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

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

At the outset, observe carefully the perpetual reign of Christ. He lives, he reigns, he is king over his people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Jesus, the very thought of thee,

With rapture fills my breast.”

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

Again, it is a promise which is guaranteed as to its fulfilment in the fullest sense. Courage! brethren, courage! the night is not for ever, the morning cometh! Watchman, what sayest thou? Are there not streaks reddening the east? Hath not the God of day, the Lord Jesus, began to shoot his divine arrows of light upwards into the thick darkness? It is even so. As I think of the signs of the times, I would fondly hope that we shall live to see brighter and better days. “Now,” says the text, “shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.” Prophet, I would that thy “now” were true this day. Now, even now, let him reign! why doth he tarry? Why are his chariots so long in coming? Will it be, my brethren, that Christ will come before the world is converted? If so, welcome Jesus. Or will the world be converted first?

If so, thrice welcome the mercy. But whether or no, this we do know, he shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river even unto the ends of the earth. They who dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him, and his enemies shall lick the dust. The day shall come when the fifth great monarchy shall be co-extensive with the world’s bounds, and everywhere the Great Shepherd shall reign.

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

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

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

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

EXPIATION

A Sermon

by the

REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

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

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

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

In trying now to expound the doctrine of Christ’s being an offering for sin, we will begin by laying down one great axiom, which is, that sin deserves and demands punishment.

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

‘Tell it unto sinners, tell,

I am, I am out of hell.’ ”

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

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

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

“The sullen groans and hollow moans,

And shrieks of tortured ghosts,”

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

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

Now, the second matter that I wish to bring under your notice is this, that the provision and acceptance of a substitute for sinners is an act of grace.

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

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

“From the highest throne in glory,

To the cross of deepest woe,”

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

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

But now, to go a step further, and with as much brevity as possible. The Lord having established the principle of substitution, having provided a substitute, and having through him bestowed upon us gratuitously innumerable mercies, let us observe that Jesus is the most fitting person to be a substitute, and that his work is the most fitting work to be a satisfaction.

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

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

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

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

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

We come now to our fourth remark-that Christ’s work, and the effects of that work are now complete.

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

“’Tis done, the great transaction’s done.”

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

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

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

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

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

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