Rev. C. H. Spurgeon,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington

“And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.”-Genesis 45:3-5.

Joseph is a very eminent type of Christ. When he was hated of his brethren because he protested against their sins, and when they sold him for twenty pieces of silver, he was doubtlessly a portrait of the despised and rejected of men whom his disciple betrayed. Afterwards in his temptations in the house of Potiphar, in the slander and consequent imprisonment in the round house of Pharaoh’s prison, in his after advancement, till he became lord over all the land of Egypt, we clearly see our blessed Lord right well pourtrayed. Indeed so well is the picture drawn that there is scarcely a stroke even though it should seem to be a mere accidental incident of the picture which has not its symbolic meaning. You shall read the history of Joseph through twenty times, and yet you shall not have exhausted the type; you shall begin again and find still some fresh likeness between this despised son of Rachel, and the Son of Mary who is also God over all, blessed for ever. Amen.

It is not however my business this morning to enter into a full description of Joseph as the type of Christ, I have a rather more practical object in hand. I shall endeavour in the Lord’s strength to deal with tried and troubled consciences, and if it shall be my happy lot to be the means of cheering some sorrowing heart, and opening some blind eye to see the personal beauties, and the intense affection of the Lord Jesus, I shall be but too glad to have been God’s messenger to your hearts.

To tarry no longer, but to proceed at once to so good an errand, hopeful that God will help us to accomplish it, I shall direct your attention to the picture before us as being a representation of the way in which the Lord Jesus Christ deals with his erring brethren, those whom his Father has given him, and whom he has purchased with his blood.

It seems to me that the condition of Judah and his brethren is a very notable picture of the state of sinners when they are awakened by the Holy Spirit, that the disguise which Joseph assumed when he dealt so roughly with them, is a masterly representation of the manner in which Jesus Christ, the loving one, seems to deal hardly and harshly with poor coming sinners, and that thirdly, the manifestation which Joseph afterward made to his brethren, is but a faint representation of the declaration of love which Jesus makes to repenting spirits when at last he reveals himself to them in mercy.

We think that the condition and posture of Judah and his brethren at the feet of the throne of Joseph, trembling in alarm, well describe the condition and position of every truly awakened sinner.

By different methods Joseph had at last awakened the consciences of his ten brethren. The point which seemed to have been brought out most prominently before their consciences was this: “We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.” And though, in the speech which Judah made, it was not necessary to accuse themselves of crime, yet in the confession, “God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants,” Joseph could see evidently enough, that the recollection of the pit and of the sale to the Ishmaelites was vividly before their mind’s eye. Now, beloved, when the Lord the Holy Ghost arouses sinners’ consciences, this is the great sin which he brings to mind: “Of sin because they believed not on me.” Once the careless soul thought it had very little to answer for: “I have not done much amiss,” said he, “a speedy reformation may wipe out all that has been awry, and my faults will soon be forgotten and forgiven; but now, on a sudden, the conscience perceives that the soul is guilty of despising, rejecting, and slaughtering Christ. What a sin is this, my brethren! And what pangs we endured when first this crime was laid to our charge, and we were compelled to plead guilty to it! O Lord Jesus, did I accuse thee to thine enemies? Did I betray thee? Did I adjudge thee to the cross? Were my cries virtually heard in the streets, “Crucify him, crucify him?” Is it true that my sins were the nails which fastened thee to the tree? Is it so, that I had a share in thy bloody murder-a tragedy by which the world became a deicide, and man the murderer of his own Redeemer? It is even so; if our conscience be in a right state, we are forced to acknowledge it. Dost thou not know, sinner, every time thou dost prefer the pleasures of this world to the joys of heaven, thou dost spit in the face of Christ; every time when to get gain in thy business, thou doest an unrighteous thing, thou art like Judas selling him for thirty pieces of silver; every time thou makest a false profession of religion, thou givest him a traitor’s kiss; every sermon which you hear, which makes a temporary impression on your mind, which impression you afterwards blot out, makes you more and more Christ’s despiser and rejector; every word you have spoken against him, every hard thought you have had of him, has helped to complete your complicity with the great crowd which gathered around the cross of Calvary, to mock and jeer the Lord of life and glory. Now, if there be any sin which will make a man deeply penitent, I think that this sin when it is really brought home to the conscience will affect us. To slay him who did me no hurt, the holy and the harmless One! To assist in hounding to the tree the man who scattered blessings with both his hands, and who had no thought, nor care, nor love, save for those who hated him. To pierce the hands that touched the leper, and that broke the bread, and multiplied the fishes! To fasten to the accursed wood the feet which had often carried his weary body upon painful journeys of mercy! Oh! this is base indeed. But when I think he loved me, and gave himself for me, that he chose me, before the stars were made, or the heavens upreared upon their everlasting arches, and that I, when he came to me in the gospel, should have rejected and despised, and even mocked at him, this is intensely, infinitely cruel. Jesus, thou dost forgive me, but I can never forgive myself for such a sin as this.

Dear friends, has the Holy Spirit made you feel that you are guilty? If so, I am glad of it, for when we once feel guilty concerning the death of Jesus, our brother, it is not long before he will reveal himself to us in mercy, blotting out our sin for ever.

A second thought, however, which tended to make Joseph’s brethren feel in a wretched plight was this, that they now discovered that they were in Joseph’s hands. There stood Joseph, second to none but Pharaoh in all the empire of Egypt. Legions of warriors were at his beck and command; if he should say, “take these men, bind them hand and foot, or cut them in pieces,” none could interpose; he was to them as a lion, and they were as his prey, which he could rend to pieces at his will. Now to the awakened sinner, this also is a part of his misery, that he is entirely in the hands of that very Christ whom he once despised; for that Christ who died has now become the judge of the quick and dead, he has power over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to as many as his Father has given him. The Father judgeth no man, he has committed all judgment to the Son. Dost thou see this, sinner, he whom thou despised is thy Master? The moth beneath thy finger, which thou canst crush, and that cannot escape from thee, may well fear, but thus art thou beneath the fingers of the crucified Son of God. To-day, he whom thou hast despised, has thee absolutely at his will; he has but to will it and the breath is gone from thy nostrils, and while yet in thy seat thou art a corpse, and more, at his will thou art in hell amidst its flames. Oh! what an awful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God, for even our God is a consuming fire.

Remember, sinner, you are in his hands in such a way that except ye repent, and receive him-except ye “kiss the Son,” at once he may be angry, and ye may “perish in the way when his wrath is kindled but a little.” For lo! he cometh riding upon the clouds of judgment. Jesus of Nazareth cometh, robed in majesty; the books shall be opened; and he shall divide the nations as the shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats. Then in vain shall ye ask the pitiless rocks to give ye shelter in their flinty bowels; or the stern mountains to conceal you in their hollow caverns, ye shall seek to hide from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne, but neither heaven nor earth, nor hell shall afford you shelter; for everywhere the eyes of him that wept shall follow you like flames of fire: and the hand of him that was once nailed to the tree shall crush you as a cluster in the hand of the gleaner of grapes. You shall feel that it is an awful thing to have turned long-suffering mercy into righteous hatred. You shall know that to have rejected mercy is to have drawn down upon your head the full fury of the justice of the avenger. Yet, further, there was another thought which combined to make Joseph’s brethren feel still more wretched; being in his hands, they felt also in their souls that they deserved to be there. We are verily guilty, said they. They offered no apologies, nor extenuations, for that one sin-that crying sin. They might for the matter of Benjamin: but they said, we are verily guilty concerning our brother. Oh! my brother in Christ; thou knowest what it is to have the Holy Spirit in thy heart, making thee plead guilty. Well do I remember when I stood at the bar of God’s justice and heard the accusation read out against me. Nothing could I answer, but guilty only. Indeed, my guilt was so plainly before my eyes that my lips could not frame a denial, and had the judge put on the black cap that day, and said “Take him back to the place from whence he came, and give him his portion with the tormentors,” I should have been lost, but the great God would have been most just and righteous. Careless sinners may talk about the hardness of God in condemning man to punishment, but once let the Holy Ghost show man the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and you will never hear a word about that. No! the sinner cries, Lord, whatever thou canst do with me, thou canst not chastise me more than I deserve. Though thou shouldst crush me beneath thy feet, or though thou shouldst pile up the fires of Tophet, and thy breath should be as the stream of brimstone to kindle it, yet thou couldst not curse too heavily or consume too fiercely thy traitorous, rebellious, depraved, and infamous creature. I deserve everything except thy love and thy pity; and if thou givest me these, I shall be compelled to say, for ever and ever, that thou gavest grace to the most undeserving-the most unworthy rebel that ever profaned thy universe. Brethren, when conscience goes against a man, he has a stern enemy to contend with. When it is written “David’s heart smote him,” such blows come home. So is it with every sinner that is truly led to see his own state. He will feel that he is not only guilty, and that he is in the hands of one from whom he cannot escape; but he will feel that it is right he should be so; and the only wonder he will have in his own mind is that he has been out of hell so long; that the long-suffering and mercy of God have been so marvellously extended to him.

Under a sense of all these things-note what the ten brethren did. They began to plead. Ah! nothing makes a man pray like a sense of sin. When we stand before God guilty, then our groans and sighs and tears make true and real supplication. I fear me there are some of you present here who have from infancy repeated a form of prayer who have never prayed in your lives, ay and some of you too who use an extemporary utterance and yet who never pray. I do not think men generally pray as a matter of duty. When men fall down in the streets and break their limbs they do not cry out as a matter of duty, they cry because they cannot help it, and it seems to me that such a prayer God hears, that comes out of a man because he cannot help praying, when the deep agony of his spirit makes him groan, when he cannot be kept from his secret chamber, when he would sooner pray behind a hedge, or in a field, or in a garret, or even in the streets, than not pray at all. If there were an edict issued that no man should pray at all, the really praying man would go into Daniel’s lions’den, for he could no more cease to pray than cease to breathe. Can the hart in the wilderness cease from panting for the water brooks? Can a sick child cease from crying for its mother? So the living soul cries after God because he cannot help panting after him. He must pray or he must die, he must find grace or perish and therefore in his sore extremity-from an intense and awful agony of heart he cries again and again, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” This is the prayer that God heareth; such are the petitions which are acceptable to the Lord Jehovah.

Brethren, will you look at your own selves and at your own experience this morning and see if you ever were brought down to the spot where Judah and his brethren stood, for I fear we have never been brought rightly unless we have been brought here. He that was never condemned I think was never forgiven, he who never confessed his guilt cannot have had a pardon, and if we have never trembled before Jesus the judge, we can never have rejoiced before Jesus the elder brother.

We turn, however, now to remark, that the singularly rough behaviour of Joseph is a notable representation of the way in which Christ deals with souls under conviction of sin.

Joseph always was their brother, always loved them, had a heart full of compassion to them even when he called them spies. Kind words were often hastening to his lips, yet for their good he showed himself to be as a stranger and even as an enemy, so that he might bring them very low and prostrate before the throne.

My dear friends, our Lord Jesus Christ often does this with truly awakened souls whom he means to save. Perhaps to some of you who are to-day conscious of guilt but not of mercy, Christ seems as a stern and angry Judge; you think of him as one who can by no means spare the guilty; your only idea of him is of one who would say to you, “Get thee behind me, Satan, thou savourest not the things that be of God.” When you read the Scriptures, your mind perhaps is led to dwell upon his denunciations rather than upon his promises. Such dreadful chapters as the twenty-fifth of Matthew are more upon your mind than those blessed portions in John, such as “Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me.” When you do think of Jesus it is not as of one who is saying, “Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” But you rather think you hear him say, “Woe unto you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites.” Poor hearts, you discern all the sternness of his upbraidings, but not the softness and gentleness of his compassion. You see him dealing fiercely with Pharisees, and reason that he will be even more severe with you; nay, you think you have had some proofs that the Lord is not willing to bless you. As Joseph took Simeon before their eyes and put him in prison, as he laid heavy things to his brethren’s charge, and said to them, “Ye are spies, to see the nakedness of the land are you come; by the life of Pharoah surely ye are spies,” and as he demanded of them to bring Benjamin down or else he would never see their face again, so you think that Jesus Christ has treated you. You went to him in prayer; but instead of getting an answer he seemed to shut up your prayer in prison and keep it like Simeon bound before your eyes. Yea, instead of telling you that there was mercy, he said to you as with a harsh voice, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it unto dogs.” He appeared to shut his ear to your petitions and to have none of your requests, and to say to you, “Except ye renounce a right eye sin and a right arm pleasure, and give up your Benjamin delights, ye shall see my face no more,” and you have come to think, poor soul, that Christ is hard and stern, and whereas he is ever the gentle Mediator receiving sinners and eating with them, whereas his usual voice is, “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest,” to you he seemeth no such person, for he has put on a disguise, and ye understand not who and what he is.

But you will perceive, brethren, in reading the narrative, that even when Joseph disguised himself there was still much kindness discoverable in his conduct: so to the awakened sinner, even while Jesus appears to deal hardly, there is something sweet and encouraging amid it all. Do you not remember what Joseph did for his brethren? Though he was their judge he was their host too; he invited them to a great feast; he gave to Benjamin five times as much as to any of them; and they feasted even at the king’s table. And so, poor sinner under an awakened conscience, you have occasional feastings at the table of hope. I know while I was under distress myself I did have some glimpses of hope. Oh, there were times when his name was very sweet! There were seasons in the thick darkness when some few rays of light flashed in; when like the dog that eateth the crumbs under the table, now and then there fell a big crust, and my soul was feasted for awhile. So has it been with you. Christ has rebuked and chastened you, but still he has sent you messes from his royal table. Ay, and there is another thing he has done for you, he has given you corn to live upon while under bondage. You would have despaired utterly if it had not been for some little comfort that he afforded you; perhaps you would have put an end to your life-you might have gone desperately into worse sin than before, had it not been that he filled your sack at seasons with the corn of Egypt. But mark, he has never taken any of your money yet, and he never will. He has always put your money in the sack’s mouth, You have come with your resolutions and with your good deeds, but when he has given you comfort he has always taken care to show you that he did not confer it because of any good thing you had in your hands. When you went down and brought double money with you, yet the double money too was returned. He would have nothing of you; he has taught you as much as that, and you begin to feel now that if he should bless you, it must be without money and without price. Ay, poor soul, and there is one other point upon which thine eye may rest with pleasure; he has sometimes spoken to thee comfortably. Did not Joseph say to Benjamin “God be gracious unto thee, my son?” And so, sometimes, under a consoling sermon, though as yet you are not saved, you have had a few drops of comfort. Oh! ye have gone sometimes out of the house of prayer as light as the birds of the air, and though you could not say “He is mine and I am his,” yet you had a sort of inkling that the match would come off one day. He had said-“God be gracious to thee, my son.” You half thought, though you could not speak it loud enough to let your heart distinctly hear it, you half thought that the day would come when your sins would be forgiven; when the prisoner should leap to lose his chains; when you should know Joseph your brother to have accepted and loved your soul. I say, then, Christ disguises himself to poor awakened sinners just as Joseph did, but even amidst the sternness of his manner, for awhile there is such a sweet mixture of love, that no troubled one need run into despair.

But, dear friends, I am met by a question. Some one asks, “Why doth Jesus thus deal with some coming sinners? Why doth he not always meet them at once as he does with some, while they are yet a great way off, and fall upon their necks and kiss them?” Perhaps we can answer this question by another. Why did Joseph thus hide himself, and not manifest himself to his own flesh? The answer is here; Joseph knew there was a prophecy to be fulfilled; the sun, and moon, and eleven stars must make obeisance to him; and their sheaves must bow down before his sheaf. So there is a prophecy concerning us-“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;” and were it not that Christ doth thus deal roughly with us, perhaps we should never bow ourselves with that deep humiliation and prostration of spirit, which is necessary for our good as well for his glory. I am sure that any of us who have passed through this state of mind, feel it a privilege to bow down before him. All hail, Jesu! We bring forth the royal diadem and crown thee, Lord of all. We wish not to dispute thy sovereignty, nor to interfere with thine absolute dominion. Give him all the glory; give him all the honour. Our spirit boweth down with even deeper reverence than the cherubim, who bow before him with veiled faces, crying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth.” Besides, my dear friends, Joseph’s brethren would not have been convinced of their sin at all, if it had not been for this. It was needful that they should know the greatness of the wrong, that they might know the value of the free pardon. The delay of manifested mercy has done much good to many of the saints; it compelled them to search the fountains of the great deep of their natural depravity, and led them to admire the freeness and richness of divine grace. We should have been but poor fools in Christ’s school, if it had not been for the rod with which he whipped us, and the ruler with which he knocked our knuckles in our early days. That black board of conviction was a useful implement enough in the school house. If he had not ploughed deep, there never would have been a hundred-fold harvest. Since he would build a high house of joy in our hearts, there was a “needs-be” that he should dig out deep foundations of sorrow, and he did it so for our lasting and perpetual good. Could John Bunyan have ever written “Pilgrim’s Progress,” if he had not felt abounding sin, and rejoiced in “Grace abounding?” Could he have ever compiled such a wondrous work as the “Holy War,” if he had not himself felt all the attacks which the Town of Mansoul knew, and heard the beating of the hell-drum in his own ears, just as the Mansoulians did, whose tale he tells. Masters of divinity are not to be made by shallow experience. We make not sailors on dry land, nor veterans in times of peace. Christ’s rugged warriors who shall do great exploits for him, must be like the Spartan youths, they must be brought up by a Spartan training, and flogged, and made to bear the yoke in their youth, that afterwards they may be good soldiers of Christ, able to endure hardness and to achieve great victories. This that looketh so cruel in Christ is only masked mercy. He putteth the vizard on his face, and looketh like an enemy, but a friendly heart is there still towards his chosen.

Let us remember, then, if we are to-day guilty and moaning our guiltiness-we ought not to forget that Christ is a brother though he seems to be an enemy, that he loves us with a pure and perfect love though he speaks hardly to us. If he do not answer our prayers he still intends to do it; if no pity or compassion are expressed, yet beyond a doubt he is not flinty of soul, nor is he hard to be moved to commiserate his children.

I now come to the last point, and here may God be pleased to let light break in upon darkened souls. Joseph afterwards revealed himself to his brethren, and so the Lord Jesus does in due time sweetly reveal himself to poor conscience-stricken penitent sinners.

The reading of the chapter which we heard this morning, is enough to bring tears to all eyes that are connected with tender hearts. I must acknowledge that when reading the chapter in my own study, I could not resist weeping copiously at the picture which the Holy Ghost has so admirably drawn. Those ten poor trembling brothers, Judah’s speech just finished, and all of them on their knees supplicating the clearing of the court house, and then Joseph, whose soul was swelling with such grief and love, bursting out with that “I am Joseph.” What a scene for tender souls! Though he must have spoken in deep affection, yet, “I am Joseph,” must have fallen on their ears like thunder. “Joseph!” where are we now? Better for us that we were in a lion’s den, than here with him whom we mocked, saying, ‘Behold, this dreamer cometh, with him whom we sold, and dipped his coat of many colours in blood, and then took it to his father, saying, ‘See whether this be thy son’s coat or no.’ ” Well might they tremble! And then look at the tenderness of Joseph when he says to them again, while they are retiring from him afraid, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt, I pray you come near to me.” You hear his pathetic speech as he discovers his brotherhood and relationship, and then you see that generous embrace when, beginning with Benjamin, his next of kin, his own uterine brother, he afterwards weeps with all the rest, and sends them home with favours, enriched and happy. Dear friends, I say this is but a picture of what Christ does to some of us, and of what he is prepared to do to others of you who are trembling at his feet. Notice that this discovery was made secretly. Christ does not show himself to sinners in a crowd; every man must see the love of Christ for himself; we go to hell in bundles, but we go to heaven one by one. Each man must personally know in his own heart his own guilt; and privately and secretly, where no other heart can join with him, he must hear words of love from Christ. “Go and sin no more.” “Thy sins which are many are all forgiven thee.”

Mark, that as this was done in secret, the first thing Joseph showed them was his name. “I am Joseph.” Blessed is that day to the sinner when Christ says to him, “I am Jesus, I am the Saviour;” when the soul discerns instead of the lawgiver, the Redeemer; when it looks to the wounds which its own sin has made, and sees the ransom-price flowing in drops of gore; looks to the head its own iniquity had crowned with thorns, and sees beaming there a crown of glory provided for the sinner. Sinner, poor troubled sinner, Jesus speaks to thee this morning, from his very cross where he bled for thee, he says, “I am Jesus, look to me, trust me and be saved, repose thy confidence wholly upon me, I will wash thee from thy sin, carry thee safely through time, and land thee gloroiusly in eternity.”

Having revealed his name, the next thing he did was to reveal his relationship; “I am Joseph, your brother.” Oh, blessed is that heart which sees Jesus to be its brother, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, the son of Mary as well as the Son of God. Sinner, whom the Holy Ghost hath awakened, Christ is thy brother, he feels for you, he has a fellow-sympathy with you in the present pangs that wring your heart. He loves you, he loved you before you knew anything of him, he has given you the best proof of that love in that he has redeemed you with his blood. And revealing his relationship, he also displays his affection. “Does my father yet live?” As a brother does he remember the head of the household. Jesus tells you that the brotherhood between his soul and yours is not fanciful or metaphorical, but lets his heart go out to you. Penitent sinner, can you believe it? Jesus loves you-loves you though you hated him. Poor awakened sinner, dost thou think it possible? It is. It is not only possible, but certain. He who is heaven’s Lord, before whom the angels bow, loves thee. I remember one man who was converted to God, who told me that the means of his conversion was hearing a hymn read one Sabbath morning in the congregation, when we were worshipping in Exeter Hall, and that hymn was this-“Jesus, lover of my soul;” and just those words struck him. “Does he love my soul? Oh!” said he, “nothing had ever broken me before, but the thought that Jesus loved me was too much for me. I could not help giving my heart to him.” The old school-men used to teach that it was impossible for any man to know that another loved him without returning the love in some degree. And surely, sinner, though thou feelest thyself to be the vilest wretch on earth, when we tell thee that it is “a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, even the chief,” this should be a reason why thy heart should go out to him. He loves thee, oh quickened, convinced sinner. Oh, trust him, and taste that love in thine own heart.

And then will you please to notice, that having thus proved his affection, he gave them an invitation to approach. “Come near to me, I pray you.” You are getting away in the corner. You want to hide away in the chamber alone; you do not want to tell anybody about your sorrow. Jesus says, “Come near to me, I pray you. Do not hold your griefs away from me. Tell me what it is you want. Confess to me your guilt; ask me for pardon, if you want it. Come near to me, do not be afraid. I could not smite with a hand that bought you; I could not spurn you with the foot that was nailed for you to the tree. Come to me!” Ah! this is the hardest work in the world, to get a sinner to come near to Christ. I thought myself that he was such a hard, hard Christ, and that he wanted me to do so much before I might come to him. When I heard that gracious message, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth;” my heart ventured to look, and oh! joy of joys, the burden rolled away, the sin was blotted out, my soul stood accepted in Christ. “Come near to me I pray thee.” Oh that I knew where a broken heart was this morning! I think I would point him out, and look him in the face, and say in Jesu’s name, “Poor sinner, come near to me, I pray thee.” Oh, wherefore do you stay when Jesus invites? Wherefore do you tarry in your despair when Jesus bids you come to him? Shall the prisoner hug his chains? Shall the captive cleave to his dungeon? Arise! be free! arise, he calleth thee-sinner, come near to Jesus. Salvation is in him, and, as he bids thee, take it.

I want you to notice again, having given the invitation, what consolation Joseph gave! He did not say, “I am not angry with you; I forgive you:” he said something sweeter than that-“Be not angry with yourselves,” as much as to say, “As for me, ye need not question about that: be not grieved nor angry with yourselves.” So my blessed, my adorable Master, says to a poor, cast down, dejected sinner-“As for my forgiving you, that is done. My heart is made of tenderness, my bowels melt with love; forgive yourself; be not grieved nor angry with yourself: it is true you have sinned, but I have died; it is true you have destroyed yourself, but I have saved you. Weep no more; dry those eyes and sing aloud-

‘I will praise thee every day,

Now thine anger’s turned away:

Comfortable thoughts arise

From the bleeding sacrifice.

Jesus has become at length

My Salvation and my strength;

And his praises shall prolong,

While I live, my pleasant song.’ ”

Dear friends, last of all, having thus given them the consolation, he gave a quietus for their understanding in an explanation. He says, “It was not you, it was God that sent me hither.” So doth Christ say to the poor soul that feels itself guilty of the Lord’s crucifixion. “It was not you,” says he, “it was God that sent me to preserve your lives with a great deliverance. Man was the second agent in Christ’s death, but God was the great first worker, for he was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, man did it to destroy righteousness, but God did it to save even the ungodly. Man hath the crime, but God hath the triumphing; man rules, but God overrules. The gall hath become honey, out of the eater hath come forth sweetness. Death is destroyed by Jesus’ death; hell upturned by hell’s blackest deed. Sinner, Christ died to save thee with a great deliverance, what sayest thou? Art thou willing to come to him? if so, he made thee willing. Dost thou say, “But what is to come?”-to come to Christ is to trust him. Are you willing to renounce yourself and your sin and trust Christ, and take him to have and to hold, for better for worse, through life and through death, in time and in eternity? Doth thy heart say “Yes.” Wilt thou come to this man? Shall there be a match made of it this morning? Shall your heart be affianced and married into Christ? Ah! then, put this ring of promise on thy finger and go away affianced unto Christ, and this is the ring, “Though thy sins be as scarlet they shall be as wool, though they be red like crimson they shall be whiter than snow.” I feel this morning as though my Master had given me such a sweet message that I cannot tell it as I would, but it may be that there is some soul here that is like a little flower which has opened its cup to catch the dew drop, and it will be good for such a soul. It may be there is a heart here that has been in darkness, and though it be but a candle I can bring, yet that light shall be pleasant to its poor eyes so long used to this horrid gloom.

Oh! that some heart here would trust the Lord Jesus. Is there none? Must we go back, and say in the closet, “Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” Surely, there is one. Perhaps it is a stranger here, of whom I shall never hear again in this world. Well, but the Lord shall hear of it, and he shall have the praise. Perhaps it is one that has long sat in this house of prayer, invulnerable up till now. Perhaps the arrow has found a joint in the harness. O soul! by him that stretches out his arms of love to thee, and by the grace that moves thee now to run into those arms, come to him. “Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves.” It was God that put Christ to death, that he might save you with a great deliverance. Trust Jesus, and you are saved, and you shall give him praise, world without end. Amen.

dr. merle d’aubigné.

An Exhortation By Rev. C. H. Spurgeon,

and

A Salutation by Rev. Merle D’aubigne, of Geneva

Delivered in the Metropolitan Tabernacle,

On Sunday Morning, May 18th, 1862

“And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem.”-2 Samuel, 11:1.

The last sentence informs us of a circumstance so significant that the Holy Spirit has recorded it twice. In the parallel passage in the Chronicles, you will find a repetition of the statement that “David tarried at Jerusalem.” It had hitherto been his custom to march at the head of his troops. The king of Israel was the commander-in-chief of the Lord’s hosts, and by personal deeds of prowess excited the national spirit; but on this occasion, you perceive, he delegates his power to Joab, and seeks inglorious ease. We are informed that the season had arrived when kings go forth to battle-probably the spring, when horses could be maintained by forage, and when, if a long siege should be necessary, the armies might sit down before a city with the prospect of advancing summer and ripening harvests. It was a great occasion; for otherwise, how is it that he sent all Israel with Joab? A great war had been provoked, and most important interests were at stake. This makes it the less excusable on the part of the king, that he should, when his presence was especially necessary, absent himself from his proper post. Nor do we think that state affairs needed his presence in Jerusalem. No rebellions were hatching; the whole land was quiet, and all the tribes voluntarily submitted themselves to his sway. It does not seem from the context, that David was at all occupied with state cares; for you find that he rises from his bed at eventide. Contrary to the hardier custom to which he had inured himself in his earlier days, after his noontide meal he laid himself down and slept till the sun was setting; and when he arose, it was not to succour the poor, or to dispense justice, but to take a stroll on the housetop; and then, being idle, having put his armour off, the arrow smote him; having nothing good to do, the enemy found him awful work; for the tempter planted straight before his eyes a fair temptation, into which he rushed as a bird to the snare, or as a bullock to the slaughter. Happy would it have been for king David had he been in battle; he would not then have known this temptation. Probably if the temptation had presented itself, he would have been so occupied with martial cares that he would not have fallen a victim. Idleness was the mother of the mischief, and if you trace to its bottom the foul iniquity that has made the name of David a special mark for all the Lord’s enemies, you will find it had much to do with his not going out to battle when the country required it, when the season commanded it, and when no affairs of state justified his absence.

You will readily perceive the subject of my address. First, to the individual Christian; and secondly, to the Church, as God shall help me, I will utter warnings against that deadly lethargy which is so apt to steal over us, putting us into a position to be readily assailable by temptation, ay, and to be easily overcome by it too.

To you, brother in Christ, I speak personally.

1. Let me direct your special attention to the season at which this temptation to idleness came upon David. Brethren, David never refused to go forth to battle while he was harassed by his adversary Saul. So long as he is hunted like a partridge upon the mountains, David’s character is spotless, and his zeal is unrivalled. In his religion there was an intensity of energy, so long as in his life there was an intensity of adversity; but now an hour of trial is at hand, Saul is dead, and the last of his race sits as a humble pensioner at David’s table. The son of Jesse is no more obliged to frequent the tracks of the wild goats, or to hide himself among the glooms of Engedi; his great adversary has long ago fallen by the arrows of the Philistines upon the mountains of Gilboa; but a stealthier foe is lurking in ambuscade,-woe to thee, David, if he overcome thee! Ah! Christian, and it is a dangerous time to you when temptation has ceased to harass you, when Satan has left you in peace, and when you have placed your foot on your adversary’s neck; when the storm has hushed itself to sleep, when a dead calm takes the place of the awful hurricane; it is then you have need to look well to it, for then your soul may lose its former strength and watchfulness, and you may decline into indifference, and Laodicean lukewarmness. While the devil assails you on the right hand and on the left, you will hardly be able to rest upon the couch of carnal security. The dog of hell, by barking in your ears, keeps you awake; but when he shall cease his howlings, your eyelids will grow heavy, unless grace prevent. When you are no more driven to your knees by furious assaults from hell, you may experience the still more terrible trials of the enchanted ground, and you will have good cause to cry out, “Lord, let me not sleep as do others, but let me watch and be sober.”

Yet again, David at this time had obtained the crown, and it was sitting softly and securely upon his head. Dear friends, far from depreciating the full assurance of faith, we know that it is our strength and our joy; but there is a temptation connected with it. The Christian is apt to say, “Now I am saved, I have no doubt about it; for the crown of my salvation encircles my head right royally.” Believer, be on thy watchtower, for the next temptation will be, “Soul, take thine ease; the work is done; thou hast attained; now fold thine arms; sit thou still; all will end well; why needest thou too much to vex thyself?” Take care of the seasons when you have no doubts. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” “I said, I shall never be moved. Lord, by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong: thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled.” Bless God for full assurance; but, remember, nothing but careful walking can preserve it. Full assurance is a priceless pearl; but when a man has a precious jewel, and he walks the streets, he ought to be much afraid of pickpockets. When the Christian has full assurance, let him be sure that all the devils in hell will try to rob him of it. Let him be more upon his watchtower than he was before. This is the temptation of assured believers, to sit down upon the throne and say, “I shall sit in my glory for ever and see no sorrow; I need no more go forth to fight the Lord’s battles.”

Yet further: it appears that at this time David was at the height of his prosperity. He had attained to about fifty years of age; the year of his jubilee was come, and everything went on jubilantly. Whithersoever he turned his hand, he prospered. “Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe; over Philistia will I triumph.” He could boast himself exceedingly, for God was with him in all his ways. Ah! dear friends, and when a Christian prospers, it is an ill time for him, unless he be on his watchtower. “In all time of our wealth, good Lord deliver us.” When a man is poor, when he is sick, when he is tried in his estate, he has need of grace; but when he is rich, when his business succeeds, and his family are in good health, and all is well, he has need of grace upon grace. It is hard standing in high places; the brain grows dizzy with looking down. It is not easy to carry a full cup with a steady hand. Smooth places are slippery places. Let us beware, lest when we get full, Jeshurun waxes fat and kicks against the Lord. Summer weather breeds flies; fair weather in the soul brings out the evils and mischiefs of our nature. Heat hatches the cockatrice eggs, and the heat of prosperity often brings out the young serpents of sin. See to it, lest like David you refuse to go forth to battle because you are prospering in the world.

To complete the hazard, David had now the opportunity of indulging himself in all the luxuries of life. He had a palace with all the accompaniments of oriental magnificence. He was no more the humble shepherd eating a crust from his wallet,-no more the chieftain of an outlawed clan, depending upon such churlish husbandmen as Nabal for temporary assistance. The fat of the land was his; the oil of Asher, the vintage of Ephraim, the corn of Judah, and the dainties brought from afar, from Tyre and Sidon-all were his; he could be clothed in scarlet and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day: then it was that his soul grew lean, while the flesh was pampered. Fat steeds sometimes will not work; birds too well fed refuse to sing; and so does it happen when the riches of the earth are ours freely to enjoy, and the blessings of Divine Providence are poured out of the cornucopia of divine munificence, that we refuse to do the Lord’s work, and, like David, go not out to battle.

Dear friends, I know that my sermon is pertinent to some of you. I would that I could pourtray the individuals so clearly that they could not allot to others the rebuke intended for themselves. It is a well known fact that when some people get rich in gold they grow poor in grace. They rise in the eyes of the world and sink in the esteem of their heavenly Lord. Things which believers were glad to undertake when they were little in Israel, they cannot look upon when they have grown great among the inhabitants of Zion. Certain folks, when they can keep a carriage, are ashamed to frequent the meeting-house; they must go to some more respectable place of worship. The truth was respectable enough for them when they loved it; but now they love the honour of men more than Christ; they can hoodwink their consciences and unite with worldly Churches, who love architecture, scholarship, and pomp, more than truth and holiness. “God grant,” said one of Wesley’s followers, “that the Methodists may never grow rich;” and I think I might well say, God grant the Baptists never may. O Lord, give them neither poverty nor riches, but especially let them not grow too respectable to associate with the poor of the land! Why, there are some of you who, when you joined this Church, were as earnest as you could be; and where are you now? There are some that were prominent in the prayer meeting; how often do we see them now? Are there not many among us as miserly towards the Lord’s cause as if they did not care a rush for it? You will say I am personal. Brethren, I mean to be, and want to be; and if you feel that this is your case, instead of being offended at the honest rebuke now offered to you, solemnly thank God that it comes home to you; earnestly retrace your steps, be no more sluggish and sleepy, but for the sake of him who loves you with an everlasting love, once more cast your souls into his cause, and go forth to fight your Lord’s battles. Away with your downy dozings and comfortable slumbers. Lord, arouse us by a thunderbolt from heaven! When Christians have learned the doctrine and begin to forget the practice; when they have a little smattering of experience, and think they are the men, and wisdom shall die with them; when they despise the broken-hearted and timid; there is but a step between them and a fall. Oh! you who are in such a condition, I solemnly warn you. I sound this day an alarm in Zion. Arise ye! arise ye! ye slumberers upon your soft couches; for if ye slumber now, ye shall one day awake and find yourselves upon the verge of destruction, and only the sovereign grace of God shall bring you back as David was brought back, and restore you once again to the right way, to journey with broken bones to your tomb, sorrowing because of your sin.

2. Observe, my brethren, that there are certain tendencies abroad which will co-operate with the dangers of the occasion, and unless the Christian be very watchful, will lead him into David’s vice of slothfulness. Brethren, what would the flesh do with some of us, but make us, if we would let it have its way, as idle as Solomon’s sluggard? I do confess, there is, perhaps, no man living that has a stronger temptation to sheer idleness than myself, although I am no boaster when I say I labour as hard as any man in either hemisphere. Alas! for this body of sin and death, it is hard for a man to serve the Lord aright while imprisoned in it. Brethren, you will find that not only the mere flesh, but the lustings of the mind will naturally lead you to be cold in Christ’s work. Enthusiasm is not the tendency of Englishmen in matters of religion; only the Spirit of God can give the tongue of fire, and the rushing mighty wind to the assembled disciples. The flesh lusteth continually towards inaction; the inertia of matter reaches its height in the corruption of humanity. We lift up our souls unto God, but we fall down again to the earth, for our nature has in it more of the sinking of a millstone than the mounting of an eagle. Well does Watts put it-

“Look, how we grovel here below, fond of these trifling toys;

Our souls can neither fly nor go to reach eternal joys.”

Brethren, your unmortified flesh will make you idle enough, without any other tempter.

Then there is the devil; he will take care to sing your lullaby and rock your cradle if you want to sleep, for he loves not to see God’s warriors on the alert. While they are all asleep, he knows the war will not go on very briskly. An army dosed with chloroform would be quite as useless as if they were chained and manacled. While swords sleep in scabbards, no foe needs dread them. Ah, my fellow-soldiers, this is a great artifice of Satan, and one of his craftiest devices to lull us all into a deep sleep.

Besides, you will find the world has a great tendency to make you cold and dead. What do you feel, brethren, after some few hours of intermeddling with business? Is not this vain world a foe to grace? Unless you are very spiritually minded, do you not find that the world has a down-dragging tendency? I ask the workers, the merchants, the thinkers, do you not find that secular occupations, unless you are exceedingly careful in consecrating them to God, have a tendency to stain the garments of your priesthood and bring you down from your high standing? The world is to the Christian an ice house, and he a tender plant that has been the gardener’s special care. I would give nothing for that Christian who loves to be in worldly company; I think if any man can find himself quite at home with ungodly persons, he must be one of them; and if even with merely moral persons he can find a settled rest, surely there can be nothing of the high and aspiring nature within him that belongs to the true-born heir of heaven.

But, brethren, I am sorry to have to add one more thing; even association with some portions of the Church of God, in its present state, may cool the ardour of piety. Ecclesiastical lethargy is perhaps one of the greatest stumbling-blocks to young believers. I am not staggered by the world’s indifference to religion, for I can understand it, but the indifference of the Church to the progress of Jesus’ kingdom is an enigma which one cannot solve, and many a young enthusiastic Christian has had the noble spirit of Christ all but crushed out of him, by seeing the dulness and deadness of older saints, who seemed to be pillars in the temple of God. Oh! have we not heard our young Davids saying concerning our foes, “Who is this Philistine? I will go against him and smite off his head;” but a veteran Eliab in the Church has said, “Because of the pride and the naughtiness of thine heart to see the battle art thou come.” When he is brought before a Saul-like minister, he says, “Well, young man, you are enthusiastic, you must not attempt to do the Lord’s work by simple faith, you must put this helmet on and carry this spear, you must wear these greaves of brass;” and the poor young man, with almost enthusiasm enough in him to melt the armour off his back, has to go out to sure defeat, wearing untried weapons which prove his ruin. Oh! give us back the glorious days when the Church was a pillar of fire, and when every new member was a new coal added to the glowing mass. Give us back even the stakes of Smithfield, if we might have the fiery energy of the first reformers; visit us anew with persecution, if we can but renew the diligent prosecution of the ends and aims of the Church of Christ; let our foes grow angry if we may but grow zealous.

3. To pass on rapidly to the third point. What happened through David’s tarrying at home? Some men think it a small thing to be doing nothing for Christ; it is a great thing, and will be a damnable thing, unless God give you repentance. What happened, I say, to David? Why, now that he was tarrying at home and giving himself up to sloth, he was losing his usefulness and honour by no more fighting the Lord’s battles; no more triumphs were being written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah; and even Joab had to send for him to come in at the end of the fray to take the city, lest it should be called by Joab’s name. Is it a little thing for a follower of Christ to be losing the immortal honour of serving the Lord? What will not men do to win fame? and shall we, when it lies at our doors, turn aside to our beds of ease, and cast our glory to the ground? Let us be up and doing, for it is no light thing to be losing the honour of a faithful servant of Christ.

David lost his communion and joy. A man cannot be idle and yet have Christ’s sweet company. Christ is a quick walker, and when his people would talk with him they must travel quickly too, or else they will soon lose his company. Christ, my Master, goes about doing good, and if you would walk with him you must go about upon the same mission. The Almighty lover of the souls of men is not wont to keep company with idle persons. I find in Scripture that most of the great appearances that were made to eminent saints were made when they were busy. Moses kept his father’s flock when he saw the burning bush; Joshua is going round about the city of Jericho when he meets the angel of the Lord; Jacob is in prayer and the angel of God appears to him; Gideon is threshing, and Elisha is ploughing, when the Lord calls them; Matthew is in the receipt of custom when he is bidden to follow Jesus; and James and John are fishing. The manna which the children of Israel kept till morning bred worms and stank: idle grace would soon become active corruption.

Moreover, sloth hardens the conscience: laziness is one of the irons with which the heart is seared. Abimelech hired vain and light persons to serve his turn, and the prince of darkness does the same. Oh! friends, it is a sad thing to rust the edge off from one’s mind, and to lose keenness of moral perception; but sloth will surely do this for us. David felt the emasculating power of sloth, he was losing the force of his conscience, and was ready for anything. The worst is near at hand. He walks upon the housetop and sees the object which excites his lust; he sends for the woman, the deed is done; it leads to another crime, he tempts Uriah; it leads to murder, Uriah is put to death; and he takes Uriah’s wife. Ah, David! Ah, David! how are the mighty fallen! how is the prince of Israel fallen and become like the lewd fellows who riot in the evening! From this day forth his sunshine turns to cloud, his peace gives place to suffering, and he goes to his grave an afflicted and troubled man, who, though he could say, “God hath made with me an everlasting covenant,” yet had to precede it with that very significant sentence, “Although my house be not so with God.” Dear friends, is there any one here among the Lord’s people who would crucify the Lord afresh and put him to an open shame? Is there any one among you that would wish to sell your Master, with Judas, or turn aside from Christ, with Demas? It is easy of accomplishment. Oh, you say, you could not do it. Now, perhaps you could not. Get slothful; do not fight the Lord’s battles, and it will become not only easy for you to sin, but you will surely become its victim. Oh! how Satan delights to make God’s people fall into sin; for then he doth, as it were, thrust another nail into the bloody hand of Christ; then he doth stain the fair white linen of Christ’s own garment; then he vaunteth himself that he hath gotten a victory over the Lord Jesus, and hath led one of the Master’s favourites captive at his will! Oh! if we would not thus make hell ring with Satanic laughter, and make the men of God weep because the cedars of Lebanon are cut down, let us watch unto prayer, and be diligent in our Master’s business, “fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”

My dear friends, we do not exhort you to serve Christ, to be saved by it. David was saved. I only speak to you who are saved, and I beg and beseech of you to take notice of David’s fall, and of the sloth that was at the beginning of it, as a warning to yourselves. Some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack the idle. Notice the invention used by country people to catch wasps. They will put a little sweet liquor into a long and narrow-necked phial. The do-nothing wasp comes by, smells the sweet liquor, plunges in, and is drowned. But the bee comes by, and if she does stop for a moment to smell, yet she enters not, because she has honey of her own to make; she is too busy in the work of the commonwealth to indulge herself with the tempting sweets. Master Greenham, a Puritan divine, was once waited upon by a woman who was greatly tempted. Upon making enquiries into her way of life, he found she had little to do, and Greenham said, “That is the secret of your being so much tempted. Sister, if you are very busy, Satan may tempt you, but he will not easily prevail, and he will soon give up the attempt.” Idle Christians are not tempted of the devil so much as they do tempt the devil to tempt them. Idleness sets the door of the heart ajar, and asks Satan to come in; but if we are occupied from morning till night, if Satan shall get in, he must break through the door. Under sovereign grace, and next to faith, there is no better shield against temptation than being “Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” And, dear friends, let me remind those of you who are doing little for Christ, that once you were not so cold as this. There was a time with David when the sound of the clarion of war would have stirred his blood, and he would have been eager for the fray. There was a day when the very sight of Israel marshalled in goodly phalanx would have made David bold as a lion. Oh! it is an ill thing to see the lion changed like this! God’s hero stays at home with the women! There was a time when you would have gone over hedge and ditch to hear a sermon, and never minded standing in the aisles; but now the sermons are tedious to some of you, although you have soft cushions to sit upon. Then if there was a cottage-meeting, or a street-preaching, you were there. Ah! you say, that was wildfire. Blessed wildfire! The Lord give you the wildfire back again; for even if it be wildfire, better wildfire than no fire at all-better be called a fanatic than deserve to be called a drone in Christ’s hive.

Those of you who do very little for your Master,-and there are a few such in this Church, who grudge to give of their substance,-let me say to you, Are you not ashamed to see how the Lord’s other servants serve him? When Uriah said to David, “The ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in tents; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go into mine house, to eat and to drink? as thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, I will not do this thing,” methinks the king must have felt very uneasy in his luxurious sloth. What say you to this, some of you? You, who were once the chief of sinners, are now saved by grace; you have had high privileges, great tastes of love, near fellowship with him,-you are his own elect, anointed, taken up from the dunghill and made to sit among princes, and yet you are doing next to nothing for Christ. Oh! dear friends, I would not so much conjure you to think over these things, as beseech the Holy Spirit to lay these matters to your hearts, that you may not sleep any longer, but being of the day, may do the day’s work, till the day shall end!

I shall occupy but a few minutes more, while I endeavour to speak of the text as it refers to the whole Church; for I think it has a loud voice to the whole of us as a community. Strangers and members of other Churches must kindly forget that they are here. I am not about to speak to them, but I am about to speak to you,-the two thousand members of this Church under my care, to whom I am bound most of all to speak personally and faithfully.

My dear friends, it does seem to me that to us as a Church the temptation to sloth is very likely to come, for we are very much in the same condition as David. Our enemies do not anything like so much harass us as once they did. When the Parliament is over, we shall have certain newspapers abusing us again, for when they have nothing else to say, they fill up with abusing us. But there was a time when we had no friends. We look back some eight years ago, when the Church of Christ was very shy of us: we were innovators, preaching in those wicked music halls; it was such a very awful thing to preach the gospel where people would come to hear it. It was going contrary to the customs of the Christian Church to carry the gospel to poor sinners; and good people, holy people, and godly people thought we were sinners above all sinners on earth; and if an accident did occur, if the tower of Siloam fell, how plainly were we told that we deserved the catastrophe. Then there were sneers everywhere, caricatures, jeers, jibes of all sorts, and you all had to suffer each your share with your leader. To a great extent that is over. The clergy of the Church of England do now what it was once infamous for us to do. Now the theatre hears the voice of Christ; now the cathedrals echo with the holy hymn-blessed be God for all this! We enjoy a degree of peacefulness, and have not now all the world against us, as once we had. Now we shall be apt to fold our arms and say, Let us subside into the easy respectability of other congregations, and let it be well with us.

During all the time God has been pleased to favour us with profound peace in the Church. We have been disturbed by no word of ill-doctrine, by no uprising of heretics in our midst, or any separations or divisions. This is a blessed thing: but still Satan may make it a dangerous matter. We may begin to think that there is no need for us to watch, that we shall always be as we are; and deacons, and elders, and pastor, and Church members, may all cease their vigilance, and then the root of bitterness may spring up in the neglected corner till it gets too deeply rooted for us to tear it up again.

We have accomplished, as a Church, the great work which we set for ourselves-the building of this house of prayer. And now we come to our place in our loved house of prayer, and feel the Master’s presence with us. But without a grand object before our eyes imperatively demanding self-sacrifice from each one of us, as this object did, without some enterprise which we can all lay hold of and feel that we could give our last shilling to carry it out successfully, we are apt to grow rusty, to lean upon our weapons instead of using them, and to withdraw from the Lord’s host instead of rushing on to battle with the shout of men who mean to win the victory. Ah! give us back again all the noise, and the confusion, and the strife; let us have once more the coldness, and the harshness, and evil speaking of the entire Church of God, if we may but have our early enthusiasm and earnestness for Christ. Our work of educating men for the ministry may supply the object for our zeal; may the Lord give zeal for the object!

Dear friends, let me say solemnly, there are many tendencies to make this Church sleep. We come frequently into contact with professed believers who will throw cold water upon every effort-who think doing anything for Christ a work of supererogation, and there is a tendency in us to go with them, and to say, “Let it be so; let us be quiet.” It is almost necessary for the Church that, at least once in a hundred years, there should arise in it some new body of enthusiasts; for the old Churches, though noble at the start, like all human things, flag ere long. Why, Methodism, though still most powerful, has nothing like the fire it had in Wesley’s and Whitfield’s time. It is now no more like a great volcano sending up torrents of holy fire to heaven in prayer, and sending down streams of all-consuming lava into the plains of sin. It has grown respectable, and learned, and fine. So with each of the Churches. Do they not all degenerate? No matter whether it is England, America, France, Switzerland-wherever it may be, there is a down-drawing tendency constantly at work; and unless God the Holy Ghost come in with irresistible might, we shall as a Church succumb to general lethargy, and yield ourselves to apathy.

What shall we do, as a Church, then? Let us take heed to our footsteps, every one of us, and be doubly careful: let us meet together in greater numbers for prayer; let each man feel more and more his individual responsibility to Christ; let us weigh the awful necessities of this huge city; let us put out every energy, and use every agency that can possibly be employed for the regeneration of this dark, dark land. If we grow idle; if the Church of Christ universally shall grow idle, we cannot expect that our enemies will be idle too. Once the Light said to the Darkness, “I am growing weary with shooting my arrows every morning at thee, O Darkness! I am weary with pursuing thee around the globe continually. I will retire if thou wilt.” But the Darkness said, “Nay, it is of necessity that if thou yieldest thy dominion I shall take it; there can be no truce between thee and me.”

Friends, I might address the members of this Church as it is said an old Scotch Commander once addressed his soldiers when he saw the enemy coming. This was his brief, terse speech: “Lads,” said he, “there they are, and if you dinna kill them they will kill you.” Look, members of the Church; if you do not put down lethargy and sloth, if you strive not against Popery, Infidelity, and Sin, they will put you down. There is no other alternative; to conquer or to die; to live and to be glorious; or to fall ignobly. See, Jehovah lifts his banner before our eyes to-day! Rally ye, rally ye, rally ye, ye soldiers of the cross! The trumpet soundeth exceeding loud and long to-day; and the hell-drum on the other side soundeth too. Who dares to hesitate, let him be accursed. “Curse ye, Meroz, curse ye, Meroz,” saith the Lord, “curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof, if they come not up to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty; “He that is not with me is against me; he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” Out on you, ye indifferent ones! Know ye not ye are either on Christ’s side or else ye are his adversaries. On! the charge comes: Forward, heroes of heaven! What shall become of those who are midway between the two armies? Over ye, over ye; troops shall trample on your bodies. Ye shall be the first to be cut in pieces, O ye indifferent ones! who are neither this nor that; and then shall come the shock, and then the charge; and as in that conflict you shall have no portion, so in that great triumph which shall surely follow, you shall have no share.

I will give way to my friend, Mr. D’Aubigne, who will address you for a few minutes, when I have simply reminded those who are not in Christ’s army that with them there is something to come before service, “Except ye repent and be converted, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The door to that kingdom is Christ; trust him and you are saved. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”

My dear friend, Dr. D’Aubigne, is here this morning, having been called by the Bishop of London, according to the order of our beloved Queen, to preach in the Royal Chapel of St. James. In a kind note with which he favoured me last week, he expressed a desire publicly to shew his hearty fellowship with his brethren of the Free Churches of England, and I am delighted to welcome him in the Tabernacle this morning, in the name of this Church, and I may venture to add, in the name of all the Free Churches of England. May the Historian of the Reformation continue to be honoured of the Lord his God!

Dr. Merle D’Aubigne: I do not speak your tongue, my dear friends-I speak it very badly, but I will do what I can to make myself understood. When I heard your dear pastor reading to us the 16th chapter of the Romans, I remembered those words which we find very often in the Epistles of Paul-“Love to the saints,” and “Faith in the Lord.” In the 16th chapter we find a beautiful exhibition of the love to the saints, the children of God. We see it was written from the Church of Corinthus, in Greece, to the Church of Rome. Observe how many Christians that Church of Corinthus and the apostle knew at Rome! We have a long catalogue of names-Priscilla, Aquila, Andronicus, and others. I must confess, my dear friends, to my shame, that in this great assembly I know only two or three names. I know the name of our dear friend, Mr. Spurgeon; I know the name, but not the person, of Mr. North, upon my left, and I know the name of the friend who has received me in your great city, Mr. Kinnaird, “Gaius, my host,” as the apostle says. But in this great assembly of six thousand men and women, and I hope brethren and sisters in Christ, I do not know another name. Well, my dear friends, I would ask you, do you know the names of many Christians in Geneva? You do not know perhaps three; perhaps two; perhaps one. Now, that is to me a demonstration that fraternity, or brotherly love, is not so intense in our time as it was in the time of the apostles. In the first century, for a man to give his name to the Lord was to expose himself to martyrdom; and Christians in that time formed only one household in the whole world, in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Let us remember that, and may we, by the Holy Ghost, say that we who have been baptized with the blood and the Spirit of the Lord, have only one Father, one Saviour, one Spirit, one faith, and we are only one house, the house of the living God, the house of Christ, one house of the Holy Spirit in the whole world; not only in Europe, Asia, and Africa, but in America, in Australia, one house, one family. Oh, my dear brethren, let us grow in the love to the brethren!

Then there is another thing, faith; faith in the Lord Jesus. There can be no love to the saved and the redeemed, if there is no true living faith and hope in the Saviour and the Redeemer. Well, I suppose all of you in this great meeting would say, “We believe in the Lord, we have faith in him.” Yes, but that faith must be sincere, must be living, must come from the heart. I will tell you one word from Rome. Probably all these friends sent some words to the apostle, but I will tell you one word that was said once in Rome, not at the time of Paul, but at the time of our blessed Reformation. There was in the latter part of the sixteenth century, a man in Italy, who was a child of God, taught by the Spirit. His name was Aonio Paleario. He had written a book called, “The Benefit of Christ’s Death.” That book was destroyed in Italy, and for three centuries it was not possible to find a copy; but two or three years ago, an Italian copy was found, I believe, in one of your libraries at Cambridge or Oxford, and it has been printed again. It is perhaps singular, but this man did not, as he ought to have done, leave the Romish Church. But his whole heart was given to Christ. He was brought before the judge in Rome by order of the Pope. The judge said, “We will put to him three questions; we will ask him what is the first cause of salvation, then what is the second cause of salvation, then what is the third cause of salvation?” They thought that in putting these three questions, he would at last be made to say something which should be to the glory of the Church of Rome. They asked him, “What is the first cause of salvation?” and he answered, “Christ.” They then asked him, “What is the second cause of salvation?” and he answered, “Christ.” And they asked him the third time, “What is the third cause of salvation?” and he answered, “CHRIST.” They thought he would have said, first, Christ; secondly, the Word; thirdly, the Church; but no, he said, “Christ.” The first cause, Christ; the second, Christ; the third, Christ; and for that confession which he made in Rome, he was condemned to be put to death as a martyr. My dear friends, let us think and speak like that man; let every one of us say, “The first cause of my salvation is Christ; the second is Christ; the third is Christ. Christ and his atoning blood, Christ and his powerful regenerating Spirit, Christ and his eternal electing grace, Christ is my only salvation, I know of nothing else.”

Dear friends, we find in the epistle to the Romans these words: “The whole Church saluteth you.” I have no official charge, but I may in a Christian and fraternal spirit say to you, the Genevese Church, the Church in Geneva saluteth you; and I would say, the whole Continental Church saluteth you, for we know you and we love you and the dear minister God has given you. Now we ask from you love towards us. We do what we can in that dark Continent to bring forward the light of Jesus Christ. In Geneva we have an Evangelical Society which has that work before it, and in other places we are also labouring; we ask for our work an interest in your prayers, for the work is hard among the Roman Catholics and the infidels of the Continent. But as our brother in the beginning of the service reminded you that from the little town of Geneva light came, by the grace of the Spirit, to many nations, and especially to England and Scotland, by the ministry of John Calvin, our Reformer; I may mention to you that upon the tri-centenary anniversary of the death of Calvin, which will take place in two years, on the 27th of May, 1864, we desire to erect in Geneva a monument to the blessed Reformation, and to the Reformer who has been the instrument of God in promoting the true doctrine, not only in Geneva, but in a great many countries, and I ask also your interest in that work, and in that spot which has been blessed since the 16th century, for Switzerland, for France, for the Netherlands, for Germany, for England, for Scotland, and is now blessed for the United States, and for the ends of the earth. I beg of you, dear friends, your deep interest and your earnest prayer for us. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all! Amen.