C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”-Eph. 5:25-27.

What a golden example Christ gives to his disciples! There are few masters who could venture to say, “If you would practise my teaching, imitate my life.” But the life of Jesus is the exact transcript of perfect virtue, and therefore he can point to himself as the paragon of holiness, as well as the teacher of it. The Christian should take nothing short of Christ for his model. Under no circumstances ought we to be content unless we reflect the grace which was in Christ Jesus. Even as a husband, which is a relationship that the Christian sustains in common with the rest of men, he is to look upon Christ Jesus as being set before him as the picture, and he is to paint according to that copy. Christ himself being the bridegroom of the Church, the true Christian is to seek to be such a husband as Christ was to his spouse. I fear, brethren, that we often stop short of the Master’s example; that we compare ourselves among ourselves, and are therefore far from being wise. We think if we avoid the egregious faults of some, and can attain to the moderate virtues of others, we have done well. Let it be so no longer. He would never excel in statuary who should take the works of some mere tyro to be his copy. No; the sculptor knows that he cannot rival Praxiteles or Phidias, and yet he takes some Greek torso, or bust from the antique to be his model: he must have perfection there, if there be none in his own workmanship. The painter would never attain to eminence if he went to an exhibition and devoted himself to the study of some work of moderate worth, and said, “I will attempt to reach this, and there I will stop contented.” No, he goes to the galleries of the great masters, and though his timid pencil may not dare to hope that he shall strike out thoughts so clearly and make life stand out upon the canvas as they have done, yet he seeks to drink in their inspiration, hoping that he may rise to some proud eminence in art by imitating them. Let the Christian then aspire to be like unto his Lord, who is the author and finisher of his faith; and let him, as he runs the heavenly race, look unto Jesus, and make “the Apostle and High Priest of his profession” his continual study, and aim to be changed into his image from glory unto glory.

You must be struck in reading the passage before us, on what high ground the apostle takes the Christian. It is possible that some husbands might say, “How can I love such a wife as I have?” It might be a supposable case that some Christian was unequally yoked together with an unbeliever, and found himself for ever bound with a fetter to one possessed of a morose disposition, of a froward temper, of a bitter spirit. He might therefore say, “Surely I am excused from loving in such a case as this. It cannot be expected that I should love that which is in itself so unlovely.” But mark, beloved, the wisdom of the apostle. He silences that excuse, which may possibly have occurred to his mind while writing the passage, by taking the example of the Saviour, who loved, not because there was loveliness in his Church, but in order to make her lovely. You perceive “he loved his Church and gave himself for it, that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.” He did not admire her because there was no spot in her; he did not choose her because she had no wrinkle; but fixed his affections where there were multitudinous spots and wrinkles; where everything was deformity, he still set his heart, and would not withdraw till he had loved the spots away, and loved every wrinkle out of her who was the object of his choice. And now he seems to say to every Christian man, however unhappily he may have fared; “If perchance in the lot of Providence you have been yoked to one who deserves but little of your affection, yet if you cannot love because of esteem, love because of pity; if you cannot love because of present merit, then love because of future hope, for possibly, even there, in that bad soil, some sweet flower may grow; be not weary of holy tillage, and of heavenly ploughing and sowing, because at the last there may spring up some fair harvest that shall make glad your soul.” He loved his Church and gave himself for it that he might present it to himself a glorious Church. I do not intend, however, this morning, entering into the duty of husbands, that is not the reason for which I selected the text, but to set forth the love of Jesus towards his people.

And first, let us consider the object of the Saviour’s love. “He loved the Church;” then let us observe the work which love has carried on in pursuance of its gracious design. “He gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it through the washing of water by the word.” Then, thirdly, let us look at the beloved object when the design is accomplished-“without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing;” and then, let us pause awhile to behold this beloved object, presented by our Lord to himself in the day of his triumphant espousals.

First, then, may the Spirit of God help us while we look at the chosen Church, the object of the Saviour’s love.

Some of our brethren are very fond of what is called the general or universal view of God’s benevolence. I trust we are not afraid to deal with that, whenever we come across it in Holy Scripture. We believe that “God is good to all, and that his tender mercies are over all his works.” We believe him to have the love of benevolence towards all his creatures, and we can preach without bated breath upon such a text as this-“He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” But some of these brethren are very much afraid of the peculiar and special sign of the Saviour’s love, and they seem to shrink from a text which has anything particular and discriminating in it; and shake it off from their hand into the fire, as Paul did the viper of old. Now we thank God we have learned to love the distinguishing doctrines of grace; and that predestination and discrimination are not hard words for us to pronounce now, neither do they grate upon our ears; but we love to read this text, and put the emphasis upon the accusative case. Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it. We perceive that Christ did not love the world in the sense in which the term “loved” is here meant. We see here that Christ gave himself not for the world, but for it, that is the Church. In the sense in which he is said here to give himself, he did so for none except his chosen people, the Church; his one, special, and particular object of affection. It is not thus that Christ has loved universal creatureship-and all mankind alike without exception or difference-but he loved the Church, and gave himself for it.

Now what is this Church which Jesus Christ loved, if it be not the entire company of the elect? As many as the Father gave him from before the foundation of the world, whose names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life before the stars began to shine-as many as were taken by him to be the sheep of his pasture, the jewels of his crown, the children of his love, the subjects of his kingdom, the members of his body, each one of them being particularly known to him, and chosen in him before the mountains lifted their heads into the clouds-so many compose the Church of Christ which was the object of his redeeming love.

We have to search for these chosen ones in what is called the Church visible. We know that they are not all Israel who are of Israel, and that the visible Church is not identical with that Church which Christ loved, and for which he gave himself. There is a Church invisible, and this is the centre, and life of the Church visible; what the wheat is to the chaff and heap upon the threshing floor, such are these living Christians amongst the mass of professors in the world. There is a distinction which we cannot see, which it is not for us to try and make manifest, lest, haply, in endeavouring to root up the tares, we root up the wheat also. There is an unseen Church which becomes visible in heaven, which will be apparent and manifest at the coming of the Son of man. This it is which Christ loved, and for which he gave himself.

Now, observe what this Church was by nature, for that is the subject of our discourse just now upon this first head. The Church which Christ loved was in her origin as sinful as the rest of the human race. Have the damned in hell fallen through Adam’s transgression? So had the saved in glory once. The sin which was imputed to lost spirits was equally and with as fatal consequences imputed to them, and had it not been for the incoming of the covenant head, the second Adam, they had for ever suffered with the rest. They, too, were alike depraved in nature. Is the heart deceitful above all things in the unregenerate? So it is in the elect before regeneration. Was the will perverse? Was the understanding darkened? Was the whole head sick, and the whole heart faint in the case of those who continued in sin? It was just the same at first with those who have been by sovereign grace taken into the heart of Christ. “We were,” says the apostle, “by nature the children of wrath even as others.” Remember that between the brightest saint in heaven and the blackest sinner in hell, there is no difference except that which Christ has made. Had those glorified ones been left to continue in their natural state, they would have sinned as foully and as constantly as the worst of sinners have done. To begin with, there is no difference between the election and the non-election. They are all alike fallen; “they are all gone out of the way,-they are altogether become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”

Nay, more, this Church of Christ is made up of persons who are actually defiled by their own transgressions. Are you and I members of that Church? Ah, then, we are compelled to confess that in us by nature dwelt all manner of concupiscence, vileness, and an evil heart of unbelief, ever prone to depart from the living God and to rebel against the Most High. And what since have we done? Or rather, what have we not done?

“We wandered each a different way,

But all the downward road.”

We did not all fall into the same vices, but still when the black catalogue of sin is read, we have to weep over it, and to say, “Such were some of us.” But why we should make a part of Christ’s Church is a question that never can be answered except with this one reply, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.” Do the wicked sink to hell with their sins like millstones about their necks? We should have sunk there too, and as rapidly and as fatally, unless eternal love had said, “Deliver him from going down into the pit, for I have found a ransom.” Look at Christ’s Church as you see her visibly in the world, and I ask you, brethren, though she has much about her that is admirable, whether there is not much that might cause her Lord to cast her away. Even in her regenerate estate, she speaks truly when she says, “she is black as the tents of Kedar.” Mark the hypocrites that come into the Christian Church and that mar her purity. Observe the formalists that crowd her courts, that sit as God’s people sit, and sing as God’s people sing, but have hearts full of rottenness and villainy. Observe even the true saints-how unbelieving, how carnally-minded often, how childish, how ready to murmur against God. How few of them are fathers in Israel. When they ought to be teachers they have need to be instructed in the first elements of the faith. What heresies come into the Church, and how many unstable minds are carried away with them. What divisions there are! How one saith, “I am of Paul;” and another, “I am of Apollos;” and a third, “I am of Christ.” What envyings there are, what backbitings of those that are eminent for usefulness. What suspicions against those who are a little more zealous than their fellows! My brethren, what a want of affection we can see in the Church of Christ; how little brotherly kindness, how little sympathy. On the other hand, how much of pride is discovered: how much caste creeps in and prevails even among those who profess to be brethren! How we find some claiming to be lords in God’s heritage, and taking to themselves names and titles to which they have no right, seeing that “One is our Master,” and we are not to be called “Rabbi” among men. When I look at the Church even with a blinded eye, having no power to see her as God’s omniscient eye must see, yet is she covered with spots. Well may she wear her veil and say, “Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me.” O Church of God, how is it Jesus Christ could love thee, for even in thy Church-capacity and Church-estate how much there is that could make him say, “Thou art reprobate silver; thou shalt be cast into the fire.” Lo, how much there is that must make him say of thee, “Salt is good, but this salt has lost its savour, and wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is henceforth good for nothing but to be trodden under foot of men.”

And yet you see, dear friends, it is written that Christ loved his Church, and gave himself for it. I think I see it-a piece of ground untilled; neither hedged, nor walled, not covered with vines, nor redolent with the perfume of sweet flowers, but it is a spot in the wilderness, filled with the thorn, and the thistle, and the brier; her hedges are broken down; the stones of her wall are scattered; the wild boar out of the wood wasteth her; all kinds of unclean creatures lurk among her weeds and brambles. Oh, how is it, thou Lord of glory, that thou couldst buy, at the price of thy heart’s blood, such a waste piece of ground as that? What couldst thou see in that garden that thou shouldst determine to make it the fairest spot of all the earth, that should yield thee the richest of all fruit?

Methinks, again, I see the Church of God, not as a fair maid decorated for the marriage-day with jewels, and carrying herself right gloriously both in her person and her apparel; but I see her as a helpless child, neglected by her parents, cast out, unwashed, unclothed, left uncared for, and covered with her filth and blood. No eye pities her, no arm comes to bring her salvation. But the eye of the Lord Jesus looks upon that infant, and straightway love beams forth from that eye, and speaks from that lip, and acts through that hand; he says, “Live!” and the helpless infant is cared for: she is nurtured; she is decked with dainty apparel; she is fed, and clothed, and sustained, and made comely through the comeliness of him who chose her at the first. Thus it is that strong love moved the grace of God, and the Church found that Christ gave himself for it.

I must not, however, leave this point without just reminding you of what kind of love it is which Jesus Christ gives to this Church: you perceive it is the love of a husband. Now the love of a husband is special. Those gentlemen who think that Christ did not love the Church more than he loved the rest of the world, must have a very queer idea of how a husband ought to love his wife, for it says, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church;” and surely a husband ought to love his wife more than he loves other people. Therefore Christ cherishes for the Church a special, particular affection, which is set upon her rather than upon the rest of mankind. The Lord has set his Church as much above the rest of the world, as he has fixed his own throne above the kings and princes of this lower earth, and the day shall come when she, “fair as the moon and clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners,” shall be recognized as being the favourite of heaven, the peculiar treasure of Christ-his regalia, the crown of his head, the bracelet of his arm, the breastplate of his heart, the very centre and core of his own love. Let us not cavil at this truth, for it is exceedingly precious. Let us seek the honey out of it, and believe that Christ loves the Church with a special love.

Again, a husband loves his wife with a constant love, and so does Christ his Church. He will not cast her away to-morrow having loved her to-day. He does not vary in his affection. He may change in his display of affection, but the affection itself is still the same. A husband loves his wife with an enduring love; it never will die out: he says, “Till death us do part will I cherish thee;” but Christ will not even let death part his love to his people. “Nothing shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” A husband loves his wife with a hearty love, with a love that is true and intense. It is not mere lip-service. He does not merely speak, but he acts; he is ready to provide for her wants; he will defend her character; he will vindicate her honour; because his heart is set upon her. It is not merely with the eye that he delighteth now and then to glance upon her, but his soul hath her continually in his remembrance: she has a mansion in his heart from whence she can never be cast away. She has become a portion of himself; she is a member of his body, she is part of his flesh and of his bones; and so is the Church to Christ for ever, an eternal spouse. He says,

“Forget thee, I will not, I cannot; thy name

Engraved on my heart doth for ever remain;

The palms of my hands whilst I look on, I see

The wounds I received when suffering for thee.”

Now let us leave this point, only reminding you again, that this Church is only a Church of Christ, because he has made her so. She had no right or title to his affection; he loved her because he chose to do so, and having once loved her, he never will divorce her: she shall be his, world without end.

And now I shall want your patience a few minutes on the second point, and that is, the work which love seeks to accomplish in its gracious designs.

Since the Church is not fit for Christ by nature, he resolved to make her so by grace. He could not be in communion with sin. Therefore it must be purged away. Perfect holiness was absolutely necessary in one who was to be the bride of Christ. He purposes to work that in her, and to make her meet to be his spouse eternally. The great means by which he attempts to do this, is, “he gave himself for her.”

Beloved, I wish I had the power of speech this morning as one sometimes has it, or rather, I wish that another had to handle such a weighty theme as this, for how can I set forth to you the preciousness of this gift? He gave himself for his Church. Had he given his crown and royalty, and come down to earth for a while, that were mercy. Had he given up for a time the happiness and pleasure of his Father’s house, this were somewhat-and this he did. But it was not enough. He would not merely leave his glory, and part with his crown, but he must give himself. Here he is on earth, born of the Virgin; a helpless infant, he slumbers at her breast. Throughout his life, foxes had holes, and birds of the air nests, but “He had not where to lay his head.” He hath given you much in this. “He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” The thorn crown is on his brow, the lash of the scourge is on his back, the spear is at his breast, the nails are in his hands and feet. He has given you much, but now he is about to give you all he has. He is stripped naked to his shame; he gives his last garment that he may cover the nakedness of man, but when he cries, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!” when having drank the last drop of the bitter cup of woe, he bows his head, and says, “It is finished!” and gives up the ghost, he has given you all that he can give, for he has given you himself. He gives you his Godhead; that comes on earth, but is veiled in clay; he gives you his entire manhood, for his body is given to the scourge and tomb, and his soul to agony and death-he gives himself.

Perhaps you will say, “But how does his giving himself tend to cleanse his Church?” You know, beloved, how the precious blood of his heart takes away sin; how the righteousness of his life covers his Church, and makes her beautiful in the sight of God; you know how the water which flowed with the blood purifies and sanctifies his people. But, perhaps, you will never realize better how Christ gives himself to you than you do at the sacramental table. There in type and symbol you see in that bread, his broken body; you see set forth in shadow in that wine, his blood; and what do you with that bread? Do you look at it? ay! with tears in your eyes. What do you with the cup? Do you regard it? Yes, with loving eyes. But this is not all. “Take, eat!” saith the Saviour. “Drink ye, drink ye all of it,” saith he; and as you eat and drink, you are thereby reminded of the great truth, that he has given you his flesh to eat, and his blood to drink; and that these, like some healing medicine, will purge you of all diseases, cleanse you of every lingering cancer, go through and through the secret parts of your soul, and expel with their sanctifying influence the very roots and seeds of corruption, and make you perfect in every good work to do his will. I admit that you may not feel this at present, but you have that within you in having received Christ, which will be the death of all sin. He has given himself to dwell in you, to kill every lust, to slay every corruption, to expel the Canaanites out of the Canaan of your heart, till King David shall reign in Jerusalem and the Jebusite shall be put away for ever. Beloved, this is the way in which he sanctifies and cleanses his Church, by giving himself for it, first upon the tree, and afterwards in the Church, by the work of the Holy Spirit as a quickening and cleansing power, dwelling there evermore.

When the text says, “he gave himself for it that he might sanctify and cleanse it,” is there not allusion here to the double cure of sin? Here is Christ sanctifying by the Spirit, that is to say, taking away the propensity to sin, killing the power of sin in us, helping us to reign over our corruptions that we may in heart and life be pure, even as our Father which is in heaven is pure. And as to the cleansing, may not that allude to justification and pardon? Of that we spoke particularly last Saturday to our own joy if not to yours. We are complete in him; we are perfect in Christ Jesus, and the design of Christ is, that sanctification shall be as perfect as justification, that the power of sin shall be as thoroughly slain as the guilt of it, that altogether sin shall cease to be in the Christian.

But what is the outward instrumentality which Christ uses? The text says, “With the washing of water by the word.” We Baptists are generally thought to lay great stress upon baptism. There can be no greater mistake made, than to suppose that we exaggerate its importance. I sometimes think we do not value it enough. Those who practise infant baptism might be much more fairly charged with exaggerating the importance of baptism, than those of us, who scrupulously require a profession of faith from all persons, before we think of baptizing them into the name of the Lord. I do not believe that baptism is intended here, nor even referred to. I know that the most of commentators say it is. I do not think it. It strikes me that one word explains the whole. Christ sanctifies and cleanses us by the washing of water, but what sort of water? By the Word. The water which washes away sin, which cleanses and purifies the soul, is the Word. The Word of God has a cleansing influence. It comes and convinces the man of sin. It makes him see his impurity so as to hate it. When applied with power by the Holy Spirit, it works repentance; it leads the man to weep and bewail himself before God. That same Word leads to faith in Christ Jesus, and faith works by love and purifies the soul. The Word is preached, the Word is believed; and as soon as ever that Word is believed, it begins to act like water in the heart of man. You cannot receive the gospel and yet be as filthy as you were before. My brother, if you really welcome the truth, those grosser sins will be washed away at once. Next, as you discover them, your besetting sins will be cleansed away, and constantly, as you understand the Word better, believe it more firmly, and feel its effect more powerfully, you will by it, as by water, be washed and cleansed from all indwelling sin, till you are sanctified and cleansed and made fit to enter into heaven. This one thing let me say solemnly, I go not into this world to preach the efficacy of baptismal water in cleansing souls from sin. Let those who care to do it, and think it their office, magnify their office exceedingly. Let those who think that sacraments have necessarily efficacy in them, stand out and boldly declare it; but, as for us, we believe that the water which cleanses is none other than the Word of God, which is preached by man, and applied by the Holy Ghost. We rest upon the uplifted cross of Christ, upon the doctrine of his atonement, on the great truth of his abiding presence in the Church of God, and ever pray, “Sanctify us by thy truth, thy word is truth.”

And, mark you, the world has had a fair trial of both plans. Throughout the dark ages the world tried the efficacy of baptisms and sacraments; for century after century Popery and priestcraft gulled the world with the idea that Baptism and the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper were a prescription for cleansing away sin. What was the result? Were not the cities filled with harlots? Were not the dungeons crowded with prisoners? Had not the earth become an aceldama, and was not the whole land, like Sodom, reeking with filth? Then came Luther and Calvin, and though these men held not all the truth in its fulness, yet, at least they held “the washing of water by the Word,” and Luther, and Zwingle, and Calvin declared, “The world’s great purgative is faith in Jesus Christ, not sacraments. The priesthood lies with Christ, and not with men. Priestcraft is to be put away. Justification is by faith in Jesus Christ, and that faith comes by hearing, and that hearing by the preaching of the Word.” And what happened? Why, the world woke as from a long slumber. She found herself in chains; she snapped the chains as Samson snapped the green withes. Progress came-knowledge, light, truth; and if the world be not holy, yet what strides has she made since the day when Tetzel’s “Indulgence for Sin” defiled the world through and through to its very centre with blasphemy! We have but to keep on using this washing of water by the continual preaching of the Word, and the day shall come when our poor planet shall be cleansed from blood and filth, and shall come out from the mists in which she is now swathed, and shine like her sister stars, bright in the light of her God; and the only sounds that shall be heard from her shall be songs of joy and peace, because the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. This, then, is Christ’s way of cleansing and sanctifying his Church-by the washing of water, that is to say, by the Word.

And now let us pass on, again troubling your patience, to the third point-the loved one as she is perfected.

One is inclined to draw a veil over the face of beauty, which never can be painted. She is to be a glorious Church. We love our own highly-favoured Church. I am sure there is not a member of it-at least I do not know one-but what feels his heart leap every time he thinks of this Church, which God has so prospered, and blessed, and honored. For all that, we are nothing but a militant Church, and a very imperfect one-a Church that has cause to mourn and humble herself before God for many sins; and I, as pastor, looking upon you all, cannot help while I bless God for all I see that is excellent, bowing mine own head in the dust because of the sins of a people favoured with the gospel, who, nevertheless, have much to confess before God. We are not a glorious Church. You can cast your eyes upon such Churches as the Moravians, who gave themselves up, men and women, to Christ’s cause, and scattered themselves all over the world, preaching the gospel. Greenland was not too cold, the Sahara was not too hot-they sacrificed everything for Christ; but yet the Moravian Church with all its excellence has much of which it may well repent. It is not a glorious Church. You may look where you like, and you shall see that the dust of travel is still upon the wilderness Church. She has the presence of God, she has her Shekinah, but alas, she is troubled within by a mixed multitude. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, sometimes vex her. Her Master has to send her fiery serpents sometimes, and she still needs to keep the brazen serpent lifted up every day; for even in her ranks, there are some that still need to look and live. We have no glorious Church on earth, nor do I think we can get much idea of what a glorious Church is. I tried yesterday, last Sunday rather, (and all the days since then seem to have gone so rapidly that I thought it yesterday). I tried last Sunday to show what a glorious person was. But what must a glorious Church be? There is one lamp; well, that is very bright, very pleasing; you like to have it in your room; but think of all London illuminated to the very top of the cross of St. Paul’s, and what an idea you then have of brightness. Now, one glorified Christian is a lamp. Think, then, of all heaven, with its domes of glory lit up with ten thousand times ten thousand companies of blood-bought spirits, whom Jesus Christ has taken up-a glorious Church! One flower is very sweet. I smell its perfume. But I walk into some vast conservatories, into some gentleman’s garden, acres in extent, and there are beds of flowers, the blue, and scarlet, and yellow. I see the verbena, the calceolaria, and the geranium and many others, all in order, and in ranks. Oh, how glorious is this! Those undulating lawns, those well-trimmed hedges, those trees so daintily kept, all growing in such luxuriance. One flower is sweet, but a garden! a garden! who can tell how sweet this is! So, one glorified saint is one of God’s flowers, but a glorious Church is Christ’s garden. A drop of water may be very precious to a thirsty tongue, but a river full of it! Children are pleased, when for the first time in their lives they sail across some little lake, but how surprised they are when they come to the deep and rolling sea, which seems without shore or bottom. Well, so pleased am I at the very thought of the glorious Church. As yet I have never seen anything but one little lake-this Church, the Church of God in England, the Church of God in the world, what is it after all but “as a drop of a bucket!” but the glorious Church-the whole of the people of God gathered together in one, all perfectly free from sin, all made like unto Christ, and all bedight and bright with the glory which excelleth even that which Moses and Elias had when they were with Christ in the holy mountain, or such as Moses had when he came down from the top of Horeb, when he had been forty days with God-a glorious Church, a mighty company of glorified beings.

But do observe what is said of her. She is to be “Without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.” “Without spot”-that is much; but you see spots can be taken off. The face is washed, and the spot comes out. The garment is thoroughly cleansed, and there are some chemicals and acids applied, and the spots can be got out. Though, truly, some of us have scarlet spots of a crimson-like dye, yet the blood of Jesus is a wonderful detergent, and it can get out spots of any colour. Though we may have been lying in the ley-tub of sin even for seventy years, yet Christ will get all the spots out of us if we are a part of his Church. Though his Church be double-dyed, yet Christ will make her white as snow.

But that is not the wonder of the text; the marvel is, “without spot or wrinkle.” You may get a spot out of your face, but you cannot smooth out a wrinkle. You may make what efforts you please, but you cannot get rid of your wrinkles. You that are getting old, if time has come and driven his plough across your brow, why there the furrow will remain, it will not come out. Yes, but the Church of Christ is to be without wrinkle as well as without spot. How will he get the wrinkles out? There is no chemical that I know of that can get rid of them; but Jesus Christ has a sacred art, having in himself by the washing of water, even the Word, the power to get wrinkles out. Lightfoot says there is an allusion here to the carefulness of the Jew in his ablutions. The Jew not only washes very carefully when he is purifying himself for worship, but lest any dust or impurity should remain in any crack of the skin, or in any wrinkle, he seeks by washing again and again with the severest care, to get out the least filth that would be in the wrinkle. Very good, Dr. Lightfoot, but the Jew cannot wash wrinkles out; he can wash away the dirt, but he cannot get rid of the wrinkle. But Christ can banish away both. Another good writer says, that perhaps there is an allusion here to the fuller’s trade. The fuller gets out the spots first, and then as the cloth may have been so folded up that there are creases and wrinkles in it, he uses divers stretchings and millings, till at last he manages to get out the creases and wrinkles from the cloth as well as the spot. I do not know whether there is an allusion to that, but this I know, that there shall not be a spot of sin on any of God’s people, nor yet a wrinkle of infirmity. They shall lose the effect of old age and weakness in their bodies, and they shall lose the defects and infirmities in their souls. The outward spot shall be removed, and the inward deformity, which was like a wrinkle ingrained into their very nature, this shall also be taken away.

But do observe the next word. The Holy Ghost seems to exhaust language to describe this purity. He says, “Without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing!” She shall have nothing like a spot, nothing that can be construed into a wrinkle; she shall be fair, and the world shall be compelled to acknowledge that she is. The eyes of God shall look upon her; and though he sees in darkness, and discovereth the hidden things of night, even he shall discern neither spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing, in any one single part of the body or the soul of any one of the members of the mystical body of Christ. Oh what perfection, beloved, is this! I cannot speak of it, but I can delight in thinking of it. I was trying to think last night, what I should be like when I was freed from my spots and wrinkles. Ah! you can all see them now-I wonder you put up with them sometimes; but what shall I be when I have parted with them for ever? And I shall get rid of them. Death is stamped on every infirmity: the Lord has put the poison into the heart of my inbred sins, and bless his name for it. But what will you and I be like when we are perfect? No hasty temper, no sloth, no wrong thoughts, no cold hearts, no dilatoriness in prayer, no sluggishness in praise. Oh, brethren, there will be some of you so different, we shall scarcely know you. When some brethren die, I believe they will go to heaven, but they will be strangely altered by the time they get there. They are good people, but they have such crotchetty ways, such queer humours, such hot tempers, that surely we shall have to be very wise people to know them in heaven. We shall need to be informed who they are, they will be so greatly changed; but this will be the happy state of all, whether altered much or little, we shall be “without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.”

I must not dwell longer, though the theme invites. Hypocrisies, heresies, declensions, divisions, all these will be put away from the Church. Infirmity, doubt, sin, fear of every kind, will be put away from every believer, and we shall be presented blameless, holy, and unreprovable in the sight of God.

It is said, he is “to present her to himself.” Every day Christ presents his people to his Father in his intercession. The Holy Spirit presents poor sinners every day in conversion to Christ, but there is to be a day when Christ will present his glorious Church “to himself.” When he shall come, then shall be the wedding day. There shall be heard the cry, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh!” Then the virgins with their lamps trimmed shall go forth to meet him, and his Church shall enter into the supper, to sit down and sup with him and he with her. To-day the Church is like Esther bathing herself in spices, making herself ready for Ahasuerus, her Lord and master; to-day we are espoused, at the coming we shall be married. We are waiting now impatiently for him, then we shall be in his embrace. To-day we wear not the crown, to-day we wave not the palm, but to-morrow when he cometh, we shall be crowned with him and triumph with him. Let us long for his appearing. Let this bright hope sustain you in the dreary months of waiting and the weary hours of fighting, “He cometh! He cometh!” And when he cometh, he will be glorified in all his saints, and admired in those that have believed on him.

I would to God we were all members of his Church. There is only one token of membership which is infallible, and that is, saving faith in Christ. If thou believest in Jesus, thou shalt be without spot or wrinkle; but if thou believest not, thou art not of his Church, neither shalt thou be a partaker of his cleansing power nor of his glorious advent. God give thee a new heart and a right spirit, and wash thee with water this day by the Word, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Portion of Scripture Read before Sermon-Ephesians 5.

JERICHO CAPTURED

A Sermon

preached at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

on behalf of the baptist irish society

“And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour. And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.” Joshua 6:2, 3.

I see many ministering brethren here. I think I shall follow the example of Martin Luther, who observes that he frequently saw in the Church at Wittemberg sundry learned doctors, and there usually sat there Dr. Justus Jonas and others, of whom he said, that they were infinitely greater and more wise than himself. “But,” said Martin, “I do not therefore alter my style of preaching: I do not preach to them, but I preach to those peasants who come in from the country, and to the citizens of Wittemberg, for then I am quite certain that if they can understand me, Dr. Justus Jonas and the learned divines can understand me too, if they like.” I shall moreover adopt what is said to have been Mr. Wesley’s exhortation to his preachers, namely, aim low. “There is more likelihood,” he says, “of hitting the men than when you fire high.” I may also frankly confess I am reduced to that precept by necessity, since I have no capabilities of firing high, and must therefore shoot low. We shall take our text now, and try, if we can, to get something out of it which may be applicable to the present position of our Society, and see if we cannot draw some words and thoughts from it, which may strengthen, encourage, and nerve us for future action in this good work of God.

The Irish Society has to do with one of the citadels of Romanism, and it strikes me that there is a very evident parallel between our efforts and the work which Israel had to do against this city of Jericho. Jericho was a strongly defenced city and straitly shut up, so that none went in or came out. And Romanism seems to have accomplished this admirably. It shuts up its disciples so that they are scarcely accessible, and converts from it are few and far between. None, I was about to say, go in-very few, indeed, from us,-and there are very few who ever come out again. Jericho was the frontier city. That being captured, the conquest of the rest of Canaan would be comparatively easy. And Popery is very much the frontier city, the Jericho of our warfare: it stands in the way of the evangelization of the world; it is the great impediment to the spread of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let Jericho fall, and Canaan may weep and howl, for her day has come. And let Rome be subdued, let Romanism be conquered, and the world shall soon be at the feet of that Jesus whom it once despised. We are attacking, I think, in the Irish Society, a Jericho indeed, and we have been long about it; but it has been a very weary task, and the brethren have sometimes been apt to cry, “Let it be given up.” I am come on this the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, peradventure on the sixth day of the week, to cry to these brethren, “Courage, go on still with your rams’ horns, bear your testimony, and carry the ark of the Lord round about this city, for the Lord hath delivered it unto your hand; only be ye obedient and courageous, and abide ye his time, for your victory is absolutely sure.”

I shall divide what I may have to say this evening into these three parts. It strikes me that the narrative before us teaches us that God would have his people work, and wait, and win. And this is what we have to do to-day as they had of old.

First of all God would have his people work.

A little upon that. We preach the doctrines of grace, but the doctrines of grace are ever the best soil in which to grow good works. We daily insist upon it that works do not make a man to live, but we equally insist upon it that spiritual life continually manifests itself by holy deeds. The soldiers of God’s army, after they had crossed the Jordan, were not to lie still in luxurious ease, till Jericho’s walls should crumble down by slow degrees; and though God determined to send Jericho to destruction on a sudden, yet his people are not to sit still upon some neighbouring knoll, and expect the catastrophe: they are-to labour, and Jericho is to fall as the result of their toil. Their work is to consist of a daily procession; they are to go in cavalcade round about the wall; the priests are to exercise their functions. The ark must be carried upon men’s shoulders; the men of war are to be there to defend the ark, to clear the way, and to follow also in the rear, to guard it against any sudden attack or any eruption from the city. They are to march thus the whole of the six days; not one day without its parade; not one day without obedience to the great captain of the host. So, brethren, must it be with us. We are to win the world for Christ; this is our high ambition, and it shall be in Christ’s name our grand attainment. But it must be by work, by testimony-bearing, by the preaching of the gospel, by continual prayer, by encompassing the city, perpetually serving God, and walking in the path of obedience.

Let us look at this work a little in connection with this narrative. You will observe that the work to be done by Israel was universal. There was a place for each one to occupy. The men of arms were to go round the city, and with them the priests were to march also. Both the ecclesiastical and the military castes shall be represented here. They must neither of them sit still. It is an ill day for God’s Church when we conceive that some few are to fight the Lord’s battles, and that the rest of us may look on and criticise or applaud. Ye are all of you, my brethren, called to serve God. You recognize this in your creed. Ye know yourselves to be priests, and ye hate the lie which lifts some men into a priesthood, and puts the rest down as “the laity,” as though they were nothing better than stones. Ye feel that ye are all called to bear the vessels of the Lord, that ye are a “royal priesthood, a peculiar people,” that ye are all set apart for the service of God. But while this is our creed, I am afraid it is not our practice. How many take their seats in the pew, and when they have once made themselves comfortable, consider that their work is entirely wrapped up in listening to sermons, perhaps fumbling in their pockets for a solitary coin on collection occasions for the Missionary Society. It may be now and then-now and then-assisting in some enterprize of usefulness, but this only as an exception to the rule. We shall never see the Church become strong and mighty, till every single member of the Church shall realize his responsibility. We must all encompass this city. Observe, when the Lord fed the multitude, he did not take some of the five loaves, or one of the fishes, but he took all the loaves, though they were barley, and both the fishes, though they were small; and he took care to break all, and to divide all among the people. Nothing of a stock-in-hand was kept in the larder, nothing was laid by, but all was used; and then, by the multiplying power of God, there was sufficient. And so we must rummage the larder, we must bring out the barley cakes, we must bring forth the fishes, all must be devoted to the Master’s cause; and, in the use, ability will be multiplied; in the exercise, grace will be increased, and we shall yet be sufficient for the world’s needs.

It has been said, and I think a little calculation will show you that it is correct, that if God were to enable the Christians in this huge city of ours to feel their responsibility, and if every individual Christian were made the means of the conversion of one other-starting with fifty thousand Christians in London, (and let us hope there are as many believers as that: for it is a very small proportion of the professing multitude)-then, considering that there are three millions of souls in London, six years would be sufficient for the conversion of the whole, by the simple agency of each disciple bringing in one of the stray sheep. This does not look as if it were an impossible thing. Only grace is wanted from on high. We must plead with God and bring down the blessing; and when the blessing comes on each man’s labour, there certainly is no hindrance in the matter of time, or in the matter of exertion; for, with God’s blessing, the conversion of a soul is not a matter that requires us to relinquish business, or that compels us to give up all our time to it. Some five minutes have been by divine grace a sufficient length of time, and half-a-dozen words have proved enough. Courage, my brethren; vast as the work is, if we all go to it with God’s blessing it will speedily be accomplished. Our police served us all with a notice the other day, when the snow was on the ground, that we were each one to sweep before our own doors. It was very right that the passenger should go along the footpath without being smothered with the mud and snow commingled. Now what an expense it would have been to clean the streets of London by any other process. It would be difficult for a contractor to undertake it by the year, since he would scarcely know how often he would be called to work. How could an army of men be kept ready to do the work which comes in so strange a fashion-sometimes but once in the year, and sometimes fifty times; but each man sweeps before his own door, and then it is all done early in the morning, and you walk the streets in comfort. Oh that we could but feel that we are to sweep before our own door! Oh that every man would build the dilapidated wall of Jerusalem before his own house! And when this is done, then shall God send victory to his hosts; but I fear it will not be till then. God would have his people work universally.

But, next, he would have them work in his own appointed way. They are not to go in a scramble-in a boyish race round Jerusalem; there must be the soldiers in their troops, the priests in their array, and then again, the men of war to bring up the rear. God would have his people work according to his own revealed will. We must be very tender and jealous here. Whatever may be the opinions about the alteration of the constitution of our Missions, I do trust that we shall, all of us, when we come together, recognise the authority of God, and feel that we can only expect to have his guidance, his help, his blessing, when we walk according to the path which he has marked for us. If I go upon a tour, I do not expect to see certain sights which have been guaranteed to me by my friend, unless I agree to follow the little chart which he has mapped out for me. I cannot expect to have that sublime view of the Alps if I refuse to climb a certain spot and stand there and view the glacier and the snow peak glittering in the sun. And I cannot expect to have God’s blessing in my ministry and in the Sunday-school class, unless I keep to “It is written;” and in all things have a tender conscience, and am jealous of myself lest I err. How much more, then, in this greater work in which the whole Church is engaged! My brethren and sisters let us see to it, that in all things we compass this city of Jericho according to the divine order, for only so may we expect to see her walls come crumbling down.

Then, again, remember, they encompassed the city daily. So does God call his Church to work daily. It is very easy for us in a moment of excitement to accomplish a great work; and the most of Christian work now-a-days is, I fear, merely spasmodic. We build chapels by a series of fits, we pay off missionary-society debts by stupendous efforts, and we relapse again into debt and difficulties. I am afraid that as a denomination, we are not fond of working too severely. We know the value of ourselves, of our time, and of our money, and we are not apt to wear ourselves out by any excessive exertion. We have never, I believe, at any period since the unhappy days of Munster, been accused of excess of zeal; we are rather to be accused of quarreling about points on which we differ, than of excessive love of sticking to the practical business of fighting the devil, and winning the world to Christ. But we must come to this, for mark you, if we are to conquer the world we must each of us have our daily work, and keep to it, as God shall give us grace. The wheel must revolve again, and again, and again: it is that perpetual motion of industry which produces wealth, and it must be the ceaseless energy of our zeal, which shall produce spiritual conquest. We have sharpened our swords and fleshed them well; the younger men among us have had a brush with the foe, and we are beginning to think that like our sober sires we may be quiet; but it must not be so; we must agitate for all truth, for all the doctrines we hold dear, and for the peculiar truths we hold as a denomination. We must keep on fighting for Christ, and fighting for Christ every day. We must sleep in our armour, we must begin to feel that the sword cleaves to our hand and cannot be separated from it, we must give ourselves so entirely to the work to which God has called us, that wherever we are, whatever we may be engaged in, men may take knowledge of us as to what is our work and calling. In this Irish Society there must be no standing still, no ceasing of the trumpet, no withdrawing of so much as a single ram’s horn. The testimony must still be kept up, the witness-bearing must become more constant; we must preach, and teach, and pray, and work, and live, and, if needs be, die daily until this Jericho be stormed.

Nor have we exhausted the metaphors with which our text supplies us, for surely we may add that God would have his people work in faith. We are told by Paul that “by faith the walls of Jericho fell down.” It seems to me, that was a grand spectacle when the first man went forward step by step, and all the rest followed, the priests too, all of them confident that they were doing the best thing to make Jericho’s ramparts fall to the ground. “Why,” the fool might have said, “you are doing nothing, you are not loosening a single stone,” and at the end of the fifth or sixth day, I suppose it was suggested by many, “What is the good of it all?” But at least the most of those who encompassed the city, were men of faith, or else it could not have been said, “by faith the walls of Jericho fell down:” “Yes,” they seemed to say, “she will come down, she will come down, she stands like a rock, she has not moved, there is not a beam loosed, nor a cord broken, not a house in ruins, nor a tent that has fallen, not a single stone that has crumbled from her battlements; but down she shall come;” and on they went with steady tramp, and though they saw no corpses blocking up their pathway, though their arms were not red with blood, though they heard no shriek of those that fly, and could utter no shout of victory, yet they were as confident as they were when actually the walls began to rock, and the dust and smoke went up to heaven, and the shrieks of the slain made glad the foeman’s ear. We must encompass this city in full faith. Brethren, is the preaching of the gospel a power? If you think it is not, never try it again. Is the gospel mighty to save? Will the gospel come out victorious? If you have any doubt, slink back to your cowardly repose, but let the man whom God sends never doubt. If you have achieved no successes, if after fifty years your trumpet of jubilee was exceeding small, if after fifty years it was something like a ram’s horn that had not been bored, and could not make any noise at all, yet still go on; your time for shouting has not come yet, but your time for compassing the city is always present. Go on with it, go on with it, and God will not permit you to end till you have won the victory. So let us notice once more under this head of work, they worked with patience and courage, God kept this people labouring in the presence of difficulty. They were compassing the city, taking their walks, but always with the formidable walls of Jericho close under their eyes. Surely they must have had these walls photographed on their eyes and on their brains. “I shall know every stone in it,” says one; “six times I have been round, nay twelve times before the walls began to rock-twelve times! Seven was a perfect number, but we have gone beyond it, and yet the walls do not stir.” “Mark well her bulwarks, and count the towers thereof.” These men were practical surveyors of Jericho; they could well understand the strength of the battlements, how many feet long the huge stones were at the corners, and how near the stars the loftiest towers were raised. They had the difficulty, I say, always before them, yet they kept on in simple faith, going round the city. Sometimes we get into the habit of shutting our eyes to difficulty; that will not do: faith is not a fool, faith does not shut her eyes to difficulty, and then run head-foremost against a brick wall-never. Faith sees the difficulty, surveys it all, and then she says, “By my God will I leap over a wall;” and over the wall she goes. She never brings out the flaming accounts of “Signs of the Times,” in her favour; she does not sit down, and say that evidently public sentiment is changing; she does not reckon upon any undercurrents that may be at work, which she is told by Mistress Gossip really are doing great things, but she just looks at it, and does not mind how bad the thing is reported to be; if anybody can exaggerate the difficulty, faith is of the same noble mind as that famous warrior, who when told there were so many thousand soldiers against him, replied, “There are so many more to be killed.” So faith reckons: “So many more difficulties, so many more things to be overcome;” and even impossibilities she puts down as only so much burden to be cast upon Him, with whom nothing is impossible. She keeps Jericho’s walls before her. And I would that we, dear friends, knew more than we do, the perfect hopelessness of our work of seeking to convert Ireland to the gospel, for there never was a task undertaken, methinks, that had less hopefulness about it. I want you to be driven more and more to think, as far as the agency of man is concerned, that the thing is out of the category of the possible almost, and out of the category of the probable altogether; and when you can get to that point, and hear the voice, “Compass the city seven days,” yet still have courage to go on, on, on, notwithstanding all the manifest difficulties-then when God has taught you your nothingness, and brought you to feel that if victory be given, it is all his own, and that divine omnipotence and sovereignty must wear the crown, then, I say, he will make the old rampart rock, and the harlot of the seven hills shall rue the day when Israel shouts, when her sons are slain and God shall triumph right gloriously. God, however, would have his people work: that is the first point-we are agreed on that, let us unite to carry it out.

“The sermon is not done” said one, when he came out of Church-“it is all said, but it is not all done;” so let me close this head with saying, that it is not done, it is only said. I have said that God would have his people work, let us go and work. Let us begin to-night. If we have been lazy hitherto, if there are any Issachars here like the strong ass crouching down between two burdens, just get up Sir Issachar, and carry your burden. If there is any brother here that has been saying, “God will have his own,” let him mind what he is at, or God will never have him, for God’s own do not talk at that rate, and do not say that God’s purposes are to be an excuse for man’s indifference. Let him shake that off, for he cannot take such a plea as that before the judgment bar, he knows he cannot; therefore, do not let him try it on here. Let us try and work well for God; you in your Sunday-school classes, you in your preaching stations, you in your tract distributions, you here in England, you, my brethren, across the sea, and you in the Emerald Isle; compassing the city still, seven times.

We now come, in the second place, to consider that God would have his people wait.

The delay must have sorely tried the faith and patience of the Israelites. “Time flies,” and time is very precious, these Israelites must have thought, “Why make us wait. If we have to tarry a long while before the walls of Jericho, why then, what a time it will take to conquer all the interior; and if we begin with a long delay, our enemies may gather courage, and before we have made our entrenchments behind which we may shield ourselves, the host will be upon us, and we shall be cut to pieces.” It must have seemed to every merely thoughtful person in the camp of Israel, that it was imperative that the first city should be taken as speedily as possible, so that the people might be encouraged, and their enemies scattered; and it would give to those weary pilgrims some settled place to which they might retire with comfort, for they were, I suppose, still in their tents and longing for the time, when like the rest of the people of the land they might dwell in their own houses. But they must keep quiet; and, according to present appearances, they must remain so indefinitely. The people could not tell how long they were to tarry there. And just observe, my brethren, how very trying it must have been to them to wait. I do not know so much about the priests, for I am afraid priests are apt to be very contented with doing nothing, but not so with soldiers. There are a great many brethren who seem to be perfectly satisfied to rest at ease, but men of war do not generally seem to be of that temperament. When I was in the military prison at Dublin, I observed a form of punishment there. Men were carrying large shot. A man took up a large shot and carried it to the end of the yard, and he afterwards had to pick that shot up and bring it back again. I said, “How is it that you do not let them take all the shot to that end and pile them up there?” The officer said, “We used to do so but it was no use, for when the fellows had piled them up they felt they were doing something, but now we make them carry the shot from one end of the yard to the other, and then back again, and back again, and they feel they have to work hard and do nothing. That is always miserable work to the soldiers.” Many of our soldiers at Sebastopol made bitter complaints at not being led to battle. And you will often have heard young military men say, that they hate the inactivity of peace, they want to be doing something. Now these men of war were kept for six days marching round and round the city, and they must have felt themselves to have been doing very little all that week. That is what I feel with regard to this Irish Society, and there are many of us too, who, if we speak plainly, must say that we think that we have done very little, sorry little; we remember two or three things that have been successes; and two or three things that have been a very long way off success. Sometimes we have complained that there have been asylums provided for brethren sent yonder, and we have wondered why such brethren were sent at all, and we have said, “Well, if this do-nothing affair is to keep on long, we must get others who will do something; for at present we are in this position, ‘What is John doing?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘What is Tom doing?’ ‘Helping John.’ ” We want to see something done, and therefore it is hard to wait; but we must check ourselves. Our vehemence should urge us to use all proper means, though it should never be of that sort, which would make us relax our efforts because we do not immediately achieve all the success which we desire. My brethren in Christ Jesus, though as men of war we would rather come to close quarters and see more done, yet as men of God, we must keep to our posts of duty, and learn how to wait.

Besides this, what rendered the waiting so very galling, was (what must have struck their reason, if it did not assail their faith,) the utter desperateness of the case. How could they hope to win that city by simply going round and round? “Give me a good ladder,” says one, “a rope-ladder, and a couple of good irons at the end of it; just let me hear the clank upon the top-stone, and I am your man to lead the ‘forlorn hope,’ and there are fifty thousand of us to follow, and we will soon have Judah’s standard waving on the top, and make the sons of Jericho know what the sons of Abraham can do.” But no; they must just march round the place till they have compassed the city twelve times. And so, brethren, there are certain spirits apt to say, “Could not we do more by adopting these methods, and such other expedients.” See how certain of our brethren of another denomination feel that if they can but get a golden ladder, if they get the assistance of the regium donum, in this way Jericho’s walls may be scaled; and there is the temptation to look about us, and ask for some assistance over and above the power which lies in the simple gospel; but we must not do it. Away with our methods, and state-crafts, and policies, and suggestions of the crafty and cunning, and all the wisdom of the worldly. God forbid that we should glory, save in the cross of Christ. With the simplicity of children, let us still believe that our Father’s means are the best; and though as soldiers we cannot understand it, yet as children let us believe it, and keep on compassing the city still, for Jericho’s walls must fall, as sure as God is in heaven.

And methinks there is another thing which must have made it hard, and it is this, that most probably the citizens of Jericho insulted them from the walls. I should think they kept far enough off to be out of arrow-shot: but yet it is just possible that if they could not hear the taunt, “What do these feeble Jews do,” yet they must have seen the tokens of impudence and impertinence which came from over the wall. This, mark you, is very galling to men of arms. We feel our hands fumbling at the hilts of our swords when provoked by the taunts and jeers of our enemies. “What have you done,” say they, “ye soupers, and Protestants, and Methodists, and Presbyterians, against the invincible bulwarks of Rome. Your paper bullets, what have they accomplished against the iron walls of Babylon?” We can hear their jeers, we know the sound of revelry and mirth. But what of this? Though, again, I say, as soldiers we might grow courageous, and dash rashly to the fight, or retire from it because there is nothing to be earned but dishonour, yet, as Christians, we will do what seems absurd to reason, but what is ever justifiable to faith, we will keep on in God’s own style; we will fight his battles after his own methods, and we doubt not that though it does seem a strange, mad freak, to attempt to drive out the priests from Ireland by the simple proclamation of the truth, yet the day shall come when wisdom shall be justified of all her children.

Now, brethren, we know that God has his reasons for making us wait. It is for his own glory, we doubt not. We know that all things work together for good, and, we believe, it will be ultimately for our profit. When I have read some masterly tragic poem, and verse after verse has dwelt upon the horrible portion of the tale, did I wish it shortened? Would I have had the author leave out one of those dark verses? Not I. It is true when the poem ended with a shout of victory, and with the tramp of martial men through the city, when they returned in triumph, our heart leaped; we rejoiced when we came to that last stanza, but we wished not the poem shortened; we never wanted to have any of those verses blotted out. God is writing a great poem of human history, the subject is the victory of truth, the destruction of Anti-christ. Let the history be long. Who wants it shortened? who wants a brief story on so exceedingly interesting a subject as this, from so great an author? Nay, let it drag on, what some may call its weary length, we are sure that when we come to read it, as God will write it, we shall wish the story longer. We will not complain of its extent, for the result is we shall see more of God, and learn more of his mind. You want the millennium to come to-morrow, do you? May you get it, but I think it is probable you will not. I do not know how history appears to you who profess to understand it, but it does not read to me like a thing which is going to end yet. I have always been told about the “signs of the times.” There always were such speculations,-in 1766 and 1666; but the times of the end did not come, and I think they will not come now. It strikes me that we shall have something more elaborate yet than has ever come from the divine pen, and we may have to go not only through another canto, but through several more books before we shall come to the end of the story. One reason why I think the world’s present state will not wind up for the present is, because all the prophets say it will, and they have always been a lying generation, from the first even to the last. I mean the prophets who make the business profitable, who only use Scripture as the Norwood Gipsey uses the cards; who shuffle texts to foretell fortunes for nations and men. We shall go on many a day yet. We may have to wait for another century, ay, another twenty centuries, perhaps, we cannot tell; but our business is still to remember that it shall be after all for our eternal benefit, and for God’s everlasting glory to keep on; to wait, wait, wait till we grow well-nigh weary, but the victory comes as surely after all as though it came at first.

While we are waiting, however, I think it is well to take a little comfort from what we are doing. We are waiting, that is the posture of this Irish Society; but we may console ourselves in it, as the men who were compassing Jericho might have done. “Well,” they could say, “we have not taken Jericho, but there is Rahab that has believed-there are a few saved: you can tell them on your fingers almost, but they are very precious, and they are of the kind which should be esteemed very valuable. There is Rahab, her name is illustrious, and her story when it is told, has made many another Rahab seek and find a Saviour. Not altogether without result was that attack on Jericho; and ye have not lost your money, you that have subscribed to our Irish Society. There has been many a sinner saved, and many can tell of eternal love that has sought out with eyes of patience eternity’s choice jewels, and of divine sovereignty that has made its crown to glisten and glitter for ever with those precious things when found. You have had Rahab, yes, and you have had some that God has made useful to others. I can bear witness that there have come from Ireland some of the most earnest young men, upon whom my eyes ever rested-good men and true-who love their Lord and Master, and whose highest delight is to speak well of his name. You may wait patiently on that reflection.

Moreover, the men of arms may say, “We do not take the city it is true, but we yet keep our ground.” If we were to leave Jericho, we should be giving up our foothold of Canaan. And if we forsake Ireland, we might relinquish all hope of the Papacy falling; but we keep our foothold, at least we take our stand on the rock; we have taken the seizin of the land, and, though little, it is like the handful which William the Conqueror took up when he said, “I have taken the seizin of England hereby;” and though you may amalgamate the management of this Society with another, you will not give up the distinctive aim and object of the Society, which is to keep a corner at least of the Emerald Isle for God and for his Christ.

And then again they can say, “We are bearing testimony.” Every man that looks over the wall of Jericho can see the ark of the covenant, can see the troopers of God with their swords upon their thighs; they see what they never saw before. Oh, worshippers of idols, ye see today the ark of the true God borne round your walls! Oh ye that bow to Baal and adore Ashtaroth, the gods of wood and stone; the true God, the Mighty One, Jehovah is come out against you, and the trumpets sound defiance to your power, while the warriors of God shout for your overthrow. You are bearing testimony against the sin of Ireland. If you do not succeed, the time has not yet come for the shaking off the dust of your feet, though meanwhile you must preach the gospel for a testimony against them.

And one thing more, methinks the men at arms felt, “We are on the spot when anything does occur.” As they went round the wall, they said, “It stands strong and stern, but it will yield, and then we are all ready when the breach is made.” You do not know what God may have in store for Ireland, or for any nation. According to the law which seems to regulate human society, there comes every now and then a great change. Who would have dreamed of the convulsions of 1848, that thrones would have been so unsettled, and that crowns would fall from monarchs’ heads. Such convulsions may come again, nay, unless the course of nature is changed, must come. Then we are ready; we stand watching for the gap. O God, in thine eternal providence be pleased now, even now, to send a convenient season, but if not, we will have the men ready when thy appointed time shall come. It was a grand thing when the earthquake came to shake the prison of Philippi, that there should be a Paul and a Silas there ready to preach the sermon to the trembling jailor and his household, and so when the earthquake comes to Ireland, as it will come, we shall have a Paul and a Silas there. We may have many such, I trust; the more the better, who shall be ready to stand up with, “Thus saith the Lord!” Why what cannot God do? Has not he lately given you an instalment of what he can accomplish, in the revival which seemed to shake the North of Ireland? It is true it occurred in apart where Romanism is less strong; but the same power which can move the stolidity of Protestantism, can stir the fiery zeal of what is genuine religion in its way-I mean genuine, though mistaken, because like Paul they think they do God service. The hearty spirit of the Irishman with his popery, may certainly be reached by divine omnipotence, as well as the soul of the Irishman of the North with his much colder creed. Let us have hope, and go on compassing the city, not changing anything that is right, and not neglecting that which is according to Scripture, but waiting till the time shall come.

Now upon this, I think I shall say no more, except again to ask friends practically to carry it out. Let us try and wait-wait patiently-not wait idly, but continue your subscriptions, continue your prayers, continue your interest in the Society, for God would have you wait.

And, thirdly, God would have his people win.

I shall not say much about this. We will postpone that till the time when it occurs, and then we shall not need to have any sermons about it, but can all come together, and hold a meeting to praise and bless God. Only let us say that if the analogy is carried out according to the siege of Jericho, the victory is very sure, and, when it comes forth, very complete. Nothing could be more so. It may be very sudden also, and it will be very glorious. But we shall get nothing by it, for when Jericho fell, nobody gained anything except to offer it unto the Lord; so that we have to persevere in disinterested service, just toiling on for the Master, remembering that when success comes, it will all be his-every single atom of it-the glory will be to him, and not to us, and he will take care to send the success in such a manner that nobody shall be able to say, “Glory be to the Irish Society.” Nobody shall be able to say, “Well done, Baptist denomination;” no single minister or Evangelist shall be able to say, “Well done, myself;” but the one shout that shall go up to heaven, will be “Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.”

I have thus spoken for the Society. I was asked to preach for it, and I am obliged I think to preach with a text that bears somewhat on the subject. I observe, many sermons that are preached for Societies might just as well be preached any other day of the week before any other assembly on any other occasion. I do not know that is exactly what is wanted; so if we have not dived deep into the doctrines of everlasting love, if we have not taken you to the Saviour’s cross, and offered you the invitations of the gospel, if we have not done this and fifty thousand other things, there is a time for every purpose under heaven; and to every one there is a season, and if we can keep the constituency of this Society working and waiting, and make it in this way to come to be among the winning, we shall rejoice exceedingly. Brethren, let us begin to carry out the sermon now by our contributions; let us begin to do so by our prayers; let us act out the spirit of it by trying to tell others what the gospel is. Be this the motto of us all:-

“Now will I tell to sinners round,

What a dear Saviour I have found;

Point them to the redeeming blood,

And cry, ‘Behold the way to God.’ ”

Yet I dare not sit down till I say to every soul here, and especially to you who cannot take an interest in God’s work because you are not saved yourself, remember we do not ask you to save and look after the souls of Irishmen. Your own soul must be the first concerned; and the way of salvation is simply this-“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” He it is who stands in the gap, and makes an atonement for sin. Take Christ to be your atonement, your justifier, your salvation, and your all; and believing in him you are saved. This is your duty and must not be postponed any longer. You must begin the work at home. Enlist on the side of Israel by following Israel’s leader. Our heavenly Joshua is the Son of God, believe on him and you shall find salvation through his blood, and acceptance before God through Christ. Then go out to be the means of saving others, and God speed you through his blessed Spirit. Amen.

Portion of Scripture Read before Sermon-Joshua 6.