The first meaning of our text is very clear. Here is a prophecy, that as Jerusalem, having been despoiled of her beauty by her enemies, was for a long time forsaken and worthy to be called, “A city which no man seeketh after,” so, in a brighter day, her glory shall return, she shall be an attraction to all lands, and the joy of the whole earth; multitudes of willing pilgrims shall seek her out that they may behold her beauty. She shall be a city greatly set by and greatly sought out by those who love the hallowed spots where the mighty deeds of the Lord were wrought, and the arm of Jehovah made bare. The text, doubtless, has a similar reference to the Church of God. During many centuries the Church of Christ was hidden-a thing obscure, despised, unknown, abhorred; she concealed herself in the catacombs; her followers were the poorest and most illiterate of men, proscribed by cruel laws, and hunted by ferocious foes. Although the royal bride of Christ, and destined to be the ruler of nations, she made no figure in the world’s eye; she was but a little stone cut out of the mountain without hands. But the day is already come in which multitudes seek the Church of Christ. Behold, they fly as a cloud, and as doves to their windows! They ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward. As time rolls on, and the millennial kingdom of Christ comes nearer and nearer, the Church of God shall be more and more sought out, and from the ancient east and the far-off west they shall come, multitudes beyond all count, saying, “Tell us where is the city of the Lord, the people of his love? “Though this, doubtless, is the primary meaning, I nevertheless believe that we may, without violence to the text, use it in another manner. In a fuller and more spiritual sense the Church of God may well be called “Sought out;” and the like title may truthfully be applied to every single member of that dearly-loved and dearly-purchased family. All the children of God may take for their name and distinction the words, “Sought out.”

Without indulging in a longer preface, let us at once proceed to map out the plan of our present meditation. We intend to talk a little while upon the natural condition implied, and then upon the surpassing grace revealed; our third point will be the distinguishing title justified, and finally, the special duty suggested.

If the Church of God, my brethren, has been “sought out,” then it is clear enough that originally it was lost-lost like that woman’s piece of silver which she valued so much that she lit her candle and swept her house, and searched diligently until she found it. The tremendous fact of man’s utter ruin is the underlying cause of the necessity for grace to seek out its object. If the fall had not been so complete in its ruin, there had been no need to seek us, for we should have sought the Lord. This, however, is the gloomy truth, that we are altogether become abominable, and all flesh hath perverted its way. Of this fact there can be no doubt, for you and I, who have been saved by grace, know right well that we were lost; hopelessly and for ever lost, had not Jesus sought us out. Many of the chosen seed are suffered to indulge in sin until they are lost even to the pretence of virtue and morality; lost to the hopes of the most earnest friends, and the most affectionate entreaties of anxious relatives. Lost we all were in our federal head, by imputation of his sin; lost, effectually, by infusion of his corrupt nature; lost, afterwards, actually, by our practice; lost, manifestly, by an accumulation of evil habits, and the growing force of depraved appetites. We have, by nature, departed far from God, and, like the prodigal, have gone into a far country. We are comparable to that poor wretch who was possessed with a legion of devils, whom fetters could not bind, nor chains restrain. He who said, that by nature, man is half brute and half devil, was not far from the truth. O my brethren, shall we ever know in this life how lost we were by nature? Until we can comprehend what “the wrath of God” means, by gazing steadfastly into the pit of hell; until we can understand the purity of God amid the perfection of heaven, and so can measure the awful distance between our depraved condition and the perfect holiness of Jehovah, we shall not know how lost we were. But we know enough to make us shudder. Oh, when we saw, or thought we saw, the desperate evil of sin, then we cried out, “Lost! Lost! Lost!” with greater bitterness than he who sorrows for his only son, even for his first-born. Oh, the horrors of that terribly truthful discovery which showed us ourselves. We felt in our conscience that we were lost to everything which could commend us to God, or could attract his regard; we knew that in ourselves there were no means of restoration to purity and happiness. We were utterly and entirely lost, and, as I said before, some of us lost with a vengeance, for our outward life had become a foul development of the filthy fountains within. Aliens, enemies, rebels, traitors, what shall we say more, no name is too vile for us. Had we been left to lie among the broken potsherds as worthless refuse, or had we been swept away with every unclean and loathsome thing, this had been our just desert. God could not have been too severe, even if the lowest pit of hell had been our portion.

And then, my brethren, we were so lost that we did not seek the Lord. Natural men have superficial and passing thoughts of seeking God, but they have no true hunger and thirst after him. Now and then a pang of conscience, a sickly wish after something better crosses the unrenewed mind; but as the smoke out of the chimney is blown away by the wind, so these hasty emotions are gone and forgotten. As the dew which trembles at early morn upon the hedgerow evaporates in the heat of the sun, so the best desires which unregenerate men can know are soon melted away, when once the sun of the world’s temptation rises upon us. My brethren, we who know the Lord know that we had no serious effectual thoughts of seeking after God until He sought after us. We were wandering sheep, well skilled in straying, but without the will to return. When the Spirit of God came upon us, he found nothing in our hearts ready to work with him, but everything running in the opposite direction. Every imagination of the thought of our heart was only evil, and that continually. Those who repent and seek the Lord before his grace draws them to himself, must be of a different race from us, for we were far off, and loved the distance too well to dream of returning.

To descend still lower, my brethren, as we had no thought of coming to God, so we never should have willed to return. Left to ourselves, like the lost sheep, we should have wandered farther and farther, feeding upon yonder mountain of vanity, or skipping in the green valleys of sin; but back to God, to Christ, to heaven, we never could or should have come. As well might water labour to ascend like fire as for fallen humanity to long after God. Wolves and tigers do not without miracle renounce their feasts of blood, nor will man refuse his natural food of sin. If there be any true desire in the human heart towards God and his Christ, it must have been implanted there by a divine power. God himself in his bounty must have placed it there, for from the soil of nature it never could have come-at least so we have found it in our own case, for to this day, though we are saved, we find that the natural motions of our heart are all from God-none of them to God, and though we are his children exalted above measure by his great grace, yet still the evil heart of unbelief departeth from the living God, and never doth it come toward him. O carnal mind, thou desperately evil thing, thou art not reconciled to God, nor indeed canst thou be! O God, thou giver of every good and perfect gift, hadst thou left us until our nature had spontaneously desired renewal, and our hearts had panted after thy salvation, thou wouldst have left us for ever, for we should have chosen the downward path, and after the lusts of the world we should have gone! The text, I think, implies all this, for God never works unnecessary wonders, and if we could have come to him, or should have come to him without his seeking us, doubtless he would have left us to that free will of which some boast so much. Brethren, we were lost, lost without a wish to return, and without a possibility of ever having such a wish.

Nay I must go further, our lost estate is shewn yet more clearly in the fact that, so far from seeking God, we did not desire him to seek us. Till he first inspired the wish to be found, we resisted his seekings. So far from asking him to visit us with his salvation, when he did come, we took up arms against our gracious friend. Well do I remember those early strivings of the Spirit with my youthful heart which I choked one after the other with a resolute determination. Well can I recollect those strong wrestlings, when it seemed as if the Spirit of God would separate me from my sins and I must lay hold on Christ, and yet, determined still to abide in sin and self-righteousness, I stood out against the Lord and would not have “that man” to reign over me. Ah! how long did Jesus stand and knock at our door, so long that he might well cry as he does in the Canticles, “My head is wet with dew and my locks with the drops of the night.” We would not let him in; instead of rising to open, we sought to fasten every bolt and to send every bar home, and we turned the horrible key of our self-will in the wards of the lock, with a “depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.” Ah, my brethren, if he sought us out, it was not because we had a will towards him, or because we were importunate in prayer; our will was his great opponent; we were desperately set on mischief, and if we had not been sought out by sovereign grace, saved we never should have been.

“’Twas thy love, O God, that knew us,

Earth’s foundations long before:

That same love to Jesus drew us,

By its sweet constraining power,

And will keep us,

Safely, now and evermore.”

To complete the story of this our natural condition, I must add that our being sought out, considering our condition, was one of the greatest wonders ever known or heard of. I have heard this expressed in words occasionally; when a man has come to join the Church, he has said to me, “If any one had told me six months ago that I should make a profession of being a follower of Christ, I would have knocked him down. If any one had said to me ‘You will repent of sin, and seek and find a Saviour,’ I should have laughed him to scorn-‘I am no such fool,’ I should have said, as to become one of your canting hypocritical methodists; such a thing can never be.” And yet the thing did occur; and that soul which was once like the demoniac, full of devils, comes to sit clothed and in its right mind at the feet of the Saviour, rejoicing in his power to save. In every one of us, if we have not put it into just such words, the grace which sought us has been quite as illustrious. What reason canst thou find why God should love thee? How canst thou shew any reason why he should follow thee in all thy wanderings, why he should stand out against thee in all thy determinations of self-destruction? Why was it that he should track thy devious footsteps and never leave thee until the predestinated moment came? How was it that then he grappled with thee and overcame, and made thee willingly bow thy neck to his joyous yoke? Thou canst tell no reason; thou canst only clap thy hands in admiration and lift up thy heart in wonder and bless and praise the Lord that thy name is “Sought out.”

“ ‘Twas all of thy grace we were brought to obey,

While thousands were suffer’d to go

The road which by nature we chose as our way,

Which leads to the region of woe.”

Thus much then concerning our natural condition. You who know it, and have felt it, need not my words to teach you, but it is well for you to look often to the hole of the pit whence ye were drawn, and the rock whence ye were hewn; a sight of your first state will humble you, and fill your heart with praise to the God of grace who has made you to differ.

Secondly, we have in the text surpassing grace revealed.

This grace lies in several particulars. First, that they were sought out at all. It is very wonderful grace on the part of God that he should plan a way of salvation, that he should prepare a great marriage supper and issue the invitation to all men to come and feast thereat. The gospel which says to men, “Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely,” is a most gracious gospel; but there is something more gracious than this generous summons. One would have supposed that after the invitation had been freely given and the preparation for the feast had been generously made, that the Lord would leave men to come or not as they willed. It is grace enough, surely, for God to provide meat for the hungry; let them come and eat, and if they will not, let them starve. To prepare ointment for the wounded, is not that enough? If the sick will not accept the medicine, then let them perish for their ingratitude in rejecting the healing gift. Ah, but God’s ways are not as our ways. Your bounty and mine would never dream of going any further. We never force our charity on unwilling recipients; we do not follow after diseased men and beg and pray them to be made whole; not we. We think our bounty large enough if we give to him that asketh of us, but to seek after pensioners, this we never did, and probably never shall do. But hear, O earth, and be astonished ye heavens! After the general proclamation of the gospel has been made and man has rejected it, after Christ has been offered to men and they have refused him, God’s love does not stop there, but, determined to glorify his love, he then comes to seek out those who will not seek him. “If,” saith he, “ye will not turn at my rebuke, if my invitation is trodden under foot, I will do more than this, I will come out in the splendour of my grace and the magnificence of my power, and I will deal with that will of yours and overcome it; I will touch that stubborn nature of yours and make you yield; ‘A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.’ ‘Thou shalt call me, my Father; and shalt not turn away from me.’ ” It is a marvel of marvels, that sinful man fleeing from his Maker, rejecting his Creator’s invitation, refusing to be blessed with the blessedness of God, is nevertheless with unparalleled perseverance and unexampled love sought out and made captive by Almighty love.

But this grace appears even more conspicuous if you consider the persons sought out. That any should be sought out is matchless grace, but that we should be sought, is grace beyond degree. My brother, my sister, I do not know what may have been your particular condition, but this I know, you will feel that there was ten times more reason that you should have been left out than that you should have been included in the purpose of grace. Often have I thought that I was the odd man. If in the muster-roll of eternal life there must be one left out, I should myself have made the selection of my own person as the one most worthy to have been disregarded. Why me, Lord? Why me?

“Why was I made to hear thy voice,

And enter where there’s room;

While thousands make a wretched choice,

And rather starve than come.”

Does not the same thought arise in your mind? Is not your soul stirred with a holy and grateful wonder that you should have been sought out? And when, my brethren, I think of some in this place some who once were in the harlot’s company, but who are sought out; some of you who once were plunged in drunkenness, how shall I sufficiently praise the Lord for you. Many of you on the Sabbath day never listened to the preached Word, but sought your own pleasure and followed your own business, but you are sought out? Many a tongue that sung the hymn just now once cursed and blasphemed God. Glory be to the grace which sought you out. Yes, though such were some of us, “we are washed, we are sanctified, we are cleansed;” and is not this a marvel that such as we are should have been sought out? If he had sought kings and princes we might have found a reason, but to seek us poor, obscure working men, illiterate, without ability, this is sovereign grace indeed! That he should seek the good, the moral, the excellent, we should not marvel at; but to seek us, the depraved, the wicked, the abandoned, how shall we glorify his name! Tell it in hell and let devils howl, publish it in heaven and let angels sing; chant it ye blood-washed ones before the eternal throne; he hath chosen the base things of this world and the things that are not to bring to nought the things that are. This is a wonder of wonders, that we, even we, should bear the name of “Sought out.”

Nor must I fail to bring to your recollection, that the surpassing grace of God is seen very clearly in that we were sought out. The word “out,” conveys a mass of meaning. We were not only sought, but sought out. Men go and seek for a thing which is lost upon the floor of the house, but in such a case there is only seeking, not seeking out. The loss is more perplexing, and the search more persevering when a thing is sought out. We were mingled with the mire; we were as when some precious piece of gold falls into the sewer, and men have to gather out and carefully inspect a heap of abominable filth, to turn it over, and over, and over, and continue to stir and rake, and search among the heap until the thing is found. Or, to use another figure, we were lost in a labyrinth; we wandered hither and thither, and when ministering mercy came after us, it did not find us at the first coming; it had to go to the right hand and to the left, and search hither and thither, and everywhere, to seek us out, for we were so desperately lost, and had got into such a strange position, that it did not seem possible that ever grace could come to us. And yet we were sought out! No gloom could hide us, no filthiness could conceal us, we were found. Glory be to divine grace, God the Holy Spirit found us! The lives of some of God’s people, if they could be written, would make you marvel. The romance of divine grace is infinitely more interesting than the romance of imagination. We have known persons who have run into the arms of Christ while they were intending to run down to hell; some who no more dreamed of being saved than of being made princes, who strolled into the house of God from curiosity, and the minister’s finger, or the glance of his eye arrested them, and they felt the power of life divine; some who were rushing to the river to take away their own lives, but some text spoke to their conscience and arrested their guilty feet. Strange and marvellous are the ways which God has used to find his own. He would shake a whole nation with his strong right hand to find his own elect. He would shake all nations, and bring the whole world to unparalleled confusion before he would suffer one of the blood-bought pearls of his crown to be lost among the ruins of the fall. He must and will seek them out, as the shepherd seeketh out his sheep in the cloudy and dark day, bringing some of them down from the steep summit, others from the caverns among the crags; some from the river’s brink, others from the flood itself-all must be brought into one place, where they shall form one fold, under one Shepherd.

One second will suffice to hint, dear brethren, that the grace of God is illustrious in the divine agent by whom we are sought out. The text, taken in its connexion, tells us that we were sought out divinely. Saved souls are sought out by God himself, and omnipotence is strained; omniscience is fully exercised, every attribute of God is put to its sternest labour to seek out lost souls. The most tremendous effort of divine strength we know to be the regeneration of man. To bring Christ from the dead made God’s name to be right honourable for mighty power, but to raise his people from their graves is equally a work of stupendous power and grace. Dost thou ever think, Christian, who it was that came to seek thee? It was not the minister; he might have sought thee year after year, and never have found thee. Thy tearful mother, with her many prayers, would have missed thee. Thine anxious father, with his yearning bowels of compassion, would never have discovered thee. Those providences, which like great nets were seeking to entangle thee, would all have been broken by thy strong dashings after evil. Who was it sought thee out? None other than himself. The Great Shepherd could not trust his under-shepherds; he must himself come, and oh! if it had not been for those eyes of omniscience, he never would have seen thee; he never would have read thy history and known thy case: if it had not been for those arms of omnipotence, he never could have grasped thee; he never could have thrown thee on his shoulders and brought thee home rejoicing. Thou wast divinely sought. There is as much the impress of the finger of God upon a sought-out soul, as there is upon a newly-created world. You may see God’s finger in the green mead studded with yellow flowers, in the flowing rills, and towering mounts, and in the bright lamps of heaven at eventide, but you shall see the whole hand of God most clearly when a new-born soul is led to seek after the Lord’s salvation. Ye shall be called “the people sought out;” and this shall be the wonder of it, that ye were sought out in a divine fashion.

“Love strong as death, nay, stronger,

Love mightier than the grave;

Broad as earth, and longer

Than ocean’s widest wave:

This is the love that sought us,

This is the love that bought us,

This is the love that brought us,

To gladdest day from saddest night,

From deepest shame to glory bright,

From depths of death to life’s fair height.”

Then, dear brethren, to close this part, remember that the glory of it is that we were sought out effectually. We are a people not sought out and then missed at the last. Almightiness and wisdom combined will make no failures. I may seek some of you in vain, as, alas, I have done; I may preach and preach again, as I do to-day, and yet, mayhap, you will all miss the net; but when my Master comes out to fish for souls the net will soon be full, there is no failure in his case. All of us, dear brethren, who have been brought into union with Christ, know that we were brought because it was effectual grace that came to us. There is a grace which may be resisted, there are common strivings of the Spirit, against which a man may contend successfully, but when the Spirit puts out the fulness of his divine energy, with the intention to work a sure work, it can never be frustrated. In each of our cases there has been a divine intention, omnipotently, to constrain us to be saved, and that intention has been followed up by a divine action, which it was impossible for us to have effectually resisted, which, in fact, we did not and could not resist, because it charmed us into a complete subjection, and we yielded at once to its away. This has taken place in every single heart, and this is the glory of the name “sought out,” that we were not half sought out, we were not feebly and unsuccessfully sought, but we were effectually and completely sought out, and that is the reason why we are to-day heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.

Let us notice, in the third place, the distinguishing title justified. We are a people sought out. How were we sought out? Let us justify the name.

Brethren, we are sought out first of all in the eternal purposes and the work of Christ. The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven was the commencement, the first overt act of seeking our souls. All that bloody pilgrimage of his, when hands and feet were bleeding, all that dreadful suffering of his upon the cross, was a seeking out of his people. Like some great pearl-diver, the Lord Jesus Christ stood upon the glorious cliffs of heaven, and plunged deep into the floods of sorrow and of sin that he might seek out the lost pearls. Virtually, our Lord did save all his people there and then. “He came to seek and to save that which was lost.’ and he did save, by his death, all his chosen. Though not actually, they were virtually every one of them saved in that very hour when he bowed his head and said “It is finished.” At that moment they were in his hands, they were united to his person in the divine decree. At that moment they stood in him,

“Not as they stood in Adam’s fall,

When sin and sorrow covered all;

But as they’ll stand another day,

Fairer than sun’s meridian ray.”

“He hath saved us” first, “and called us” afterwards, “with a holy calling.”

This seeking out, as far as we know it, began by gracious words of mercy. In the case of some, these were heard very early. A godly mother told us the truth with weeping, a holy father set us a good example; we were sought out by that little Bible we were taught to read, and that hymn-book which was put into our hands. We were sought out when we were taken to the House of God. The minister preached the gospel freely to all; he described our character, and affectionately bade us come to Jesus. We were sought out while the preacher called the Sabbath-breaker, while he called the hard-hearted, the hypocrite, the formalist, the abandoned, the profane. While he called each of these, according to our case we felt that he was calling us, and the eyes of Jesus were looking on us, and his voice was bidding us repent and live. Sometimes we were specially sought out under the ministry, when the preacher was led to describe our case, painting it in glowing colours. We thought somebody had told him, he seemed to know us so well, to have read us through and through, and we went home to our chamber, moved, at least for a season, with a desire after God, for we had been sought out.

Nor did the Lord leave us only to the kind invitations of the ministry. Afflictions sought us out. The fever hunted us to the cross. When the cholera came, it carried a great whip in its hand to flog us to the Saviour. We had serious losses, a decaying business, all which should have weaned us from the world. Our friends sickened; from their graves we heard the voice of invitation, “Come unto Christ and live.” We were disappointed in some of our fondest hopes, and our heart, riven for the time, yearned after a higher life and a deeper satisfaction. Affliction after affliction, and tribulation after tribulation, were the means which God used for seeking us out; and then came visitations, mysterious visitations. It was in the night season when all was still, we sat up in our bed, and solemn thoughts passed through us; the preacher’s words which we had heard years ago came back fresh as when we heard them for the first time; old texts of Scripture, the recollection of a mother’s tears, all these came upon us. Or it was in the midst of business, and we did not know how it was, but suddenly a deep calm came over us. We felt as if an unseen hand was drawing us to pray; we resisted the divine impulse, but we knew that it had been there. It came again and again, and often as we walked the streets we seemed attended by another soul than our own. It appeared to us, as if at times we were two men in one, and that new and better man wrestled with us like the angel with Jacob, and at last by divine grace, overcame us, and brought us to repentance and humble faith. But after all, dlear friends, these visitations, these providences, these preachings, and so on, would all have been nothing, if it had not been for the appointed time when the Holy Spirit came and sought us out. Can I ever forget that moment when the preacher’s finger pointed to me, and he said “Young man, believe in Jesus Christ, believe in Jesus Christ now.” It was not his voice alone that spoke to me, but the voice from the mysterious throne said, “Believe now;” and believe I did. I found no will to refuse. The thing I could not do before; the thing I did not understand till that moment, I both understood and did. I did believe in Jesus, and the burden rolled from off my galled shoulders, and the spirit was emancipated and free. O may that time come to you who have never yet been sought out. May the Spirit of God so touch you that you cannot resist him; so effectually move you, that you must yield subjection to the cross of Christ. In your cases as well as mine, beloved in the Lord Jesus, you will be led to see that it was the effectual power of God the Holy Ghost that really did bring you to Christ, so that the title is fully justified-“Sought out.” There may be some persons who come to Christ of themselves, I do not believe there are, but I am not one of them. There may be some who keep to Christ by the power of their free will-I believe there is a whole denomination who profess to do so-but I can only say, their experience is the very reverse of what I have felt. I believe that those of whom we read in Christian biography, and in Scripture, owed their salvation to free, rich, and sovereign grace, so that the religion of these persons who come to Christ of their own free will is of modern invention, and I would not give a snap of the finger for the grace that springs from self, or another snap of my finger for the conversion which is the result of free will. May the Lord give us to be born from above, and if we have not a religion which is not wrought in us by the Spirit of God, the sooner we get rid of it the better, for then, perhaps, we shall go to him who can give us the true bread of heaven, that we may not be found empty at the last.

Now I have dispatched these three matters and I come to the practical part of the subject, and may I have your earnest attention? There is a a special duty incumbent upon those who wear the title, “Sought out.”

My brethren, if it be really so that you are such debtors to divine seeking, ought you not to spend your whole lifetime in seeking others out? If you owe everything to divine grace and nothing to self, are you not under solemn obligation to be the Lord’s for ever, and ought you not-not by proxy, but personally and individually every one of you-to seek out the rest of the Lord’s people, that they like you may bear the title of a people sought out. I am earnest in the desire of inducing every member of this Church and of every other Church to be winners of souls. The preaching of the Gospel is God’s grand instrument of mercy; that is his great magnet. Those of you who can use this holy weapon, do. You that have ability, and have talents, devote yourselves to God’s cause. Give yourselves up to his ministry. I would to God there were more of those who are successful in professions, men who either in medicine or law would attain eminence, would consecrate their talents to the ministry; they need not fear that in giving themselves to God he will not take care of them, and as to honour, if it be found anywhere, it is the sure heritage of the faithful ambassador of Christ. If you have been sought out, my brother, I do not blush to recommend you to give up the most lucrative employment to seek out others. If you have the power to stir other’s hearts, if God has given you the tongue of the eloquent, consecrate it neither to parliament nor to the bar, but devote it to the plucking of brands from the burning; become a herald of the cross, and let the whole world, as far as possible, hear from you the tidings of salvation.

The preaching of the gospel is not the only means; it is a way of seeking out most commonly used; but there are other methods which I will recommend to you this morning. We are not to preach merely to those who come to listen. We must carry the gospel to where men do not desire it. We should consider it our business to be generously impertinent; thrusting the gospel into men’s way, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear. Let us hunt for souls, first of all, by visitation. There are thousands in London who never will be converted by the preaching of the gospel, for they never attend places of worship. Some of them do not know what sort of thing a religious service is. We may shudder when we say it; it is believed there are thousands in London who do not even know the name of Christ-living in what we call a Christian land, and yet they have not heard the name of Jesus. Thank God things are better than they were; but things are bad enough still. Brethren, you must go and see these things and mend them. To the lodging-houses, young men, you must carry the gospel, and to those thickly-peopled habitations, where every room contains a family, and not one room a Christian. I believe there is very much good to be done by house-to-house visitation-not by City Missionaries and Bible-women only, may God speed that noble body of labourers-but by all of you, by you that have position in society among your neighbours; make yourselves free, and go and talk to them of Christ in the little houses that are near to you; as far as your time allows be a visitor, and if there be one dark part of the town known to you as the haunt of sinners, make it a point to use this agency of visitation from house-to-house. Let the lost sheep of Israel’s house be sought out. Some will need special means, before ever they can be found and brought in. How does one’s heart rejoice over the reformatories and the midnight meetings, over the attempts to bring that class of souls to Christ. I have often heard it said that few of the converts from those meetings hold on and prove sincere. It is a great falsehood-a very considerable portion are reformed, and mere reformations are of little use but where regeneration is wrought, and these girls are pointed to a Saviour, you will never find one of them go back. Has not God been pleased to give us in this Church scores of instances where those who were the decoyers for Satan are now the leaders of others to the Cross of Christ, and like Mary, love much because they have much forgiven. Seek them out. If there be any other class that is neglected, seek it out. If you happen to know any of the more degraded part of the population, who are only sought for by the policeman, and never hear a word of good advice, except from the stipendiary magistrate, do you seek them out. If Christ sought you out, the inference is strong that you ought to seek out others, and if special means be wanted, let special means be applied. You must be very kind; to broken hearts you must speak very gently. Their distance from God is a distance of fear. The gulf that separates them is despair. There are some such in this house, perhaps. Seek them out, and if you find them very desponding, writing bitter things against themselves, let love be shown them. Try if you can, to get the cords of affection around them, and so draw them to Christ. Do not turn from them, and say, “They are such miserable objects, so unbelieving; I will not look after them;” but the more you find they need a tender heart and a weeping eye to bring them to the Saviour, the more do you carefully follow them till you bring them to him. You will find some who will want a world of perseverance. Perhaps your child has been for thirty years unconverted. Your prayers have been unheard till now, and the devil tempts you to give it up. Never do so. If you had to be sought so long-and some of you needed to be sought for fifty years before you were found-never give up a fellow-creature. Follow your child in all his ingratitude, pursue his footsteps with your loving kindness, and never leave him until you have brought him at last to find joy where you found it-in the wounds of Jesus.

Let me beg you, where all other means fail, to seek men by your prayers. As long as a man has one other man to pray for him there is a hope of his salvation. If you in your daily supplications make mention of men-if you select special cases-if you bear their names before the Lord, you shall have the joy of seeing them turned from darkness to light, and they with you shall be a people “sought out.” If a word of mine shall stir up but one of you to seek the Lord’s hidden ones, my soul shall rejoice, and if every one of you shall register a vow in this house of prayer-“I will seek out some family to-day, and continue my work to-morrow, and the next day I will be seeking out others; I will not wait till they come to me to be taught, but go and seek them and compel them to come in that the house may be filled, that the Church of God may have its full complement of Christ’s chosen;” if you will do this, my soul shall be well content. If you have never been sought, then you will not seek others; if you have never tasted that the Lord is gracious, I shall not marvel that you neglect this work, but oh! by the hell from which you are delivered, by the heaven to which you are going, by the blood which redeemed you from death and hell, by that gracious Spirit which quickened you and still keeps you alive, by every glorious promise which stimulates you in your onward career, I pray you spend yourselves and be spent in seeking souls. Look at this great mass of habitations, this wilderness of human dwellings, if we do not work with all our might we can never hope to see the knowledge of the Lord covering this great world of London, let alone the greater world outside. O let us be up and doing, and let it be told in every house, in every alley, that Christians care for souls. If ye be the people sought out, go and seek others; tell them that “Whosoever believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved.”

NO ILLUSION

A Sermon

by the

REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“And wist not that it was true which was done by the angel; but thought he saw a vision.”-Acts 12:9.

Fancy, not fact! a dream! a delusion! That would be the world’s estimate of the most blessed Christian experience. “Fanaticism” is the name by which they call it. But call it by whatever name ye please, the grace that interposes and rescues a sinner from the law’s threatenings, from Satan’s tyranny, from the malice of men, and the fears of one’s own heart, is matter of abundant joy. Then let it be witnessed by a life of undeviating principle and devoted service of God-sneer who may-suspect it who will-it is a noble triumph. Such triumphs of grace we have, among us; full many who can witness. Still, dear friends, not unfrequently does it happen, that you, whose salvation is our joy, of whom we speak with the utmost assurance, are yourselves in straits, exercised with fightings without and fears within; and you are unable to satisfy your own consciences that the work is divine. Observe now that Peter was brought out of prison by a great miracle, and yet it seemed to him as a vision or a dream. I need not recapitulate the circumstances. I have just read them in your hearing. This much I propose.

First, let me endeavour to draw out some reflections from the narrative; and then, secondly, I shall take up the text itself and try to show you that there is no illusion, whatever you may think, in the mighty operations of the Lord.

To begin: the first remark we think we are justified in making is this, that if ever our enemies can get hold of us, they will be quite sure to hold us as fast as they can. When Herod had been able to apprehend Peter, he was not content with ordinary means of keeping him in custody. He has Peter put into the strongest prison in Jerusalem; to make assurance doubly sure, he is chained not to one soldier, but to two. He was too great a prize to be readily lost. He anticipated so much satisfaction to himself, from the applause of the people, for putting so eminent a servant of Christ as James to death, that he could not afford to lose an opportunity of getting further prey; so he seizes upon him who was accounted a pillar in the Church with singular avidity. Mark you, men and brethren, if by any fault of our own we ever fall into the hand of our enemies, we need expect no mercy from them. And if without fault we be delivered for a little season into their hands, we have good reason to cry aloud to God, for whoever may be spared, the Christian never is. Men will forgive a thousand faults in others, but they will magnify the most trivial offence in the true follower of Jesus. Nor do I very much regret this. Let it be so, and let it be a caution to us to walk very carefully before God in the land of the living. You young members of the Church, who are often engaged in your worldly calling, where a great number of persons are watching for your halting, let this be a special reason to walk very humbly before God. If you walk carelessly, remember the lynx-eyed world will soon see it, and then, with its hundred tongues, it will soon spread the story. You may say-“Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Askelon, lest the daughters of Philistia rejoice.” But they will tell it. With many an addition of their own they will repeat the story. You shall hear them say-“Aha! Aha! So would we have it! All these Christians are inconsistent, they are all mere professors, they are hypocrites to a man, every one of them.” Thus will much damage be done to our good cause, and much insult offered to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The cross of Christ is in itself an offence to the world; let us take heed that we do not add any offence of our own. It is “to the Jew a stumblingblock;” let us mind that we put no stumblingblocks where there are enough already. “To the Greek it is foolishness;” let us not add our folly to give point to the scorn with which the worldly-wise deride the gospel. Oh, how jealous should we be of ourselves, for we serve a jealous God! How rigid should we be with our consciences, for we serve one whose name is “Holy, Holy, Holy!” Yes, in the presence of adversaries, who will misrepresent our best deeds, and torture our best endeavours into something selfish, impugning our motives where they cannot censure our actions, how circumspect should we be! We pilgrims travel as suspected persons through the world. Not only are we under surveillance, but there are more spies than we reck of. The espionage is everywhere, at home and abroad. If we fall into their hands, we may sooner expect generosity from a wolf, or mercy from a fiend, than to find anything like patience with our infirmities from the men of the world, or anything like the hiding of our iniquities from the men who spice their infidelity towards God with scandals against his people. The world is too much like the accursed Canaan, who pointed to his father’s nakedness. We can only expect of our own brethren, the conduct of Shem and Japheth, who shall go backward to cast the mantle over us. Better far that we should so act and so live as to not even need this mantle of charity, but be able to say, with all humility, yet with holy courage-“Lord, thou knowest that in this thing I have not sinned, but have walked uprightly in thy ways.” That is the first lesson which I feel bound to inculcate. “For what glory is it, if when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently?”

The second lesson is this. When a case is put into God’s hands, he will certainly manage it well, and he will interfere in sufficient time to bring his servants out of their distress. Peter’s case was put into God’s hands. The company that met at the house of Mary, the mother of Mark, were appealing to the great Advocate. If any man be in prison, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” With their humble prayers and tears they were pleading for their brother, whose valuable life they could ill afford to spare, for the infant Church needed the apostles at least for a season. I think I hear them pleading one after the other-“Lord, remember Peter! Thou knowest how we love him; our desires go up for him. James is dead. Alas! we took up his body and mourned him! Let not Peter be slain! Oh, take not thou the prop from under us! Remove not the pillar from the wall, nor the stone from its place.” The Lord has heard their cries. Peter’s cause is in his hand. He will interfere in due time. The assurance that prayer is heard is the earnest that prayer will be answered. The petition is accepted, though no answer has yet been received. Well, we can leave it there. But see, brethren, Peter has been lying in prison the whole week. The feast of unleavened bread is over, it is the last night, the last night! The evening has crept on; nay, the dark hours have set in; it is midnight. The sun will soon be rising-in a few more hours-and then where is Peter? Lord, if thou do not interfere, where is Peter? If thou come not now to help him his blood shall make the populace of Jerusalem glad while they gloat and delight in his slaughter! Yes but just at that last and darkest hour of the night, God’s opportunity overtook man’s extremity. A light shone in the dungeon. Peter was awakened. God never is before his time; nor is he ever too late; he comes just when he is needed. But see, there is Peter asleep! Peter is asleep, doing nothing, doing nothing! Well, and the best thing for him too, for the case was put into God’s hand. I ask you, dear friends, suppose Peter had been awake, what could he do? Had he been fretting and troubling himself, what good could he have done? Finding, therefore, that nothing remained for him, he just throws himself upon the mercy of God, shuts his eyes as peaceably as though he were to wake to-morrow to a wedding feast, and not to his own execution. Sleep on, blessed slumberer! Well might Herod envy thee that peace which his kingly robe could never give him. Thou sleepest, though thy hands be chained, for thy spirit is free; and it may be that in thy dreams thou art rejoicing “with a joy unspeakable, and full of glory.” When the case is taken into God’s hands, and you and I feel that we can do nothing for ourselves, we may take sleep in perfect quietude, for so he giveth his beloved sleep. While we sleep, his watchful eyes do keep their ceaseless guard. Jesus might seem on one occasion to be asleep, but you know where he slept-it was in the hinder-part of the ship. Why there? Methinks he slept with his hand on the tiller, so that the moment he awoke he might steer the vessel,

“Though winds and waves assault thy keel,

He doth preserve it, he doth steer-

E’en when the bark seems most to reel.”

“Storms are the triumphs of his art,

Sure he may close his eyes, but not his heart.”

God sleepeth never; he is ever on the watch for his people. “Well, but,” saith one, “surely the Lord should have interfered before this time, for Peter is not only asleep, but he is bound-bound to two soldiers! How can he escape?” Ah! that word “How?”-that word “How?” What a deal of mischief it has done to faith! But, do you know that true faith has no such word in all her vocabulary? Faith never says “How?” God has said “It shall be,” faith believes it will be. As to how it shall be, that is God’s business, not mine. It is Unbelief that says “How? I do not see it. How? How? How can it be?” Hush, Unbelief! The fetters shall drop off, gates shall open of their own accord. The case is in God’s hand, man. If it were in man’s hand it would fail, for cursed is he that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm. The strongest sinew in an arm of flesh must crack; there must be impossibilities to humanity, but to the Deity impossibilities are nothing. Be thou quiet, for the case is with him; it may be the last moment, the apostle may be asleep, and he may be bound, but Peter must come out; for God has heard the prayer, and Peter shall be free.

Yet a third remark, we think, lies like a precious stone upon the very surface of this narrative; it is this, that when God shall come to deliver his people, all the circumstances which seem to go against their deliverance shall only tend to set forth the more his glory. What contempt he puts upon chains, prisons, cords, iron gates, wards-inner and outer wards-see how he breaks their bonds asunder, and casts their cords from him. I know of nothing that seems to illustrate more God’s splendid triumph over man’s cunning, than the resurrection of Christ. “His disciples will steal him away while men sleep.” “Well,” says Pilate, “ye have a watch, go and make it as sure as ye can.” He trusted to men, who were sure to do the thing well-the men that hated him; they keep the watch, they roll the great stone, they seal it, they go home to their beds. Ah, men of the Sanhedrim, proud priests! ye have done the work, go ye to your rest, and say “This deceiver shall never shake the earth again, nor call us dumb dogs that cannot bark, nor tell us that we be blind leaders of the blind; he is buried, and the seal is on him.”

“Vain the watch, the stone, the seal’,

Christ hath broke the gates of hell.”

See him rise! and as the angel sits down upon the stone, he seems, in quiet sarcasm, to say to priests, to earth, to hell, “Roll it back again if ye can, and seal it once more, for he is risen, and hath overcome the wiles of men.” So, Christian, rest assured that everything that looks black to your gaze now, shall only make it the brighter when God delivers you. Every dark and bending line shall surely meet in the centre of his love, and but the more express to your mind, his power, his wisdom, his faithfulness, his truth.

Furthermore, the whole story seems to teach us that no difficulty can ever occur which God cannot meet when he makes bare his arm. The chains are gone, the warders are passed, but there is that iron gate. Oh, that iron gate! I think there are some of you to-night that are troubled about it. God has been helping you; you have had faith up till now, but you have got to the iron gate. Oh! if you could but pass that-it leadeth into the city-all would be well; but that iron gate! Some of you get dreading the iron gate a month before you get to it. You get fretting and troubling yourself for three months perhaps about the iron gate. You do for months, as those holy women did for hours, who went out at break of day to the sepulchre, and as they went along they said, “Who shall roll us away the stone?” There was no stone to roll away! And when you go to this place, you will find that there is no iron gate there, or if there should be, it will open of its own accord. Oh, how often have we had to wonder at our own folly, and we have said, “Well, I will never do that again; I will never more borrow misery; sufficient for the day is the evil thereof; I will never go out to get a loan of sorrow for to-morrow;” but alas! we have done it the next day. Wait, wait, O Christian, on the Lord, and leave all anxiety about the iron gates. Since the day when thou didst believe in him and put thy soul into his hand by prayer, it has been God’s cause, not thy cause; it has been God’s work to deliver thee, and not thy work.

“The gates of brass before him burst,

The iron fetters yield.”

There is yet this one further remark. See, beloved, see clearly, see indisputably-the omnipotence of prayer. If all those disciples had sworn an oath that they would get Peter free, they could not have accomplished it. What could they do? Herod has an army; the prison is strong; the guards are not to be bribed; the last night is come; what can they do? There was only one weapon they could use, and that was hanging at their girdles-the weapon of all-prayer. They told Jesus of it. When every other gate was shut, there was the gate to heaven open; so they sent messages up to him who is able to loose the prisoners, and to their own surprise Peter is loosed. Have not we, in this Church, often felt the power of prayer? I sometimes fear me, beloved, we are flagging here now-flagging in prayer. I may be permitted to say, there are some of you I do not see so often at prayer meetings as I could wish. It is a busy time of the year, I know, and therefore I make plenty of excuses for you; but when it was not so busy I did not see you! And then there are some who grow dull in their recollections of fact. At Park Street have not we had seasons when our hearts were hot within us, when we could not speak because we thought “Surely God is in this place!” It seemed an awful place to us; we were prevailing with God, we were drawing down the blessing, and that blessing has continued up till now as the result of earnest supplication. What simple prayers they were! Strangers that came in found much fault, but the Lord did not. There were often things said that were not very grammatical; but what mattered it if the heart was in the thing? We stormed heaven’s gates and down came legions of mercies to us. We want more prayer, more prayer. I am always glad to hear that your special prayer-meetings, and your social assemblies for supplication are well attended, and that there is a desire among the members to have such prayer-meetings often. I am sure the elders of the Church will join with me in advocating and encouraging them. We will lend the rooms connected with this Tabernacle, convinced that as we oftener meet together, and oftener supplicate the throne of grace, the blessing will come down. There are a few brethren who have met every morning for these last four years, or five years it may be; they meet now every morning, wet or dry, winter or summer, every morning in the chapel at Park Street, always praying for our prosperity. Their numbers are few to what they used to be. We have not got the fire now that we once had, I fear. May the Lord put the embers together and fan them with his breath and make them blaze again, until our ministry shall be with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and the multitudes shall hear the voice of God speaking in their hearts. Brethren, pray for us, pray for your children, your households; take everything to God in prayer, no matter how hard, how intricate, how difficult. If there be a knot you cannot untie, cut it with prayer. God knows how to deliver you when you cannot deliver yourself. Be much in supplication, for this will make you mighty, make you prevalent with men when you have prevailed with the Maker of men. Such the reflections that occur to us from the narrative.

But now I turn more closely to my text itself. When Peter came out of prison, his deliverance was so marvellous, that he did not know whether it was true or whether it was a vision. Like the Psalm which says, “When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.” Thus when a sinner is saved, pardoned, justified, he is utterly astonished and thinks it cannot be true, because it is so good. The astonishment lies in this-“It cannot be true,” says he, “that I am saved. I! I! I! If it had been all the people in the world, I could have believed it, but can it be that I am delivered? How is it that he should have mercy upon me? I that was so lately in fetters; that a week ago could blaspheme; that a day or two ago could have talked all the idlest jests, and could have lived upon the foulest of earth’s pleasures; that I, I should be saved-delivered from sin, though so filthy; set free, though so fast bound!”

I must try to interpret this peculiar reflection-this dream-like feeling. The reality of God’s mercy is only apprehended by faith; and because faith has to do with things not seen, you are apt to throw suspicions on its evidence. You see no tangible instrumentality equal to the mighty task. Our ruin was, in some sense, effected by degrees. We can trace the course of evil. The soul of man is like a temple in ruins. The temple built for God has become an abode for unclean spirits. God suddenly deserted it, but it gradually fell into its present dilapidation and uncleanness. The eyes that were once as lamps which flashed with light and love, have become contracted, and their habit now is to love darkness rather than light; the tongue that was once a fountain that did send forth sweet water, pure and refreshing, has become as a noxious spring whose bitter streams savour of enmity to God and envy of the brethren; the heart that was once as the holy place of all our frame, where the beauty of holiness reposed in heavenly calm, has now become the place of idols and the abode of secret abominations; the very breath that sent up its sacred incense in rich perfume, acceptable to God, has grown corrupt, and breathes out its baneful poison, and its foul impurities. Will God in very deed dwell with man upon the earth? Will he take up his abode with us? Shall the change be wrought in the twinkling of an eye? Does it suffice that the Word sown in weakness, springs up with power of the Holy Ghost? Man fallen may baffle us, but man redeemed is a mystery we cannot fathom. It seemeth ever to mere mortal sense as a vision, the dream of poets, or the work of imagination. But, beloved, why marvel? The angel of the covenant has descended from heaven to earth, and ye wist not it was he, till he loosed your bonds, broke up your path, or rather opened every door with the keys that hang at his girdle, and gave you knowledge of salvation by the remission of your sins. Then you thought it a vision, because you had not known redemption only that your own soul was redeemed; you had not understood salvation only that you were yourself redeemed; and that matchless secret of the new birth penetrated your understanding in the same hour that it was wrought upon your own heart. Thus it is commonly with us, brethren. We see, as a main fact, the downward course by which we corrupted our ways when we were dead in sin. But the hour we first believed, that blessed season when we were translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, seems like a vision to us.

Another reason why it appears so visionary to us is, because no fore-thought or intention of our own helped and availed. Now, this is true with some of you in one way. Never were your purposes less inclined to seek the Lord than they were when he found you. Your plans were broken off before you were aware of it. You were asleep when the angel entered your cell; and you were dreaming of other things than those that were in store for you. Peradventure you dreamed that the bolts were not heavy, the bars were not thick, and the locks were not fast, and you might get up and let yourself out whenever you liked. It was only when you were delivered that you saw how fast you had been held. The rescued soul alone can know how “Satan binds our captive minds fast in his slavish chains.” And in yet another way some of us have proved the same. We had our schemes to get loose, and many a bitter day we had tried and toiled in vain, till at length we had fallen asleep in blank despair, dreaming of nothing but our fearful doom, when the deliverance came in such an unheard of manner, that we could scarcely persuade ourselves it could be true. And so it is, brethren, we never believe anything to be so real as what we see with our own eyes, and work with our own hands. And I suppose it is just the natural idea which flesh and blood is prone to take of the things of God. They seem more like a vision than the work of a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

And still, I scarcely think I have probed the matter to the bottom yet. The simplicity of God’s method of grace has not ceased to be a marvel. The Jews seek after a sign; and there is something of the Jewish nature about us all. At least I find a host of exercised souls who are asking for signs. Well, and the Greeks, who are rather a refined class of unbelievers, they seek after wisdom; they want some extraordinary endowment. This craving has not died out among us. For the first, I hear one say, “I am afraid, sir, that my experience is only a dream. I want a sign to give me assurance.” Let me tell you that simple faith gives clearer evidence than any fancy that could possess your mind. Are you still bound with the chain of your sins? Are you still shut up in the stronghold of unbelief? Have you never seen the key in the Saviour’s hand that opened the door to set you free? “Oh, yes,” say you, “but I am afraid it was only a vision, for I am but a poor, helpless creature after all.” And what else would you be? Never so safe as when you are emptied of all confidence in self. Paul could boast of extraordinary revelations, but the Lord sent him a thorn in the flesh, lest he should be puffed up by them. Then, again, there are those who show more anxiety after gifts than after graces; and to them all the mercy they have received seems but a vision, because they are not raised up above common mortals. After this extraordinary release of Peter, you do not find any display. The apostle was but a poor, trembling believer; he would not have Mary or the damsel Rhoda talk too loudly, or express their gladness too cheerfully: he beckoned them with his hand to hold their peace. He just declared how the Lord had brought him out, and then he departed and went into another place. Brethren, I would have you make your boast in the Lord, and speak of what he has done for your souls; but I would warn you not to vaunt your experience, or attempt to magnify yourselves as if we, any of us, had herein matter for glory. The very manner of God’s delivering grace is to hide pride from our eyes; and the reality is none the less palpable, because the angel did all for us to show his strength, and then withdrew from us that we should feel our own weakness.

Once again: the suddenness of this deliverance will surprise you. “So suddenly too!” It seems like a vision. We have often known persons suddenly renewed in heart that would not believe it. They knew it was so, but still, in thinking it over, it did seem as though it could not possibly be true that they were saved; they had to rub their eyes again to see whether they were not asleep and dreaming. It was much too good to be true and have happened all on a sudden thus. The greatness of the mercy has made them stagger. That God should just forgive them and let them into heaven would have been marvellous, but that he should make them his children, his sons, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ-this surpassed all belief. Their fears had got such hold of them that they were ready to die; but little prepared to be saved. Their convictions had been terrible, but now the joy is so excessive, they cannot think but what it must be all presumption, all a dream. Many and many have there been who have come to the pastor, and said, “Oh I had such joys! I did believe in Christ, I know I did; I cast myself wholly on him and I felt such a change, I became so different a person from what I had ever been before but now I come to look back upon it, I cannot think it was true, it must have been a vision, it cannot possibly be a matter of fact.”

Now, dear friends, lest you should give way to this apprehension too much, let me remind you that inasmuch as this is a great thing it is all the better evidence that it comes from God. So great a river may well have a rapid tide. So glaring a sun may well shine with uncommon splendour. The great God does not do little acts of grace. His works are all great, sought out of all them that fear him. Inasmuch as you confess that you are a great sinner, and therefore this is a surprising thing, let me remind you that this is the ordinary way in which God works to give great mercies to great sinners. He does not give his favours to men who think they deserve them; he searches the heart with a glance, and he abhors the proud. But to those who are made to feel that there is no good thing in them, and rest on his grace because they have nothing else on which to depend, the mercy comes, and the prisoners are loosed. Dear friends, do you not remember that the gospel that we preach is a very great gospel? Is it not called in Scripture, “The great salvation?” Now when you find your salvation to be great, do not shrink back and say, “Oh, it cannot be genuine because it is great.” It would not be the genuine gospel if it were little. If it were not a surprising wonderful thing, if it were not superlatively astonishing, it would not be the gospel. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, saith the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts, and my ways above your ways.” Besides, remember my brethren, that Jesus died in pangs unutterable on the cross. Did he die there to buy farthing mercies, to purchase little favours for little sinners? The blood of bulls and goats might achieve some little, but the blood of him, who was the only begotten of the Father, cannot have been shed for trifles. Therefore the rather consider that this must have been true, because it is so great, so strange, so surpassing all your thoughts. God help you to say with the Apostle Peter, “Now I know that God hath sent his angel.” “Thus shalt thou know of a surety that the Lord hath sent his angel and hath delivered thee out of the hands of thy enemies and from all the expectation of thy doubts and fears.” I will tell thee how to prove the reality of it; if thou shouldest fear that thy feelings have been all a dream, come with me hand in hand and let us go to make proof of our faith at the cross. You and I, a pair of sinners, full of sin, covered with the leprosy of it from head to foot, let us go and stand at Calvary’s cross. There he hangs! His hands and feet are pierced; the blood distils. Jesus! for whom dost thou die? “For sinners;” saith he. Here are two, most gracious Master; remember us when thou comest into thy kingdom! I think I hear him say, “Ye shall be with me in Paradise,” for never souls breathed that prayer in humble faith and were unheard. Jesu, we look to thy wounds, and they are clefts in the rock into which we fly like doves, or if we may not compare ourselves thereunto, we will fly as ravens, and we will hide till the tempest is overpast. Thy blood we trust to redeem us, thy merit to clothe us from head to foot, thy plea to preserve us, thy strong arm to keep us, thy love to give us life now and in eternity!

And now, before I close, let me tell you that the picture may be inverted. If there are those to whom reality seemeth to be a dream, what multitudes there are, on the other hand, to whom mere dreams appear to be real and true. Ah! such dreaming is the saddest thing I know; and about the hardest task it is that I ever tried, to awake such slumberers from their delusions. Hear me, ye that seek out your own inventions, yet submit not yourselves to the righteousness of God. Do ye believe in God? Ay, then the God ye believe in is not the God who created heaven and earth, but the God of your own imagination. Do ye profess Christ? the Christ ye profess is not the Son of the Father, but the child of your own fancy. And do I hear you talk of your experience? Alas, then, it is not the witness of the Holy Spirit, but the incoherent ramblings of a delirious brain. O ye poor deluded souls, who put your thoughts for God’s counsels, your devices for his decrees, and your efforts for his interposition; ye “shall be as a dream of a night vision. It shall even be as when an hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite.” Christians ye call yourselves to-day, but Christ shall say to you another day, “I never knew you.” Ah, and true it is, for ye never knew him. Do ye dream of peace? without pardon it is a dream. Do ye dream of heaven? without holiness it is a dream. Do ye dream of joy’s at God’s right hand? but ye are not his people; ye have never renounced the world, overcome the wicked one, confessed the faith, and followed the Master in the regeneration, which is the earnest of a blessed resurrection. Oh, sirs, consider the words, I beseech you-“As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.”

Here are many, I dare say, who do not understand what I have been talking about; God give them understanding. Sinner, thou must either be in Christ, or perish. Remember, man, to-night there is one of two things for thee, either to be shut up in the prison of hell, or else to be delivered from the prison of sin. Thy destiny hangs here-salvation or damnation, life or death. Darest thou die, sinner, darest thou die? Darest thou die with thy sins about thee, like millstones strapped about thy neck-darest thou die? No! But when the time comes for thee to die, thou wilt say, “Now I cannot live, I must not live, and I dare not die.” Wouldst thou be able to die peacefully, sinner, and to rise joyfully, and to reign for ever hereafter? Trust Christ with thy soul and he will save thee. He, the Son of God, begotten of the Father; the man of Nazareth, conceived of the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary; he, God over all, blessed for ever, and yet thy brother, born to bear thy sin, he says, “Trust me and I will save thee.” O may his electing love move the hand of his effectual grace to incline you now to trust in him, and that done, you are saved, and out of this house you may go a lawfully delivered captive, though perhaps you will scarcely know what it is, and you wist not whether it is true that is done unto you. But it is true for all that. He that believeth on him is not condemned, and he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the Son of God. O that I might speak in God’s name to some of you who perhaps may never hear my voice again. I will meet you, as the spirit said to Brutus, on the plains I will meet you another day, each one of you, and if you live and die without trusting in that Lord whose open wounds I have tried to set before your eyes, whose bleeding heart, streaming with his life blood, I have tried to set all warm before you-if you die without him, on your own heads be your destruction. Ye have heard the gospel, O that ye would turn at its rebuke! Trust Christ! The feeblest touch of the hem of his garment, a look to him and you are made whole. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so may we lift up the cross on high. O lift it up, my brother, you that know Christ. Christian men and women, lift up that cross in your families, It is mine to lift it up here, and to cry with the Hebrew prophet, “Look, look, and live!” Sin-bitten, covered with the wounds of sin look! It is all he asks, and that he gives. “Look and live,” was written in that book; and written as on the clouds of heaven, legible only by the light they give, stand the soul-quickening words-“Believe and live.” Leave your doings for Christ’s doings, not your tears but Christ’s tears, not your blood but his blood, not your groans but his groans, not your penance but his agonies. Come and rest in him, join with me in saying, from your heart,

“My faith doth lay her hand

On that dear head of thine,

While like a penitent I stand,

And here confess my sin.”

My soul looks back to see

The burden thou didst bear

When hanging on the accursed tree,

And hopes her guilt was there.

Believing, we rejoice

To see the curse removed,

We bless the Lamb with cheerful voice,

And sing his bleeding love.”

The Lord bless you, the God of heaven and earth bless you, from this time forth, and for ever. Amen.