proof
   upon proof that sin will find a man out; that the backslider in heart
   shall be filled with his own ways. Abundant warnings there are for the
   child of God, not of saints who have perished, for we have none such on
   record in Scripture, and none ever shall finally perish--but we have
   many warnings of great and grievous damages sustained by God's own
   children when they have sailed out of their proper course. And yet, O
   Christian, against all warning and against all precept thou darest to
   sin. Oh! art thou not a rebellious creature, and mayest thou not this
   morning humble thyself at the thought of the greatness of thine
   iniquity?

   Again: the saint sins against his own experience, When he looks back
   upon his past life he finds that sin has always been a loss to him; he
   has never found any profit, but has always lost by it. He remembers
   such and such a transgression; it appeared sweet to him at the time,
   but oh! it made his Master withdraw his presence and hide his face. The
   saint can look back on the time when sin hung like a mill-stone round
   his neck, and he felt the terrible flame of remorse burning in his
   soul, and knew how evil a thing and bitter it is to sin against God.
   And yet the saint sins. Now, if the unconverted man sins, he does not
   sin against his own experience, for he has not had that true heartfelt
   experience that renders sin exceeding sinful. But every time thou
   sinnest, O grey-headed saint, thou sinnest with a vengeance, for thou
   hast had all through thy life so much proof of what sin has been to
   thee. Thou hast not been deceived about it, for thou hast felt its
   bitterness in thy bowels: and when thou sippest the accursed draught
   thou art infatuated indeed, because thou sinnest against experience.
   Ay, and the youngest of the saints, have you not been made to taste the
   bitterness of sin? I know you have, if you are saints! and will you go
   and dip your fingers in the nauseous cup? Will you put the poisoned
   goblet to your lips again? Yes, you will; but because you do so in the
   teeth of your experience, it ought to make you weep, that you should be
   such desperate rebels against such a loving God, who has put not merely
   a barrier of sand, but a barrier of tried steel to keep in your lusts,
   and yet they will break forth; verily ye are a rebellious and revolting
   people.

   Then again, God guards all his children with providence, in order to
   keep them from sin. I could tell you, even from the little experience I
   have had of spiritual things, many cases in which I feel I have been
   kept from sin by Divine providence. There have been seasons when the
   strong hand of sin has appeared for a while to get the mastery over us,
   and we have been dragged along by some strong inherent lust, which we
   were prone to practise before our regeneracy. We were intoxicated with
   the lust, we remember how pleasurable it was to us in the days of our
   iniquity, how we revelled in it, till we were on a sudden dragged to
   the very edge of the precipice, and we looked down; our brain reeled,
   we could not stand; and do we not remember how just then some striking
   providence came in our way, and saved us, or else we should have been
   excommunicated from the church for violating the rules of propriety.
   Ah! strange things happen to some of us; strange things have happened
   to some of you. It was only a providence which on some sad and solemn
   occasion, to which you never look back without regret, saved you from
   sin which would have been a scab on your character. Bless God for that!
   But remember, notwithstanding the girdlings of his providence, how many
   times you have offended; and let the frequency of your sin remind you
   that you must indeed be a rebellious creature. Though he has afflicted
   you, you have sinned; though he has given you chastisement, you have
   sinned; though he has put you in the furnace. yet the dross has not
   departed from you. Oh! how corrupt your hearts are, and how prone you
   are still to wander, notwithstanding all the barriers God has given you
   to encompass you!

   Yet, once more let me remind you, beloved, that the ordinances of God's
   house are all intended to be checks to sin. He girds us by the worship
   of the sanctuary; he girds us by the remembrance of our holy baptism;
   and all else that is connected with Christianity is intended to check
   us from sin. And great are the effects which these produce; yet all are
   insufficient, without the preserving grace of God, given to us day by
   day. Let us think, beloved, too, that God has given to us a tender
   conscience, more tender than the conscience of worldly men, because he
   has given us living consciences, whereas theirs are often seared and
   dead. And yet, against this living conscience, against the warnings of
   the Spirit, against precept, against promise, against experience,
   against the honour of God, and against the gratitude they owe him, the
   saints of God have dared to sin, and they must confess before him that
   they are rebellious, and have revolted from him. Bow down your heads
   with shame while ye consider your ways, and then lift up your hearts,
   Christians, in adoring love, that he has kept you when your feet were
   making haste to hell, where you would have gone, but for his preserving
   grace. Shall not this long suffering of your God, this tender
   compassion, be your theme every day--

   "While life, and thought, and being last,

   Or immortality endures?"

   Will you not pray, that God should not cast you away, nor take his Holy
   Spirit from you, though you are a rebellious creature, and though you
   have revolted against him?

   This is for the saints; and now may the Spirit help me, while I strive
   to apply it to sinners! Sinner, I have solemn things to say to thee
   this morning; lend me for a few minutes thy very closest attention; I
   will speak to thee as though this were the last message I should ever
   deliver in thine ear. I have asked my God, that I may so speak to thee,
   O sinner, that if I win not thy heart I may at least be free from thy
   blood; and that if I am not able to convince thee of thy sin, I may at
   any rate make thee without excuse in that day "when God shall judge the
   secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel." Come, then,
   sinner; in the first place, I bid thee consider thy guilt. Thou hast
   heard what I have said. The mighty ocean is kept in obedience by God,
   and restrained within its channel by simple sand; and thou, a pitiful
   worm, the creature of a day, the ephemera of an hour, thou art a rebel
   against God. The sea obeys him; thou dost not. Consider, I beseech
   thee, how many restraints God has put on thee: he has not checked thy
   lusts with sand but with beetling cliffs; and yet thou hast burst
   through every bound in the violence of thy transgressions. Perhaps he
   has checked thy soul by the remembrance of thy guilt. Thou hast this
   morning felt thyself a despiser of God; or if not a despiser, thou art
   a mere hearer, and hast no part nor lot in this matter. Dost thou not
   remember thy sins in the face of thy mother's counsels and thy father's
   strong admonitions? Do they never check thee? Dost thou never think
   thou seest a mother's tears coming after thee? Hast thou never heard a
   father's prayer for thee? When thou hast been spending thy nights in
   dissipation, and hast gone home late to thy bed, hast thou never
   thought thou hast seen thy father's spirit at thy bed side, offering
   one more prayer for an Absalom, his son, or for an Ishmael, his
   rebellious child? Consider what thou hast learned, child! Baptized with
   a mother's tears, almost immersed in them; thou wast early taught to
   know something of God; when thou didst go from thy mother's knees, thou
   wentest to those of a pious teacher; thou wast trained in a Sabbath
   school, or at any rate thou wast taught to read the Bible. Thou knowest
   the threatenings of God; it is no new tale to thee, when I warn thee
   that sinners must be condemned; it is no new story when I tell thee
   that saints shall wear the starry crown; thou knowest all that.
   Consider, then, how great is thy guilt; thou hast sinned against light
   and knowledge; thou art not the Hottentot sinner, who sins in darkness,
   but thou art a sinner before high heaven, in the full light of day;
   thou hast not sinned ignorantly, thou hast done it when thou knewest
   better; and when thou comest to he lost, thou shalt have an additional
   doom, because thou didst know thy duty, but thou didst it not. I charge
   that home upon thee, I charge it solemnly upon thy conscience; is it
   true, or is it not? Some of you have had other things. Don't you
   remember, some little time ago, when sickness was rife, you were
   stretched on your bed? One night you will never forget; sickness had
   got strong hold of you, and the strong man bowed himself. Do you not
   remember what a sight you had then of the regions of the damned; not
   with your eyes, but with your conscience? You thought you heard their
   shrieks; you thought you would be amongst them yourself soon. Methinks
   I see you; you turned your face to the wall, and you cried, "O God, if
   thou wilt save my life, I will give myself to thee!" Perhaps it was an
   accident; thou didst fear that death was very near; the terrors of
   death laid hold of thee, and thou didst cry, "Oh! God, let me but reach
   home in safety, and my bended knees and my tears pouring in torrents,
   shall prove that I am sincere in the vow I make." But didst thou
   perform that vow? Nay, thou hast sinned against God; thy broken vows
   have gone before thee to judgment. Dost thou think it a little thing to
   make a promise to thy fellow creature and break it? It may be so in
   thine estimation, but not so in that of honest men. But dost thou think
   it a little thing to promise to thy Maker, and to break thy promise?
   There is no light penalty for sinning against the Almighty God; it will
   cost thee thy soul, man, and thy soul's blood for ever, if thou goest
   on in this fashion. Vow and pay, or if thou payest not, vow not; for
   God shall visit those vows upon thee, in the day when he maketh
   inquisition for blood, and destroyeth thy soul. Thou hast been guarded
   thus; remember that thou hast had extraordinary deliverances, the
   disease did not kill thee; thy broken bones were healed; thou didst not
   die; when the jaws of death were uplifted, they did not close upon
   thee: here thou art still. Thy life is spared.

   Oh! my dear hearers, some of you are the worst; you have regularly sat
   in these pews--God is my witness, how earnestly I have longed for you
   all in the bowels of Christ. I have not shunned to declare the whole
   counsel of God to you. If I had been a time-server, and kept back part
   of the truth, much more honour would I have received from men than I
   have received; but I have cleared my conscience, I trust, from your
   blood. How many times have I seen men and women cry, the hot tears
   falling down their cheeks in quick succession? and expected that I
   should have seen a change in some of your lives. But how many of you
   there are, who have gone on sinning against warnings, which, I am sure,
   though they may have been excelled in eloquence, have never been
   exceeded in heartiness! Do you think it a little thing to sin against
   God's ambassador? It is no little sin: every time we sin against the
   warnings we have received, we sin so much the more heinously. But there
   are some--I had hope for you, but ye have gone back to the ways of
   perdition; I have cried, "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?" But I
   have been obliged to go to my Master with that exclamation, "Who hath
   believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" Woe
   unto thee, Bethsaida; it were better for thee that thou hadst been Tyre
   and Sidon than that thou shouldst have been left in the midst of
   privileges, if thou shouldst perish at last! Woe unto you, hearers of
   New Park Street! Woe unto you that listen not to the voice of the
   minister here! If ye perish beneath our warnings, ye shall perish in a
   horrible manner! Woe unto thee, Capernaum! thou art exalted unto
   heaven, but thou shalt be cast down to hell." Woe unto thee, young
   woman! thou hast had a pious mother, and thou hast had many warnings.
   Woe unto thee, young man! thou hast been a profligate youth; thou hast
   been brought to this house of prayer from thine infancy, and thou art
   sitting there even now; often does thy conscience prick thee; often thy
   heart hast told thee that thou art wrong; and yet thou art still
   unchanged! Woe unto thee! Woe unto thee! And yet will I cry unto my
   God, that he would avert that woe and pardon thee; that he would not
   let thee die, but bring thee unto himself, lest now ye perish in your
   sins. Ye sinners! God has a controversy with you; he tames the sea, but
   ye will not be tamed; nothing but his marvellous grace exerted in you
   will ever check you in your lusts. You have sinned against warnings and
   reproofs, against providences, mercies, and judgments, and still ye
   sin.

   Oh! my hearers, when you sin, you do not sin so cheaply as others; for
   when you sin, you sin in the very teeth of hell. There is not a man or
   woman in this place, I am sure, who, when he or she sins, does not know
   that hell is the inevitable consequence! Sirs, ye do not sin in the
   dark. When God shall give you the wages of your iniquity, you shall not
   be able to say, "O God, I did not know this would be the pay for my
   labour." When thou didst sow tares, thou couldst not expect that thou
   shouldst reap wheat; thou knowest "that they who sow carnal things,
   shall reap carnal things;" thou art sowing to the flesh, but not with
   the hope that thou wilt reap salvation; for thou knowest that "he who
   soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption." Sinner, it is
   a dreadful thing to sin, when God puts hell before thee! What! sin when
   he has given out his threatening? Sin! while Sinai is thundering, while
   hell is blazing? Ay, that is to sin indeed. But how many of you, may
   dear hearers, have sinned like this. I would to God, that he would turn
   this house into a Bochim, that you might weep over your guilt. It is
   the hardest thing in the world to make men believe their guilt. If we
   could once get them to do that, we should find that Christ would reveal
   to them his salvation. I cannot with my poor voice and my weak
   utterance, even bring you to think that it is Christ Jesus in the
   ministry of his Spirit who can give you a true and real sense of your
   sin. Hath he done so? Hath he blessed my words to any of you? Do any of
   you feel your sins? Do any of you know that you are rebellious? Do you
   say, from this time forth you will mend your ways? Sirs, let me tell
   you, you cannot do that. Are you better than the mightiest of men? The
   best of men are but men at the best, and they are convinced that they
   cannot tame their own turbulent passions. God saith that the sea can be
   tamed with sand; but the heart of man cannot be restrained, it is still
   revolting. Dost thou think thou canst do that, which God saith is
   impossible? Dost thou suppose thyself stronger than God Almighty? What!
   canst thou change thine own heart, when God declares that we must he
   born again from above, or else we cannot see the kingdom of heaven?
   Others have tried to do it, but they cannot. I beseech thee, do not try
   to do it with thine own strength. I am glad thou knowest thy guilt; but
   O do not increase that guilt, by seeking to wash it out in the foul
   stream of thine own resolutions. Go and tell God that thou knowest thy
   sin, and confess it before him, and ask him to create in thee a clean
   heart, and renew in thee a right spirit. Tell him thou knowest that
   thou art rebellious, and thou art sure that thou always wilt be, unless
   he change thy heart; and I beseech thee, rest not satisfied until thou
   hast a new heart. My hearer, be not content with Baptism; be not
   content with the Lord's Supper; be not content with shutting up your
   shop on Sunday; be not content with leaving off drunkenness; be not
   content with giving up swearing. Remember, you may do all that, and be
   damned. It is a new heart and a right spirit you want; begin with that,
   and when you have that, all the rest will come right. Bethink thee, my
   hearer; thou mayest varnish and gild thyself, but thou canst never
   change thyself. Thou mayest moralise, but thou canst never spiritualise
   thy heart. But just bethink thee. Thou art this morning lost; and just
   think of this,--thou canst do nothing whatever to save thyself. Let
   that thought rise in thy soul, and lay thee very low; and when thou
   goest to God, cry, "O Lord, do what I cannot do; save me, O my God, for
   thy mercy's sake."

   My dear hearers, have I spoken harshly to you, or wilt ye rather take
   it in love? Ye who have sinned thus terribly against God, do ye feel
   it? Well, I have no grace to offer to thee, I have no Christ to offer
   to thee, but I have Christ to preach to thee. Oh! what shall I say?
   This:--you are a sinner. "It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all
   acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,
   even the chief." Art thou a sinner? Then he came to save thee. Oh!
   joyful sound. I am ready to leap in the pulpit for very joy, to have
   this to preach to thee. I can clap my hands with ecstacy of heart, that
   I am allowed again to tell thee--"It is a faithful saying, and worthy
   of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save
   sinners." Let me tell you that when he came into this world he was
   nailed to the cross, and that there he expired in desperate griefs and
   agony; and there he shrieked, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
   me?" There the blood ran from his hands and feet, and because he
   suffered he is able to forgive. Sinner, dost thou believe that? Thou
   art black; dost thou believe, in the face of thy blackness, that
   Christ's blood can make thee white? What sayest thou, sinner? God has
   convinced thee of thy sin; art thou willing to be saved in God's way
   this morning? If thou art willing, thou shalt be saved. It is
   written,--"Whosoever will, let him come." Art thou thirsty this
   morning? come hither and drink. Art thou hungry? come and eat. Art thou
   dying? come and live. My Master bids me tell you, all you who feel your
   sins, that you are forgiven; all you who know your transgressions, he
   bids me tell you this:--" I, even I, am he that blotteth out your
   transgressions, for my name's sake." Hast thou been an adulterer, hast
   thou been a whore-monger, a thief, a drunkard, a Sabbath-breaker, a
   swearer? I find no exception in this proclamation;--"Whosoever will,
   let him come." I find no exception in this;--"Him that cometh I will in
   nowise cast out." Dost thou know thy guilt? then I do not ask thee what
   thy guilt is. Though thou wert the vilest creature, again, I tell thee,
   if thou knowest thy guilt, Christ will forgive thee. Believe it, and
   thou art saved.

   And now will ye go away and forget all this? Some of you have wept this
   morning. No wonder; the wonder is that we do not all weep, until we
   find ourselves saved! You will go away to-morrow to your farms and to
   your merchandize, to your shops, and to your offices; and the
   impression that may have been produced on you this Sabbath morning will
   pass away like the morning cloud. My hearers, I would not weep, though
   you should call me all the names you can think of, but I wilt weep
   because you will not weep for yourselves. Sinners, why will ye be
   damned? Is it a pleasant thing to revolt in the flames of hell? Sirs,
   what profit is there in your death! What! is it an honorable thing to
   rebel against God? Is it an honor to stand and be the scorn of God's
   universe? Dost thou say thou shalt not die; yet thou wilt put it off a
   little while? Sinner, thou wilt never have a more convenient season; if
   to-day is inconvenient, to-morrow will be more so. Put it off to-day,
   wipe away the tears from your eyes, and the day may come when you would
   give a million worlds for a tear, but you shall not be able to get one.
   Many a man has had a soft heart; it has passed away, and in after years
   he has said, "Oh, that I could but shed a tear!" O God! make thy word
   like a hammer this morning, that it may break the rocky heart in
   pieces! Ye who know your sins, as God's ambassador, I beseech you, "be
   ye reconciled unto God." "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish
   from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little." Remember, once
   lost, ye are lost for ever; but if ye are once saved, ye are certainly
   saved for ever. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
   saved," said Paul of old; Jesus himself hath said "He that believeth
   and is haptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be
   damned." I will not finish with a curse. "He that believeth shall be
   saved." God give you all an interest in that eternal blessing, for the
   Lord Jesus' sake!
     __________________________________________________________________

   This sermon was originally printed

   together with a pastoral letter from C. H. S.

                               Comfort Proclaimed

   A Sermon

   (No. 221)

   Delivered on Sabbath Evening, September 21, 1856, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At Exeter Hall, Strand.

   "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God."--Isaiah 40:1.

   WHAT A SWEET TITLE: "My people!" What a cheering revelation: "Your
   God!" How much of meaning is couched in those two words, "My people!"
   Here is speciality. The whole world is God's; the heaven, even the
   heaven of heavens are the Lord's and he reigneth among the children of
   men. But he saith of a certain number, "My people." Of those whom he
   hath chosen, whom he hath purchased to himself, he saith what he saith
   not of others. While nations and kindreds are passed by as being simply
   nations, he says of them "My people." In this word there is the idea of
   proprietorship to teach us that we are the property of God. In some
   special manner the "Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of
   his inheritance." All the nations upon earth are his; he taketh up the
   isles as a very little thing; the whole world is in his power; yet are
   his people, his chosen, favoured people, more especially his possesion;
   for he has done more for them than others; he has bought them with his
   blood; he has brought them nigh to himself; he has set his great heart
   upon them; he has loved them with an everlasting love, a love which
   many waters cannot quench, and which the revolutions of time shall
   never suffice in the least degree to diminish. "My people!" O my
   hearers, can you by faith put yourselves in that number who believe
   that God says of them, "My people?" Can you look up to heaven to-night,
   and say, "My Lord, and my God: mine by that sweet relationship which
   entitles me to call thee Father; mine by that hallowed fellowship which
   I delight to hold with thee when thou art pleased to manifest thyself
   unto me as thou dost not unto the world?" Canst thou, beloved, put
   thine hand into thine heart and find there the indentures of thy
   salvation? Canst thou read thy title writ in precious blood? Canst thou
   by humble faith lay hold of Jesus's garments, and say, "My Christ?" If
   thou canst, then God saith of thee, "My people;" for if God be your
   God, and Christ your Christ, the Lord has a special, peculiar favour to
   you; you are the object of his choice, and you shall be accepted, at
   last, in his beloved Son. How careful God is of his people; those of
   whom he says, "My people;" mark, how anxious he is concerning them, not
   only for their life, but for their comfort. He does not say,
   "strengthen ye, strengthen ye my people;" he does not say to the angel,
   "protect my people;" he does not say to the heavens, "drop down manna
   to feed my people;"--all that and more also his tender regard secures
   to them; but on this occasion, to show us that he is not only regardful
   of our interests, but also of our superfluities, he says, "Comfort ye,
   comfort ye my people." He would not only have us his living people, his
   preserved people, but he would have us be his happy people too. He
   likes his people to be fed, but what is more, he likes to give them
   "wines on the lees well refined," to make glad their hearts. He will
   not only give them bread, but he will give them honey too; he will not
   simply give them milk, but he will give them wine and milk, and all the
   sweet things which their hearts can desire. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my
   people;" it is the Father's yearning heart, careful even for the little
   things of his people. "Comfort ye, comfort ye,"--that one with a
   tearful eye; "Comfort ye, comfort ye,"--you child of mine with an
   aching heart "Comfort ye,"--that poor bemoaning one; "Comfort ye,
   comfort ye--my people, saith your God."

   Now to night we shall notice the parties to whom the command is
   addressed; secondly, the reason for it; and thirdly, the means for
   carrying it out.

   I. First, then, TO WHOM IS THIS COMMAND ADDRESSED? You know, beloved,
   the Holy Spirit is the great Comforter, and he it is who alone can
   solace the saints if their hearts be really cheered; but he uses
   instruments to relieve his children in their distress and to lift op
   their hearts from desperation. To whom, then, is this command
   addressed? I believe it is addressed to angels and to men.

   To angels, first of all, I believe this command is addressed: "Comfort
   ye, comfort ye my people." You often talk about the insinuations of the
   devil; I frequently hear you bemoaning yourselves because you have been
   attacked by Apollyon, and have had a hard struggle with Beelzebub; you
   have found it hard to resist his desperate thrusts which he made
   against you; and you are always talking about him. Allow me to remind
   you that there is another side of that question, for if evil spirits
   assault us, doubtless good spirits guard us; and if Satan can cast us
   down, doubtless it is true God giveth his angels charge over us, to
   keep us in all our ways, and they shall bear us up in their hands lest
   at any time we dash our feet against a stone. It is my firm belief that
   angels are often employed by God to throw into the hearts of his people
   comforting thoughts. There are many sweet thoughts which we have by the
   way, when we sit down, and when we rise up, which we scarcely dare
   attribute immediately to the Holy Ghost, but which are still beautiful
   and calm, lovely, and fair, and consoling; and we attribute them to the
   ministry of angels. Angels came and ministered unto Jesus, and I doubt
   not that they minister unto us. Few of us have enough belief in the
   existence of spirits. I like that saying of Milton's, "Millions of
   spiritual creatures walk this earth, both when we sleep and when we
   wake." And if our minds were opened, if our ears were attentive, we
   might hold fellowship with spirits that flit through the air every
   moment. Around the death-bed of saints angels hover; by the side of
   every struggling warrior for Christ the angels stand. In the day of
   battle we hear in the air the neighing of their steeds. Hark! how
   softly do they ride to help the elect of God, while in the stern
   conflict for the right and for the truth, when they would have been
   cast down, some angel whispers, "Courage brother, courage, I would I
   could stand by thy side, shoulder to shoulder, and foot to foot, to
   fight the battle, but I must not; it is left for men. Courage then
   brother, because angels watch over thee!" It is a good wish of ours,
   when we say at eventide, "Peace be to thee beloved! good angels guard
   thee! may they spread their wings o'er thee and stand around thy bed!"
   But it is more than a wish, it is a reality. Do ye not know It is
   written "the angel of the Lord encampeth round them that fear him?"
   "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister unto them
   who are heirs of salvation?" This command then, comes to angels.
   "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people." Full oft the bright winged seraph
   flaps his wing to earth, to comfort some desponding heart. Full oft the
   cherub, ceasing for a moment his mighty song to go on errands of love,
   descends, as Gabriel did of old, to cheer the heart of many a
   struggling man and to stand by the side of those who are in conflict
   for God and for his truth. Ye angels, ye bright spirits, "Comfort ye,
   comfort ye my people."

   But on earth, this is more especially addressed to the Lord's
   ministers. He calls his ministers angels of the churches, albeit, they
   should be a great deal more like angels than they are. Ministers are
   bound to comfort God's people. I am sure, however, they cannot do it,
   unless they preach the good old doctrines of truth. Except they preach
   grace and gracious doctrine, I can not see how they are to console the
   minds of the Lord's family. Were I to adopt a lax theology which
   teaches that God's children may fall away, that although redeemed they
   may yet be lost, that they may be effectually called, and yet slide
   back to perdition--I want to know how I could carry out this command? I
   should say, "Brethren, God has told me to comfort you; that is what I
   have to preach; you must get what comfort you can out of it, for I
   really cannot find much." I have often marvelled how the Arminian can
   comfort himself, wherewith he can light a fire to warm his own heart!
   What doctrine hath he? He believes he is a child of God to-day, and he
   is taught to believe he is a child of the devil to-morrow. He is now,
   he says, in the covenant, but then that covenant is such an uncertain
   thing that it may at any time be broken down, and he may die beneath
   its ruins; he knows himself to be redeemed by the blood of Christ, yet
   he is taught that that will not be sufficient without the concurrence
   of some good thoughts, good actions, or certainly by some good grace,
   some faith of his own. He is led to believe that his standing depends
   upon his own keeping near to God, instead of remembering that his
   keeping near to God must be by a sweet attraction that proceeds from
   God himself. Whence then comfort is to be procured I cannot tell. Happy
   I am I have no such gospel as that to preach. Let me preach the old
   gospel of Chrysostom, the old gospel of Augustine, the old gospel of
   Athanasius; and above all the old gospel of Jesus Christ, the
   originator of it; for there I can find something to comfort the child
   of God, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people." It is our duty to reprove,
   to exhort, to invite, but it is equally our duty to console. The
   minister should ask of God the Spirit, that he may be filled with his
   influence as a comforter; that when he ascends his pulpit on the
   Sabbath morning, his poor hard working people, who have been toiling,
   fretting with care and anxiety all the week, may say, "Here comes our
   minister; he is sure to have his mouth filled with good things; as soon
   as he opens his lips he will utter some great and glorious promise from
   God's Word. He has little to say himself, but he will be sure to tell
   us some good old truths with some fresh unction, and we shall go away
   refreshed." Oh! ye sons of toil, some of you understand this. With
   weary feet ye come to God's house; but oh how gladly do ye sing there,
   and how sweetly does your singing harmonize with your hearts! and when
   you have heard the Word you go away and say, "Would God it were Sunday
   all the week! Oh! that I might sit and ever hear the words of God! Oh!
   that I might sit and ever drink in such comforts, so should I be
   satisfied as with marrow and fatness!" But sometimes you come up, and
   there is a flogging for you just when there needs to be consolation; or
   you get some dry hard metaphysical subject that has not any nourishment
   for your souls in it, and you go away half starved. You hear some fine
   discourse with rounded periods, and people say, "Oh! such an oration!
   never was English so beautifully spoken by Hall or Chalmers. How
   admirably it was delivered!" But alas! alas! what of the dish, the
   porcelain, the knife, the plate, the splendid damask cloth, the vase of
   flowers--where is the food? There is none there. You have got the
   garnishings and you ought to be thankful, and hold your ministers in
   esteem, even it they withhold from you your necessary bread! But the
   child of God wont like that; he says "I am weary of such things, away
   with these garnishings, give it me in plain rough Saxon if you will,
   but give me the gospel! Cut it up in any fashion you like, but do give
   me something to feed upon." The language may be rough, and the style
   homely, but the heir of heaven says, "There was comfort ye my people'
   in it; and that was what I wanted. Its style, humanly speaking, may not
   have exactly suited my taste, but it has fed my soul, and that will
   suffice me."

   But, my friends, do not support your ministers as an excuse for the
   discharge of your own duties; many do so. They think when they have
   subscribed towards the support of the ministry, it is enough;
   imagining, as our Roman Catholic friends do, that the priest is to do
   everything, and the people nothing; but that is very wrong. When God
   said, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," he spake to all his people to
   comfort one another. And who is there here that knows the Lord and has
   tasted of his grace who cannot comfort his brethren? There is my strong
   friend who is on the mount feasting on dying love; he is the subject of
   rhapsodies and high excitement; his soul is like the chariot of
   Amminadib; it is on fire with his Master's presence; he is living near
   to God and drinking in fulness of joy. Oh! my brother, go and tell out
   a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what sorrow
   there is upon the earth. When thou art happy, remember there is sure to
   be some one else sad. When thy cup runneth over, find out an empty cup
   to catch the drops that overflow. When thy soul is full of joy, go, if
   thou canst, and find a mourner and let him hear thy song, or sit down
   by his side and tell him how glad thou art, and mayhap his poor heart
   may be warmed by thy sweet cheering words. But art thou weak? Art thou
   sad thyself? Then go to him who is the great Comforter and ask him to
   relieve thy distresses, and after that go out thyself and comfort
   others. There are none so good to comfort others as those who once were
   comfortless. If I were an orphan now, and needed a helper, I would seek
   one who had been an orphan in his youth, that he might sympathize with
   me. Were I houseless and poor, I would not go to the man who has rolled
   in wealth from earliest youth, but I would seek out the man who, like
   myself, has trodden with bare feet the cold pavement of the street at
   midnight; I would seek out the man who, penniless and poor, has begged
   his way from town to town, and then, by God's providence, has worked
   himself up; for I could believe that such an one would have a heart to
   sympathize with me. Go, thou poor tried one, go thou weather-beaten
   soul if thou canst, and call to thy mate, who is just out at sea with
   thee, and tell him to be of good cheer. Thou who art in the valley of
   the shadow of death, sing, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of
   the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;" and mayhap some brother far
   behind thee will hear the song, and will take heart.

   "Lives of great men all remind us,

   We can make our lives sublime,

   And departing, leave behind us,

   Foot-prints on the sands of time.

   Foot-prints that, perhaps, another,

   Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

   A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

   Seeing, may take heart again."

   Go, and when thou hast found any good, strive to perpetuate it by
   communicating it to others. When thy foot is on the rock, show others
   how to put their feet there. When thou art glad, tell others how thou
   wast made glad, and the same cordial which cheered thee may cheer them
   likewise. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people."

   Now why do we not enjoy this a little more? I believe one reason is
   because we are most of us rather too proud to tread in our Master's
   footsteps. We like not to say with him, "I am not come to be ministered
   unto, but to minister." "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people" is a sublime
   admonition, but never surely intended for the meagre sympathy of
   fashion,--for a lady who can ride in her carriage, and send her card
   up, when she calls to inquire for a friend, who is sick; but were I to
   press home the duty, and tell her that "my people" includes the poorest
   of God's flock, the weakest and the meanest, she would think me a rude
   and vulgar young man, unacquainted with the etiquette of genteel
   society. Comfort the poor!--why should she? "The lower classes expect a
   great deal too much of the upper, I shall not demean myself by stooping
   to them." This kind of feeling many professing Christians have; they
   talk with a fine lisp, they deem it enough to say, "Poor creature, I
   pity your case, I am sorry for you!" But the heir of heaven reads,
   "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people." There is a poor man in the streets
   who has just come begging a crust at your door, and you can see by what
   he says, that there is something of God's grace in his heart; then
   comfort him. There is another up the creaking staircase in that back
   alley; you never went up there, you might be afraid to go; but if you
   hear of a child of God there do not shrink back. God's diamonds may be
   often found amidst heaps of rags and tatters, in the very outskirts of
   the city, the abodes of haggard poverty; so go after them. Whensoever
   you hear of a child of God, go and find him out; for this command,
   "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," never ought to be put aside by our
   pride. Why, you go to your churches and chapels, sometimes, and sit in
   your pews, without even a thought of speaking to your neighbours. Some
   men will go to a chapel seven years, and scarcely know the name of the
   next seat-holder. Is that right? Many will sit at the Lord's table too,
   and not speak to each other. But that is not the fashion of communion
   as I understand it: it is not the fashion of the gospel either. When I
   was but a youth, the smallest boy almost that ever joined a church, I
   remember I thought that everybody believed what he said, and when I
   heard the minister say brother, I thought I must be his brother, for I
   was admitted into the church. I once sat next to a gentleman in a pew,
   and we received the bread and wine together; he called me "Brother,"
   and as I thought he meant it, I afterwards acted upon it. I had no
   friend in the town of Cambridge, where I was; and one day when walking
   out, I saw this same gentleman, and I said to myself, "Well now, he
   called me brother; I know he is a great deal better off than I am, but
   I don't care for that; I will go and speak to him." So I went and said
   "How do you do, brother?" "I have not the pleasure of knowing you," was
   his reply. I said "I sat next to you at the Lord's table last Sabbath
   day, sir, and you called me brother' when you passed the cup to me, and
   I was sure you meant it." "There now," said he, "it is worth while
   seeing some one who believes a little with sincerity in these times;
   come in with me." And we have been the nearest and dearest bosom
   friends ever since, just because he saw I took him at his word, that he
   meant what he said. But now-a days profession has become a pretence and
   a sham; people sit down at the church together, as though they were
   brethren, the minister calls you brethren, but he wont speak to you, or
   own yon as such; his people are his brethren, no doubt, but their it is
   in such a mysterious sense, that you will have to read some German
   theologian in order to comprehend it. That person is "your very dear
   brother," or "your very dear sister," but if you are in distress, go to
   them and see if they will assist you. I do not believe in such a
   religion as that. I would have those who profess to be brethren,
   believe that "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," applies to every
   member of Christ's church, and that they all ought to carry it out to
   the utmost of their abilities.

   II. Secondly, WHAT ARE THE REASONS FOR THIS COMMAND? Why does God say
   "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people!"

   The first reason is because God loves to see his people look happy. The
   Roman Catholic supposes that God is pleased with a man if he whips
   himself, walks barefooted for many miles, and torments his body. I am
   certain if I were to see anyone do that, I should say "Poor soul, give
   him a pair of shoes; do take that whip from him, I cannot bear to see
   him so." And as I believe that God is infinitely more benevolent than I
   am, I cannot suppose that he would take pleasure in seeing blood run
   down a man's back, or blisters rising on his feet. If a man would
   please God, he had better make himself as happy as he can. When I am by
   the sea-side, and the tide is coming in, I see what appears to be a
   little fringe, looking almost like a mist; and I ask a fisherman what
   it is. He tells me there is no mist there; and that what I see are all
   little shrimps dancing in ecstasy, throwing themselves in convulsions
   and contortions of delight. I think within myself, "Does God make those
   creatures happy, and did he make me to be miserable? Can it ever be a
   religious thing to be unhappy?" No; true religion is in harmony with
   the whole world; it is in harmony with the sun and moon and stars; and
   the sun shines and the stars twinkle; it is in harmony with all the
   world; and the world has flowers in it and leaping hills, and carolling
   birds; it has joys in it; so I believe religion was meant to have joys
   in it; and I hold it to be an irreligious thing to go moping miserably
   through God's creation. You cannot help it sometimes, just as sins will
   overtake you, but happiness is a very virtue. "Go thy way, eat thy
   bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart, for God now
   accepteth thy works," which means not so much eating and drinking, as
   the living with a joyous countenance, and walking before God, believing
   in his love, and rejoicing in his grace.

   Again, "Comfort ye, Comfort ye my people;" because uncomfortable
   Christians often dishonour religion. Look at my friend who is come here
   to-night with such a sorrowful countenance. Yesterday, he had a new
   servant in his house, and when she went down into the kitchen, she said
   to her fellow-servant, "Is not our master a pious man ?" "Yes, surely."
   "I thought so because he looks so miserable." Now that is a disgrace to
   religion. Whenever a Christian man sinks under affliction; when he does
   not seek grace from God to battle manfully with his sea of troubles;
   when he does not ask his Father to give him a great weight of
   consolation whereby he shall be able to endure in the evil day, we may
   say he does dishonour to the high, and mighty, and noble principles of
   Christianity, which are fitted to bear a man up in times of the very
   deepest affliction. It is the boast of the gospel that it lifts men
   above trouble; it is one of the glories of our Christianity, that it
   makes us say, "Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall
   fruit be in the vine, the labour of the olive shall fail, and the
   fields shall yield no meat, yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy
   in the God of my salvation." But when the Christian gets sad and
   miserable, run to him, brother; wipe that tear from his eye, tell him
   to cheer up, or at least if he is sad, not to let the world see it; if
   he fasts, let him anoint his head, and wash his face, that he appear
   not unto men to fast. Let his garments be always white, and let his
   head lack no oil; let him be happy; for so he giveth credit to
   religion.

   Again, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people;" because a Christian in an
   uncomfortable state cannot work for God much. Break a poor man's heart
   and let him come on this platform with a grieved and agonizing spirit;
   and oh! what a want of power there will be in him! He wants all his
   time for his own sighs and groans, and will have none to spend upon
   God's people. We have seen broken-hearted ministers who have sadly
   lamented that when in trouble, they have found themselves unable to
   declare God's truth as they could wish. It is when the mind is happy,
   that it can be laborious. Nothing hurts the man whilst he can keep all
   right with heaven, and feel it so; whilst he can say that God is his
   own God, he can work night and day, and scarcely feel fatigued. But
   take away his comforts and his joys, and then one day's labour
   distracts his nerves and shatters all his mind. Then comfort God's
   people, because bruised reeds give little music, and the smoking flax
   makes little fire. "Comfort ye, comfort ye" the saints, for they will
   work ten times better when their minds have once been made comfortable.

   Again; "Comfort ye" God's people, because ye profess to love them. You
   call that poor aged cripple, loitering home to-night, leaning on her
   crutch, your sister; do you know that she will go to bed to-night
   supperless? Only once has she tasted food to-day, and that was dry
   bread; do you know that? and is she your sister? Let your heart speak:
   would you allow your sister to eat dry bread once a day, and have
   nothing else? No; out of love to her as your relation, you would go and
   comfort her. There is another poor brother who will pass you on the
   road home, not poor in bodily things, but poor in soul, distressed in
   spirits. Don't do as that person has just done--he has quickened his
   pace, because he says that old man makes him miserable, and it makes
   him melancholy to talk with him. No; just go to him and say, "Brother,
   I hear you are in the valley of Baca; well, it is written, they that
   pass through the valley of Baca make it a well, the rain also filleth
   the pools." Join yourself to him, for it is written, "Comfort ye,
   comfort ye my people." "No, sir," you say, "I intend to go to-night
   with one or two very good people, and we shall enjoy ourselves
   together, and be very glad to-night." Yes, but if they be glad you
   cannot comfort them, so go and seek out some broken-hearted one if thou
   canst, some poor, sad, mourning one, and say, "The Lord hath appeared
   to thee of old, saying, I have loved thee with an everlasting love.'
   God's mercies have not failed and, therefore, we are not consumed." Go
   and cheer him. What! are there no families near you where the head has
   lately been removed by death? Have you no bereaved friends? have you no
   poor in your streets, no distressed, no desponding ones? If you have
   not, then yonder Scripture might be rent out of the Bible, for it would
   be useless; but because I am sure you have such, I bid you, in God
   Almighty's name, to go and seek out the needy, the distressed, and the
   poor, and send them portions of meat. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my
   people."

   III. In the last place. God never gives his children a duty to do
   without giving them THE MEANS TO DO IT; he never bids them make bricks
   without straw, and when he tells us to comfort God's people, we may be
   certain there are many means whereby they may be comforted. Let me just
   hint at those things in the everlasting gospel which have a tendency to
   comfort the saints. What, child of God! Art thou at a loss for a topic
   to comfort the aching heart? Hark thee, then; go tell of the ancient
   things of former days; whisper in the mourner's ear electing grace, and
   redeeming mercy, and dying love. When thou findest a troubled one, tell
   him of the covenant, in all things ordered well, signed, sealed, and
   ratified; tell him what the Lord hath done in former days, how he cut
   Rahab and wounded the dragon; tell him the wondrous story of God's
   dealings with his people. Tell him that God who divided the Red sea can
   make a highway for his people through the deep waters of affliction;
   that he who appeared in the burning bush which was not consumed, will
   support him in the furnace of tribulation. Tell him of the marvellous
   things which God has wrought for his chosen people: surely there is
   enough there to comfort him. Tell him that God watcheth the furnace as
   the goldsmith the refining pot."

   Thy days of trial then,

   Are all ordained by heaven;

   If he appoint the number ten,'

   You ne'er shall have eleven."

   If that does not suffice, tell him of his present mercies; tell him
   that he has much left, though much is gone. Tell him there is "now no
   condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus;" tell him that now he
   is accepted in the beloved; tell him that he is now adopted, and that
   his standing is safe. Tell him that Jesus is above, wearing the
   breast-plate, or pleading his cause. Tell him that though earth's
   pillars shake, God is a refuge for us; tell the mourner that the
   everlasting God faileth not, neither is weary. Let present facts
   suffice thee to cheer him.

   But if this is not enough, tell him of the future; whisper to him that
   there is a heaven with pearly gates and golden streets; tell him that

   "A few more rolling suns at most,

   Will land him on fair Canaan's coast."

   and therefore he may well bear his sorrows. Tell him that Christ is
   coming, and that his sign is in the heavens, his advent is near, he
   will soon appear to judge the earth with equity, and his people in
   righteousness. And if that suffice not, tell him all about that God who
   lived and died. Take him to Calvary; picture to him the bleeding hands,
   and side, and feet; tell him of the thorn-crowned King of grief; tell
   him of the mighty Monarch of woe and blood, who wore the scarlet of
   mockery which was yet the purple of the empire of grief; tell him that
   he himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree. And if I have not
   said enough, go to thy Bible, read its pages, bend thy knee and ask for
   guidance, and then tell him some great and precious promise, that so
   thou mayest accomplish thy mission, and comfort one of God's people.

   I have but a few words to say to some, who I grieve to think want no
   comfort. They want something else before they can be comforted. Some of
   my hearers are not God's people; they have never believed in Christ,
   nor fled to him for refuge. Now I will tell you briefly and plainly the
   way of salvation. Sinner! know that thou art in God's sight guilty,
   that God is just and that he will punish thee, for thy sins. Hark thee,
   then: there is only one way by which thou canst escape, and it is this:
   Christ must be thy substitute. Either thou must die, or Christ must die
   for thee. Thy only refuge is faith in Jesus Christ, whereby thou shalt
   be assured that Christ did really and actually shed his blood for thee.
   And if you are able to believe that Christ died for you, I know it will
   cause you to hate sin, to seek for Christ, and to love and serve him
   world without end. May God bless us all, forgive us our sins, and
   accept our souls for Jesus's sake!
     __________________________________________________________________

   This letter was written to accompany the publication of sermon 221 in
   the New Park Street Pulpit series--"Comfort Proclaimed."

                               A Pastoral Letter

   I AM a prisoner still. Weakness has succeeded pain, and languor of mind
   is the distressing result of this prostration of my physical powers. It
   is the Lord's doing. In some sense I might say with Paul, "I am a
   prisoner of Jesus Christ." But ah! my bonds are more easy and less
   honourable to wear than his. Instead of a dungeon, my lot is cast in an
   abode of comfort. I am not restrained from my accustomed ministry by a
   chain forged by man, but by the silken cord of God's providence: no
   rough jailor, but loving relatives and friends attend upon me in these
   tedious hours of my bondage. I beseech you therefore, my beloved, let
   your many prayers to God on my behalf be each and all mingled with
   thanksgiving. Gratitude should ever be used in devotion, like salt of
   old was in sacrifice, "without prescribing how much."

   And now, though unable to stand in the pulpit, I will endeavour to give
   you a short address,--or rather, I will attempt to express the
   kindlings of my heart in a few broken sentences.

   And first, to you my well-beloved and trusty brethren and sisters in
   Christ, and in the family tie of church fellowship; to you I tender my
   fondest regards, my sincerest thanks, my sweetest love. I feel
   refreshed by your sympathy, and my heart is overwhelmed at the
   estimation in which you hold me. It brings the hot blush to my cheek,
   and well it may. Tenderly as a husband thinks of the doting affection
   of his wife, as a father receives the fond homage of his children, as a
   brother when he is held in honour by all the family circle--so
   tenderly, and even more tenderly, I remember your care of me. The tone
   of your supplications during my affliction has been to me beyond
   measure grateful. I rejoice that ye have with humble submission kissed
   the rod; not impatiently asking my recovery, but meekly acquiescing in
   the providence of our heavenly Father, craving most of all that the
   lord would sanctify the pains of your pastor, and guard with his own
   watchful eye the flock. "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you,
   through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord."

   Yet again, in the still chamber of retirement, I anxiously remember
   some who would have been ere this baptised on a profession of their
   faith, and received into membership of the church, had not my health
   been thus impaired. Be not fretful concerning this delay: accept it as
   an ordained trial of your patience. If a farmer has a field of corn
   severed by the sickle from its native earth, but not yet housed in the
   garner, is he not concerned lest he suffer loss? How much more, as a
   minister of Christ, am I concerned for you--the converts God hath given
   me. Oh, beloved! be stedfast. Commit not the great sin. Beware lest
   Satan take advantage of you--for we are not ignorant of his devices.
   Draw not back. It is written in the law, "No devoted thing that a man
   shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, shall be sold or
   redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord." The
   Israelite might not retract the beast that he dedicated from his fold
   for an offering--far less the Christian, when he hath resolved so yield
   up his heart, his life, his soul to Jesus. I speak not thus to grieve
   you. Think not that my jealousy bodes a suspicion, but rather that it
   betokens my love. "We are not of them that draw back unto perdition;
   but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." "My little
   children, these things I write unto you that ye sin not."

   To those who have worshipped during the past two years in the Surrey
   Music Hall,--the preacher's greetings and his love. Ye have heard how
   the Prophet Samuel set up a stone and called the name of it EBEN-EZER,
   saying, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." That stone marked the place
   where the Lord gave the children of Israel a great victory over the
   Philistines: but it likewise marked the "very place where, twenty years
   before, the Israelites were defeated, and the Ark of God was taken."
   Let us rejoice, O my people, with trembling. Two years ago that Hall
   was the scene of such discomfiture, such dire calamity and death, as we
   hardly dare to think of. Sure that was the night of my heart's
   bitterest anguish. "Howbeit our God turned the curse into a blessing."
   For ninety-nine successive Lord's days was I enabled to supply the
   pulpit; no congregation could have been more evenly sustained; never
   were sermons more widely echoed. God has owned these services to the
   quickening of many souls, to the establishing of many in our most holy
   faith, and by them through his goodness hath the Blessed Spirit stirred
   up many of my brethren in the ministry to a righteous emulation.
   "According to this time it shall be said, What hath God wrought!" Ah,
   sirs! if ye knew in what fear we begun, and with what anxiety we have
   continued--if ye knew the unrequited exertions of those beloved
   brethren, whose names are unknown to fame, but whose good offices were
   essential to keep the place open--if ye knew, once more, how many a
   time your minister has prostrated himself as a broken-hearted sinner
   before God to renew his first vows of unreserved self-dedication--if ye
   knew these things, ye would not be backward in that ascription of
   praise never more meet to flow forth in liquid strains with weeping
   eyes--"Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory."
   My beloved brethren, "Be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in
   the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in
   vain in the Lord."

   Yet I have other friends. They are scattered far and wide throughout
   this country, and the sister isles. To you let me drop a word. Ye have
   received me kindly. Faster friendships were never surely made in fewer
   hours than I have cemented with some of you. Ye are of my kith and kin.
   I will take you to record that my God hath graciously proportioned my
   strength to my days, while I have been among you "in labours more
   abundant." When I have laboured most for his glory, I have feasted most
   on the provisions of his grace. And blessed be God, when ofttimes
   called to visit a people heretofore unknown to me, he hath given me the
   key of David, to unlock the secret springs of your heart; nay rather,
   he holdeth the key in his own hand; he openeth and no man can shut.
   Keep, beloved, the word of his patience, and he will keep you from the
   hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that
   dwell upon the earth.

   Finally, my brethren, I am cheered and comforted beyond measure by the
   joyous hope that on the coming Sabbath I shall again appear among you.
   This prospect is as oil to my bones, and although I cannot hope to
   fulfil my ministry with my wonted vigour, yet to attempt to address you
   will be as a rich medicine--as a tonic to my fluttering heart.
   Brethren, pray for us.

   Yours in covenant,

   November 2nd, 1858.
     __________________________________________________________________

                    The Christian's Heaviness and Rejoicing

   A Sermon

   (No. 222)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, November 7th, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye
   are in heaviness through manifold temptations."--1 Peter 1:6.

   THIS VERSE TO A WORLDLY MAN looks amazingly like a contradiction; and
   even to a Christian man, when he understands it best, it will still be
   a paradox. "Ye greatly rejoice," and yet "ye are in heaviness." Is that
   possible? Can there be in the same heart great rejoicing, and yet a
   temporary heaviness? Most assuredly. This paradox has been known and
   felt by many of the Lord's children, and it is far from being the
   greatest paradox of the Christian life. Men who live within themselves,
   and mark their own feelings as Christians, will often stand and wonder
   at themselves. Of all riddles, the greatest riddle is a Christian man.
   As to his pedigree, what a riddle he is! He is a child of the first
   Adam, "an heir of wrath, even as others." He is a child of the second
   Adam: he was born free; there is therefore now no condemnation unto
   him. He is a riddle in his own existence. "As dying, and behold we
   live; as chastened, and not killed." He is a riddle as to the component
   parts of his own spiritual frame. He finds that which makes him akin to
   the devil--depravity, corruption, binding him still to the earth, and
   causing him to cry out, "O wretched man that I am;" and yet he finds
   that he has within himself that which exalts him, not merely to the
   rank of an angel, but higher still--a something which raises him up
   together, and makes him "sit together with Christ Jesus in heavenly
   places." He finds that he has that within him which must ripen into
   heaven, and yet that about him which would inevitably ripen into hell,
   if grace did not forbid. What wonder, then, beloved, if the Christian
   man be a paradox himself, that his condition should be a paradox too?
   Why marvel ye, when ye see a creature corrupt and yet purified, mortal
   and yet immortal, fallen but yet exalted far above principalities and
   powers--why marvel ye, that ye should find that creature also possessed
   of mingled experience, greatly rejoicing, and yet at the same time, "in
   heaviness through manifold temptations."

   I would have you this morning, look first of all at the Christian's
   heaviness: he is "in heaviness through manifold temptations;" and then,
   in the next place, at the Christian's great rejoicing.

   I. In the first place, HIS HEAVINESS. This is one of the most
   unfortunate texts in the Bible. I have heard it quoted ten thousand
   times for my own comfort, but I never understood it till a day or two
   ago. On referring to most of the commentaries in my possession, I
   cannot find that they have a right idea of the meaning of this text.
   You will notice that your friends often say to you when you are in
   trouble, "There is a needs be for this affliction;" there is a needs
   be, say they, "for all these trials and troubles that befall you." That
   is a very correct and scriptural sentiment; but that sentiment is not
   in the text at all. And yet, whenever this text is quoted in my
   hearing, this is what I am always told, or what I conceive I am always
   told to be the meaning,--that the great temptations, the great trials
   which befal us, have a needs be for them. But it does not say so here:
   it says something better; not only that there is a needs be for our
   temptations, but that there is a needs be for our heaviness under the
   temptation. Now, let me show you the difference. There is a man of God,
   full of faith--strong; he is about to do his Master's work, and he does
   it. God is with him, and gives him great success. The enemy begins to
   slander him; all manner of evil is spoken against him falsely for
   Christ's name sake. You say, there is a needs be for that, and you are
   quite correct: but look at the man. How gallantly he behaves himself!
   He lifts his head above his accusers, and unmoved amidst them all, he
   stands like a rock in the midst of a roaring tempest, never moved from
   the firm basis on which it rests. The scene changes, and instead of
   calamity, perhaps he is called to endure absolute persecution, as in
   apostolic times. We imagine the man driven out from house and home,
   separated from all his kindred, made to wander in the pathless snows of
   the mountains; and what a brave and mighty man he appears, when you see
   him enduring all this! His spirits never sink. "All this can I do,"
   says he, "and I can greatly rejoice in it, for Christ's name's sake;
   for I can practice the text which says, Rejoice ye in that day and leap
   for joy;'" and you will tell that man there is a needs be for his
   persecution; he says, "Yes, I know it, and I fear not all I have to
   endure; I am not cowed by it." At last imagine the man taken before the
   Inquisition and condemned to die. You still comfort him with the fact,
   that there is a needs be that he shall die--that the blood of the
   martyrs must be the seed of the church--that the world can never be
   overcome by Christ's gospel, except through the sufferings and death of
   his followers--that Christ stooped to conquer, and the church must do
   the same--that through death and blood must be the road to the church's
   victory. And what a noble sight it is, to see that man going to the
   stake, and kissing it--looking upon his iron chains with as much esteem
   as if they had been chains of gold. Now tell him there is a needs be
   for all this, and he will thank you for the promise; and you admire the
   man; you wonder at him. Ah! but there is another class of persons that
   get no such honour as this. There is another sort of Christians for
   whom this promise really was intended, who do not get the comfort of
   it. I do admire the man I have pictured to you: may God long preserve
   such men in the midst of the church; I would stimulate every one of you
   to imitate him. Seek for great faith and great love to your Master,
   that you may be able to endure, being "stedfast, immovable, always
   abounding in the work of the Lord." But remember, that this text has
   not in it comfort for such persons; there are other texts for them;
   this text has been perverted for such a use as that. This is meant for
   another and a feebler grade of Christians, who are often overlooked and
   sometimes despised.

   I was lying upon my couch during this last week, and my spirits were
   sunken so low that I could weep by the hour like a child, and yet I
   knew not what I wept for--but a very slight thing will move me to tears
   just now--and a kind friend was telling me of some poor old soul living
   near, who was suffering very great pain, and yet she was full of joy
   and rejoicing. I was so distressed by the hearing of that story, and
   felt so ashamed of myself, that I did not know what to do; wondering
   why I should be in such a state as this; while this poor woman, who had
   a terrible cancer, and was in the most frightful agony, could
   nevertheless "rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory." And in
   a moment this text flashed upon my mind, with its real meaning. I am
   sure it is its real meaning. Read it over and over again, and you will
   see I am not wrong. "Though now for a season, if need be, ye are in
   heaviness." It does not say, "Though now for a season ye are suffering
   pain, though now for a season you are poor; but you are in heaviness;'"
   your spirits are taken away from you; you are made to weep; you cannot
   bear your pain; you are brought to the very dust of death, and wish
   that you might die. Your faith itself seems as if it would fail you.
   That is the thing for which there is a needs be. That is what my text
   declares, that there is an absolute needs be that sometimes the
   Christian should not endure his sufferings with a gallant and a joyous
   heart; there is a needs be that sometimes his spirits should sink
   within him, and that he should become even as a little child smitten
   beneath the hand of God. Ah! beloved, we sometimes talk about the rod,
   but it is one thing to see the rod, and it is another thing to feel it;
   and many a time have we said within ourselves, "If I did not feel so
   low spirited as I now do, I should not mind this affliction;" and what
   is that but saying, "If I did not feel the rod I should not mind it?"
   It is just how you feel, that is, after all, the pith and marrow of
   your affliction. It is that breaking down of the spirit, that pulling
   down of the strong man, that is the very fester of the soreness of
   God's scourging--"the blueness of the wound, whereby the soul is made
   better." I think this one idea has been enough to be food for me many a
   day; and there may be some child of God here to whom it may bring some
   slight portion of comfort. We will yet again dwell upon it. "Though now
   for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold
   temptations."

   And here let me for a moment or two try to explain why it is that there
   is an absolute needs be, not merely for temptations and troubles, but
   likewise for our being in heaviness under them.

   In the first place, if we were not in heaviness during our troubles we
   should not be like our Covenant Head--Christ Jesus. It is a rule of the
   kingdom that all the members must be like the head. They are to be like
   the head in that day when he shall appear. "We shall be like him, for
   we shall see him as he is." But we must be like the head also in his
   humiliation, or else we cannot be like him in his glory. Now, you will
   observe that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ very often passed
   through much of trouble, without any heaviness. When he said, "Foxes
   have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man
   hath not where to lay his head," I observe no heaviness. I do not think
   he sighed over that. And when athirst he sat upon the well, and said,
   "Give me to drink," there was no heaviness in all his thirst. I believe
   that through the first years of his ministry, although he might have
   suffered some heaviness, he usually passed over his troubles like a
   ship floating over the waves of the sea. But you will remember that at
   last the waves of swelling grief came into the vessel; at last the
   Saviour himself, though full of patience, was obliged to say "My soul
   is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death;" and one of the evangelists
   tells us that the Saviour "began to be very heavy." What means that,
   but that his spirits began to sink? There is a more terrible meaning
   yet, which I cannot enter into this morning; but still I may say that
   the surface meaning of it is that all his spirits sank within him. He
   had no longer his wonted courage, and though he had strength to say,
   "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done;" still the weakness did
   prevail, when he said, "If it be possible let this cup pass from me."
   The Saviour passed through the brook, but he "drank of the brook by the
   way;" and we who pass through the brook of suffering must drink of it
   too. He had to bear the burden, not with his shoulders omnipotent, but
   with shoulders that were bending to the earth beneath a load. And you
   and I must not always expect a giant faith that can remove mountains:
   sometimes even to us the grasshopper must be a burden, that we may in
   all things be like unto our head.

   Yet again; if the Christian did not sometimes suffer heaviness he would
   begin to grow too proud, and think too much of himself, and become too
   great in his own esteem. Those of us who are of elastic spirit, and who
   in our health are full of everything that can make life happy, are too
   apt to forget the Most High God. Lest we should be satisfied from
   ourselves, and forget that all our own springs must be in him, the Lord
   sometimes seems to sap the springs of life, to drain the heart of all
   its spirits, and to leave us without soul or strength for mirth, so
   that the noise of tabret and of viol would be unto us as but the
   funeral dirge, without joy or gladness. Then it is that we discover
   what we are made of, and out of the depths we cry unto God, humbled by
   our adversities.

   Another reason for this discipline is, I think, that in heaviness we
   often learn lessons that we never could attain elsewhere. Do you know
   that God has beauties for every part of the world; and he has beauties
   for every place of experience? There are views to be seen from the tops
   of the Alps that you can never see elsewhere. Ay, but there are
   beauties to be seen in the depths of the dell that ye could never see
   on the tops of the mountains; there are glories to be seen on Pisgah,
   wondrous sights to be beheld when by faith we stand on Tabor; but there
   are also beauties to be seen in our Gethsemanes, and some marvellously
   sweet flowers are to be culled by the edge of the dens of the leopards.
   Men will never become great in divinity until they become great in
   suffering. "Ah!" said Luther, "affliction is the best book in my
   library;" and let me add, the best leaf in the book of affliction is
   that blackest of all the leaves, the leaf called heaviness, when the
   spirit sinks within us, and we cannot endure as we could wish.

   And yet again; this heaviness is of essential use to a Christian, if he
   would do good to others. Ah! there are a great many Christian people
   that I was going to say I should like to see afflicted--but I will not
   say so much as that; I should like to see them heavy in spirit; if it
   were the Lord's will that they should be bowed down greatly, I would
   not express a word of regret; for a little more sympathy would do them
   good; a little more power to sympathize would be a precious boon to
   them, and even if it were purchased by a short journey through a
   burning, fiery furnace, they might not rue the day afterwards in which
   they had been called to pass through the flame. There are none so
   tender as those who have been skinned themselves. Those who have been
   in the chamber of affliction know how to comfort those who are there.
   Do not believe that any man will become a physician unless he walks the
   hospitals; and I am sure that no one will become a divine, or become a
   comforter, unless he lies in the hospital as well as walks through it,
   and has to suffer himself. God cannot make ministers--and I speak with
   reverence of his Holy Name--he cannot make a Barnabas except in the
   fire. It is there, and there alone, that he can make his sons of
   consolation; he may make his sons of thunder anywhere; but his sons of
   consolation he must make in the fire, and there alone. Who shall speak
   to those whose hearts are broken, who shall bind up their wounds, but
   those whose hearts have been broken also, and whose wounds have long
   run with the sore of grief? "If need be," then, "ye are in heaviness
   through manifold temptations."

   I think I have said enough about this heaviness, except that I must add
   it is but for a season. A little time, a few hours, a few days, a few
   months at most, it shall all have passed away; and then comes the
   "eternal weight of glory, wherein ye greatly rejoice."

   II. And now to the second part of the text. Here we have something far
   more joyous and comfortable than the first. "WHEREIN YE GREATLY
   REJOICE." And can a Christian greatly rejoice while he is in heaviness?
   Yes, most assuredly he can. Mariners tell us that there are some parts
   of the sea where there is a strong current upon the surface going one
   way, but that down in the depths there is a strong current running the
   other way. Two seas do not meet and interfere with one another; but one
   stream of water on the surface is running in one direction, and another
   below in an opposite direction. Now, the Christian is like that. On the
   surface there is a stream of heaviness rolling with dark waves; but
   down in the depths there is a strong under-current of great rejoicing
   that is always flowing there. Do you ask me what is the cause of this
   great rejoicing? The apostle tells us, "Wherein ye greatly rejoice."
   What does he mean? You must refer to his own writings, and then you
   will see. He is writing "to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus,"
   and so forth. The first thing that he say's to them is, that they are
   "elect according to the foreknowledge of God;" "wherein we greatly
   rejoice." Ah! even when the Christian is most "in heaviness through
   manifold temptations," what a mercy it is that he can know that he is
   still elect of God! Any man who is assured that God has "chosen him
   from before the foundation of the world," may well say, "Wherein we
   greatly rejoice." Let me be lying upon a bed of sickness, and just
   revel in that one thought. Before God made the heavens and the earth,
   and laid the pillars of the firmament in their golden sockets, he set
   his love upon me; upon the breast of the great high priest he wrote my
   name, and in his everlasting book it stands, never to be erased--"elect
   according to the foreknowledge of God." Why, this may make a man's soul
   leap within him, and all the heaviness that the infirmities of the
   flesh may lay upon him shall he but as nothing; for this tremendous
   current of his overflowing joy shall sweep away the mill-dam of his
   grief. Bursting and overleaping every obstacle, it shall overflood all
   his sorrows till they are drowned and covered up, and shall not be
   mentioned any more for ever. "Wherein we greatly rejoice." Come, thou
   Christian! thou art depressed and cast down. Think for a moment. Thou
   art chosen of God and precious. Let the bell of election ring in thine
   ear--that ancient Sabbath bell of the covenant; and let thy name be
   heard in its notes and say, I beseech thee, say, "Doth not this make
   thee greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, thou art in
   heaviness through manifold temptations?"

   Again, you will see another reason. The apostle says that we are "elect
   through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of
   the blood of Jesus Christ,"--"wherein we greatly rejoice." Is the
   obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ girt about my loins, to be my beauty
   and my glorious dress; and is the blood of Jesus sprinkled upon me, to
   take away all my guilt and all my sin and shall I not in this greatly
   rejoice? What shall there be in all the depressions of spirits that can
   possibly come upon me that shall make me break my harp, even though I
   should for a moment hang it upon the willows? Do I not expect that yet
   again my songs shall mount to heaven; and even now through the thick
   darkness do not the sparks of my joy appear, when I remember that I
   have still upon me the blood of Jesus, and still about me the glorious
   righteousness of the Messiah?

   But the great and cheering comfort of the apostle is, that we are elect
   unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not
   away, reserved in heaven for us. And here, brethren, is the grand
   comfort of the Christian. When the child of God is sore-stricken and
   much depressed, the sweet hope, that living or dying, there is an
   inheritance incorruptible, reserved in heaven for him, may indeed make
   him greatly rejoice. He is drawing near the gates of death, and his
   spirit is in heaviness, for he has to leave behind him all his family
   and all that life holds dear. Besides, his sickness brings upon him
   naturally a depression of spirit. But you sit by his bedside, and you
   begin to talk to him of the

   "Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood,

   Arrayed in living green."

   You tell him of Canaan on the other side the Jordan--of the land that
   floweth with milk and honey--of the Lamb in the midst of the throne,
   and of all the glories which God hath prepared for them that love him;
   and you see his dull leaden eye light up with seraphic brightness, he
   shakes off his heaviness, and he begins to sing,

   "On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,

   And cast a wishful eye,

   To Canaan's fair and happy land,

   Where my possessions lie"

   This makes him greatly rejoice; and if to that you add that possibly
   before he has passed the gates of death his Master may appear--if you
   tell him that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming in the clouds of heaven,
   and though we have not seen him yet believing in him we rejoice with
   joy unspeakable and full of glory, expecting the second advent--if he
   has grace to believe in that sublime doctrine, he will be ready to clap
   his hands upon his bed of weariness and cry, "Even so, Lord Jesus, come
   quickly! come quickly!"

   And in drawing to a close, I may notice, there is one more doctrine
   that will always cheer a Christian, and I think that this perhaps is
   the one chiefly intended here in the text. Look at the end of the 15th
   verse; "Reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God
   through faith unto salvation;" This perhaps will be one of the greatest
   cordials to a Christian in heaviness, that he is not kept by his own
   power, but by the power of God, and that he is not left in his own
   keeping, but he is kept by the Most High. Ah! what should you and I do
   in the day when darkness gathers round our faith, if we had to keep
   ourselves! I can never understand what an Arminian does, when he gets
   into sickness, sorrow, and affliction; from what well he draws his
   comfort, I know not; but I know whence I draw mine. It is this. "When
   flesh and heart faileth, God is the strength of my life, and my portion
   for ever." "I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is
   able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."
   But take away that doctrine of the Saviour's keeping his people, and
   where is my hope? What is there in the gospel worth my preaching, or
   worth your receiving? I know that he hath said, "I give unto my sheep
   eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck
   them out of my hand." What, Lord, but suppose they should grow
   faint--that they should begin to murmur in their affliction. Shall they
   not perish then? No, they shall never perish. But suppose the pain
   should grow so hot that their faith should fail: shall they not perish
   then? No, "they shall not perish, neither shall any man pluck them out
   of my hand." But suppose their sense should seem to wander, and some
   should try to pervert them from the faith: shall they not be perverted?
   No; "they shall never perish," But suppose in some hour of their
   extremity hell and the world and their own fears should all beset them,
   and they should have no power to stand--no power whatever to resist the
   fierce onslaughts of the enemy, shall they not perish then? No, they
   are "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be
   revealed," and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck
   them out of my hand." Ah! this is the doctrine, the cheering assurance
   "wherein we greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if needs be, we
   are in heaviness through manifold temptations."

   One word before I send you away. There are some of you here to whom
   this precious passage has not a word to say. Our heaviness, O
   worldling, "our heaviness is but for a season." Your heaviness is to
   come; and it shall be a heaviness intolerable, because hopelessly
   everlasting. Our temptations, though they be manifold, are but light
   afflictions and are but for a moment," and they "work out for us a far
   more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;" but your joys that you now
   have are evanescent as a bubble, and they are passing away, and they
   are working out for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of
   misery. I beseech you, look at this matter. Search and see whether all
   be right with your spirits--whether it be well for you to venture into
   an eternal state as you are; and may God give you grace, that you may
   feel your need of a Saviour, that you may seek Christ, lay hold upon
   him, and so may come into a gracious state, wherein ye shall greatly
   rejoice, even though for a season, if needs be, ye should be in
   heaviness through manifold temptations!
     __________________________________________________________________

                            The Evil and Its Remedy

   A Sermon

   (No. 223)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, November 14th, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding
   great."--Ezekiel 9:9.

   "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."--1 John
   1:7.

   ISHALL HAVE two texts this morning--the evil and its remedy. "The
   iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great;" and "The
   blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."

   We can learn nothing of the gospel, except by feeling its truths--no
   one truth of the gospel is ever truly known and really learned, until
   we have tested and tried and proved it, and its power has been
   exercised upon us. I have heard of a naturalist, who thought himself
   exceedingly wise with regard to the natural history of birds, and yet
   he had learned all he knew in his study, and had never so much as seen
   a bird either flying through the air or sitting upon its perch. He was
   but a fool although he thought himself exceeding wise. And there are
   some men who like him think themselves great theologians; they might
   even pretend to take a doctor's degree in divinity; and yet, if we came
   to the root of the matter, and asked them whether they ever saw or felt
   any of these things of which they talked, they would have to say, "No;
   I know these things in the letter, but not in the spirit; I understand
   them as a matter of theory, but not as things of my own consciousness
   and experience." Be assured, that as the naturalist who was merely the
   student of other men's observations knew nothing, so the man who
   pretends to religion, but has never entered into the depths and power
   of its doctrines, or felt the influence of them upon his heart, knows
   nothing whatever, and all the knowledge he pretendeth to is but
   varnished ignorance. There are some sciences that may be learned by the
   head, but the science of Christ crucified can only be learned by the
   heart.

   I have made use of this remark as the preface to my sermon, because I
   think it will be forced from each of our hearts before we have done, if
   the two truths which I shall consider this morning, shall come at all
   home to us with power. The first truth is the greatness of our sin. No
   man can know the greatness of sin till he has felt it, for there is no
   measuring-rod for sin, except its condemnation in our own conscience,
   when the law of God speaks to us with a terror that may be felt. And as
   for the richness of the blood of Christ and its ability to wash us, of
   that also we can know nothing till we have ourselves been washed, and
   have ourselves proved that the blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God
   hath cleansed us from all sin.

   I. I shall begin, then, with the first doctrine as it is contained in
   the ninth chapter of Ezekiel, the ninth verse,--"The iniquity of the
   house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great." There are two great
   lessons which every man must learn, and learn by experience, before he
   can be a Christian. First, he must learn that sin is an exceeding great
   and evil thing; and he must learn also that the blood of Christ is an
   exceedingly precious thing, and is able to save unto the uttermost them
   that come unto it. The former lesson we have before us. O may God, by
   his infinite spirit, by his great wisdom, teach it to some of us who
   never knew it before!

   Some men imagine that the gospel was devised, in some way or other, to
   soften down the harshness of God towards sin. Ah! how mistaken the
   idea! There is no more harsh condemnation of sin anywhere than in the
   gospel. Ye shall go to Sinai, and ye shall there hear its thunders
   rolling; ye shall behold the flashing of its terrible lightnings, till,
   like Moses, ye shall exceedingly fear and quake, and come away
   declaring that sin must be a terrible thing, otherwise, the Holy One
   had never come upon Mount Paran with all these terrors round about him.
   But after that ye shall go to Calvary; there ye shall see no
   lightnings, and ye shall hear no thunders, but instead thereof, ye
   shall hear the groans of an expiring God, and ye shall behold the
   contortions and agonies of one who bore

   "All that Incarnate God could bear,

   With strength enough, and none to spare."

   And then ye shall say, "Now, though I never fear nor quake, yet I know
   how exceedingly great a thing sin must be, since such a sacrifice was
   required to make an atonement for it. Oh! sinners; if ye come to the
   gospel, imagining that there ye shall find an apology for your sin, ye
   have indeed mistaken your way. Moses charges you with sin, and tells
   you that you are without excuse; but as for the gospel, it rends away
   from you every shadow of a covering; it leaves you without a cloak for
   your sin; it tells you that you have sinned wilfully against the Most
   High God--that ye have not an apology that ye can possibly make for all
   the iniquities that ye have committed against him; and so far in any
   way from smoothing over your sin, and telling you that you are a weak
   creature and, therefore could not help your sin, it charges upon you
   the very weakness of your nature, and makes that itself the most
   damning sin of all. If ye seek apologies, better look even into the
   face of Moses, when it is clothed with all the majesty of the terrors
   of the law, than into the face of the gospel, for that is more terrible
   by far to him who seeks to cloak his sin.

   Nor does the gospel in any way whatever give man a hope that the claims
   of the law will be in any way loosened. Some imagine that under the old
   dispensation God demanded great things of man--that he did bind upon
   man heavy burdens that were grievous to he borne--and they suppose that
   Christ came into the world to put upon the shoulders of men a lighter
   law, something which it would be more easy for them to obey--a law
   which they can more readily keep, or which if they break, would not
   come upon them with such terrible threatenings. Ah, not so. The gospel
   came not into the world to soften down the law. Till heaven and earth
   shall pass away, not one jot or tittle of the law shall fail. What God
   hath said to the sinner in the law, he saith to the sinner in the
   gospel. If he declareth that "the soul that sinneth it shall die," the
   testimony of the gospel is not contrary to she testimony of the law. If
   he declares that whosoever breaketh the sacred law shall most assuredly
   be punished, the gospel also demands blood for blood, and eye for eye,
   and tooth for tooth, and doth not relax a solitary jot or tittle of its
   demands, but is as severe and as terribly just as even the law itself.
   Do you reply to this, that Christ has certainly softened down the law?
   I reply, that ye know not, then, the mission of Christ. What said he
   himself? The Lord hath said in the law "Thou shalt not commit
   adultery;" hath Christ softened the law? No. Saith he, "I say unto you,
   that whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed
   adultery with her already in his heart." That is no softening of the
   law. It is, as it were, the grinding of the edge of the terrible sword
   of Divine justice, to make it sharper far than it seemed before. Christ
   hath not put out the furnace; he rather seemeth to heat it seven times
   hotter. Before Christ came sin seemed unto me to be but little; but
   when he came sin became exceeding sinful, and all its dread heinousness
   started out before the light.

   But, says one, surely the gospel does in some degree remove the
   greatness of our sin. Does it not soften the punishment of sin? Ah! no.
   Ye shall appeal to Moses; let him ascend the pulpit and preach to you.
   He says, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die;" and his sermon is dread
   and terrible. He sits down. And now comes Jesus Christ, the man of a
   loving countenance. What says he with regard to the punishment of sin?
   Ah! sirs, there was never such a preacher of the fires of hell as
   Christ was. Our Lord Jesus Christ was all love, but he was all honesty
   too. "Never man spake like that man," when he came to speak of the
   punishment of the lost. What other prophet was the author of such dread
   expressions as these?--"He shall burn up the chaff with unquenchable
   fire"--"These shall go away into everlasting punishment;" or
   these--"Where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched."
   Stand at the feet of Jesus when he tells you of the punishment of sin,
   and the effect of iniquity, and you may tremble there far more than you
   would have done if Moses had been the preacher, and if Sinai had been
   in the background to conclude the sermon. No, brethren, the gospel of
   Christ in no sense whatever helps to make sin less. The proclamation of
   Christ to-day by his minister is the same as the utterence of Ezekiel
   of old--"The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding
   great."

   And now let us endeavour to deal with hearts and consciences a moment.
   My brethren, there are some here who have never felt this truth. There
   are many of you who start back affrighted from it. You will go home and
   represent me as one who delights to dwell on certain dark and terrible
   things that I suppose to be true--you say within yourselves, "I cannot,
   I will not, receive that doctrine of sin; I know I am a frail weak
   creature; I have made a great many mistakes in my life--that I will
   admit; but still such is my nature, and I therefore could not help it;
   I am not going to be arraigned before a pulpit and condemned as the
   chief of criminals; I may be a sinner--I confess I am with all the rest
   of mankind--but as to my sin being anything so great as that man
   attempts to describe, I do not believe it; I reject the doctrine." And
   thinkest thou, my friend, that I am surprised at thy doing so? I know
   thee who thou art; it is because as yet the grace of God has never
   touched thy soul that therefore thou sayest this. And here comes the
   proof of the doctrine with which I started. Thou dost not know this
   truth, because thou hast never felt it; but if thou hadst felt it, as
   every true-born child of God has felt it, thou wouldst say, "The man
   cannot describe its terrors as they are; they must be felt before they
   can be known, and when felt they are not to be expressed in all their
   fulness of terror."

   But come, let me reason with you for a moment. Your sin is great,
   although you think it small. Remember, brother, I am not about to make
   out that thy sin is greater than mine. I speak to thee, and I speak to
   myself also, thy sin is great. Follow me in these few thoughts and
   perhaps thou wilt better understand it. How great a thing is one sin,
   when according to the Word of God one sin could suffice to damn the
   soul. One sin, remember, destroyed the whole human race. Adam did but
   take of the forbidden fruit, and that one sin blasted Eden, and made
   all of us inheritors of the curse, and caused the earth to bring forth
   thorns and thistles, even unto this day. But it may be said could one
   sin destroy the soul? Is it possible that one solitary sin could open
   the gates of hell, and then close them upon the guilty soul for ever,
   and that God should refuse his mercy, and shut out that soul for ever
   from the presence of his face? Yes, if I believe my Bible, I must
   believe that. Oh, how great must my sins be if this is the terrible
   effect of one transgression. Sin cannot be the little thing that my
   pride has helped me to imagine it to be. It must be an awful thing if
   but one sin could ruin my soul for ever.

   Think again my friend, for a moment what an imprudent and impertinent
   thing sin is. Behold! there is one God who filleth all in all, and he
   is the Infinite Creator. He makes me, and I am nothing more in his
   sight than an animated grain of dust; and I that animated grain of
   dust, with a mere ephemeral existence, have the impertinence and
   imprudence to set up my will against his will! I dare to proclaim war
   against the Infinite Majesty of heaven. It is a thing so audacious, so
   infernally full of pride, that one need not marvel that even a sin in
   the little eye of man, should, when it is looked upon by the conscience
   in the light of heaven, appear to be great indeed.

   But think again, how great does your sin, and mine seem, if we will but
   think of the ingratitude which has marked it. The Lord our God has fed
   us from our youth up to this day: he has put the breath into our
   nostrils, and has held our souls in life; he has clothed the earth with
   mercies and he has permitted us to walk across these fair fields; and
   he has given us bread to eat and raiment to put on, and mercies so
   precious that their full value can never be known until they are taken
   from us; and yet you and I have persevered in breaking all his laws
   wilfully and wantonly: we have gone contrary to his will; it has been
   sufficient for us to know that a thing has been God's will, and we have
   at once run contrary thereunto. Oh, if we set our secret sins in the
   light of his mercy, if our transgressions are set side by side with his
   favours, we must each of us say, our sins indeed are exceeding great!

   Mark, I am not now addressing myself solely and wholly to those whom
   the word itself condemns of great sin. We of course do not hesitate for
   a moment to speak of the drunkard, the whoremonger, the adulterer, and
   the thief, as being great sinners; we should not spare to say that
   their iniquity is exceeding great, for it exceeds even the bounds of
   man's morality, and the laws of our civil government. But I am speaking
   this day to you who have been the most moral, to you whose outward
   carriage is everything that could be desired, to you who have kept the
   Sabbath, to you who have frequented God's house, and outwardly
   worshipped. Your sins and mine are exceeding great. They seem but
   little to the outward eye--but if we came to dig into the bowels
   thereof and see their iniquity, their hideous blackness, we most say of
   them they are exceeding great.

   And again, I repeat it, this is a doctrine that no man can rightly know
   and receive until he has felt it. My hearer, hast thou ever felt this
   doctrine to be true--"my sin is exceeding great?" Sickness is a
   terrible thing, more especially when it is accompanied with pain, when
   the poor body is racked to an extreme, so that the spirit fails within
   us, and we are dried up like a potsherd; but I bear witness in this
   place this morning, that sickness however agonizing, is nothing like
   the discovery of the evil of sin. I had rather pass through seven years
   of the most wearisome pain, and the most languishing sickness, than I
   would ever again pass through the terrible discovery of the terrors of
   sin. There be some of you who will understand what I mean; for brother,
   you have felt the same. Once on a time, you were playing with your
   lusts, and dallying with your sin, and it pleased God to open your eyes
   to see that sin is exceeding sinful. You remember the horror of that
   state, it seemed as if all hideous things were gathered into one dread
   and awful spectacle. You had before loved your iniquities, but now you
   loathed them--and you loathed yourselves; before, you had thought that
   your transgressions might easily be got rid of, they were matters that
   might be speedily washed out by repentance, or purged away by amendment
   of your life; but now sin seemed an alarming thing, and that you should
   have committed all this iniquity; life seemed to you a curse, and
   death, if it had not been for that dreary something after death, would
   have been to you the highest blessing, if you could have escaped the
   lashings of your conscience, which seemed to be perpetually whipping
   you with whips of burning wire. Some of you, perhaps, passed through
   but a little of this. God was graciously pleased to give you
   deliverance in a few hours; but you must confess that those hours were
   hours into which it seemed as if years of misery had been compressed.
   It was my sad lot for three or four years, to feel the greatness of my
   sin without a discovery of the greatness of God's mercy. I had to walk
   through this world with more than a world upon my shoulders, and
   sustain a grief that so far exceeds all other griefs, as a mountain
   exceeds a mole hill; and I often wonder to this day how it was, that my
   hand was kept from rending my own body into pieces through the terrible
   agony which I felt, when I discovered the greatness of my
   transgression. Yet, I had not been a greater sinner than any one of you
   here present, openly and publicly, but heart sins were laid bare, sins
   of lip and tongue were discovered, and then I knew--oh, that I may
   never have to learn over again in such a dreadful school this terrible
   lesson--"The iniquity of Judah and of Israel is exceeding great." This
   is the first part of the discourse.

   II. "Well," cries one, turning on his heel, "there is very little
   comfort in that. It is enough to drive one to despair, if not to
   madness itself." Ah friend! such is the very design of this text. If I
   may have the pleasure of driving you to despair, if it be a despair of
   your self-righteousness and a despair of saving your own soul, I shall
   be thrice happy.

   We turn therefore from that terrible text to the second one,--the first
   of John, the first chapter, and the seventh verse;--"The blood of Jesus
   Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." There lies the blackness;
   here stands the Lord Jesus Christ. What will he do with it? Will he go
   and speak to it, and say, "This is no great evil; this blackness is but
   a little spot?" Oh! no; he looks at it, and he says, "This is terrible
   blackness, darkness that may be felt; this is an exceeding great evil."
   Will he cover it up then? Will he weave a mantle of excuse and then
   wrap it round about the iniquity? Ah! no; whatever covering there may
   have been he lifts it off; and he declares that when the Spirit of
   truth is come he will convince the world of sin, and lay the sinner's
   conscience bare and probe the wound to the bottom. What then will he
   do? He will do a far better thing than make an excuse or than to
   pretend in any way to speak lightly of it. He will cleanse it all away,
   remove it entirely by the power and meritorious virtue of his own
   blood, which is able to save unto the uttermost. The gospel does not
   consist in making a man's sin appear little. The way Christians get
   their peace is not by seeing their sins shrivelled and shrinking until
   they seem small to them. But on the contrary; they, first of all, see
   their sins expanding, and then, after that, they obtain their peace by
   seeing those sins entirely swept away,--far as the east is from the
   west.

   Now, carrying in mind the remarks I made upon the first text, I call
   your attention for a few moments to the greatness and beauty of the
   second one. Note here, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us
   from ALL sin." Dwell on the word "all" for a moment. Our sins are
   great; every sin is great; but there are some that in our apprehension
   seem to be greater than others. There are crimes that the lip of
   modesty could not mention. I might go far in this pulpit this morning
   in describing the degradation of human nature in the sins which it has
   invented. It is amazing how the ingenuity of man seems to have
   exhausted itself in inventing fresh crimes. Surely there is not the
   possibility of the invention of a new sin. But if there be, ere long
   man will invent it, for man seemeth exceedingly cunning, and full of
   wisdom in the discovery of means of destroying himself and the
   endeavour to injure his Maker. But there are some sins that show a
   diabolical extent of degraded ingenuity--some sins of which it were a
   shame to speak, of which it were disgraceful to think. But note here:
   "The blood of Jesus Christ eleanseth from all sin." There may be some
   sins of which a man cannot speak, but there is no sin which the blood
   of Christ cannot wash away. Blasphemy, however profane, lust, however
   bestial; covetousness, however far it may have gone into theft and
   rapine; breach of the commandments of God, however much of riot it may
   have run, all this may be pardoned and washed away through the blood of
   Jesus Christ. In all the long list of human sins, though that be long
   as time, there standeth but one sin that is unpardonable, and that one
   no sinner has committed if he feels within himself a longing for mercy,
   for that sin once committed, the soul becomes hardened, dead, and
   seared, and never desireth afterwards to find peace with God. I
   therefore declare to thee, O trembling sinner, that however great thine
   iniquity may be, whatever sin thou mayest have committed in all the
   list of guilt, however far thou mayest have exceeded all thy
   fellow-creatures, though thou mayest have distanced the Pauls and
   Magdalens and every one of the most heinous culprits in the black race
   of sin, yet the blood of Christ is able now to wash thy sin away. Mark!
   I speak not lightly of thy sin, it is exceeding great; but I speak
   still more loftily of the blood of Christ. Great as are thy sins, the
   blood of Christ is greater still. Thy sins are like great mountains,
   but the blood of Christ is like Noah's flood; twenty cubits upwards
   shall this blood prevail, and the top of the mountains of thy sin shall
   be covered.

   Just take the word "all" in another sense, not only as taking in all
   sorts of sin, but as comprehending the great aggregate mass of sin.
   Come here sinner, thou with the grey head. What are we to understand in
   thy case by this word all? Bring hither the tremendous load of the sins
   of thy youth. Those sins are still in thy bones, and thy tottering
   knees sometimes testify against the iniquities of thy early youth; but
   all these sins Christ can remove. Now bring hither the sins of thy
   riper manhood, thy transgressions in the family, thy failures in
   business, all the mistakes and all the errors thou hast committed in
   the thoughts of thy heart. Bring them all here; and then add the
   iniquities of thy frail and trembling age. What a mass is there here!
   what a mass of sin! Stir up that putrid mass, but put thy finger to thy
   nostrils first, for thou canst not bear the stench thereof if thou art
   a man with a living and quickened conscience. Couldst thou bear to read
   thine own diary if thou hadst written there all thy acts? No; for
   though thou be the purest of mankind, thy thoughts if they could have
   been recorded, would now if thou couldst read them, make thee startle
   and wonder that thou art demon enough to have had such imaginations
   within thy soul. But put them all there, and all these sins the blood
   of Christ can wash away.

   Nay, more than that. Come hither ye thousands who are gathered together
   this morning to listen to the Word of God; what is the aggregate of
   your guilt? Hither ye have come, men of every grade and class, and
   women of every age and order; what is the mass of all your united
   guilt? Could ye put it so that mortal observation could comprehend the
   whole within its ken, it were as a mountain with a base, broad as
   eternity, and a summit lofty almost as the throne of the great
   archangel. But, remember, the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth
   from all sin. Let but the blood be applied to our consciences and all
   our guilt is removed, and cast away for ever--all--none left, not one
   solitary stain remaining--all gone, like Israel's enemies--all drowned
   in the Red Sea, so that there was not one of them left, all swept away,
   not so much as the remembrance of them remaining. "The blood of Jesus
   Christ cleanseth from all sin."

   Yet, once more, in the praise of this blood we must notice one further
   feature. There be some of you here who are saying, "Ah! that shall be
   my hope when I come to die, that in the last hour of my extremity the
   blood of Christ will take my sins away; it is now my comfort to think
   that the blood of Christ shall wash, and purge, and purify the
   transgressions of life." But, mark! my text saith not so; it does not
   say the blood of Christ shall cleanse--that were a truth--but it says
   something greater than that--it says, "The blood of Jesus Christ his
   Son cleanseth"--cleanseth now. And is it possible that now a man may be
   forgiven? Can a harlot now have all her sins blotted out of the book of
   God? And can she know it? Can the thief this day have all his
   transgressions cast into the sea; and can he know it? Can I, the chief
   of sinners, this day be cleansed from all my sins, and know it? Can I
   know that I stand accepted before the throne of God, a holy creature
   because washed from every sin? Yes, tell it the wide world over, that
   the blood of Christ can not only wash you in the last dying article,
   but can wash you now. And let it be known, moreover, that to this there
   are a thousand witnesses, who, rising in this very place from their
   seats, could sing--

   "Oh, how sweet to view the flowing

   Of my Saviour's precious blood,

   With divine assurance knowing,

   He has made my peace with God"

   What would you not give to have all your sins blotted out now? Would
   you not give yourself away to become the servant of God for ever, if
   now your sins should be washed away? Ah, then, say not in your hearts,
   "What shall I do to obtain this mercy?" Imagine not there is any
   difficulty in your way. Suppose not there is some hard thing to be done
   before you can come to Christ to be washed, O beloved! to the man that
   knows himself to be guilty, there is not one barrier between himself
   and Christ. Come, soul, this moment come to him that hung upon the
   cross of Calvary! come now and be washed.

   But what meanest thou by coming? I mean this: come thou and put thy
   trust in Christ, and thou shalt be saved. What is meant by believing in
   Christ? Some say, that "to believe in Christ is to believe that Christ
   died for me." That is not a satisfactory definition of faith. An
   Arminian believes that Christ died for everybody. He must, therefore,
   necessarily believe that Christ died for him. His believing that will
   not save him, for he will still remain an unconverted man and yet
   believe that. To believe in Christ is to trust him. The way I believe
   in Christ, and I know not how to speak of it, except as I feel it
   myself, is simply this: I know it is written that "Jesus Christ came
   into the world to save sinners." I do firmly believe that those he came
   to save he will save. The only question I ask myself is, "Can I put
   myself among that number whom he has declared he came to save?" Am I a
   sinner? Not one that utters the word in a complimentary sense, but do I
   feel the deep compunction in my inmost soul? do I stand and feel
   convicted, guilty, and condemned? I do; I know I do. Whatever I may not
   be, one thing I know I am--a sinner, guilty, consciously guilty, and
   often miserable on account of that guilt. Well, then, the Scripture
   says, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that
   Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."

   "And when thine eye of faith is dim,

   Still trust in Jesus, sink or swim;

   Thus, at his footstool, bow the knee,

   And Israel's God thy peace shall be,"

   Let me put my entire trust in the bloody sacrifice which he offered
   upon my behalf. No dependence will I have in my playings, my doings, my
   feelings, my weepings, my preachings, my thinkings, my Bible readings,
   nor all that. I would desire to have good works, and yet in my good
   works I will not put a shadow of trust.

   "Nothing in my hands I bring,

   Simply to thy cross I cling."

   And if there be any power in Christ to save I am saved; if there be an
   everlasting arm extended by Christ, and if that Saviour who hung there
   was "God over all, blessed for ever," and if his blood is still
   exhibited before the throne of God as the sacrifice for sin, then
   perish I cannot, till the throne of God shall break, and till the
   pillars of God's justice shall crumble.

   Now, sinner what then hast thou to do this morning? If thou feelest thy
   guilt to be great, cast thyself entirely upon this sacrifice by blood.
   "But no," says one, "I have not felt enough." Thy feelings are not
   Christ. "No, but I have not prayed enough." Thy prayers are not Christ,
   and thy prayers cannot save thee. "No, but I have not repented enough."
   Thy repentance may destroy thee, if thou puttest that in the place of
   Christ. All that thou hast, I repeat this morning, is this--dost thou
   feel thyself to be a lost, ruined, guilty sinner? Then simply cast
   thyself on the fact that Christ is able to save sinners and rest there.
   What! do you say you cannot do it? Oh may God enable you, may he give
   you faith, sink or swim, to cast yourself on that. "Well! but," you
   say, "I may not; being such a sinner?" You may; and God never yet
   rejected a sinner that sought salvation by Jesus. Such a thing never
   happened, though the sinner sometimes thought it had. Come, the crumb
   is under the table; though thou be but a dog come and pick it up; it is
   a privilege even for the dog to take it; and mercy that is great to
   thee, is but a crumb to him that gives it freely--come and take it.
   Christ will not reject thee. And if thou be the chief of sinners that
   ever lived, only simply trust thyself upon him, and perish thou canst
   not, if God be God, and if this Bible be the book of his truth. The
   Lord now help each one of us to come afresh to Christ, and to his name
   be glory.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                Samson Conquered

   A Sermon

   (No. 224)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, November 21st, 1858, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

   "And she said, the Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out
   of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and
   shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him. But
   the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to
   Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the
   prison house."--Judges 16:20-21.

   SAMSON IS, IN MANY RESPECTS, one of the most remarkable men whose
   history is recorded in the pages of inspiration. He enjoyed a singular
   privilege only accorded to one other person in the Old Testament. His
   birth was foretold to his parents by an angel. Isaac was promised to
   Abraham and Sarah by angels whom they entertained unawares; but save
   Isaac, Samson was the only one whose birth was foretold by an angelic
   messenger before the opening of the gospel dispensation. Before his
   birth he was dedicated to God, and set apart as a Nazarite. Now, a
   Nazarite was a person who was entirely consecrated to God, and in token
   of his consecration he drank no wine; and allowed his hair to grow,
   untouched by the razor. Samson, you may therefore understand, was
   entirely consecrated to God, and when any saw him, they would say,
   "That man is God's man, a Nazarite, set apart." God endowed Samson with
   supernatural strength, a strength which never could have been the
   result of mere thews and sinews. It was not the fashioning of Samson's
   body that made him strong; it was not the arm, or the fist with which
   he smote the Philistines; it was a miracle that dwelt within him, a
   continued going forth of the omnipotence of God, which made him
   mightier than thousands of his enemies. Samson appears very early to
   have discovered in himself this great strength, for "the Spirit of the
   Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan." He judged Israel
   for thirty years, and gloriously did he deliver them. What a noble
   being he must have been! See him, when he steps into the vineyard for a
   moment from his parents. A lion that has been crouching there springs
   upon him, but he meets him all unarmed, receives him upon his brawny
   arms and rends him like a kid. See him afterwards, when his countrymen
   have bound him and taken him down from the top of the rock, and
   delivered him up to the thousands of the Philistines. He has scarcely
   come near them, when, without a weapon, with his own foot, he begins to
   spurn them; and seeing there the jaw-bone of an ass, he takes that
   ignoble weapon, and sweeps away the men that had helmets about their
   heads and were girded with greaves of brass. Nor did his vigour fail
   him in his later life, for he died in the very prime of his days. One
   of his greatest exploits was performed at this very season. He is
   entrapped in the city of Gaza. He remains there till midnight; so
   confident is he in his strength that he is in no hurry to depart, and
   instead of assailing the guard, and making them draw the bolts, he
   wrenches up the two posts, and takes away the gate, bar and all, and,
   carries his mighty burden for miles to the top of a hill that is before
   Hebron. Every way it must have been a great thing to see this man,
   especially if one had him for a friend. Had one been his foe, the more
   distant the sight the better, for none could escape from him but those
   who fled; but to have him for a friend and to stand with him in the day
   of battle, was to feel that you had an army in a single man, and had in
   one frame that which would strike thousands with terror. Samson,
   however, though he had great physical strength, had but little mental
   force, and even less spiritual power. His whole life is a scene of
   miracles and follies. He had but little grace, and was easily overcome
   by temptation. He is enticed and led astray. Often corrected; still he
   sins again. At last he falls into the hands of Delilah. She is bribed
   with an enormous sum, and she endeavours to get from him the secret of
   his strength. He foolishly toys with the danger, and plays with his own
   destruction. At last goaded by her importunity, he lets out the secret
   which he ought to have confided to no one but himself. The secret of
   his strength lay in his locks. Not that his hair made him strong; but
   that his hair was the symbol of his consecration, and was the pledge of
   God's favour to him. While his hair was untouched he was a consecrated
   man; as soon as that was cut away, he was no longer perfectly
   consecrated, and then his strength departed from him. His hair is cut
   away; the locks that covered him once are taken from him, and there he
   stands a shaveling, weak as other men. Now the Philistines begin to
   oppress him, and his eyes are burned out with hot iron. How are the
   mighty fallen! How are the great ones taken in the net! Samson, the
   great hero of Israel, is seen with a shuffling gait walking towards
   Gaza. A shuffling gait, I said, because he had just received blindness,
   which was a new thing to him, therefore, he had not as yet learned to
   walk as well as those who, having been blind for years, at last learn
   to set their feet firmly upon the earth. With his feet bound together
   with brazen fetters--an unusual mode of binding a prisoner, but adopted
   in this case because Samson was supposed to be still so strong, that
   any other kind of fetter would have been insufficient--you see him
   walking along in the midst of a small escort towards Gaza. And now he
   comes to the very city out of which he had walked in all his pride with
   the gates and bolts upon his shoulders; and the little children come
   out, the lower orders of the people come round about him, and point at
   him--"Samson, the great hero, hath fallen! let us make sport of him!"
   What a spectacle! The hot sun is beating upon his bare head, which had
   once been protected by those luxuriant locks. Look at the escort who
   guard him, a mere handful of men, how they would have fled before him
   in his brighter days; but now a child might overcome him. They take him
   to a place where an ass is grinding at the mill, and Samson must do the
   same ignoble work. Why, he must be the sport and jest of every passer
   by, and of every fool who shall step in to see this great wonder--the
   destroyer of the Philistines made to toil at the mill. Ah, what a fall
   was there, my brethren! We might indeed stand and weep over poor blind
   Samson. That he should have lost his eyes was terrible; that he should
   have lost his strength was worse; but that he should have lost the
   favour of God for awhile; that he should become the sport of God's
   enemies, was the worst of all. Over this indeed we might weep.

   Now, why have I narrated this story? Why should I direct your attention
   to Samson? For this reason. Every child of God is a consecrated man.
   His consecration is not typified by any outward symbol; we are not
   commanded to let our hair grow for ever, nor to abstain from meats or
   drinks. The Christian is a consecrated man, but his consecration is
   unseen by his fellows, except in the outward deeds which are the result
   thereof.

   And now I want to speak to you, my dear friends, as consecrated men, as
   Nazarites, and I think I shall find a lesson for you in the history of
   Samson. My first point shall be the strength of the consecrated, for
   they are strong men; secondly, the secret of their strength; thirdly,
   the danger to which they are exposed; and fourthly, the disgrace which
   will come upon them if they fall into this danger.

   I. First, THE STRENGTH OF THE CONSECRATED MAN. Do you know that the
   strongest man in all the world is a consecrated man? Even though he may
   consecrate himself to a wrong object, yet if it be a thorough
   consecration, he will have strength--strength for evil, it may be, but
   still strength. In the old Roman wars with Pyrrhus, you remember an
   ancient story of self-devotion. There was an oracle which said that
   victory would attend that army whose leader should give himself up to
   death. Decius the Roman Consul, knowing this, rushed into the thickest
   of the battle, that his army might overcome by his dying. The prodigies
   of valour which he performed are proofs of the power of consecration.
   The Romans at that time seemed to be every man a hero, because every
   man was a consecrated man. They went to battle with this thought--"I
   will conquer or die; the name of Rome is written on my heart; for my
   country I am prepared to live, or for that to shed my blood." And no
   enemies could ever stand against them. If a Roman fell there were no
   wounds in his back, but all in his breast. His face, even in cold
   death, was like the face of a lion, and when looked upon it was of
   terrible aspect. They were men consecrated to their country; they were
   ambitious to make the name of Rome the noblest word in human language;
   and consequently the Roman became a giant. And to this day let a man
   get a purpose within him, I care not what his purpose is, and let his
   whole soul be absorbed by it, and what will he not do? You that are
   "everything by turns and nothing long," that have nothing to live for,
   soulless carcases that walk this earth and waste its air, what can you
   do? Why nothing. But the man who knows what he is at, and has his mark,
   speeds to it "Like an arrow from a bow shot by an archer strong."
   Nought can turn him aside from his design. How much more is this true
   if I limit the description to that which is peculiar to the
   Christian--consecration to God! Oh! what strength that man has who is
   dedicated to God! Is there such an one here? I know there is. I know
   that there be many who have consecrated themselves to the Lord God of
   Israel in the secret of their chamber; and who can say in their hearts,

   "Tis done; the great transaction's done

   I am my Lord's, and he is mine.

   He drew me, and I followed on,

   Glad to obey the voice divine."

   Now, the man that can say that, and is thoroughly consecrated to God;
   be he who he may or what he may, he is a strong man, and will work
   marvels.

   Need I tell you of the wonders that have been done by consecrated men?
   You have read the stories of olden times, when our religion was hunted
   like a partridge on the mountains. Did you never hear how consecrated
   men and women endured unheard-of pangs and agonies? Have you not read
   how they were cast to the lions, how they were sawn in sunder, how they
   languished in prisons, or met with the swifter death of the sword? Have
   you not heard how they wandered about in sheeps' skins and goats'
   skins, destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not
   worthy? Have you not heard how they defied tyrants to their face, how,
   when they were threatened, they dared most boldly to laugh at all the
   threats of the foe--how at the stake they clapped their hands in the
   fire, and sang psalms of triumph when men, worse than fiends, were
   jeering at their miseries? How was this? What made women stronger than
   men, and men stronger than angels? Why this,--they were consecrated to
   God. They felt that every pang which rent their heart was giving glory
   to God, that all the pains they endured in their bodies were but the
   marks of the Lord Jesus, whereby they were proven to be wholly
   dedicated unto him. Nor in this alone has the power of the consecrated
   ones been proved. Have you never heard how the sanctified ones have
   done wonders? Read the stories of those who counted not their lives
   dear unto them, that they might honour their Lord and Master by
   preaching his Word, by telling forth the gospel in foreign lands. Have
   you not heard how men have left their kindred and their friends, and
   all that life held dear--have crossed the stormy sea, and have gone
   into the lands of the heathen, where men were devouring one another?
   Have you not known how they have put their foot upon that country, and
   have seen the ship that conveyed them there fading away in the
   distance, and yet without a fear have dwelt amongst the wild savages of
   the woods, have walked into the midst of them, and told them the simple
   story of the God that loved and died for man? You must know how those
   men have conquered, how those, who seemed to be fiercer than lions,
   have crouched before them, have listened to their words, and have been
   converted by the majesty of the gospel which they preached. What made
   these men heroes? What enabled them to rend themselves away from all
   their kith and kin, and banish themselves into the land of the
   stranger? It was because they were consecrated, thoroughly consecrated
   to the Lord Jesus Christ. What is there in the world which the
   consecrated man cannot do? Tempt him; offer him gold and silver; carry
   him to the mountain top, and show him all the kingdoms of the world,
   and tell him he shall have all these if he will bow down and worship
   the god of this world. What saith the consecrated man? "Get thee behind
   me, Satan; I have more than all this which thou dost offer me; this
   world is mine, and worlds to come; I despise the temptation; I will not
   bow before thee." Let men threaten a consecrated man, what does he say?
   "I fear God, and, therefore, I cannot fear you; if it be right in your
   sight to obey man rather than God, judge ye; but, as for me, I will
   serve none but God." You may, perhaps, have seen in your life a
   consecrated man. Is he a public character? What cannot he do? He
   preaches the gospel, and at once a thousand enemies assail him; they
   attack him on every side; some for this thing, and some for that; his
   very virtues are distorted into vices, and his slightest faults are
   magnified into the greatest crimes. He has scarce a friend; the very
   ministers of the gospel shun him; he is reckoned to be so strange that
   every one must avoid him. What does he do? Within the chamber of his
   own heart he holds conference with his God, and asks himself this
   question--am I right? Conscience gives the verdict,--yes, and the
   Spirit bears witness with his spirit that conscience is impartial.
   "Then," says he, "come fair, come foul, if I am right,--neither to the
   right hand nor to the left will I turn." Perhaps he feels in secret
   what he will not express in public. He feels the pang of desertion,
   obloquy, and rebuke; he cries--

   "If on my face, for thy dear name,

   Shame and reproach shall be,

   I'll hail reproach, and welcome shame,

   If thou'lt remember me."

   As for himself in public, none can tell that he careth for any of these
   things; for he can say with Paul--"None of these things move me,
   neither count I my life dear unto me that I may win Christ and finish
   my course with joy." What cannot a consecrated man do? I do believe if
   he had the whole world against him, he would prove more than a match
   for them all. He would say--"Heaps upon heaps, with the jaw-bone of an
   ass, have I slain my thousand men." I care not how violent may be his
   foe; nor how great may be the advantage which that foe may get on him:
   though the lion may have crouched for the spring, and may be leaping
   upon him, yet will he rend him as a kid, for he is more than a
   conqueror through him that loved him. He is alone such, who is wholly
   consecrated unto the Lord Jesus Christ.

   "But," says some one, "can we be consecrated to Christ? I thought that
   was for ministers only." Oh, no, my brethren; all God's children must
   be consecrated men. What are you? Are you engaged in business? If you
   are what you profess to be, your business must be consecrated to God.
   Perhaps you have no family whatever, and you are engaged in trade, and
   are saving some considerable sum a-year; let me tell you the example of
   a man thoroughly consecrated to God. There lives in Bristol, (name
   unknown), a man whose income is large; and what does he do with it? He
   labours in business continually that this income may come to him, but
   of it, every farthing every year is expended in the Lord's cause except
   that which he requires for the necessaries of life. He makes his
   necessities as few as possible, that he may have the more to give away.
   He is God's man in his business. I do not exhort you to do the same.
   You may be in a different position; but a man who has a family, and is
   in business, should be able to say--"Now, I make so much from my
   business; my family must be provided for--but I seek not to amass
   riches. I will make money for God and I will spend it in his cause. Did
   I not say, when I joined the church--

   "All that I am, and all I have,

   Shall be for ever thine;

   Whate'er my duty bids me give,

   My cheerful hands resign."

   And if I said it, I meant it." I do not understand some Christian
   people who sing that hymn, and then pinch, screw, and nip anything when
   it comes to God's cause. If I sing that, I mean it. I would not sing it
   unless I did. If I join the church, I understand that I give myself and
   all that I have up to that church; I would not make a lying profession;
   I would not make an avowal of a consecration which I did not mean. If I
   have said, "I am Christ's;" by his grace I will be Christ's. Brethren,
   you in business may be as much consecrated to Christ as the minister in
   his pulpit; you may make your ordinary transactions in life a solemn
   service of God. Many a man has disgraced a cassock, and many another
   has consecrated a smockfrock: many a man has defiled his pulpit
   cushions, and many another has made a cobbler's lapstone holiness unto
   the Lord. Happy the man who is consecrated unto the Lord; where'er he
   is, he is a consecrated man, and he shall do wonders.

   It has often been remarked that in this age we are all little men. A
   hundred years ago, or more, if we had gone through the churches, we
   might have readily found a number of ministers of great note. But now
   we are all little men, the drivelling sons of nobodies; our names shall
   never be remembered, for we do nothing to deserve it. There is scarce a
   man alive now upon this earth; there are plenty to be found who call
   themselves men, but they are the husks of men, the life has gone from
   them, the precious kernel seems to have departed. The littleness of
   Christians of this age results from the littleness of their
   consecration to Christ. The age of John Owen was the day of great
   preachers; but let me tell you, that that was the age of great
   consecration. Those great preachers whose names we remember, were men
   who counted nothing their own: they were driven out from their
   benefices, because they could not conform to the Established Church,
   and they gave up all they had willingly to the Lord. They were hunted
   from place to place; the disgraceful five-mile act would not permit
   them to come within five miles of any market town; they wandered here
   and there to preach the gospel to a few poor sheep, being fully given
   up to their Lord. Those were foul times; but they promised they would
   walk the road fair or foul, and they did walk it knee deep in mud; and
   they would have walked it if it had been knee deep in blood too. They
   became great men; and if we were, as they were, wholly given up to
   God--if we could say of ourselves, "From the crown of my head to the
   sole of my foot, there is not a drop of blood that is not wholly God's;
   all my time, all my talents, everything I have is God's"--if we could
   say that, we should be strong like Samson, for the consecrated must be
   strong.

   II. Now, in the second place, THE SECRET OF THEIR STRENGTH. What makes
   the consecrated man strong? Ah! beloved; there is no strength in man of
   himself. Samson without his God was but a poor fool indeed. The secret
   of Samson's strength was this--as long as he was consecrated he should
   be strong; so long as he was thoroughly devoted to his God, and had no
   object but to serve God, (and that was to be indicated by the growing
   of his hair) so long, and no longer, would God be with him to help him.
   And now you see, dear friends, that if you have any strength to serve
   God, the secret of your strength lies in the same place. What strength
   have you save in God? Ah! I have heard some men talk as if the strength
   of free will, of human nature, was sufficient to carry men to heaven.
   Free will has carried many souls to hell, but never a soul to heaven
   yet. No strength of nature can suffice to serve the Lord aright. No man
   can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Ghost. No man can come
   to Christ except the Father that hath sent Christ doth draw him. If,
   then, the first act of Christian life is beyond all human strength, how
   much more are those higher steps far beyond any one of us? Do we not
   utter a certain truth when we say in the words of Scripture, "Not that
   we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but
   our sufficiency is of God." I think every one who has a really
   quickened soul will sooner or later be made to feel this. Ay! I
   question whether a man can be converted a day without finding out his
   own weakness. It is but a little space before the child finds that he
   can stand alone so long as God his Father takes him by the arms and
   teaches him to go, but that if his Father's hand be taken away he has
   no power to stand, but down he falls at once. See Samson without his
   God, going out against a thousand men. Would they not laugh at him? and
   with scarcely time to express his terror, he would flee, or be rent in
   pieces. Imagine him without his God, locked up in Gaza, the gates fast
   closed. He goes out into the streets to escape; but how can he clear a
   passage? He is caught like a wild bull in a net; he may go round and
   round the walls, but where shall be his deliverance? Without his God he
   is but as other men. The secret of his strength lies in his
   consecration, and in the strength which is its result. Remember, then,
   the secret of your strength. Never think that you have any power of
   your own; rely wholly upon the God of Israel; and remember that the
   channel through which that strength must come to you must be your
   entire consecration to God.

   III. In the third place, What is THE PECULIAR DANGER OF A CONSECRATED
   MAN? His danger is that his locks may be shorn, that is to say, that
   his consecration may be broken. As long as he is consecrated he is
   strong; break that, he is weak as water. Now there are a thousand
   razors with which the devil can shave off the locks of a consecrated
   man without his knowing it. Samson is sound asleep; so clever is the
   barber that he even lulls him to sleep as his fingers move across the
   pate, the fool's pate, which he is making bare. The devil is cleverer
   far than even the skilful barber; he can shave the believer's locks
   while he scarcely knows it. Shall I tell you with what razors he can
   accomplish this work? Sometimes he takes the sharp razor of pride, and
   when the Christian falls asleep and is not vigilant, he comes with it
   and begins to run his fingers upon the Christian's locks, and says,
   "What a fine fellow you are! What wonders you have done! Didn't you
   rend that lion finely? Wasn't it a great feat to smite those
   Philistines hip and thigh? Ah you will be talked-of as long as time
   endures for carrying those gates of Gaza away. You need not be afraid
   of anybody." And so on goes the razor, lock after lock falling off, and
   Samson knows it not. He is just thinking within himself, "How brave am
   I! How great am I!" Thus works the razor of pride--cut, cut, cut
   away--and he wakes up to find himself bald, and all his strength gone.
   Have you never had that razor upon your head? I confess I have on mine.
   Have you never, after you have been able to endure afflictions, heard a
   voice saying to you, "How patient you were!" After you have cast aside
   some temptation, and have been able to keep to the unswerving course of
   integrity, has not Satan said to you, "That is a fine thing you have
   done; that was bravely done." And all the while you little knew that it
   was the cunning hand of the evil one taking away your locks with the
   sharp razor of pride. For mark, pride is a breach of our consecration.
   As soon as I begin to get proud of what I do, or what I am, what am I
   proud of? Why, there is in that pride the act of taking away from God
   his glory. For I promised that God should have all the glory, and is
   not that part of my consecration? and I am taking it to myself. I have
   broken my consecration; my locks are gone, and I become weak. Mark
   this, Christian--God will never give thee strength to glorify thyself
   with. God will give thee a crown, but not to put on thine own head. As
   sure as ever a Christian begins to write his feats, and his triumphs
   upon his own escutcheon, and take to himself the glory, God will lay
   him level with the dust.

   Another razor he also uses is self-sufficiency. "Ah," saith the devil
   as he is shaving away your locks, "You have done a very great deal. You
   see they bound you with green withes, and you snapped them in sunder,
   they merely smelt the fire and they burst. Then they took new ropes to
   bind you; ah! you overcame even them; for you snapped the ropes in
   sunder as if they had been a thread. Then they weaved the seven locks
   of your head, but you walked away with loon, and web too, beam and all.
   You can do anything, don't be afraid: you have strength enough to do
   anything; you can accomplish any feat you set your will upon." How
   softly the devil will do all that; how will he be rubbing the poll
   while the razor is moving softly along and the locks are dropping off,
   and he is treading them in the dust. "You have done all this, and you
   can do anything else." Every drop of grace distils from heaven. O my
   brethren, what have we that we have not received? Let us not imagine
   that we can create might wherewith to gird ourselves. "All my springs
   are in thee." The moment we begin to think that it is our own arm that
   has gotten us the victory, it will be all over with us--our locks of
   strength shall be taken away, and the glory shall depart from us. So,
   you see, self-sufficiency, as well as pride, may be the razor with
   which the enemy may shave away our strength.

   There is yet another, and a more palpable danger still. When a
   consecrated man begins to change his purpose in life and live for
   himself--that razor shaves clean indeed. There is a minister; when he
   first began his ministry he could say, "God is my witness I have but
   one object, that I may free my skirts from the blood of every one of my
   hearers, that I may preach the gospel faithfully and honour my Master."
   In a little time, tempted by Satan, he changes his tone and talks like
   this, "I must keep my congregation up. If I preach such hard doctrine,
   they won't come. Did not one of the newspapers criticise me, and did
   not some of my people go away from me because of it? I must mind what I
   am at. I must keep this thing going. I must look out a little sharper,
   and prone my speech down. I must adopt a little gentler style, or
   preach a new-fashioned doctrine; for I must keep my popularity up. What
   is to become of me if I go down? People will say, Up like a rocket,
   down like the stick;' and then shall all my enemies laugh." Ah, when
   once a man begins to care so much as a snap of the finger about the
   world, it is all over with him. If he can go to his pulpit, and say, "I
   have got a message to deliver; and whether they will hear or whether
   they will not hear, I will deliver it as God puts it into my mouth; I
   will not change the dot of an i, or the cross of a t for the biggest
   man that lives, or to bring in the mightiest congregation that ever sat
   at minister's feet"--that man is mighty. He does not let human
   judgments move him, and he will move the world. But let him turn aside,
   and think about his congregation, and how that shall be kept up; ah
   Samson! how are thy locks shorn? What canst thou do now? That false
   Delilah has destroyed thee--thine eyes are put out, thy comfort is
   taken away, and thy future ministry shall be like the grinding of an
   ass around the continually revolving mill; thou shalt have no rest or
   peace ever afterwards. Or let him turn aside another way. Suppose he
   should say, "I must get preferment, or wealth, I must look well to
   myself, I must see my nest feathered, that must he the object of my
   life." I am not now speaking of the ministry merely, but of all the
   consecrated; and as sure as ever we begin to make self the primary
   object of our existence our locks are shorn. "Now," says the Lord, "I
   gave that man strength, but not to use it for himself. Then I put him
   into a high position, but not that he might clothe himself about with
   glory; I put him there that he might look to my cause, to my interests;
   and if he does not do that first, down he shall go." You remember Queen
   Esther: she is exalted from being a simple humble maiden, to become the
   wife of the great monarch--Ahasuerus. Well, Haman gets a decree against
   her nation, that it shall be destroyed. Poor Mordecai comes to Esther,
   and says, "You must go in to the king and speak to him." "Well," says
   she, "but if I do I shall die." "Ah," says he, "If thou altogether
   holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and
   deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy
   father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art
   come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Esther was not made Queen
   Esther that she might make herself glorious, but that she might be in a
   position to save the Jews; and now if she prefers herself before her
   country then it is all over with her--Vashti's fate shall be as nothing
   compared with her destruction.

   And so, if you live in this world, and God prospers you, you get
   perhaps into some position, and you say, "Here I am; I will look out
   for myself; I have been serving the church before, but now I will look
   to myself a little." "Come, come," says human nature; "you must look
   after your family," (which means, you must look after yourself). Very
   well, do it sir, as your main object, and you are a ruined man. "Seek
   first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these shall be
   added to you." If you keep your eye single, your whole body shall be
   full of light. Though you seemed as if you had shut out half the light
   by having that single eye, yet your body shall be full of light. But
   begin to have two masters, and two objects to serve, and you shall
   serve neither; you shall neither prosper for this world, nor for that
   which is to come. Oh, Christian, above all things take care of thy
   consecration. Ever feel that thou art wholly given up to God, and to
   God alone.

   IV. And now, lastly, there is THE CHRISTIAN'S DISGRACE. His locks are
   cut off. I have seen him, young as I am, and you with grey hairs upon
   your brows have seen him oftener than I; I have seen him in the
   ministry. He spake like an angel of God; many there were that regarded
   him, and did hang upon his lips; he seemed to be sound in doctrine and
   earnest in manner. I have seen him turn aside; it was but a little
   thing,--some slight deviation from the ancient orthodoxy of his
   fathers, some slight violation of the law of his church. I have seen
   him, till he has given up doctrine after doctrine, until, at last, the
   very place wherein he preached has become a bye-word and a proverb; and
   the man is pointed out by the grey-headed sire to his child as a man
   who is to be looked upon with suspicion; who, if he lectures, is to be
   heard with caution; and if he preaches, is not to be listened to at
   all. Have you not seen him? What disgrace was there! What a fall! The
   man who came out in the camps of Dan, and seemed to be moved by the
   Spirit of the Lord, has become the slave of error. He has gone into the
   very camps of the enemy, and there he is now, grinding in the mill for
   the Philistine, whom he ought to have been striking with his arm. Now
   there are two ways of accounting for this. Such a man is either a
   thorough hypocrite or a fallen believer. Sometimes, people say of
   persons who turn aside to sin, "There now; look, there is a Christian
   fallen,--a child of God fallen." It is something like the vulgar, when
   at night they see a bright light in the sky, and say, "Ah, there is a
   star fallen." It was not a star; the stars are all right. Take a
   telescope; they are every one there. The Great Bear has not lost a star
   out of it's tail; and if you look, there is the belt of Orion all safe,
   and the dagger has not dropped out of it. What is it, then? We do not
   know exactly what it is. Perhaps it may be a few gases up there for a
   little while, that have burst, and that is all; or some wandering
   substance cast down,--and quite time that it should be. But the stars
   are all right. So, depend upon it, the children of God are always safe.
   Now these men who have turned aside and broken their consecration vow,
   are pointed at as a disgrace to themselves and dishonour to the church.
   And you who are members of Christ's church, you have seen men who stood
   in your ranks as firm soldiers of the cross, and you have noticed them
   go out, from us, "because they were not of us," or like poor Samson,
   you have seen them go to their graves with the eyes of their comfort
   put out, with the feet of their usefulness bound with brazen fetters,
   and with the strength of their arms entirely departed from them. Now,
   do any of you wish to be backsliders? Do you wish to betray the holy
   profession of your religion? My brethren, is there one among you who
   this day makes a profession of love to Christ, who desires to be an
   apostate? Is there one of you who desires like Samson to have his eyes
   put out, and to be made to grind in the mill? Would you, like David,
   commit a great sin, and go with broken bones to the grave? would you,
   like Lot, be drunken, and fall into lust? No, I know what you say,
   "Lord, let my path be like the eagle's flight; let me fly upwards to
   the sun, and never stay and never turn aside. Oh, give me grace that I
   may serve thee, like Caleb, with a perfect heart, and that from the
   beginning even to the end of my days, my course may be as the shining
   light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Ay, I know
   what is your desire. How, then, shall it be accomplished? Look well to
   your consecration; see that it is sincere; see that you mean it, and
   then look up to the Holy Spirit, after you have looked to your
   consecration, and beg of him to give you daily grace; for as day-by-day
   the manna fell, so must you receive daily food from on high. And,
   remember, it is not by any grace you have in you, but by the grace that
   is in Christ, and that must be given to you hour by hour, that you are
   to stand, and having done all, to be crowned at last as a faithful one,
   who has endured unto the end. I ask your prayers that I may be kept
   faithful to my Lord; and on the other hand, I will offer my earnest
   prayers, that you may serve him while he lends you breath, that when
   your voice is lost in death, you may throughout a never ending
   immortality, praise him in louder and sweeter strains.

   And as for you that have not given yourselves to God, and are not
   consecrated to him, I can only speak to you as to Philistines, and warn
   you, that the day shall come when Israel shall be avenged upon the
   Philistines. You may be one day assembled upon the roof of your
   pleasures, enjoying yourselves in health and strength; but there is a
   Samson--called Death, who shall pull down the pillars of your
   tabernacle, and you must fall and be destroyed--and great shall be the
   ruin. May God give you grace that you may be consecrated to Christ; so
   that living or dying, you may rejoice in him, and may share with him
   the glory of his Father.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture References

   Numbers

   [1]14:6-7

   Deuteronomy

   [2]33:25

   Judges

   [3]16:20-21

   1 Samuel

   [4]4:3

   Psalms

   [5]34:5   [6]46:8-9   [7]97:10

   Proverbs

   [8]4:23   [9]15:11

   Ecclesiastes

   [10]8:10

   Isaiah

   [11]8:20   [12]9:6   [13]9:6   [14]40:1   [15]45:7   [16]52:10
   [17]53:10   [18]55:1

   Jeremiah

   [19]8:6

   Ezekiel

   [20]33:5   [21]36:26

   Hosea

   [22]12:10

   Zechariah

   [23]6:13

   Matthew

   [24]6:9   [25]10:30   [26]20:28   [27]25:22-23

   Luke

   [28]2:14   [29]15:2   [30]15:10   [31]15:20   [32]16:2   [33]18:13
   [34]19:10

   John

   [35]6:44   [36]15:22   [37]17:24

   Acts

   [38]4:12   [39]10:44   [40]16:9   [41]17:6   [42]24:25   [43]26:14

   Romans

   [44]10:20-21

   1 Corinthians

   [45]9:24

   2 Corinthians

   [46]13:5

   Galatians

   [47]3:3   [48]3:10

   Philippians

   [49]4:7

   2 Thessalonians

   [50]1:3

   1 Timothy

   [51]1:15

   Hebrews

   [52]2:14   [53]12:24   [54]13:8

   1 Peter

   [55]1:6

   1 John

   [56]1:7   [57]3:2

   Jude

   [58]1:19

   Revelation

   [59]2:4
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture Commentary

   Numbers

   [60]14:6-7

   Deuteronomy

   [61]33:25

   Judges

   [62]16:20-21

   1 Samuel

   [63]4:3

   Psalms

   [64]34:5   [65]46:8-9   [66]97:10

   Proverbs

   [67]4:23   [68]15:11

   Ecclesiastes

   [69]8:10

   Isaiah

   [70]8:20   [71]9:6   [72]9:6   [73]40:1   [74]45:7   [75]52:10
   [76]53:10   [77]55:1

   Jeremiah

   [78]8:6

   Ezekiel

   [79]33:5   [80]36:26

   Hosea

   [81]12:10

   Zechariah

   [82]6:13

   Matthew

   [83]6:9   [84]10:30   [85]20:28   [86]25:22-23

   Luke

   [87]2:14   [88]15:2   [89]15:10   [90]15:20   [91]16:2   [92]18:13
   [93]19:10

   John

   [94]6:44   [95]15:22   [96]17:24

   Acts

   [97]4:12   [98]10:44   [99]16:9   [100]17:6   [101]24:25   [102]26:14

   Romans

   [103]10:20-21

   1 Corinthians

   [104]9:24

   2 Corinthians

   [105]13:5

   Galatians

   [106]3:3   [107]3:10

   Philippians

   [108]4:7

   2 Thessalonians

   [109]1:3

   1 Timothy

   [110]1:15

   Hebrews

   [111]2:14   [112]12:24   [113]13:8

   1 Peter

   [114]1:6

   1 John

   [115]1:7   [116]3:2

   Jude

   [117]1:19

   Revelation

   [118]2:4
     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

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