You will observe, if you read the chapter before us, that Peter’s sermon was short and much to the point. He preached Jesus Christ to Cornelius immediately and unmistakably. He gave a very admirable sketch of the life of Jesus, of which he affirmed himself to have been an eye-witness, and he brought forward in his closing sentence just that simple gospel which it is our joy to preach. “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.” This should be an instructive example to all professed ministers of the gospel. We might say less about other matters without loss, if we would say more about the Lord Jesus. If we should omit some other teaching, if there were more of a savour of the name and of the person of Jesus Christ in our ministry, the omissions might be tolerated. It is a strange thing that men should profess to be sent of God, and yet talk about everything except the great message which they are sent to deliver. My errand as a minister is to preach Christ, and it will avail me little to have been clear and earnest upon other points, if I have neglected to set forth Christ crucified. To put my own views of doctrine or moral practice in the place of Jesus, is to put out the sun, and supply its place with a farthing rushlight; to take away the children’s bread, and offer them a stone. We commend Peter as an example to all who preach or teach, either in the street, the sick-chamber, or the house of prayer; do as Peter did; come at once to the soul of your ministry, and set forth Christ crucified in plain and simple language. If any should plead that the subject should be adapted to the audience, we see from the narrative that there is sure to be something in the history of Christ applicable to the case before us. Peter purposely gave prominence to certain points in the history of the Master which would be most likely to enlist the sympathy of Cornelius. He says of him, “He is Lord of all;” as much as to say, “He is not Lord of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles, and therefore, O Cornelius, his dominion reaches to you. He is to be worshipped and adored, and he is to become a blessing, and a propitiatory sacrifice, not only to Israel’s hosts, but even to the Italian band; and therefore thou, O Centurion, mayst take heart.” Perhaps the words of our text were uttered by Peter concerning Christ because they also would be sure to attract the notice of a man who was “A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway.” He did as much as say, “Thou goest about doing good, Cornelius. It is the very soul of thy life to help the needy, to feed the hungry, and to clothe the naked: Jesus also went about doing good in a higher sense, and I hold him up to thee as one to be beloved by every devout and generous heart.”

Other points are to be noticed in Peter’s address, which were evidently adapted to the case before him, but we have said enough to prove that there is something in the story of Jesus suitable to win the attention, and to gain the heart of any congregation, large or small. Only let the Holy Spirit help us to dilate upon the gospel of the Lord Jesus, and we have no need to wander abroad for foreign themes; we can sit at the foot of the cross, and find a perpetually profitable subject there. No need to gather the sheaves of science, or the sweet flowers of poesy; Christ Jesus is both our science and our poetry, and as ministers we are complete in him. When we come forth to preach him, and to lift him up, we are armed from head to foot, and rich with weapons for our spiritual warfare; though learning and art have had no hand in fashioning our panoply, we need not fear that we shall meet a single foe who can withstand the terror of those celestial arms. God grant us grace in all our teachings to keep close to Jesus Christ, for his love is a theme most fit for all cases, and most sweet at all times.

The few words which we have taken for our text, are an exquisite miniature of the Lord Jesus Christ. “He went about doing good.” There are not many touches, but they are the strokes of a master’s pencil. The portrait cannot be mistaken for anyone else. The mightiest conquerors may gaze upon its beauties, but they cannot claim that it is intended to portray their lives. Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon-these went about conquering, burning, destroying, murdering; they went not about doing good. Prophets too, who professed to have been sent of God, have compassed sea and land to make proselytes, but the good which they accomplished none could see. Mahomet’s career was fraught with incalculable evil. The few good men and true who, like Howard, have perambulated the world, seeking to minister to the necessities of mankind, have wept over the heavenly portrait, and sighed that they are not more like it. This is what they sought to be, and so far as they copied this portrait, this is what they were; but they fall short of the original, and are not slow to confess their shortcomings. What Peter here draws in words, God’s divine grace drew, in some measure, in lines of real life in the case of Howard and some other followers of Jesus of Nazareth; still, in the highest and fullest sense, these words are applicable to none but the Master, for his followers could not do such good as he achieved. His is the model, and theirs the humble copy; his the classic type, and theirs the modest imitation. He did good, and good only: but the best of men, being men at the best, sow mingled seed; and if they scatter handsfull of wheat, there is here and there a grain of darnel; however carefully they may select the grains, yet the cockle and the hemlock will fall from their hands as well as the good seed-corn of the kingdom. Of the Master, and only of the Master, it is true in the fullest, and the broadest, and most unguarded sense, “He went about doing good.”

Two things this morning: first I shall want you, dear brethren, to consider him; and then, in the second place, to consider yourselves.

The first occupation will be pleasing, as well as profitable. Let us consider him.

1. Consider first, his object. He went about, but his travel was no listless motion, no purposeless wandering hither and thither-“He went about doing good.” O man of God, have a purpose, and devote thy whole life to it! Be not an arrow shot at random, as in child’s play, but choose thy target, and swift as the bullet whizzies to the mark, so fly thou onwards towards the great aim and object of thy life. Christ’s object is described in these words, “doing good.” Of this we may say, that this was his eternal purpose. Long before he took upon himself the nature of man, or even before man was formed of the dust of the earth, the heart of Jesus Christ was set upon doing good. In the eternal council in which the sacred Three entered into stipulations of gracious covenant, Christ Jesus became the Surety of that covenant in order that he might do good-good in the highest sense-good in snatching his people from the misery which sin would bring upon them, and good in manifesting the glorious attributes of God in a splendour which could not otherwise have surrounded them. His delights of old were with the sons of men, because they afforded him an opportunity, such as he could find nowhere else, of doing good. He did good, it is true, among the angels, for the heavenly harps owe all their music to his presence. Among the devils there was no room for positive good; they were given over to evil; but even there restraining goodness found work for itself in binding them down in iron bands, lest their mischief should grow too rampant. On earth, however, was the widest scope and amplest room for goodness in its largest sense; not merely the goodness which restrains evil, and the goodness which rewards virtue, but that greater goodness which descends to ruined sin-stricken mortals, and lifts them up from the dunghill of their miserable degradation, to set them upon the throne of glory. It was the eternal purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ, before the lamps of heaven were kindled, or stars began to glitter in the vault of night, that he would do good.

This was his practical object, when he made his ever-memorable descent from the throne of his splendour to the manger of his poverty. Angels might well sing at Bethlehem, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men,” for Jesus Christ came not condemning the world, but doing good. His presence in the manger did good, as it cheered both rich magi and poor shepherd, both learned and illiterate, both Simeon and Anna, with the knowledge that God had come down to men. His childhood afterwards did good, for though it was so unobtrusive and obscure that a few words suffice to set it forth, yet he has become the very mirror of childhood’s dutiful obedience to this day. Ye know how his after life was one practical carrying out of the solitary object which brought him from the throne of glory to the abodes of sinful men. He “went about doing good.” Nor was this his purpose merely and the object of his errand, but his official prerogative. He received the name of Jesus at his birth, “For he shall save his people from their sins.” He was named “Christ,” because the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he was anointed to preach good tidings to the meek, and to open the prisons to them that were bound. Jesus Christ is the title which bespeaks one whose office it is to do good. Mention any name you please which belongs to the Saviour, and you will see that it is incumbent upon him, ex officio, to go about doing good. Is he a Shepherd? he must do good to his sheep. Is he a Husband? he must love his Church and give himself for her, that he may cleanse and perfect her. Is he a Friend? he “sticketh closer than a brother” and doeth good. Is he “the Lion of the tribe of Judah?” it is not to do damage or mischief to innocence and weakness, but that, strong as a lion when he tears his prey, he may rend in pieces the foe of truth and goodness. Is he a Lamb? herein his goodness shows itself most completely, for he lays down his life that his Israel may go free when the destroying angel smites Egypt. Everywhere it was his peculiar prerogative and his special business to go about doing good. But more, it was not only his intention and the object of his errand, and his prerogative, but his actual performance. He did good in all senses. Jesus Christ wrought physical benefit among the sons of men. How many blind eyes first saw the light through the touch of his finger! How many silent ears heard the charming voice of affection after he had said “Be open”! Even the gates of death were no barrier to the errands of his goodness; the widow at the gate of Nain felt her heart leap within her for joy when her son was restored; and Mary and Martha were glad when Lazarus came forth from his grave. He did good physically. We have thought that our Lord did this not merely to show his power and universality of his benevolence, and to teach spiritual truth by acted parables, but also to say to us in these days, “Followers of Jesus, do good in all sorts of ways. You may think it to be your special calling to feed souls, but remember that your Master broke loaves and fishes to hungry bodies. You may deem it your chief object to instruct the ignorant, but remember that he healed the sick. You may make it your chief joy to pray for the healing of sick spirits, but remember that he rescued many bodies from incurable disease.” As much as lieth in us let us do good unto all men, and good of all sorts too; though it be specially to the household of faith, and specially in a spiritual sense. Let no act of mercy seem beneath him who is a follower of the man that went about doing good. There is a spirit springing up among us which is very dangerous, though it wears the garb of excessive spirituality. It is unpractical and unchristlike-a spirit which talks in this fashion-“The sons of men tried to improve the world and make it better; but as for Enoch, the man of God, he knew that the world was so bad that it was of no avail to attempt to better it, and therefore he left it alone, and walked with God.” It may be well, they say, for such carnal-minded Christians as some of us, to try and improve society and to give a better tone to morals; but these dear spiritual brethren are so taken up with divine things, and so assured that the mission is of a supercelestial character, that they will have nothing to do with blessing mankind, being quite sufficiently occupied with blessing themselves and one another. I pray God that we may never fall into the unpractical speculations and separations of certain brethren whose superior sanctity they must allow us to suspect. The large-heartedness of the Lord Jesus Christ is one of the most glorious traits in his character. He scattered good of all sorts on all sides. Let us, if we profess to be his followers, never be straitened even by pretended spirituality. Do good “as much as lieth in you,” to the utmost extent of your power, and let that be of every sort. It strikes me that the Lord Jesus also did much moral good. Where he did not save spiritually, yet he elevated. I am not sure that that poor adultress was ever truly converted, and yet I know that he said, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more;” and I can well believe that in this respect, at least, she would sin no more. I do not know that the Pharisees ever became followers of the man of Nazareth; and yet I cannot conceive that they could have listened to his stern rebukes against their hypocrisy without being in some measure humbled if not enlightened. Or if they were not better, at any rate, their professions would not be so readily allowed; society would receive, as it were, a tonic from those sharp and bitter words of the Master, and become too strong and masculine to receive any longer the lofty boastings of those mere pretenders. Jesus Christ, when he sat down on the mount, did not deliver a spiritual sermon of the style commonly classed under that head. That sermon on the mount is for the most part morality-good high, heavenly morality, higher than any teacher ever reached before; but there is very little in it about justification by faith, or concerning atonement, very little about the doctrine of election, or the work of the Holy Spirit, or final perseverance. The fact is the Master was doing moral as well as spiritual good; and coming among a degraded people who had set darkness for light and light for darkness, bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter, he thought it a part of his vocation to preach to them truth on that subject as well as upon the higher themes concerning his advent, and his salvation. Dear friends, this admonishes us to seek the moral good of the people among whom we dwell. The Christian minister must not lay aside his ministry to become the mere moralist lecturer, but he may and should lecture upon morals, and he can say some things in lectures which he could not say in sermons. Let him by all means occasionally leave the pulpit for the platform, if he can do service to society; let him do good in every possible shape and way. I trow that it is the Christian minister’s place not simply to preach the high and glorious doctrine of the cross, but also to deal with the current sins of mankind as did the prophets of old, and to inculcate those virtues most needed in the state, as did men God sent in the ages which are past. Jesus Christ went about doing good, we say, of a moral kind as well as of a spiritual order, but still the Saviour’s great good was spiritual. This was the great end that he was driving at-the bringing out of a people prepared to receive himself and his salvation. He came preaching grace and peace. His great object was the spiritual emancipation of the bondaged souls of men. Beloved, how he sought after this! What tears and cries went up to God from the mountain’s bleak summit! With what earnest intercession did he plead with men when he addressed them concerning repentance and faith! “Woe unto thee Bethsaida! woe unto thee Chorazin!” were not words spoken by one who had a tearless eye. “Woe unto thee Capernaum!” was not the desolating curse of one who had a hard unsympathetic heart. The Saviour, when he wept over Jerusalem, was only doing once before men what he did all his life before God. He wept over sinners; he longed for their salvation. “Never man spake like that man,” for having the highest truth he spake it after the highest fashion. Never the ostentation of eloquence, never the affectation of oratory, but ever the earnest, still, small pleading voice which “doth not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax.” He went about in his daily preaching instructing the people because he found them as sheep without a shepherd, and therefore “he taught them many things.” Physical, moral, spiritual good, good of all sorts the Saviour did-and while I close this point as to his object of life, let me say that he did something more than all this: he wrought enduring good which abides with us now. The good that holy men do is imperishable. The Scripture saith, “Their works do follow them,” but not to the grave-upward their works ascend. If our works followed our bodies, they would rot in the tomb; but they follow our souls, and therefore mount up to immortality. Look ye upon the world now and see whether Jesus Christ is not still in spirit going about doing good. He has gone up to glory, but the spirit of his life and of his teaching is still among us. And what is his religion doing? Ask ye of our sires and they will tell you how this land was translated from a region of savages into the abode of peace and joy. Look ye yourselves in your own day to the far off islands of the south, and see how they have been transformed from dens of the wild blood-loving cannibals, into abodes of civilized men. Jesus Christ’s gospel flies like an angel through the midst of heaven, proclaiming good news to men; and wherever its foot rests but for an hour, it transforms the desert into an Eden, and makes the wilderness blossom as the rose. May the Saviour help us so to live, that when we die we may have sown some seeds which shall blossom over our tomb.

Thus we have given an outline of the Saviour’s doing good. May we add this sentence as a comfort to any here who are seeking Jesus. If it were his eternal purpose and his life’s mission to do good, and he went about to find out the objects of it, why should he not do good to you? If he healed the blind, if he gave spiritual sight, why should he not give it to you? O may the desire be breathed by thee, poor seeking soul, breathed solemnly but hopefully to him-“O thou who in the days of thy flesh didst take pity upon misery and wretchedness in every shape, take pity upon me! Save me with thy great salvation!” Rest assured, beloved hearer, that prayer should not go up to heaven in vain. His ear is open still to hear the plaint of woe, and his hand is ready still to giving the healing touch, and the voice to say, “I will, be thou clean.” May he do good in you this morning.

2. A short time may be profitably spent in considering the mode in which this object was compassed. We are told that he “went about doing good,” which seems to suggest several points. First of all he did the good personally. He “went about doing good.” He might, if he had chosen, have selected his place, and having seated himself, he might have sent out his apostles as ambassadors to do good in his stead; but you will recollect that when he sent them out, it was not that they might be proxies, but that they might be heralds; he sent them two and two unto every place whither he himself would come. They were to be to him what John the Baptist had been at his first coming. Jesus Christ entered the field of labour in person. It is remarkable how the evangelists constantly tell us that he touched the leper with his own finger, that he visited the bedside of those sick with fever, and in cases where he was asked to speak the word only at a distance, he did not usually comply with such a request, but went himself to the sick bed, and there personally wrought the cure. A lesson to us if we would do good well, to do it ourselves. There are some things which we cannot do ourselves. We cannot remain among our families in England for instance, and preach the gospel in Hindostan. “We cannot be engaged this morning in listening to the Word, and at the same time visiting the lodging-house or den of iniquity in some back street. There are some works of mercy which are best performed by others, but we can make these more personal by looking after the worker and taking a deeper interest in him, and by attending him with our prayers. I would that much more of benevolence were performed by men themselves. I do not care to speak against societies, but it is such an odd thing that if I have twenty-one shillings to give away, I cannot give them to a deserving family myself, but I must make it into about fifteen shillings before it goes at all, by paying it into a royal something or other society, and then it proceeds by a roundabout method, and at last is delivered to the poor by a mere hand without a soul, and is received by the poor, not as a gift of charity, but rather as a contribution from an unknown something with a secretary, which needs a place in which to drop its funds. Why should you not go and give away the twenty-one shillings yourself, lovingly and tenderly? It will be better than letting somebody else pare it down to fifteen, and give it away coldly and officially. So much depends upon the way of doing good. The look, the word, the prayer, the tear, will often be more valuable to the widow than that half-crown which you have given her. I heard a poor person once say, “Sir, I went to So-and-so for help, and he refused me; but I would sooner be refused by him than I would have money given to me by So-and-so,” mentioning another who gave it with a sort of, “Well, you know I do not approve of giving anything to such as you are, but there it is-you must have it I suppose, so be off with you.” Give your alms away yourselves, and you will learn by so doing, it will enable you to exercise Christian virtues. You will win a joy which it were not worth while to lose, and you will confer, in addition to the benevolence that you bestow, a blessing which cannot be conferred by the person who is your substitute. He went about doing good. He did it himself Oh! some of you, preach yourselves, I pray you! Talk to the Sunday-school children yourselves! Give away tracts-that is well enough if you cannot speak-but do try and talk yourselves. The influence of that hand laid upon your friend’s shoulder, that eye of yours looking into his eye as you say, “Friend, I wish you were converted, my soul longs for your salvation;” there is more in that influence than in a whole library of tracts. Seek souls yourselves. Fish with your own hooks; you cannot help being successful if you imitate your Master, and yourselves do good in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Saviour not only “went about doing good” personally, but his very presence did good. The presence of the Saviour is in itself a good, apart from the blessings which he bestowed. At the sight of him courage revived, drooping faith grew strong, hope brushed a tear from her eye and smiled. The sight of Jesus Christ as once it calmed the waves and hushed the winds, did so a thousand times in men souls. Even devils, when they saw him, cried out and trembled. Sinners wept at the sight of his pitying goodness. The woman who brake the alabaster box of precious ointment, felt that the only fit place to break it was near to him. His presence made her sacred action yet more sweet. What cannot men do when Christ is there? And, O beloved, if we be anything like our Master, our presence will be of some value. There are some of my brethren, when I see them I feel strong. You go into a little prayer-meeting, and numbers are not there; but such a saint is there, and you feel, “Well, if he be there, there is a prayer-meeting at once.” You have work to do; it is very hard and toilsome, and you cannot prosper in it; but a brother drops into your little Sunday-school, or into your class, and looks at it, and you feel, “Well, if I have that man’s sympathy, I can go on again.” Therefore be careful to give your presence as much as you can to every good work, and do not isolate yourself from those actually engaged in labours of love.

Does not our Lord’s going about doing good set forth his incessant activity? He did not only the good which was round about him, which came close to hand-he did not only the good which was brought to him, as when men were brought on their beds, and laid at his feet, but he “went about.” He could not be satisfied to be still. Throughout the whole land of Judea, from Dan to Beersheba, he trod its weary acres. Scarcely a village or a hamlet which had not been gladdened by the sight of him. Even Jericho, accursed of old, had been blessed by his presence, and a great sinner had been made a great saint. Everywhere he went casting salt into the bitter waters, and sowing with sunshine the abodes of sadness. He was ever active in God’s service. Oh! the creeping, crawling manner in which some people serve the Lord. The very way in which some people mumble through religious exercises, is enough to make one sick at heart, to think that the solemn offices of religion should be entrusted to such inanimate beings. If God of old said of Laodicea, that he would spew that Church out of his mouth, what will he do with those professors in modern times, who are the very pink of propriety, but who were never touched with fire from heaven, and know not what the word “zeal” means? Our Master was here, and there, and everywhere. Let us gird up the loins of our mind, and be not weary in well doing; but be “stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.”

Does not the text also imply that Jesus Christ went out of his way to do good? “He went about doing good.” There were short cuts which he would not take, because there were persons dwelling in the roundabout way who must be met with. “He must needs go through Samaria.” It is is said that that city lay in the straightest way to Jerusalem. So it was, but it was not the right way, because the Samaritans so hated those whose faces were towards Jerusalem, that they maltreated them whenever they could. Yet the Master did not care for perils of waylaying enemies. He did not select the smoothest or the safest road, but he selected that in which there was a woman to whom he could do good. He sits down on the well. I wot it was not merely weariness that made him sit there; and when he said, “I thirst: give me to drink,” it was not merely that he was thirsty; he had another weariness-he was patient over that woman’s sin, and longed to reveal himself to her: he had another thirst-he did not mean merely “Give me water out of that well;” when he said, “Give me to drink,” he meant “Give me your heart’s love, my soul pants for it; I want to see you-a poor adulterous sinner-saved from sin.” How else do we understand the words which he said to his disciples, when they wondered that he spoke with the woman? He said, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of, for it is my meat and my drink to do the will of him that sent me.” He had received meat and drink in seeing that woman leave her water-pot, and go away to tell her fellow-sinners, “Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ?” He went round about after the objects of his gracious desires. So must the Christian. You must not be content to do good in the regular circle of your movements: that is so far so well, but go beyond your old line. Break through the bounds of propriety every now and then, and do an odd thing. I do believe that sometimes these odd expedients achieve more than regular methods. That was a quaint expedient of those who brake up the roof to let down a palsied man that Jesus might heal him. There has been a good deal said about that roof. According to some people it was not a roof at all but a sort of awning, but this morning we will stick to our old version that which tells us “they brake up the tiling,” this must have made it a very bad look-out of those down below; but I dare say those up top argued-“Well, the Saviour is there, and if anybody shall be hurt by a tile or two he can easily heal them. Anyhow we will get this man before him, for this is the case in which we feel most concerned.” Ah! dear friends, many people are so particular about making a little dust or breaking up a few tiles, but our mind is, never care about that, there will be time to clean the repair after souls are saved, and for so great an end as salvation we may neglect some few niceties and punctilios, and be most of all vehemently desirous that we may do good.

We have not quite done with the text yet. It means too that Jesus Christ went far in doing good. The district of Palestine was not very large, but you will observe that he went to the limit of it. He was as it were the bishop of the Holy Land and he never went out of the diocese, for he said he was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But he went to the verge of it. He went to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. If he might not go over the mark yet he will go up to the edge; so if there should happen to be any limit to your doing good in any particular place at least go to the end of the limit. However, I rather like Rowland Hill’s thought: when he was blamed for preaching out of his parish he claimed that he never did so, for the whole world was his parish. Make the world the sphere of your occupations, according to the parable “the field is the world.” I admire the Lord’s going about not simply for the miles he travelled, but for the space of character over which he passed. He “went about.” It is nothing wonderful that he went as far as Tyre and Sidon, but it is much that he went as far as publicans and sinners. I do not wonder that he went from Dan to Beersheba, but I have wondered often that he went so far as to save harlots by his grace. We may in this sense go about doing good without travelling across the sea. A minister once announced to his congregation one Sunday morning, “I am going on a mission to the heathen.” Now he had not told his deacons about it, and they looked at one another. The good people in the congregation some of them began to take out their pocket handkerchiefs; they thought their minister was going to leave them-he was so useful and necessary to them that they felt sad at the bare idea of loosing him. “But” he added, “I shall not be out of town.” So you may go on a mission to the heathen without going out of this huge town of ours. You might almost preach to every sort of literal heathen within the bounds of London; to Parthians, Medes, and Elamites and the dwellers of Mesopotamia. There are men of every colour, speaking every language under heaven, now living in London; and if you want to convert Mahometans, Turks, Chinese, men from Bengal, Java, or Borneo, you may find them all here. There are always representatives of every nation close at our door. If you want men who have gone far in sin, great foreigners in that respect, you need not certainly leave London for that; you shall find men and women rotten with sin, and reeking in the nostrils of God with their abominations. You may go about doing good, and your railway ticket need not cost you one farthing. No doubt Christ’s perseverance is intended in our text, for when rejected in one place, he goes to another. If one will not hear, another will. The unity of his purpose is also hinted at. He does not go about with two aims, but this one absorbs all his heart-“doing good.” And the success, too, of his purpose is here intended. He went about, and not only tried to do good, but he did it; he left the world better than he found, it when he ascended to his Father God.

3. One moment concerning the motive of Christ’s doing good. It is not far to seek. He did good partly because he could not help it. It was his nature to do good. He was all goodness, and as the clouds which are full of rain empty themselves upon the earth, even so must he. You will have observed that all the good things which God has made are diffusive. There is light; you cannot confine light within narrow limits. Suppose we were to grow so bigoted and conceited as to conceive that we had all the light in the world inside this Tabernacle. “We might have iron shutters made to keep the light in, yet it is very probable that the light would not agree with our bigotry, but would not come in at all, but leave us in the dark for wanting to confine it. With splendid mirrors, Turkey carpets, jewellery, fine pictures, rare statuary, you may court the light to come into palatial halls, it comes, it is true, but as it enters it whispers, “And I passed through the iron grating of a prison, just now. I shone upon the poor cottager beneath the rude thatched roof, I streamed through the window out of which half the glass was gone, and gleamed as cheerily and willingly upon the rags of poverty as in these marble halls.” You cannot clip the wings of the morning, or monopolize the golden rays of the sun. What a space the light has traversed doing good. Millions of miles it has come streaming from the sun, and yet further from yonder fixed star. light! why couldst thou not be contented with thine own sphere, why journey so far from home? Missionary rays come to us from so vast a distance that they must have been hundreds of years in reaching us, and yet their mission is not over, for they flash on to yet remoter worlds. So with the air; as far as the world is concerned, the air will throw itself down the shaft of the deepest coal pit, climb the loftiest Alp, and although men madly strive to shut it out, it will thrust itself into the fever lair and cool the brow of cholera. So with water. Here it comes dropping from every inch of the cloudy sky, flooding the streets, flushing the foul sewers, and soaking into the dry soil. Everywhere it will come, for water claims to have its influence everywhere felt. Fire, too, who can bind its giant hands? The king cannot claim it as a royal perquisite. Among those few sticks which the widow woman with the red cloak has been gathering in the wood, it burns as readily as in Her Majesty’s palace. It is the nature of Jesus to diffuse himself; it is his life to do good. His grand motive no doubt is the display of the glorious attributes of God. He went about doing good in order that Jehovah might be revealed in his splendour to the eyes of adoring men. He is the manifestation of Godhead; he is the express image of his Father’s person, “In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” and through heaven, and earth, and sky, and sun, and stars, all show forth something of the goodness of God, yet the life of Jesus is the fullest and clearest manifestation of the beneficence of deity that ever will be accorded to the sons of men. This is an object worthy of God, to manifest himself, and such an object Christ set before him when he came to do good among the sons of men.

I have not said enough about the Saviour, but still as much as time allows us, and I will close that point with this one thing: if Jesus Christ went about doing good, and if his motive was simply God’s glory, poor troubled sinner, cannot he glorify God in you? You need pardon: you will be an illustrious instance of God’s grace if he should ever save you. Have hope. If Jesus Christ goes about, you are not too far off. If he looks upon the most forlorn, you are not in too desperate a plight. Cry to him when your spirit is overwhelmed, yet look to the rock that is higher than you. “From the ends of the earth have I cried unto thee, O God, and thou heardest me.” May it be your joy to-day to find him your friend, who “went about doing good.”

We were in the second place to consider ourselves. This is the application of the subject.

Consider ourselves then as to the past, with sorrow and shamefacedness. Have we gone about doing good? I fear me there are some here who never did any spiritual good. The tree is corrupt, and it cannot bring forth good fruit. The fountain is bitter, and it cannot yield sweet water. Ye must be born again before you can go about doing good. While your nature is as father Adam left it, good cannot come from you. “There is none that doeth good, no not one.” How clearly this is true in some persons, as proved by their very profession. The profession of some men is one in which they cannot hope to do good. There are some in all callings who either do positive harm, or at any rate cannot imagine that they are doing any good. Let them repent themselves. “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.” God grant that neither our character nor our vocation may stand in the way of our doing good. But you who have new hearts and rights spirits, and are saved by faith in the precious blood of Jesus, have you done all the good you could? I dare not say yea-I wish I dare. No, Master, there must have been many times when I might have served thee when I have not done it. I have been an unprofitable servant. I have not done what was my duty to have done. Ah! some of you have missed a world of joy in having done so little good. Ye have not given, therefore you are not increased. You never gave to others much, and so they have not given back to you full measure, pressed down and running over. You have not borne the burdens of others, and so your own burden has become heavy and intolerable. Christians, in looking back upon the past, must you not drop tears of regret, and do you not bless that preserving love which still follows you-yea, which will never let you go, but despite your barrenness and unfruitfulness, will not cease to work upon you till it has made you meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who day without night serve God in his temple?

As to the future. The old question comes up, if any man says today, “I am resolved to go about doing good”-is he able to do it? And again, the reply comes, we must first be good, or else we cannot do good. The only way to be good is to seek to the good One, the good Master. If thou hast a new heart and a right spirit, then go thy way and serve him; but if not, pause awhile. Unto the wicked God saith, “What hast thou to do to declare my statutes?” He will have clean-handed men to do his work. Wash first in the brazen laver if thou wouldst be a priest. God will not have men for his servants who would defile the sacred place. “Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.” God give us to rest implicitly upon the Lord Jesus Christ by a living faith, and so to be cleansed in his precious blood, and then we may resolve to go forth and live for Him. Have we any work to do now that we can set about at once? If we have, whatsoever our hand findeth to do, let us do it. Let us not be asking for greater abilities than we have. If we can get them, let us do so; but meanwhile let us use what we have. Go, thou housewife, to thy house, and from the lowest chamber to the top go thou about doing good: here is range enough for thee. Go, thou teacher, to thy little school, and among those boys or girls, let thine example tell, and there is range enough for thee. Go, thou worker, to thy shop, and amongst thy fellow-workmen, let fall here and there a word for Christ; above all, let thine example shine, and there is work for thee. You domestic servants, the kitchen is sphere enough for you. You shall go about doing good from the dresser to the fireplace, and you shall have width enough and verge enough to make it a kingdom consecrated to God. Without leaving your position any one of you, without giving up the plough, or the cobbler’s lapstone, or the needle, or the plane, or the saw, without leaving business-without any of you good sisters wanting to be nuns, or any of us putting on the serge and becoming monks-in our own calling let us go about doing good. The best preparation for it will be, renew your dedication to Christ, be much in earnest prayer, seek the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, and then go forth in your Master’s strength with this as your resolve-that as portraits of Jesus Christ it shall be said of you, “He went about doing good.” May God add his blessing for the Saviour’s sake. Amen.

Portion of Scripture Read before Sermon-Acts 10.

PREVENIENT GRACE

A Sermon

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington

“When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me.”-Galatians 1:15.

You all know the story of the apostle Paul; he had been a persecutor, and went armed with letters to Damascus, to hail men and women, and drag them to prison. On the road thither he saw a light exceeding bright above the brightness of the sun, and a voice spake out of heaven to him saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” By this miraculous interposition he was converted: three days he spent in darkness; but when Ananias came to tell him of the gospel of Jesus Christ, there fell from his eyes as it were scales. He was baptized, became the most mighty of all Christian teachers, and could truly say that he was “not a whit behind the very chief of the apostles.”

Paul’s conversion is generally considered so very remarkable for its suddenness and distinctness, and truly it is; yet, at the same time, it is no exception to the general rule of conversions, but is rather a type, or model, or pattern of the way in which God shows forth his longsuffering to them that are led to believe on him. It appears from my text, however, that there is another part of Paul’s history which deserves our attention quite as much as the suddenness of his conversion, namely, the fact that although he was suddenly converted, yet God had had thoughts of mercy towards him from his very birth. God did not begin to work with him when he was on the road to Damascus. That was not the first occasion on which eyes of love had darted upon this chief of sinners, but he declares that God had separated him and set him apart even from his mother’s womb, that he might by-and-by be called by grace, and have Jesus Christ revealed in him.

I selected this text, not so much for its own sake, as to give me an opportunity for saying a little this evening upon a doctrine not often touched upon, namely, that of prevenient grace, or the grace which comes before regeneration and conversion. I think we sometimes overlook it. We do not attach enough importance to the grace of God in its dealings with men before he actually brings them to himself. Paul says that God had designs of love towards him even before he had called him out of the dead world into spiritual life.

To begin, then, let us talk for a little while upon the purpose of God preceding saving grace, as it may clearly be seen developing itself in human history.

You generally judge what a man’s purpose is by his actions. If you saw a man very carefully making moulds in sand, if you then watched him take several pieces of iron and melt them down, and if you further noticed him running the melted iron into the moulds, you might not know precisely what class of machine he was making, but you would very justly conclude that he was making some part of an engine or other machinery-a beam, or a lever, or a crank, or a wheel, and according to what you saw the moulds in the sand to be, you would form your idea of what the man was intending to make. Now, when I look at the life of a man, even before conversion, I think I can discover something of God’s moulding and fashioning in him even before regenerating grace comes into his heart. Let me give you an illustration of my course of thought. When God created man-we are told in the book of Genesis-he made him “out of the dust of the earth.” Mark him beneath his Maker’s hand, the framework of a man, the tabernacle for an immortal soul; a man made of clay, fully made, I suppose, and perfect in all respects excepting one, and that soon followed: for after God had formed him out of the dust, then he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Now it strikes me that during the early part of the history of the people whom God means to save, though they have not received into their hearts any spiritual life, nor experienced any of the work of regeneration, yet their life before conversion is really a working of them in the clay.

Let us endeavour to bring this out more distinctly. Can you not perceive God’s purpose in the apostle Paul, when you think of the singular gifts with which he was endowed? Here was a man, a rhetorician, so noble that there are in his works passages of eloquence not to be equalled, much less excelled, by Demosthenes and Cicero. As a logician, his arguments are most conclusive as well as profound. Never had man such an eagle-eye to pierce into the depths of a matter; never had man such an eagle-wing to mount up into its sublimities. He argues out questions so abstruse, that at all times they have been the battle-grounds of controversies, and yet he seems to perceive them clearly and distinctly and to unfold and expound them with a precision of language not to be misunderstood. All apostles of Jesus Christ put together are not equal to Paul in the way of teaching. Truly he might have said of them all, “You are but as children compared with me.” Peter dashes, and dashes gloriously, against the adversary, but Peter cannot build up, nor instruct; like the great apostle of the Gentiles, he has to say himself of Paul’s writings that they “contain some things hard to be understood.” Peter can confirm, but scarcely can he understand Paul; for where intellect is concerned, Paul is far, far above him. Paul seems to have been endowed by God with one of the most massive brains that ever filled human cranium, and to have been gifted with an intellect which towered far above anything that we find elsewhere. Had Paul been merely a natural man, I do not doubt but what he would take the place either of Milton among the poets, or of Bacon among the philosophers. He was, in deed and in truth, a master-mind. Now, when I see such a man as this cast by God in the mould of nature, I ask myself-“What is God about? What is he doing here?” As every man has a purpose, so also has God, and I think I see in all this that God fore-knew that such a man was necessary to be raised up as a vessel through whom he might convey to the world the hidden treasures of the gospel; that such a man was needful so that God might speak his great things by him. You will say, probably, that God reveals great things by fools. I beg your pardon. God did once permit an ass to speak, but it was a very small thing that he said, for any ass might readily have said it. Whenever there is a wise thing to be said, a wise man is always chosen to say it. Look the whole Bible through, and you will find that the revelation is always congruous to the person to whom it is given. You do not find Ezekiel blessed with a revelation like that of Isaiah. Ezekiel is all imagination, therefore he must soar on the eagle’s wing; Isaiah is all affection and boldness, and therefore he must speak with evangelical fulness. God does not give Nahum’s revelation to the herdsman Amos: the herdsman Amos cannot speak like Nahum, nor can Nahum speak like Amos. Each man is after his own order, and a man of this masterly order of mind, like the apostle Paul, must have been created, it seems to me, for no other end than to be the appropriate means of revealing to us the fulness and the blessing of the gospel of peace.

Mark, again, the apostle’s education. Paul was a Jew, not half Greek and half Jew, but a pure Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, speaking still the Jews’ native tongue, and not a stranger to the ancient speech of Israel. There was nothing in the traditions of the Jews which Paul did not know and understand. He was educated at the feet of Gamaliel. The best master of the age is selected to be the master of the hopeful young scholar, and the school in which he is placed must be a Rabinnical one. Now, just observe in this the purpose of God. Paul’s life-long struggle was to be with Jewish superstition. In Iconium, in Lystra, in Derbe, in Athens, in Corinth, in Rome, he must always be confronting the Judaising spirit; and it was well that he should know all about it that he should be well schooled in it; and it does strike me that God separated him from his mother’s womb on purpose that he might go forth to proclaim the gospel instead of law, and shut the mouths of those who were constantly abiding by the traditions of the fathers, instead of the gospel of Jesus Christ. All this, remember, was going on while as yet he was unconverted, though he was even then, as we see, being prepared for his work.

Then observe, the spiritual struggles through which Paul passed. I take it that mental struggles are often a more important part of education than what a man learns from his school-master. What is learned here in my heart is often of more use to me than what can be put into my head by another. Paul seems to have had a mind bent upon carrying out what he believed to be right. To serve God appears to have been the great ambition, the one object of the apostle’s life. Even when he was a persecutor, he says he thought he was doing God service. He was no groveller after wealth; never in his whole lifetime was Paul a Mammonite. He was no mere seeker after learning-never; he was learned, but it was all held and used subject to what he deemed far more highly, the indwelling grace of God. Even before he knew Christ he had a sort of religion, and an attachment, and an earnest attachment too, to the God of his fathers, though it was a zeal not according to knowledge. He had his inward fightings, and fears, and struggles, and difficulties, and all these were educating him to come out and talk to his fellow-sinners, and lead them up out of the darkness of Judaism into the light of Christianity.

And then, what I like in Paul, and that which leads me to see the purpose of God in him, is the singular formation of his mind. Even as a sinner, Paul was great. He was “the chief of sinners,” just as he afterwards became, “not a whit behind the very chief of the apostles.” There are some of us who are such little men that the world will never see us; the old proverb about the chips in porridge giving one pleasure either way, might apply to a great many people, but never to Paul. If there was anything to be done, Paul would do it; ay, and if it came to the stoning of Stephen, he says he gave his vote against him, and though he was not one of the actual executioners, yet we are told that “the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.” He would do all that was to be done, and was a thorough-going man everywhere. Believing a thing to be right, Paul never consulted with flesh and blood, but girded up his loins and wrought with the whole powers of his being, and that was no mean force, as his enemies felt to their cost. Why, as I see him riding to Damascus, I picture him with his eyes flashing with fanatic hate against the disciples of the man whom he thought to be an impostor, while his heart beat high with the determination to crush the followers of the Nazarene. He is a man all energy, and all determination, and when he is converted, he is only lifted into a higher life, but unchanged as to temperament, nature, and force of character. He seems to have been constituted naturally a thorough-going, thorough-hearted man, in order that when grace did come to him, he might be just as earnest, just as dauntless, and fearless, in the defence of what he believed to be right. Yes, and such a man was wanted to lead the vanguard in the great crusade against the God of this world. No other could have stood forward thus as Paul did, for no other had the same firmness, boldness, and decision, that he possessed. “But,” I hear someone say, “was not Peter as bold?” Yes, he was; but Peter, you remember, always had the failing of being just where he ought not to be when he was wanted. Peter was unstable to the very last, I think; certainly in Paul’s day, Paul had to withstand him. He was a great and good man, but not fitted to be the foremost. Perhaps you say, “But there is John: would not John do?” No; we cannot speak in too high terms of John, but John is too full of affection. John is the plane to smooth the timber, but not the axe to cut it down. John is too gentle, too meek; he is the Phillip Melancthon, but Paul must be the Luther and Calvin rolled into one. Such a man was wanted, and I say, that from his very birth, God was fitting him for this position; and before he was converted, prevenient grace was thus engaged, fashioning, moulding, and preparing the man, in order that by-and-by there might be put into his nostrils the breath of life.

Now what is the drift of all this? A practical one; and to show you what it is, we will stay a minute here before we go on to anything else. Some of the good fathers amongst us are mourning very bitterly just now over their sons. Your children do not turn out as you wish they would; they are getting sceptical some of them, and they are also falling into sin. Well, dear friends, it is yours to mourn; it is enough to make you weep bitterly; but let me whisper a word into your ear. Do not sorrow as those who are without hope, for God may have very great designs to be answered, even by these very young men who seem to be running so altogether in the wrong direction. I do not think I could go so far as John Bunyan did, when he said he was sure God would have some eminent saints in the next generation, because the young men in his day were such gross sinners, that he thought they would make fine saints; and when the Lord came and saved them by his mercy, they would love him much, because they had had so much forgiven. I would hardly like to say so much as that, but I do believe that sometimes in the inscrutable wisdom of God, when some of those who have been sceptical come to see the truth, they are the very best men that could possibly be found to do battle against the enemy. Some of those who have fallen into error, after having passed through it and happily come up from its deep ditch, are just the men to stand and warn others against it. I cannot conceive that Luther would ever have been so mighty a preacher of the faith if he had not himself struggled up and down Pilate’s staircase on his knees, when trying to get to heaven by his penances and his good works. O let us have hope. We do not know but that God may be intending yet to call them and bless them. Who can tell, there may be a young man here to night who will one day be the herald of the cross in China, in Hindostan, in Africa, and in the islands of the sea? Remember John Williams wishing to keep an appointment with another young man who committed a certain sin. He wanted to know what time it was, and so just stepped into Moorfield’s Chapel; someone saw him, and he did not like to go out, and the word, preached by Mr. Timothy East, who still survives amongst us, fell on his ears, and the young sinner was made a saint; and you all know how he afterwards perished as a martyr on the shores of Erromanga. Why may there not be another such a case to night? There may be some young man here who has been receiving a first-class education, he has no idea what for; he has been learning a multitude of things, perhaps a great deal which it would be much better if he did not know, but the Lord is meaning to make something of him. I do not know where you are, young man, but O, I wish I could fire you to night with a high ambition to serve God! What is the good of my being made at all if I do not serve my Maker? What is the use of my being here if I do not bring any glory to him who put me and keeps me here? Why, I had better have been a piece of rotten dung strewn upon the field, and bringing forth something for the farmer’s use, than to have been a mere consumer of bread and meat, and to have breathed the air and lived upon God’s bounty, and yet to have done nothing for him. O young man, if such an army of you as we have to night, could all be led by divine grace to say with the apostle Paul, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” why, there would be hope for Old England yet. We would yet fling Popery back to the seven hills whence it came. Oh that God would grant us this blessing; but if he should not be pleased to call all of us by his grace, yet may some here live to prove that they were separated from their mother’s womb to God’s work, and set apart that they might have the Son of God revealed in them, and might proclaim his gospel with power. We will now leave this point, but shall continue the same subject in another form.

You would, perhaps, say that all I have talked about as yet has been providence rather than grace. Very likely, but I think that providence and grace are very near akin; at any rate if providence is the wheel, grace is the hand which turns and guides it. But I am now about to speak of grace preceding calling in another sense.

It strikes me that it is impossible to say, concerning the elect, when the grace of God begins to deal with them. You can tell when the quickening grace comes, but not when the grace itself comes. For know, in one sense, grace was exercised upon the chosen

“Before the day-star knew its place,

Or planets ran their round.”

I should say that there is what I cannot call by any other name than formative grace, exercised upon the vessels of mercy at their very birth. It seems to me to be no small mercy that some of us were born of such parents as we were, and that we were born where we were. Some of us began right, and were surrounded by many advantages. We were cradled upon the lap of piety, and dandled upon the knee of holiness. There are some children who are born with a constitution which cannot escape sin, and which at the same time seems as if it inevitably led them to it. Who can deny that there are some whose passions seem naturally to be so violent, that, notwithstanding almost any and every restraint, they run headlong into sin! and often those failings may be distinctly traced to their parents. It is no small blessing when we can look back and thank God, that if no blue-blood of nobility flows in our veins, yet from our very childhood we have not heard the voice of blasphemy, nor strayed into the haunts of vice, but that in the very formation of our character, divine grace has ever been present with us. This formative grace many of you, I have no doubt, can trace in the examples and influences which have followed you from the cradle through life. Why, what a blessing to have had such a Sunday-school teacher as some of you had! Other children went to schools, but they had not such a teacher, or such a class as yours. What a privilege to have had such a minister as some of you had, though perhaps he has fallen asleep now! You know there were others who went to places where there was no earnestness, no life; but that good man who was blessed to you was full of anxiety for your soul, and at the very first, before you were converted, his preaching helped to form your character. Why, it strikes me that every word I heard, and everything I saw while I was yet a child or a youth, had a part in the formation of my after-life. Oh! what a mercy it is to be placed where a holy example and godly conversation tend to form the man in a godly mould. All this may be, you know, without grace. I am not speaking now of the work of effectual calling, but of that prevenient grace which is too much forgotten, though it so richly deserves to be remembered. Think, too, of the prayers which brought tears to our eyes, and the teaching that would not let us sin so deeply as others, of the light which glowed in us, even in our childhood, and seems to have dispelled something of our natural darkness. Think of that earnest face that used to look so steadily on us when we did wrong, and of that mother’s tear which seemed as if it would burn itself into our hearts, when there had been something amiss, that made that mother anxious. All this, though it did not convert us, yet it helped to make us what we now are, and unto God let us give the glory.

Furthermore, while there was this formative grace, there seems to me to have gone with it very much of preventive grace. How many saints fall into sins which they have to regret even after conversion, while others are saved from leaving the path of morality to wander in the morass of lust and crime! Why, some of us were, by God’s grace, placed in positions were we could not well have been guilty of any gross acts of immorality, even if we had tried. We were so hedged about by guardian-care, so watched and tended on every side, that we should have been dashing our heads against a stone wall if we had run into any great or open sin. Oh! what a mercy to be prevented from sinning, when God puts chains across the road, digs ditches, makes hedges, builds walls, and says to us, “No, you shall not go that way, I will not let you; you shall never have that to regret; you may desire it, but I will hedge up your way with thorns; you may wish it, but it never shall be yours.” Beloved, I have thanked God a thousand times in my life, that before my conversion, when I had ill desires I had no opportunities; and on the other hand, that when I had opportunities I had no desires; for when desires and opportunities come together like the flint and steel, they make the spark that kindles the fire, but neither the one nor the other, though they may both be dangerous, can bring about any very great amount of evil so long as they are kept apart. Let us, then, look back, and if this has been our experience bless the preventing grace of God.

Again, there is another form of grace I must mention, namely, restraining grace. Here, you see, I am making a distinction. There are many who did go into sin; they were not wholly prevented from it, but they could not go as far into it as they wanted to do. There is a young man here to-night-he will say how should I know-well, I do know-there is a young man here to-night who wants to commit a certain sin, but he cannot. Oh! how he wishes to go, but he cannot; he is placed in such a position of poverty that he cannot play the fine gentleman he would like. There is another; he wants to be dancing at such-and-such a place, but thank God he is lame; there is another, who, if he had had his wish would have lost his soul, but since his blindness has come upon him there is some hope for him. Oh! how often God has thrown a man on a sick bed to make him well! He would have been such as he was even unto death if he had been well, but God has made him sick, and that sickness has restrained him from sin. It is a mercy for some men that they cannot do what they would, and though “to will is present” with them, yet even in sin, “how to perform that which they would they find not.” Ah! my fine fellow, if you could have had your own way, you would have been at the top of the mountain by now! So you think, but no, you would have been over the precipice long before this if God had let you climb at all, and so he has kept you in the valley because he has designs of love towards you, and because you shall not sin as others sin. Divine grace has its hand upon the bridle of your horse. You may spur your steed, and use the lash against the man who holds you back; or perhaps it is a woman, and you may speak bitter words against that wife, that sister, or that mother, whom God has put there to hold you back; but you cannot go on, you shall not go on. Another inch forward and you will be over the precipice and lost, and therefore God has put that hand there to throw your horse back on its haunches, and make you pause, and think, and turn from the error of your ways. What a mercy it is that when God’s people do go into sin to any extent, he speaks and says, “Hitherto shalt thou go, but no further; here shall thy proud sins be stayed!” There is, then, restraining grace.

We shall get still further into the subject when we come to what Dr. John Owen calls the preparatory work of grace. Have you ever noticed that parable about the different sorts of ground, and the sower of the seeds? A sower went forth to sow, and some of the seed fell on stony ground; you can understand that, because all men have stones in their hearts. Some fell on the thorns and thistles; you can comprehend that, because men are so given to worldly care. Another part of the seed fell on the beaten path; you can understand that-men are so occupied with worldliness. But how about the “good ground”? “Good ground”! Is there such a thing as “good ground” by nature? One of the evangelists says that it was “honest and good ground.” Now, is there such a difference between hearts and hearts? Are not all men depraved by nature? Yes, he who doubts human depravity had better begin to study himself. Question: If all hearts are bad how are some hearts good? Reply: They are good comparatively; they are good in a certain sense. It is not meant in the parable that that good ground was so good that it ever would have produced a harvest without the sowing of the seed, but that it had been prepared by providential influences upon it to receive the seed, and in that sense it may be said to have been “good ground.”

Now let me show you how God’s grace does come to work on the human heart so as to make it good soil before the living seed is cast into it, so that before quickening grace really visits it the heart may be called a good heart, because it is prepared to receive that grace. I think this takes place thus: first of all, before quickening grace comes, God often gives an attentive ear, and makes a man willing to listen to the Word. Not only does he like to listen to it, but he wants to know the meaning of it; there is a little excitement in his mind to know what the gospel tidings really are. He is not saved as yet, but it is always a hopeful sign when a man is willing to listen to the truth, and is anxious to understand it. This is one thing which prevenient grace does in making the soul good. In Ezekiel’s vision, as you will recollect, before the breath came from the four winds the bones began to stir, and they came together bone to his bone. So, before the Spirit of God comes to a man in effectual calling, God’s grace often comes to make a stir in the man’s mind, so that he is no longer indifferent to the truth, but is anxious to understand what it means.

The next mark of this gracious work is an ingenuousness of heart. Some persons will not hear you, or if they do they are always picking holes and finding fault, they are not honest and good ground. But there are others who say, “I will give the man a fair and an honest hearing; I will read the Bible; I will read it, too, honestly; I will really see whether it be the Word of God or not, I will come to it without any prejudices; or, if I have any prejudices I will throw them aside.” Now, all this is a blessed work of preparatory grace, making the heart ready to receive effectual calling.

Then, when this willingness and ingenuousness are attended with a tender conscience, as they are in some unconverted people, this is another great blessing. Some of you are not converted, but you would not do wrong; you are not saints, but you would not tell a lie for the world. I thank God that there are some of you so excellent in morals, that if you were proposed to us for Church-membership, we could not raise any objection to you on that ground, at any rate. You are as honest as the day is long: as for the things of God, you are outwardly as attentive to them, and as diligent in them, as the most earnest and indefatigable Christians. Now, this is because your conscience is tender. When you do wrong you cannot sleep at night; and you do not feel at all easy in being without a Saviour-I know some of you do not. You have not come to any decision; the grace of God has not really made you feel your thoroughly ruined state; still you are not quite easy. In fact, to go farther, your affections, though not weaned altogether from earth, yet begin to tremble a little as though they would go heavenward. You want to be a Christian: when the communion-table is spread, you dare not come downstairs, but I see you looking on from the gallery, and you wish you were with us. You know you have not believed in Jesus Christ, and the world keeps you back from doing so; but still there is a kind of twitching in your conscience; you do not know what it is, but there is a something got into you that makes you say at times, “O God, let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his;” yes, and you even go farther than this, and ask to live the righteous man’s life too. Now, remember, this will not save you: “Ye must be born again.” But for all this the Church of God should feel deeply grateful, for they have seen in themselves that this is often God’s preparatory work-clearing away the rubbish and rubble, and digging out the foundations, that Jesus Christ might be laid therein, the corner-stone of future hope and of future happiness.

Another work of grace is the creation of dissatisfaction with their present state. How many men we have known who were consciously “without God and without hope in the world.” The apples of Sodom had turned to ashes and bitterness in their mouth, though at one time all was fair and sweet to their taste. The mirage of life with them has been dispelled, and instead of the green fields, and waving trees, and rippling waters, which their fevered imagination had conjured up in the desert, they can see now nought but the arid sand and wasteness of desolation, which appal their fainting spirits, and promise nothing; no, not even a grave to cover their whited bones, which shall remain a bleached memorial that “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Multitudes have been brought to see the deluge of sin which has covered even the high places of the earth, they find no rest for the sole of their foot, but as yet they know not of an ark, nor of a loving hand prepared to pull them in, as did Noah the dove in olden time. Look at the life of St. Augustine, how wearily he wanders hither and thither with a death-thirst in his soul, that no fount of philosophy, or scholastic argument, or heretical teaching could ever assuage. He was aware of his unhappy estate, and turned his eye round the circle of the universe looking for peace, not fully conscious of what he wanted, though feeling an aching void the world could never fill. He had not found the centre, fixed and stedfast, around which all else revolved in ceaseless change. Now, all this appetite, this hunger and thirst, I look upon as not of the devil, nor of the human heart alone, it was of God. He strips us of all our earthly joy and peace, that, shivering in the cold blast, we might flee, when drawn by his Spirit, to the “Man who is as a hiding-place from the storm, a covert from the tempest, and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”

Of course, I have not gone fully into this doctrine of prevenient grace, but I trust I have said just enough to waken the gratitude of all the saints who have experienced it, and to make them sing with greater emotion than they have ever done before-

“Determined to save, he watched o’er my path,

When, Satan’s blind slave, I sported with death.”

And now we come to the last point, which is, Paul’s actual calling by divine grace.

All preparatory work of which we have spoken, was not the source or origin of the vital godliness which afterwards distinguished that renowned servant of God-that came to him on a sudden. Beloved, there may be some here to-night, who cannot discern anything in themselves of God’s work of grace at all. I do not wonder at this. I do not suppose that the apostle could discern it in himself, or even thought of looking for it. He was as careless of Christ as is the butterfly of the honey in the flowers. He lived with no thought of honouring Jesus, and no desire to magnify him: but with the very reverse passion, glowing like a hot coal within his soul; and yet in a moment he was turned from an enemy into a friend! Oh! what a mercy it would be if some here tonight, were turned from enemies into friends in a moment: and we are not without hope but that this will be the case.

You have hated Christ, my friend; you have hated him boldly and decidedly; you have not been a sneaking sort of adversary, but have opposed him frankly and openly. Now, why did you do it? I am sorry for your sin, but I like your honesty. What is there in the person of Christ for you to hate? Men hated him while he was on earth, and yet he died for them! Can you hate him for that? He came into this world to gain no honour for himself-he had honour enough in heaven, but he gave it up for the sake of men. When he died, he had not amassed a fortune, nor gathered about him a troop of soldiers, nor had he conquered provinces, but he died naked on a cross! Nothing brought him here but disinterested affection; and when he came, he spent his life in deeds of holiness and good. For which of these things can you hate him? The amazing lovingkindness of Christ Jesus towards sinners, should in itself disarm their animosity, and turn their hatred of him to love. Alas! I know that this thought of itself will not do it, but the Spirit of God can. If the Spirit of God once comes in contact with your souls, and shows you that Christ died for you, your enmity towards Christ will be all over then. Dr. Gifford once went to see a woman in prison who had been a very gross offender. She was such a hardened reprobate, that the doctor began by discoursing with her about the judgments of God, and the punishments of hell, but she only laughed him to scorn, and called him opprobrious names. The doctor burst into tears, and said, “And yet, poor soul, there is mercy for you, even for such as you are, though you have laughed in the face of him who would do you good. Christ is able to forgive you, bad though you are; and I hope that he will yet take you to dwell with him at his right hand.” In a moment the woman stopped her laughing, sat down quietly, burst into tears, and said, “Don’t talk to me in that way; I have always been told that I should be damned, and I made up my mind to be; I knew there was no chance, and so I have gone on from one sin to another: but oh! if there is a hope of mercy for me, that is another thing; if there is a possibility of my being forgiven, that is another thing.” The doctor at once opened his Bible, and began to read to her these words, “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s dear Son, cleanseth us from all sin;” the greatest brokenness of heart followed. In subsequent visits the doctor was gratified to find that she was brought to Christ; and though she had to undergo a sentence of transportation for many years at the time, yet in after days the godly man saw her walking honestly and uprightly as a believer in Jesus Christ.

Sinner, I wish that thought would bring thee to Christ! O that thou wouldst know that he hath chosen thee, that he hath separated thee for himself, and to be his even from thy mother’s womb! Ah! thou hast played the harlot, but he will bring thee back; thou hast sinned very greatly, but thou shalt one day be clothed in the white robe, and wear the everlasting crown. Oh! blush and be confounded that thou shouldst ever have sinned as thou hast done. Thou hast been a thief, and a drunkard; thou hast brought thy mother’s grey hairs with sorrow to the grave, but her prayers are going up even now to heaven, and thou shalt be brought in yet. O stubborn sinner, my Master means to have thee. Run as thou wilt, thou wandering sheep, the Shepherd is after thee: yield thee, yield thee, yield thee now. O prodigal, thy Father’s heart is open, arise, go thou to thy Father. Thou art ashamed to go, art thou? Oh! let that shame make thee go the faster; let it not keep thee back. Jesus bled, Jesus wept, Jesus lives in heaven. “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, let him buy wine and milk, without money and without price.” “Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely.” There is no sinner too black to be forgiven. There are no iniquities that can damn you if you believe in Jesus. All manner of sin and iniquity shall be forgiven unto him who puts his trust in the shadow of Jehovah-Jesus. Look to him, he dies, he lives; look, he rises, he pleads above! “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” I trust that the whole of your past mysterious life, my dear fellow-sinner, will be explained to you to-night, by your believing in Jesus. That will be the golden key which will open the secret, and you will say, “Now I see it; I could not tell what that mysterious hand was that kept me back from doing a certain thing; I could not understand why I was led into such a path, but now I know that it was to take me to the feet of the blessed Saviour, where I might be happy for ever.” As you look back, and think of all the dealings of divine grace and providence with you throughout your life, you will sing-

“Ah! who am I, that God hath saved

Me from the doom I did desire,

And crossed the lot myself did crave,

To set me higher!”

I must give one word of warning to those who are afflicting themselves with a notion that in order to true, real conversion, they must have a long course of agonising soul-conflict. You must mark, that I am not teaching this, the new birth was instantaneous, at once. Saul of Tarsus calls him Lord, and it is only three days that darkness rests upon him. This is the longest case recorded in the Bible-and how short a time in darkness and anguish that is, compared with the experience of some, whom you are regarding as models on which God must act in your case. Remember, that God is not the God of uniformity, though he is of union and peace. He may lead you at once into joy and peace, as Nathanael, who said as soon as he saw Christ, “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.” God may, and doubtless has been blessing you through his grace from your birth; but he needs not to plunge you many days in the cold, dark waters of conviction, to wash away your sin: the blood of Christ at once can cleanse from all sin, if you confide your soul to him. Believe, therefore, and you are at once justified and at peace with God.

May the Lord bless you all, for Jesus’ sake.