REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”-Zechariah 12:10.

This prophecy, first of all, refers to the Jewish people; and I am happy that it confirms our hearts in the belief of the good which the Lord will do unto Israel. We know of a surety, because God has said it, that the Jews will be restored to their own land, and that they shall inherit the goodly country which the Lord has given unto their fathers by a covenant of salt for ever; but, better still, they shall be converted to the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, and shall see in him the house of David restored to the throne of Israel. The day is coming when they shall see in Jesus of Nazareth, that Messiah for whom their saints looked with joyful expectation, of whom the prophets spoke with rapture, but who was despised and rejected of their blinded sires. Happy day! happy day! when our Jewish brethren shall all be found worshipping before the Lord of Hosts, through their great High Priest, who is a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek. We must remember the prophecy concerning this thing; we must enquire of the Lord concerning his promise, we must expect its fulfilment, labour for it, and then beyond a doubt, when the due season shall have arrived, Israel shall own her king, and upon the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and supplication shall be poured out.

We intend to hear our text, upon the present occasion, as it speaks to ourselves. A great mistake is very common among all classes of men-it is currently believed that we are first of all to mourn for our sins, and then to look by faith to our Lord Jesus Christ. Most persons who have any concern about their souls, but are not as yet enlightened by the Spirit of God, think that there is a degree of tenderness of conscience, and of hatred of sin, which they are to obtain somehow or other, and then they will be permitted and authorized to look to Jesus Christ. Now you will perceive that this is not according to the Scripture, for, according to the text before us, men first look upon him whom they have pierced, and then, but not till then, they mourn for their sin. This is the common folly of men, they look for the effect in order to produce the cause; they forget the old proverb and put the cart before the horse; but our text plainly indicates what is the cause, and puts it first, assuring us that the effect will follow. Repentance is in no sense a title to faith in Christ, it is, on the other hand, a legitimate consequence of faith. In certain diseases, the surgeon aims at producing an outward eruption which carries off the internal poison, and so assists in the cure; but no man would be justified in refraining from medical advice until he could see the eruption in his skin, that being a healthy sign, a prognostic of cure, a result of medicine, and by no means a preparation for it. So repentance is the bringing into our own sight the sin which lurks within; it is a result of the medicine of faith; but we should be foolish indeed if we refused to believe until we saw in ourselves that repentance which only faith can produce. That repentance which is unattended by faith in the Lord Jesus, is an evil repentance which worketh wrath, and only sets the soul at a greater distance from God than it was before. Sweet, heart-melting, reconciling repentance brings the soul to love the Lord and to hope in his mercy: this precious gem always glitters on the hand of faith, and nowhere else. Without faith it is impossible to please God; and consequently an unbelieving repentance has nothing in it acceptable to God. Unbelieving repentance may be so deep as to drive us to hang ourselves, like Judas, but its only result would be to secure for us Judas’s doom. Without faith, if our hearts could break, if our eyes could become perpetual fountains of tears, yet our repentance would in no way whatever be regarded by God except as a continuance of our sin, since we should really be rejecting the Lord Jesus, and setting up our own bitterness of soul in competition with the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us be quite clear on this point, then, to start with, that it is not mourning for sin which causes or prepares the way for our looking to Christ; but it is our looking to Jesus which makes us weep and mourn for him, and works in us the sweet bitterness of true repentance.

We will consider three points: first, what there is in a sight of the pierced One to make us mourn; secondly, what is the character of true mourning for sin; and thirdly, what is that which connects Jesus and this true mourning. The text tells us that looking does it all-“They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him.”

What is there in a sight of Jesus to make us mourn for sin? Let us not answer this question merely in a doctrinal fashion, but as we proceed, let us pray that the Holy Ghost may bring our minds to feel the melting force of the great sacrifice on Calvary, so that we may bedew his cross with tears of holy penitence. Come with me, brethren, to Golgotha’s terrible mount of doom, that we may sit down and watch the death-pangs of the great Lover of men’s souls. There on that transverse wood bleeds the incarnate Son of God. His head yields ruby drops where the thorn-crown has pierced it; his hands and feet flow with rivulets of blood; his back is all one wound; his face is marred with bruises, and filthy with the spittle of the mockers; his hair has been plucked from his cheeks; his eyes are bloodshot; his lips are parched with fever; his whole body is a mass of concentrated agony. He hangs yonder in physical pain impossible to be fully described, while the misery of his soul, crushed beneath the wheels of the chariot of justice, constitutes a woe far more terrible. His soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, while his body is as a cup full to the brim with grief-what if I say a sponge saturated with infinite miseries! While Jesus bleeds on yonder tree, our hearts bleed too. If we have tears at any time, let us shed them now, for now or never must we weep.

The first cause for deep sorrow lies in the excellency of the Sufferer’s person. He who hangs there is no other than that Son of God before whom angels veil their faces with their wings; he is Lord of heaven and earth: concerning him, the Father said of old, “Let all the angels of God worship Him.” At his behests the cherubim and seraphim fly to the utmost verge of space, glad to be the messengers of his good pleasure. He is the light and brightness of heaven, the express image of his Father’s glory. “Without him was not anything made that was made,” and by him all things consist; and yet the King of heaven lays aside his crown, strips himself of his purple, takes off his golden rings, becomes an infant of a span long, and after a life of suffering yields himself to a slave’s death upon the wretched gibbet of the cross. My soul, dost thou not sorrow that so divine a person should sink so low? Think of the purity of his character as man! In him was never any sin, and yet he suffers. His whole life was spent in doing good; unselfishly he spared not himself; and now men do not spare him their worst cruelty. He gives food to the hungry, health to the sick, life to the dead; he hath not time for himself so much as to eat bread; he shuns no labour for the good of others; he seeks no ease for himself; and yet the men whom he would bless conspire to curse him. He lives a life of perfect holiness, in no way causing any to offend; his life is the pure light of the sun of love, it hath no darkness whatever in it; his acts are as a river flowing with crystal streams of lovingkindness, untainted by selfishness or ambition; and yet he bleeds. Heaven’s brightest jewel is cast into the mire: earth’s purest gold is trodden in the streets. He who is of heaven the sun, suffers an eclipse; he who is of earth the brightest star is hidden beneath black clouds. O thou immaculate man, shall I see thee bleed without compassion? O thou Almighty God, shall I see thee incarnate in the flesh, suffering throes and pangs worthy of thy godhead, without feeling the commiseration of my soul stirred towards thee? Can we, brethren, think of the beauty of our Lord, without being filled with bitterness of soul for him. Shall those eyes which are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, which once were washed with milk, now be drowned in tears of blood? His cheeks, which are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers shall these be given to them that pluck off the hair. Those hands which are set with jewels, shall they be pierced? Shall his legs, which are as pillars of marble set upon sockets of fine gold, become all bespattered with the stream of his heart’s gore? Oh! here is sorrow if ye will. That precious casket of his body, so rich that heavens treasures and earth’s wealth together could not furnish such another, that dear case of jewels is cast out as an unclean thing, and made a victim without the camp! O, who will give me tears? I weep, I must weep for my sins!

“My sins, my hateful, cruel sins,

His chief tormentors were,

Each of my crimes became a nail,

And unbelief the spear.

’Twas you that pulled the vengeance down,

Upon his guiltless head,

Break, break my heart! O burst mine eyes,

And let my sorrows bleed.”

All human eyes, if they were for ever full of tears, could not express the woe that one so glorious, so pure, so loving, so condescending, should in his own world find no shelter, and among his own creatures find no friends; but contrariwise, in this world be racked upon the cross, and amongst his creatures meet his murderers. This should make us mourn bitterly for sin.

Look up again, my soul, and perhaps another word may help to melt thee, stubborn though thou art. Let us bethink ourselves of his sufferings. Remember Gethsemane. In that garden his soul is exceeding sorrowful; though he is not in labour, but simply in the exercise of prayer, a sweat comes streaming from every pore; not the common sweat of men who toil, but, O God! it is a sweat of blood-“He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” The pains of hell alone can furnish a fit parallel for the awful misery of Christ that night; and perhaps even there such sufferings were never sustained as Christ endured in the garden. Betrayed by his chosen friend, he is hurried away to the Sanhedrim, and there accused of blasphemy. Oh! cruel charge against the Son of the Highest! Then he is dragged away to Pilate, and then away to Herod, to be slandered before both tribunals; meanwhile, they scourge his back with the scourge, the very thought of which is enough to make a man shudder-it is said to have been made of the sinews of oxen intertwisted with pieces of sharp and ragged bone, so that every blow tore through the flesh to the very bone. He is scourged thus, and then beaten with rods. He is set upon a mimic throne and crowned with thorns; they spit into his face; they insult his person; they bow the knee and say, “Hail, King of the Jews;” they buffet him with their hands. Shame never descended to a lower depth: mockery could devise nothing worse than that crown of thorns and that sceptre of reed. Away they hound him, tearing off the purple robe which must have glued itself to his bleeding flesh-they roughly tear it away, and then put on his own garments and hasten him to the malefactor’s Tyburn. Rudely they strip him, cruelly they fling him down, savagely they pierce his hands and his feet. They lift up his cross and dislocate his every bone with the jar given to it, as it is fastened in the earth. They sit down to look at him in derision, and gloat over his pains. The weight of the body tears the nails through his hands, and when the weight falls upon his feet, the nails force themselves in long wounds through the nerves of his blessed feet. Fever is brought on by his fearful wounds; he is faint with pain; his mouth is dried like an oven. In his extremity, he cries, “I thirst!” they thrust vinegar into his mouth-that is the only comfort they will render him-vinegar mingled with gall! The hot sun scorches him until he cries, “All my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.” Even the light is denied him; he hangs shivering in midday-midnight. The thick darkness did but express the darkness which might be felt which covered all his soul. His agonies had become so intense, that they must not be beheld by any onlooker; the darkness, therefore, formed as it were a secret chamber wherein Christ might do battle with his direst griefs. Griefs like himself, immense, unknown. Godlike sorrows now hold fast the Son of God: only his Deity enabled him to sustain the struggle. The storm passes, and at last, shouting, “It is finished,” with bowed head, he gives up the ghost. Have we no tears for such sorrows as these? Shall we have no mourning for such griefs? How is it that if we read the story of a common man, suffering by his own folly, we freely weep? and over the silly story of a love-sick maid we will feel our pity stirred? But here on Calvary, where the King of heaven is tortured with unutterable woe, tormented with sorrows so tremendous that they overtop all other griefs as a mountain exceeds the molehills, we are like flints or steel, and scarcely feel compassion move. O God, pour out upon us the spirit of grief and commiseration, that we may mourn for him.

“Strike, mighty grace, my flinty soul,

Till melting waters flow,

And deep repentance drown my eyes,

In undissembled woe.”

Perhaps we have not come to the very centre of heart-breaking thought. The wonder is that Jesus Christ should suffer thus as the result of sin-of our sin. A young man ran away from home and left his aged mother that he might plunge into sin: after a few shameful years he came back to his country and sought his home. When he knocked at the cottage door he asked for his mother, but she was not there. “What name did you say, sir? She died years ago.” “And how did she die?” “Well, they say she had a son who treated her with cruelty, and at last left her to indulge his own evil passions. She could not bear it, for she loved him much. She sickened, no one could comfort her. She died, they say, of a broken heart; and that is her grave over the hedge yonder in the churchyard.” Well might the sinner turn away with reeling brain and wish himself under the turf at her side. “I slew my mother by my sins.” If he weeps not at this he must be a devil indeed. Jesus Christ, my Lord, hangs on that tree slain by my sins-shall I not sorrow now? Had I never sinned, there had been no need of a Saviour for me. Had we never rebelled against God, there would have been no sword of vengeance to plunge into his heart.

“Was it for crimes that I had done

He groan’d upon the tree?”

This is sad indeed. Can you get the thought, my dear friends, that you made Christ die-yes, you-if there were no other man. You could not, if there had been only you to save-you could not enter heaven without the dying groans of that Saviour. There must be an atonement made no less than his great sacrifice for you, and you alone; therefore take the whole of it to yourself; and now will you not sorrow at the sight of the pierced Saviour?

Let us remember, too, as we continue at the foot of the cross, that Jesus Christ doth not merely suffer for sin, but he suffers for you. I do not know, but perhaps this may be the heart-breaker with some who never did repent of sin before. O you who look to him believingly, Jesus Christ loves your poor guilty soul at such a rate that he suffers all this for you. I pray you as you look to him dying upon the cross, forget not that every drop yonder flows for you. How could you have despised him who died for you! Determined to save you he went down to the very lowest depths to bring you up, and yet you have heard the gospel and neglected it; have lived all these years in sin; have been day after day a neglector of the Word of God, perhaps a Sabbath-breaker; it may be a swearer, using this very name of Christ to curse by, and yet he suffered this for you. O believing sinner, for you these wounds, for you that sweat of gore, for you that cross, for you that spear, for you that mangled frame lying in the tomb motionless in the grasp of death! Will not this make you feel that you cannot any longer harbour the lusts which are the enemies of Christ, but that you must cast out, once for all from your soul these cruel foes which made the Saviour bleed?

While I am talking upon this theme, I feel more than at any other time in my own life my own insufficiency. I cry as Esaias did, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips,” for oh! it needs an angel’s tongue to tell out a Saviour’s grief; yea, even a seraph might fail. It needs the Saviour himself to tell you in worthy words how he suffered, and what was the love which led him through the woe. Surely the cross makes sin hateful when we see it by the light of the Spirit of all truth.

One more remark here upon this first point. It should make us mourn for sin when we think that this suffering of Christ for us can be attributed to nothing else than his own marvellous love towards us who were so undeserving. What could have brought Christ from on high except motives of pure affection? Can you conjecture any other cause? Did he want glory? My brethren, was not the glory of heaven enough for him? Besides, if it could have been possible for him to need glory, is he not omnipotent? and could he not in a moment have created ten thousand thousand worlds filled with inhabitants all too glad to be permitted to sing his praise? Could he gain anything, let me ask you, by coming here below? and was there anything in you or me to merit what he did? Far, far away be the accursed thought of merit; but even if we could merit anything, could we merit this sacrifice? Could we merit that bloody sweat? O virtue, thou couldst never merit this; nay, heroism at its highest point, and self-sacrifice sublime to its most exalted degree, could never merit that the Son of God should die. Sin accomplished what virtue could not. Sin brings the Saviour from on high: virtue never could have procured this. Ah! brethren, the love of Jesus must have been a strange love indeed. We have heard of men who out of love to some poor countrywoman have left their kingdom and their throne to follow her poverty, and lift her up ultimately to their wealth; but who ever heard of the equal of this, that God’s own Son, “though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that through his poverty we might be made rich?” Worms were never raised so high above their meanest fellow worms, and therefore they could never stoop as Christ did. If an angel could die for emmets, that would look like condescension, but for Christ to die for men is more wondrous far. If the noblest cherubim before the throne should shed his heart’s blood for a poor insect, you would think it marvellous, but for God himself to take a creature’s form, to bleed for such insignificant, despicable, worthless things as men-this is a wonder which has set heaven ringing ever since it was known, and will make eternity echo with shouts of praise. Surely, dear friends, if nought else can make us loathe sin and weep before God, this should do so. And yet, I confess, I spoil the theme. When Mark Antony brings out the body of Julius Cæsar, he excites the sympathies of the Roman people by the sight of the mantle of the murdered man. He makes them weep, and then he cries, “What! weep ye, when ye but behold your Cæsar’s vesture wounded! Look ye here-here is himself-marred, as you see, by traitors.” Such speech puts tongues into the silent stones of Rome, whereas, alas! I, poor, worthless creature as I am, talk of my Master, stabbed by ourselves, bleeding out of love to us, at so poor a rate that I cannot stir your souls, nor scarce my own. Almighty Spirit, well is it written that thou wilt come to give the spirit of supplication, for except thou shalt come, we shall neither look to Christ, nor weep, nor mourn because of him.

Secondly, we are to speak upon what true mourning for sin is. It is not necessarily feeling great terrors nor frightful tears; there is no need that you should doubt the mercy of God-all these things may come with repentance, as smoke attends fire, but they are not a part of it. They often spoil repentance-they cannot make it more acceptable.

1. True mourning for sin is the work of the Spirit of God. There is no mourning until first the Spirit is poured out. Then men look, and then they mourn. Repentance is too choice a flower to grow in nature’s garden. If thou hast one sigh after Christ, if thou hast one particle of hatred of sin, God the Holy Spirit must have given it to thee, for poor human nature with its utmost strain can never reach to a spiritual thing. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” True repentance then must come from on high. Lord, send it to us now.

2. True repentance has a distinct and constant reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. If thou dost repent of sin, without looking to Christ, away with thy repentance. If thou art so lamenting thy sin as to forget the Saviour, thou hast need to begin all this work over again. Whenever we repent of sin, we must have one eye upon sin and another upon the cross; or, better still, let us have both eyes upon Christ, seeing our sin punished in him, and by no means let us look at sin except as we look at Jesus. A man may hate sin just as a murderer hates the gallows, but this does not prove repentance. If I hate sin because of the punishment, I have not repented of sin; I merely regret that God is just. But if I can see sin as an offence against Jesus Christ, and loathe myself because I have wounded him, then I have a true brokenness of heart. If I see the Saviour and believe that those thorns upon his head were plaited by my sinful words; if I believe that those wounds in his heart were pierced by my heart-sins; if I believe that those wounds in his feet were made by my wandering steps, and that the wounds in his hands were made by my sinful deeds, then I repent of sin after a right fashion. Only under the cross canst thou repent. Repentance elsewhere is remorse which clings to the sin and only dreads the punishment. Let us then seek, under God, to have a hatred of sin caused by a sight of Christ’s love.

3. True repentance is real and often intense in its bitterness. The text tells us it is a sorrow like that of one who weeps for his son. A son is a boon from God; a good son especially, is a treasure to his father’s heart; but here is a dead son before me: methinks I hear the father’s cries, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” Here I see an only son, which was not David’s case, for he had Solomon yet spared to him. Methinks I see the woman at the gate of Nain, with her only son carried out to be buried, making much lamentation, with grievous pomp of heartfelt woe. Ay, and it is not only that, it is the firstborn son, the beginning of the father’s strength; and the man who has watched him and seen himself in his firstborn’s growing form, will not be comforted because his son-his only son, his firstborn son is dead. Such is true weeping for sin-it cuts to the heart, it pierces to the quick. “Oh!” says one, “I cannot believe in Christ, for I have no such bitterness.” My dear friend, you never will have it till you believe in Christ. You are to trust in Jesus Christ to get this; you are not to feel this, and then trust in Christ. Come, thou hard heart, come to Christ to be softened. Come, thou hell-hardened steel, come to Christ to be melted in the furnace of his divine affection. Come as thou art, sinner, feeling or unfeeling, and look up to Jesus; there is life in a look at him, and life for thee now, and the first sign of life will be a real and intense sorrow for sin.

4. True sorrow for sin is eminently practical. No man may say he hates sin, if he lives in it. It will make us see the evil of sin, not merely as a theory, but experimentally-as a burnt child dreads fire. We shall be as much afraid of it, as a man who has lately been stopped and robbed is afraid of the thief upon the highway; and we shall shun it-shun it in everything-not in great things only, but in little things. True mourning for sin will make us very jealous over our tongue, lest it should say a wrong word. We shall be very watchful over our daily actions, lest in anything we should offend, and each night we shall close the day with painful confessions of shortcoming, and each morning awaken with anxious prayers, that this next day God would hold us up that we might be saved.

5. Once again, true repentance is continual: a man does not repent for a few weeks, and then have done with it. Rowland Hill said that repentance was one of the sweetest earthly companions; and the only regret he had in the thought of going to heaven, was that his dear friend Repentance could not go with him there. Repentance is the most heavenly thing out of heaven. Well did our hymn say-

“Lord, let me weep for nought but sin!

And after none but thee!

And then I would-O that I might-

A constant weeper be!”

True believers repent to their dying day-they are always repenting. Their life is made up, it is said, of sinning and repenting-I will not say that-believing and repenting is their life, and sin is the disease which mars it. No time can wear away the bitterness of repentance. If a man loses his child, time happily softens his grief. Every other trouble yields to time, but this never does. It is so sweet a sorrow, that we can only thank God we are permitted to enjoy and to suffer it until we enter into our eternal rest.

This, then, is true sorrow for sin; but let me say, whatever is or is not true sorrow for sin, I do entreat my hearers not to try and get sorrow for sin before they come to Christ. The gospel is, “He that believeth in Jesus is not condemned.” Whether you have sorrowed enough for sin or not, if you trust Jesus Christ, you are not condemned. Your salvation is not procured by your tears, nor by your feelings, but by him whom you have pierced. Look to him, away from self; look not even to your own faith, but look to the object of your faith. Now fixedly behold him, and trust him, and your heart will break and be poured out like water before the Lord.

What is that which connects Jesus Christ and the mourning? How am I to get at Christ? This used to puzzle me. I thought if I could walk a thousand miles to see him, I would set off joyously. Oh! if I could but fall at his feet and lay hold of him-I thought this would be very easy-touching the hem of his garment, or crying, “God be merciful to me”-this would be very simple; but this thought long puzzled me-“How can I get to Christ?” So many fleshly notions mix themselves with our thoughts before we are born again, that we are very much like poor Nicodemus, and say, “Can a man enter his mother’s womb a second time, and be born again?” We have gross and carnal thoughts concerning spiritual things. Now, our connection with Jesus is a look, not with these eyes, of course, but with the eyes of the heart. We all know what it is to look at a thing. We are told to look at a certain subject in politics or science-we are told to look into it. There is nothing to see with your eyes, but you see into it with your mind; and this is the kind of look which is intended here, “They shall look upon me whom they have pierced.” You cannot, with all your looking, see Christ with these eyes, but thinking of him, and believing in him, is the look which is meant. In describing this look, let me say that it is very simple. Why, looking is not a hard thing I never heard of a college for training people to look. I never in my life heard of any one trying to teach another person to look. There may be a defect in people’s eyes, but still if they have any eyes at all, they may look. They may happen to have cross eyes, but a crossed-eyed look at Christ will save the soul. They may have a cataract in the eye, so that there is scarcely a corner left, but it is not looking with a full eye, it is not looking with a bold eye-it is the looking in any way, the simple act of looking which saves a soul. A man may not be able to read a single letter in a book, but he can look to Jesus. A man may not be able to spell a word of one syllable, but he can look. A man may have no moral courage, but he can look. He may be destitute of all the virtues, and yet he can look. A man may be a thief, a whoremonger, an adulterer, but he can look. A man may be cast out of society, transported, shut up between stone walls, but he can look. Looking is a thing so simple, that neither moral nor physical preparations are required. Looking! Such is faith in Jesus Christ. As the sin-bitten ones looked to the brazen serpent, so do we look away from self to Christ, and we live.

Observe, secondly, as it is a simple look, so it is a look which requires no merit in order to precede it. We have an old proverb, that “a cat may look at a king,” and certainly a poor man may. There is no hurt done by looking. If the queen were here, I should not ask her leave to let me look; and if there were a crossing sweeper, or a mud-lark, or even a pickpocket here, he certainly would commit no offence by looking. On the other hand, there would be no merit in looking. Where is the merit of looking at a thing? It is too simple either to need merit before it or to have merit in it. So thou who art the worst of the worst, thou who feelest nothing in thyself which is good, thou who canst not even say that thou feelest thine own emptiness and vileness, nothing of thine own is needed to precede that look by way of preparation. Look, look to Jesus as thou art, and thou shalt be saved.

The look which saves the soul, again, should be an attentive look. If you have looked to Christ and cannot see anything there to comfort you, look again! Look again! Perhaps each man is comforted in a different way by looking to Christ. One sees Christ to be God, and he says, “Ah! then, he can save me.” Another dwells mainly upon Christ’s being man, and he says, “Ah! then, he can pity me, and be willing to receive me.” One fixes his eye upon God’s having appointed Christ to save him-that comforts him. Another remembereth the infinite value of Christ’s sufferings, and that cheers him. If one point in Christ does not comfort thee, look to another. Keep thy mental eye fixed upon what Jesus Christ is. Ah! my dear friends, I am telling you this, but how difficult it is to make you do it until the Holy Spirit brings you! Why the first thing I get from any of you when I talk to you about your souls is, “O sir, I do not feel.” I know then that you are looking to self. O my dear hearers, you who have some concern about your souls, I would beseech my God to wean you from this which must damn your souls-this looking to self. Come, I pray you, consider; you are too vile, too sinful ever to have anything good in you to look at. Why will you search for goodness where there is none? “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” You can do so if you look at the cross. I know you will raise your “buts,” or cry, “But I cannot believe.” There you are looking to your faith instead of Christ. There he hangs! He bears upon his shoulders the sin of man, and whoever trusts him shall be saved. Can you not trust him? Not trust your God? Can you not trust him, your brother born to bear your adversities? Not trust him? Why I protest before you all, if I had all your sins upon my shoulders, I could trust him. When John Hyatt lay a-dying, some one said to him,” Can you trust Jesus with your soul now?” “Ah,” said he, “I could trust him if I had a million souls, I could trust him with them all.” Do not tell me awakened souls you cannot trust your Master. When did he ever lie to you? Whom did he ever cast out? When did he break his promise? Who ever came to him and was rejected? When did he say to the chief of sinners, “Thy sins shall never be forgiven?” Thousands have been to him, and he has received them. I sought the Lord, and he heard me. I tried to save myself by feelings of repentance and prayings, but it was all of no avail. At last, in sheer despair, I flew like a dove pursued by the hawk, straight away to Jesus Christ, the cleft-rock, and found shelter in his wounds. O that you would do so! Come, I pray you, have done with that self of yours.

“None but Jesus, none but Jesus

Can do helpless sinners good.”

This look is sometimes a wondering look-I know it was to me. When I saw him hanging on the cross for me, I could not understand such love, and I cannot fathom it now. I can understand some of the things which Christ has done for me, but I cannot make out why he should die for me-why he should love such a heap of filth, such a walking dunghill as man is-why he should give his blood, every drop of which is more costly than rubies, and why he should give his tears, which are richer than diamonds, and why he should give his heart, which is better than a mine of gold, and why he should close those lips which are sweeter than harps of angels, and shut those eyes, which are brighter than so many suns, and all for such a clod of earth, such a rebellious piece of rottenness as man. Oh! this is marvellous. How can we understand it? We can only fall down before his feet, and while we trust him, add to our faith a holy adoring wonder.

This look must, in every case, be a personal one. You cannot be saved by another man’s faith. I do beseech of all to whom this word shall come, detest, loathe, abominate the lie that any man can perform spiritual acts for another; that a sponsor can promise to renounce the works of the flesh for another; that a man can stand at the font and declare that he believes for another, or promise that an unconscious slumbering baby shall believe in God, or even say in God’s name what he knows is a lie, that the child does believe, when it cannot believe, and probably is asleep at the time, and not occupied with any mental operation, much less believing what it never heard, and what it could not understand if it did hear. O, I pray you, eschew this. The curse of England has been this dogma of baptismal regeneration, for it leads men to shake off their personal responsibility and obligations to God. Your odd fathers and odd mothers, your confirmation, your priests and rural deans, and prebends and canons, and I know not what of man’s invention, can do no more for you than so many witches with their incantations. You must fly to Christ yourselves, and by simple faith lay hold on Jesus. All this frippery and nonsense of man’s invention must be pulled down. O for a rough hand to pull it down, to let the sinner see that he stands before God, naked and defenceless, except as he flies to Christ, and in the passion and life of Jesus, finds salvation. A personal faith it must be, and what if I urge you to let it be immediate faith? It will be no easier to flee to-morrow, than it is to-day. It is the same thing that you will have to believe to-morrow as it is to-day-that Jesus Christ gave himself for your sins. This is God’s testimony, that Christ is able to save. O that you would trust him. My soul, thou hast regretted a thousand things, but thou hast never regretted trusting Christ in thy youth. Many have wept that they did not come to Christ before, but none ever lamented that they came too early. Why not this very day? O Holy Spirit, make it so! Behold the fields are showing the green ears ready for the harvest; the season advances, and the fields are prophesying the harvest. O that we might see some green ears to-day, some green ears prophetic of a blessed harvest of souls. As to myself, I cross this day into another year of my own life and history, and I bear witness that my Master is worth trusting. Oh! it is a blessed thing to be a Christian; it is a sweet thing to be a believer in Christ, and though I, of all men, perhaps, am the subject of the deepest depression of spirits at times, yet there lives not a soul who can say more truthfully than I, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.” He who is mighty hath looked upon me with eyes of love and made me his child, and I trust him this day as I have trusted him aforetime. But now I would to God that this day some of you would begin to trust in him. It is the Spirit’s work, but still he works through means. I think he is working in your heart now. Young man, those tears look hopeful: I thank God that those eyes feel burning now. I pray you do not go chatting on the road home and missing any good impression. Go to your chamber, fall upon your knees, cry out to God, entreat his favour. This day let it be! None of the devil’s to-morrows-away with them! away with them! “To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart.” May the Spirit of God constrain you to “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”

QUIET MUSING!

A Sermon

by the

REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“While I was musing the fire burned.”-Psalm 39:3.

Our subject this evening will not stand in need of much preface. The Psalm may teach us that there are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. The company of sinners was a grief to David’s soul, and because their converse was profane, he chose rather to fly away from their midst; or if they must still continue in his presence, he determined that he would resolutely seal his lips. Touchingly he says, “I was dumb with silence (that is, utterly dumb), I held my peace, even from good.” This painful necessity soon proved to him a pleasing occasion. While he yielded himself up to the thoughts, the reveries, and the pensive workings of his own heart, a sacred fire of devotion was kindled in his breast. But, brethren, whatever the circumstances of the Psalmist, you will all see that the exercise was profitable; and however peculiar the advantages of meditation at particular seasons, it may not be amiss for us to make it a common habit. Inverting a popular proverb, “What was one man’s medicine may be food for others.” There is much that is light and frothy in our ordinary intercourse; and our communications one with another soon grow frothy and insipid when we have no definite matter in hand. Whether, therefore, to free ourselves from the stress of business, or to escape from the temptations of idleness, let it be thought worthy of note that “musing” hath sweet charms, and calm reflection is capable of kindling a bright fire.

Our remarks will now run in two directions. First, we shall say something in praise of musing; and then, secondly, we shall supply you with some fuel to burn on the altar of your hearts.

First, then, let us say something in praise of musing.

We do not muse much in these days of ours. We are too busy. We are hurrying here and there, doing much, and talking much, but thinking very little, and spending but very little time indeed in the modesty of retirement.

“The calm retreat, the silent shade,”

are things which we know but very little about. We should be better men, if we were more alone; and I trow that we should do more good after all, if with even less of active effort we spent more time in waiting upon God, and gathering spiritual strength for labour in his service. Where lives there upon earth, in these days, a man who spends hour after hour of the day in meditation upon God? There may be such, and if there be, I would that I had their acquaintance; but where will you find giants such as those who lived in the Puritanic times, whose lips dropped pearls, because they themselves had dived down deep in the fathomless ocean of mercy by the sweet aid of meditation? There may be such, and I would that it were our lot to sit under their ministry; but I fear that the most of us are so little in retirement-so seldom in communion with God in private, and even when there, the communion is for so short a time-that we are but tiny dwarfs, and can never, while we live thus, attain to the stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus. The world has put a little letter before the word “musing,” and these are the days, not for musing, but for a-musing. People will go anywhere for amusement; but to muse is a strange thing to them, and they think it dull and wearisome. Our good sires loved the quiet hour, and loved it so well, that they cherished those times which they could spend in musing as the most happy, because the most peaceful seasons of their life. We drag such time off to execution in a moment, and only ask men to tell us how we may kill it.

Now there is much virtue in musing, especially if we muse upon the best, the highest, and the noblest of subjects. If we muse upon the things of which we hear and read in sacred Scripture, we shall do wisely. It is well to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them. A man who hears many sermons, is not necessarily well-instructed in the faith. We may read so many religious books, that we overload our brains, and they may be unable to work under the weight of the great mass of paper and of printer’s ink. The man who reads but one book, and that book his Bible, and then muses much upon it, will be a better scholar in Christ’s school than he who merely reads hundreds of books, and muses not at all. And he, too, who gets but one sermon in a day, though it is an ill habit to stay away from half our Sabbath engagements, and only go out once, yet, he who heareth but one sermon in a day, if he meditateth much upon it, will get far more out of it than he who heareth two or three but meditateth not. Truth is something like the cluster of the vine: if you would have wine from it, you must bruise it; you must press and squeeze it many times. The bruisers’ feet must come down joyfully upon the bunches, or else the juice will not flow; and they must leap, and leap, and leap again, and well tread the grapes, or else much of the precious liquid will be wasted. You must, by the feet of meditation, tread the clusters of truth, would you get the wine of consolation therefrom. Our bodies are not supported by merely taking food into the mouth, but the process which really supplies the muscle, and the nerve, and the sinew, and the bone, is the process of digestion. It is by digestion that the outward food becomes assimilated with inner life. And so is it with our souls; they are not nourished merely by what we hear by going hither, and thither, and listening awhile to this, and then to that, and then to the other. Hearing, reading, marking, and learning, all require inwardly digesting; and the inward digesting of the truth lies in the meditating upon it. Ruminating creatures chew the cud, and these have always been considered clean animals; and so it is a mark of a true child of God that he understandeth how to chew the cud of meditation. Why is it that some people are always in a place of worship, and yet they are not holy, though they make some slight advances in the divine life? It is because they neglect their closets. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink of it. They are either too idle, or too busy, I will not say which, but often to be busy is to be idle; and when some men think us idle, we are then best at work. You who know anything of the divine life know very well what I mean by that. Meditation is not idleness, and retirement is not forsaking the good of the world. I trow that Moses did as much for Israel on the mountain’s summit with uplifted hands, as ever Joshua did in the valley with his drawn sword; and Elias upon the top of Carmel, ay, even by the brook Cherith, or in the house of the widow of Zarephath, was as much serving Israel as when he smote the priests of Baal, and hewed them in pieces before the Lord. I commend meditation to you, then, for fetching the nutriment out of truth.

Another note in the praise of this most blessed, but much-neglected duty, is that it fixes the truth upon the memory. You complain of short memories; you say that what you have heard you can scarcely remember to another day. If thy paint be thin, and thou canst not make thy picture stand out in glowing colours, lay on many coats of thy paint, and so wilt thou do what thou wantest. If thy memory will not retain the truth the first time, then think it over, and over, and over again, and so, by having these several coats of paint, as it were, the whole matter shall abide. When the fisherman goeth out to angle, it may be that in mid-stream he sees a great fish, and having cast his fly, the book is soon fairly in the fish’s jaws; but what now? Why, he must let him run out the line, and then he must drag him back again, and after all he never thinks his fish safely his own till he gets him into the landingnet. Well, now, hearing sermons is but, as it were, getting the hook into the fish’s mouth, but meditation is the landing-net, it is this which gets the thing to shore. And what if I say that after that, the same meditation becomes a fire of coals upon which the fish is broiled and prepared for our spiritual food. If you cannot hold a thing well, try and get many hooks to hold it with, and meditation will supply you, as it were, with a hundred hands, by every one of which you may grasp the truth. I am sure, dear friends, that we give not earnest heed enough to these things, or else we should not let them slip. There are many photographers who can take a street view more rapidly than I can speak of it; they have but just to lift up the cover, and put it down again, and the whole thing is done; but for many things which are to endure and last, they like, if they have time, to have the object long before the camera, and there it stands, and fairly fixes itself upon the plate. And surely, there may be some few men who can just hear a sermon, and retain the impression of it all their days; there are some who are quick of understanding in the things of God, and as with a flash they get the truth, and never lose it; but the most of us need more than this. If we would have the truth photographed upon our hearts, we must keep it long before the spiritual lens, or else it never will fix itself there. Complain not, then, of thy memory, complain of thyself if thou art not given to meditation. Let thy closet rebuke thee because thou hast not been oftener there, if thy memory be frail. Whereas another man may do with less meditation, if thou sayest thy memory is weak, the more reason why thou shouldst be a longer time, and oftener with thy God in secret. All want this, but thou needest it more than others; see thou to it, then, that thou neglectest not this duty. For getting the nourishment out of truth, and moreover, for preserving, for salting down the truth for future use, employ much meditation. Meditation clippeth the wings of thoughts, which otherwise would fly away at the first clapping of the world’s hands. Thou shalt thus keep thy prey, as it were, surrounded and entangled in a net, else it might escape thee; thy meditation shall hold it fast until thou needest it.

Yet further, meditation is of great value in opening up truth and leading us into its secrets. There is some gold to be found on the surface of this land of Ophir, the Book of God. There are some precious jewels which may be discovered even by the wayfaring man, but the mass of the gold is hidden in the bowels of the earth; and he who would be rich in these treasures, must dig into Scripture as one who seeketh for choice pearls. Thou must go down into its depths, and thou must rummage there until thou gettest at last at the treasure. Truth is sometimes like a flint, which, when it is smitten the first time yieldeth not, and you may even strike it yet again, and still it yieldeth not; but at last one happy blow of the hammer shall make it fly to shivers. Meditation may be compared, for its potency, to the great battering-ram which Sir Christopher Wren used when he built the present St. Paul’s Cathedral. Old St. Paul’s, you remember, had been destroyed by the fire, but its walls were so extremely thick, that it was found very difficult to take the old walls away; and they were so lofty, that there was also great danger to the workmen. Sir Christopher therefore invented a ram, composed of a large piece of timber, and intended to be used in the same way as the Romans used their rams of old. A number of men were set to work with this ram, and of course, being a new instrument to them, they did not like it, and they did not believe in it either; so, after hammering away some five or six hours, and the wall showing no sign whatever of anything like an impression, they complained to Sir Christopher that he had given them a useless work to do. He set them at it again, and the ram fell heavily, but not a stone seemed to stir. One whole day they kept on thus, battering away at the walls. The architect knew full well that, although it might not be palpable to the labourers, there must have been a degree of oscillation given to the whole structure. And so it proved, for the next morning, when they began the work again, all of a sudden down tumbled the whole mass. Thus at length the men were convinced that the work of the day before had not been lost, it really had been telling when they could not chalk down the progress. You will find it the same with gospel doctrine, that you want to understand but cannot. There is some difficulty you cannot surmount. Meditation comes and gives one stroke after another with all the weight of prayer and of thoughtfulness, but it stirs not; till at last our diligence is rewarded, and we see the whole mass of masonry which reason had piled together of fabulous traditions, cometh tumbling down; the foundation is discovered, and the truth made clear to our apprehension in a moment. What! think ye that the great thoughts of master-minds come in a minute. People say, “Oh! what a genius!” Nonsense! the man had been hard at work over that for years, and years, and years, though perhaps the thing came at last to him suddenly, it was not a whit less a result of study, the success which crowns the patient brain-work of a meditative mind. Never despair, dear friends, of understanding the truth. If you will but in the name of Jesus give your souls to the study, come resolved to sit at Christ’s feet as Mary did, to believe just what he tells you, as he tells it to you, though he may reveal dark things and speak of them to you in parables, yet you shall be able to comprehend with all saints what are the heights and depths, and you shall yet know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. Be not weary of well-thinking, use much diligence in musing, yield up thy heart to sacred meditation. Turn the matter over, and over, and over again in your minds. You remember the story of the great philosopher who had been attempting to discover how much alloy there was in the king’s crown, but who could find no way of doing it. By day and by night he pondered it; nay, at night when he slept, his day-dreams did but come to him again; but on a sudden, when he was in the bath, he sprang up and wrapped his garments about him, and ran through the street, crying out, “Inveni, Inveni,” “I have found it! I have found it!” And one of these days, Christian, when you are puzzling over some doctrine which you feel must be true, but which you cannot grasp, you will spring upon your feet when God the Holy Spirit has revealed the truth to you, and you will cry, “I have found it! I have found it! “and great will be your joy at the discovery. Cultivate much, then, the habit of retirement and meditation, because of the way in which it opens up the truth.

Here, almost unwittingly, I have touched upon another suggestion. This musing is a charmed exercise, for, mark ye, the joy which it brings. There is a text in Scripture which speaks of the sinner as rolling sin under his tongue as a sweet morsel, an allusion to the habit of the man whose mouth is somewhat flavourish, who, when he gets a dainty thing, swallows it not at once, but rolleth it under his tongue, trying to draw out more and more of its sweetness. Well, now, this is what the Christian should do with doctrinal truth-he should roll it under his tongue. Thou wilt have far more enjoyment while it is in thy mouth than thou wilt afterwards, so keep it there; meditate much upon it; roll it under thy tongue again, and again, and again, until thou gettest more to find its savour. Scripture is often like a bone, but meditation is the hammer which cracks it, and then the soul gets the marrow and the fatness. The beauties of Christ are not to be seen by the passer-by who merely glances at him; there is something to arrest attention at a glance, it is true, but he who would see the beauties of Jesus, must look, and look, and look again, until his whole soul is enamoured of the Saviour; and as he looks, and is transformed into the. Saviour’s image, he shall have such enjoyment, that this side of heaven there is none other like it. Communion comes after musing. “My meditation of him shall be sweet,” said the Psalmist, and truly so it is. When I can walk with him, as the old philosophers walked with Plato in the groves of the Academe, then am I indeed made wise unto salvation; and then, too, is my heart made glad. There is no riding in the chariots of Amminadib, except by being much with Christ. The spouse does not say, “I stood under his shadow;” no, but “I sat under his shadow with great delight.” Sitting down is the posture of waiting, in which we ungird the loins of the mind, and indulge the repose of meditation; let us sit down then beneath his shadow, and we shall have great delight in musing upon Christ.

But perhaps, after all, the best reason, at least the best to clench all the other reasons I have given, why we should spend much time in musing, is, because musing then becomes easier to us. I never did light an oven-fire in my life, but I have heard that sometimes when a baker goes to light a coal-oven, if his fuel be a little damp, he gets no blaze; but after the fire is once up, then he may throw in what he will, and everything is speedily consumed by the vehement heat. So sometimes you and I feel our hearts to be like cold ovens, and we try to put some fresh truth in, but it will not burn. But ah! when the heart gets hot and the fire is roaring, then even such damp material as I am able to give you on Sabbath-days will burn right well, and the feeble words of a poor servant of God will make your hearts hot within you. We can meditate better after we have addicted ourselves to a meditative frame. When we have mused a little, then the fire begins to burn; and you will perceive, that as the fire burns, meditation gets easier, and then the heart gets warm; and oh! what holy affections, what blessed excitements those have who are much alone with Christ! Such a man never has a cold heart or a slack hand who is much in meditation with his Lord Jesus; his heart comes to be like a mass of molten lard, and ere long he verifies the experience of the Psalmist, and can make my text his own. “Then spake I with my tongue.” He cannot help it, for this lava will soon be running over in burning hot words; and if this man should be a preacher, he will preach with holy power; his heart being hot, his words will burn their way into his hearers’ hearts. Nor will it end there, but this hot heart will soon make a hot hand, and the man who once has his soul full of Christ will not have his hand empty for Christ. Now he will work; now he will preach for Christ; now he will pray, now he will plead with sinners; now he will be in earnest; now he will weep; now he will agonize; now he will wrestle with the angel, and now he will prevail; for, as the fire burneth, his whole being gets into a glow; and the man, like a pillar of fire, warms those who are round about him, burns his way to the glory of success, and gives his Master fresh renown.

Commend me, then, for all these reasons which we have given, this blessed art of holy musing.

And now we have to spend the few minutes which remain to us in putting some fuel on the fire of meditation.

The man who says that he has nothing to think about, can surely have no brains; and that professing Christian who says he has nothing to muse upon, must be a laughing-stock for devils. A Christian man without a subject for contemplation! Impossible! Only give us the time and the opportunity, and there are a thousand topics which at once present themselves for our consideration.

Let me just suggest a few of these to the Christian.

Your heart will surely burn like an oven, my Christian brother, if you think, first, upon eternal love. What a topic to muse upon!

“Sing we, then, eternal love,

Such as did the Father move;

When he saw the world undone,

Loved the world, and gave his Son.”

Think of that love without beginning, and which, blessed be God, shall never, never cease. Give the wings of your imagination full play, and go back to the time before all time, when there was no day but the Ancient of Days; when ages had not begun to be, but God dwelt alone. Remember, if you are one of his people, that the Father loved you even then, and he continues still to love you, and will love you when, like a bubble, this earth has melted, and like a gipsy’s tent, the universe has been rolled up and put away. Why, as you think of this, surely you will say with our songster-

“Loved of my God, for him again

With love intense I’d burn:

Chosen of God ere time began,

I’d choose him in return.”

If you want meditation, dear friends, here is an ocean to swim in. That one doctrine of election, that precious truth of predestinating love, and all the consequences which flow from it, why, here is a well, an overflowing well, which you can never drink dry. Take deep draughts of it, then, and while you are musing, you shall find that your heart is warmed.

Then, next, there is dying love to think of. Oh! think of the Saviour descending from the starry heights of glory, and coming down to the Virgin’s womb, and then descending from that lowly manger of Bethlehem, even to the cross and to the grave for you; counting it not robbery to be equal with God, and yet for your sake he takes upon himself the form of a servant, and makes himself of no reputation, but becomes obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Many of the ancient saints were accustomed to spend hours in meditating upon the wounds of Christ, and many of the martyrs have been for days engaged in solemn meditation upon those wounded hands and feet, and that pierced side. Oh! of all the volumes which were ever written, this volume, printed in crimson upon the pure, lily-like flesh of Christ, is the best to read. Talk ye of pictures? Was there ever such a picture as that which God drew with the pencil of eternal love, dipped into the colour of Almighty wrath on Calvary’s summit? Angels desired to see it, but there was a veil before the picture until Jesus came and drew it up, and then the spectacle was revealed, to be gazed upon throughout eternity by adoring spirits, with fresh wonder and admiration for evermore. You cannot exhaust this subject, but, O, let me beseech you to give it the first and chief place in your meditation. “I have set the Lord always before me,” would be a good motto for the believer, and well would it be for him to have the cross painted upon his very eye-balls, so that everywhere he should be reminded of Christ crucified, and so should be led always to say, “For me to live is Christ.”

That topic never can be exhausted, and there are kindred ones connected with it-your justification, the work of the Spirit, and so on; let me rather now hint at one or two other matters which I would ye should solemnly brood over. You will do well, Christian, to meditate much upon death. What! man, did I see you turn away? A Christian afraid of death? No, verily, for death is our Lord’s door keeper. Life keeps the key, and saith to us, “Ye shall not enter into your Father’s mansions;” but Death comes, and with his bony hand snatches the key out of the grasp of the tyrant, Life, and puts it into the lock, and opens the gate, and lets us in. Why, we say sometimes that “the last enemy which shall be destroyed is death;” but if he be “the last enemy,” he is not altogether the less a friend, for he is a friend, too, now that Christ hath transformed him. It is to be greatly wise, Christian, to think sometimes of the grave, the mattock, and the shroud. The catacomb is no ill place for musing, and a little cemetery, with its green knolls and its white memorial stones, will be a good place to study in for the man who wishes to muse upon life and immortality in the midst of death. The old naturalists, who tell us a good many things which are not true, as well as some which are, say that the birds of Norway always fly more swiftly than any others, because the summer days are so short, and therefore they have so much to do in such a little time. I do not know anything about the birds of Norway, but this I do know, that Christ’s birds would surely fly more swiftly if they would only meditate upon the fact, that the day is so short and that the night is so near at hand. Surely they would fly more swiftly and work more earnestly, if they only thought more of the nearness of eternity.

And then, Christian, if that does not make your heart burn, let me persuade you to think of heaven. O, carry your thoughts from this poor, dunghill world, up to the golden streets, and to the music-begetting harps; up yonder, I say, let your souls soar, and dwell where your treasure is, with Christ upon his throne. Hark! how they sing to-night the eternal hallelujah, louder than the voice of many waters, and yet sweet as harpers harping with their harps! Listen, how the music swells in a sea of glory round about the throne of the eternal God! And you and I shall soon be there; leaving behind the sweat of toil, the rags of poverty, the shame of persecution, the pangs of sickness, and the groans of death, of the death of sin; we shall soon be immortal, celestial, immaculate, glorified with the glory which Christ had with his Father before the world was. Oh! your hearts will surely glow if you can muse thus upon heaven, if you can sing with me to-night-

“My soul amid this stormy world

Is like some flutter’d dove,

And fain would be as swift of wing

To flee to him I love.

My heart is with him on his throne,

And ill can brook delay;

Each moment listening for the voice,

‘Rise up, and come away.’

I would, my Lord and Saviour, know

That which no measure knows,

Would search the mystery of thy love,

The depth of all thy woes.

I fain would strike my harp divine

Before the Father’s throne,

There cast my crown of righteousness,

And sing what grace has done.

Ah! leave me not in this base world,

A stranger still to roam;

Come, Lord, and take me to thyself,

Come, Jesus, quickly come!”

Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarrieth he? Come quickly, come, Lord Jesus, come! Lash the white horse, and bid him come as soon as may be, that death may meet me, and that I may meet my God!

And, if that stir you not, Christians, there is one other subject necessary for you to muse upon. Sometimes, Christians, think of hell. Nay, start not, I pray you, for you will never have to feel it, and therefore you need not shrink from thinking of it. Think of that hell from which you have escaped, and it will surely fire you with gratitude. Think of that place of doom into which multitudes are going every day, and if this bring not the tears to your eye, and make not your heart palpitate with zeal, I know not what will. Bethink you that now, while I have been speaking, a soul has passed into eternity, and oh! since we have been here how many spirits have taken the last dreadful plunge into the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, lost, lost, lost beyond my call, and beyond your prayers! No sermons can save them now; no tears can bring them to repentance now, but they are gone, gone, gone. Yes, and there are others who are going; and as you walk the streets of this great London, what multitudes do you meet who will for ever have to magnify the awful justice of that God whom they have slighted, and of that Saviour whom they have rejected! And will not this make you bestir yourselves? O my brethren, if we can think of hell and yet be idle, if we can meditate upon the wrath to come, and yet be prayerless then, surely, feeling has been given to beasts, and we are turned to stone. What! believe in judgment and in eternal wrath, and yet not weep for sinners! Believe in hell, and yet not weep for sinners! Surely, we may expect to be turned, like Lot’s wife, into pillars of salt, if we thus show signs of looking back with careless and wicked eye on burning Sodom, instead of fleeing from it, and urging others to escape from the wrath to come.

Christians, I have given you topics enough to meditate upon; may I fondly hope that some of you will try during the next week to scrape up some fragments of time to be alone? I should not have a cold-hearted congregation, I should not have need to stir you up to liberality in giving, or in earnestness, or in service, if you would but muse much, for well am I persuaded that while you are musing the fire will burn.

But I address myself now-stealing a minute of your time which might, perhaps, be worse spent than here-though I go beyond the allotted hour, I address myself to those who are not yet converted to God. I could have hope of you, my dear hearer, I could have good hope of you if I knew that you were given to musing; and if you are so given, may I suggest a few topics which are most likely to be useful to you?

Muse, I pray you, unregenerate man, upon your present state. “Dead in trespasses and sins,” as you now are, the wrath of God abideth on you. Heirs of wrath even as others, afar off, without God, without hope, and without Christ in the world, I pray you bethink you of the hole of the pit where you now are, and out of which you have never yet been digged. Perhaps I have thought more about your soul than you have ever thought about it in your life; I pray you now let your own thoughtfulness begin to exercise itself; examine yourself; see what your state is.

And when you have thought that over, I pray you bethink you of what your end must be if you continue what you are. If you are resolved to perish, at least look your doom in the face. If you mean to make your bed in hell, I pray you look at it, and see the dreadful coverlet of flame in which you shall be wrapped for ever. If you have made a league with hell, I pray you see whither that league will take you. Count the cost, I beseech you, for every wise man would do it. Can you dwell with the devouring flames? Can you, can you dwell with everlasting burnings? I know you cannot; for while I do but even use the word, my bones seem to tremble, and rottenness taketh hold upon my heart; and how can you endure it when God cometh forth to tear you in pieces, and there shall be none to deliver? Oh! what will you do in that day of your visitation? What will you do when the sharp and furbished sword is drawn from its scabbard, when God cometh forth dressed as a man of war, to take vengeance upon your iniquities? I pray you, then, muse upon these things, and perhaps the fire may burn, perhaps the heart may melt, perhaps tears of penitence may come streaming down from both your eyes in rivers.

But if you will not think of this, at least let me give you a better and a sweeter topic to muse upon. Think of my Lord and Master Jesus Christ.

“Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by,

Is it nothing to you that Jesus should die?”

I pray you sit down at the foot of his cross, and answer these questions. Did he die for you, or not? Remember, my hearers, Christ did not die for every one; some of you will have no lot and no part in his blood; if you die without faith in him, that blood will never cleanse you, that precious blood is not an atonement for your sins. Do not suppose that Christ came into the world to save damned souls. Nay, those whom he came to save he will save, and every vessel of mercy bought with his blood shall glitter upon the tables of heaven; not one of his precious sheep shall be cast out. The question is: Is that blood shed for you? And you may know whether it is or not, by this: Art thou willing to trust him? If thou trustest him this is the mark of redemption, this is the bloodmark upon the purchased sheep; canst thou, as thou sittest there, think upon this, that he died for sinners, the just for the unjust, that he might bring them to God, and that he died for those who hated him? Methinks I see him now; there on the cross he hangs, and suffers for those who cursed him, bleeds for those who hounded him through the streets, bows his head upon his bosom in an extremity of anguish for the very men who put the vinegar and the gall into his mouth. “Of whom I am chief,” saith Paul, when he spoke of sinners for whom Jesus died. Sinner, thou canst not have sinned so foully as Paul did, and if thou restest on the blood of Christ thou shalt be saved. Some men tell me that they do not know how to get faith. Faith is the gift of God, but then faith usually comes by meditating much upon Christ. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” As it comes in this way, hearing begets meditation; and while we are meditating upon the great and marvellous story of the condescension and the suffering of Jesus, something seems to say within us, “Yes, it is true, I will believe it;” and faith is thus wrought in us before we are aware of it, and we cast ourselves upon Jesus Christ.

And then, sinner, if this topic will not suit thee, let me remind thee that there shall come a day when thou wilt have to muse without any hope. Abraham said to Dives, “Son, remember.” Son, remember, you may forget to-day; you have, perhaps, forgotten until now, and you will forget when you leave this Tabernacle what I have said to you, or what God has said, but you will never be able to forget when once you have come into hell-fire. Then it will be, “Son, remember,” and you will remember your mother’s tears and your father’s prayers; you will remember your privileges. The invitations and the wooings of love which you had, will all rise up before you anew, and you will see how guilty you have been. “Son, remember,” and then all your sins will rise again before you-the nights, the days, the words, the thoughts, the deeds, will all start up, and people hell with multitudes of worse than fiends to plague and torment you for ever. “Son, remember,” and then you will remember the Christ who was preached to you, the stirrings of conscience which you once had, and how you sinned against it all, and choked the good seed. “Son, remember,” and then you will be made to remember all that is yet to come! you will remember God’s threatenings concerning the wrath which never can be appeased, the fire which never shall be quenched, and the worm which shall never die. O I pray thee, instead of remembering then to remember now! O that I could plead with you! I stand here so far away from you; would that I could come and take you by the hand, and say, “Why will you perish? Men and women, why will ye die?” O you who are strangers to my Lord and Master, do you find any pleasure in your sin? Are the ways of the world, after all, so fair and so pleasant as you once thought them to be? Is there not an emptiness? Do you not find “an aching void” in all your pleasures? Tell me now, will you be able to die quietly as you now are? Can you put your head down upon your death-pillow softly and in peace? Can you think of meeting God and hearing the thunders of the last tremendous day, and beholding the wonders of the resurrection-can you think of these things with anything like composure? You cannot; I know you cannot. O, then,

“Come, trembling souls, and flee away

To Christ, and heal your wounds;

This is the glorious gospel day

In which free grace abounds.”

May the Spirit of God now sweetly bring you to the Saviour. Poor dove, poor dove, the hawk is after thee, and thou canst not fight him, nor canst thou escape him. Hearken to one who loves thee; there is a cleft in yonder Rock to hide thyself in, and then the hawk would lose his prey. Soul, the wounds of Jesus are the clefts in the Rock; flee thou thither, and the fowler, Satan, shall seek, but shall never be able to reach thee, for there is salvation in him who died that we might live.

Save us now, for his name’s sake. Amen.