C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”-Psalm 27:13.

I have taken the whole verse for my text, but I am not sure that I shall keep to it. The words in it at which I catch are these, “Unless I had believed to see.” Most people see to believe, but in David’s case the process was reversed, and put into gospel order: he believed to see; and this is the key-note of our discourse. The prayer of my heart is, that some may be led to believe to see, and that those who have been trying to see in order to believe, may now come and trust in Jesus, and believe and see the grace of God.

Here we have in the words I select for the text, a doctrine stated, many difficulties removed, and some directions afforded for the Christian life.

We have here before us a fundamental truth and doctrine of our faith, that the great act by which a man is saved, so far as he is concerned, is the act of faith. That is to say, he gives up all other righteousness, and casts himself upon the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The moment he does that, he is saved; his past sins are forgiven him; his future is secure. That one simple act of confidence in Jesus, insignificant as it may appear to be, is the dawn of spiritual life, the evidence of security, the token of eternal salvation. And here is the reason for this, namely, that faith is God’s appointed mark which he sets upon his favoured ones, and by this may a man know whether he is saved or not, whether he is ordained unto eternal life or not, by his answer to this one question, “Dost thou believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?” Or, in other words, “Dost thou trust in the Son of God?”

The case is ordered in this wise: we have sinned; we have broken God’s law-God’s law must be honoured. Sin cannot be committed without a penalty being inflicted. The Lord Jesus Christ determined and stipulated in the covenant of grace, that he would take upon himself the form of man, and that he would suffer for the chosen many, even for his people, what they had deserved to suffer themselves on account of their sins, or a punishment that would be equivalent to that suffering. In due time the Lord Jesus Christ appeared. True to his word of promise he went up to Calvary-there he received at God’s hands that which was due from his people to the great offended Judge. There he paid their debts. There, once for all, he took the handwriting of ordinances that was against them, and put it away, nailing it to his cross. Now, virtually, all for whom Christ died were then saved; their debts were then paid; their punishment was then discharged. The debt due to the sovereign justice of God was then altogether borne, and Jesus Christ there and then “finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in an everlasting righteousness” for his people. This man, by his one offering, hath perfected for ever them that were set apart. Once yielding his soul unto death, and giving himself up a sacrifice for men, he there and then saved his people as before the bar of God. These saved ones are known by their being brought to trust in him; as their once dead but now ever-living Lord. Without faith in Christ, my hearer, you have no share in his blood; you have no interest in his righteousness. What he did upon the tree will have nothing to do in saving you. All his griefs, and groans, and pangs, you will have no share in. Your debts remain unpaid. Your punishment has not been borne for you. You will have to endure the wrath of God for ever. In the prison-house you will be for ever bound in chains of fire. Inasmuch as you have not believed, you have no share in the atonement of Jesus Christ. But if thou hast come and trusted thyself with Christ, if, fully convinced that there is salvation nowhere else, thou dost believe in him, then thy debts are paid. The punishment of thy sin has been endured. Thou canst never suffer, for God cannot punish two for one offence. Thou canst never be summoned to God’s bar to be tried for thy life. Thou art clear. Through Jesus’ blood thou art ransomed. Thou art justified, accepted, adopted, saved. Who shall lay anything to thy charge, seeing that Christ hath died for thee, and made a propitiation for thy sin?

Now, the whole of this hinges upon a man’s believing. If he believeth, then the great gospel truth is, that he is saved. Throughout all the Bible this is the one line of light that comes out of the darkness to poor troubled man. “He that believeth on him is not condemned.” “He that believeth on him hath everlasting life.” “He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved.” These assertions occur over, and over, and over again, so that I may safely say that this is the gospel-that he that believeth is saved, and that the faith by which he lays hold of Christ, is to him proof positive that he is saved. He has God’s word for it that he is redeemed in Christ.

We have now briefly stated the doctrine, but the main part of my subject will be to try and remove those many difficulties which people newly awakened and quickened are sure to raise. The doctrine is, that he that believeth is saved; but men ask a thousand questions about it, and see as many more difficulties-let us therefore try to meet and answer some of them.

1. And, first, how often do we hear it said, “I cannot think that I am saved; I do not trust in Jesus Christ-I am sure of it, and fear I am not saved, because I feel no worthiness in me.” This is a difficulty which we can slay at once. If you did feel any worthiness in yourself, then you might rest assured that you were not saved; because nothing is more clear in God’s word than the fact that salvation is not by merit but by grace. The apostle Paul is very clear upon this point. He says, “It is not by works, but of grace;” and if any say, it may be partly of each, he says, “No; if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.” Salvation is altogether, from first to last, a gratuitous act of grace; hence you do not need to look for any merit in yourself.

The case is parallel with this: It is sometimes the custom, when a new king attains to the throne, for a general amnesty to be proclaimed, and for all the prison doors to be opened. This is done, of course, not on account of the merit of the prisoners, but to do honour to the great mercy of the king. Now, I think I see you, troubled one, sitting as a prisoner in the cell, and the door is opened to you, and you are told that you are set free, because the king would honour the day of his coronation; but you reply, “I cannot believe that I am free, for I do not feel that I deserve it; the sentence which was passed upon me was one which I richly merited and according to justice; I cannot, therefore, walk out of that prison door, because I know that I have done nothing to merit my discharge.” But, man, if the ground of thy discharge be not in any degree thy merit, but only to the honour of the king, how simple-minded thou art to sit on that stone slab any longer! Up with thee, man! walk abroad; take thy liberty, and do honour to the king’s bounty! O sinner, thou hast no merit: that is true; but God forgives thee, to the praise and glory of his grace, to the honour of his dear Son, to give him a coronation. Come, then, walk thou out at liberty!

Or it is as though this should happen: Some one who is in a consumption has applied for admission to enter, say into Brompton Hospital. By-and-by this person obtains the order, but no sooner does she get it than she is afraid to use it. She does not dare to go to the hospital, and why? “Because,” she says, “I am not in good health.” Now, we answer at once, “But if you were in good health, you would have no need of an hospital; it is, in fact, your sickness and your bad health which give you any sort of congruity in entering there.” So, when you tell me that you have no merit, my reply is, but if you had any, you would not want a Saviour. Your demerit renders yours a suitable case to be met with by the merit of the Saviour. It is your sinnership which, if there be any fitness, is your fitness. Not your righteousness, sinner, but your guilt must be your plea when you wish to be pardoned. If money is to be given away, men do not urge their being possessed of riches as a reason why they should receive the charity, but one cries, “I am exceeding poor,” and another says, “I am poorer still.” It is their poverty, not their substance, which is their plea with the generous heart. And so it is between God and you. Not your fulness, but your emptiness; not your goodness, but your badness; not your merit, but your demerit; these you must plead before God, seeing that salvation is by grace.

Now, then, what sayest thou, sinner? God tells thee that if thou believest in Christ, thou art saved. Is God a liar or not? I must push that with thee. Does God speak truth or no? As for this trumpery objection of thine, that thou hast no merit, I have shown thee that it is without a foundation, for if thou hadst any merit, then why shouldst thou come to God for mercy? But, meritless, worthless, altogether without any goodness, still the text says, “Blessed is he that worketh not, but believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly.” What sayest thou-wilt thou take God at his word, and believe what he says to be true?

2. But I hear another objection, one which is very frequently made indeed. Some one says, “But I want to see in myself the evidences of salvation; I know that when a man is saved, there very soon appear in his character certain signs and tokens which mark the work of the Holy Spirit, and I cannot believe that I am saved on the mere word of God; I want to see the evidences of it.” I will tell you a story then. When the Emperor Napoleon the First, was one day reviewing his troops on what is now called the Place de la Concorde, sitting on his horse, and thinking of other things, he let go the bridle, and in a moment his high-spirited charger galloped away with him. A private in the ranks saw the danger, rushed from his place, seized the bridle, and saved the life of the emperor, who said to him, “Thank you, Captain,” and went on. “Of what regiment, sire?” asked the soldier. “Of my guards,” was the reply. Now, it was a strange thing that the emperor should in a moment make him a captain for so small an act as that, and stranger still that the man should so simply and fully believe him as not to doubt for a minute, but ask at once of what regiment he was to be the captain. Now, what do you suppose the soldier did? Going back to his regiment he put down his gun, and said, “Whoever likes may take care of that,” and walking across the review ground up to the staff, he joined with them. A general looking round at him said, “What does that fellow want?” “That fellow is a captain of the guard,” said the man, and gave the military salute. “You are mad, friend!” “I am not mad; I am a captain of the guard.” “Who said so?” “He said so,” pointing to the emperor riding along. “I beg your pardon,” replied the general, and recognised him at once in his new office. The man took the emperor at his word. He wore no epaulettes; he was not adorned with any gold lace; he had not received any of a captain’s pay; he had passed through no formal ceremony; but the emperor had simply called him “captain,” and that was enough for him.

Now, I want to know whether the Lord Jesus Christ’s word is not as well worth taking as the word of the Emperor Napoleon, and when he says to you, “Believe; he that believeth has everlasting life,” the proper way for you to act, is to feel and say, “That is true; I have everlasting life; although, as yet, I have not a jot of evidence of any other kind; yet if he has said it, that is enough for me. Though I may have come in here an ungodly, unconverted sinner, yet, since I have learned to trust the Saviour this night, and do trust him, then I am saved, I will try to get these evidences, by-and-by.” I have no doubt that that soldier I told you of very soon began to look after his regimentals. He would not like to continue dressed as a private after that, but would want an officer’s uniform, and to appear in the army as a captain should appear. And so will it be with you by-and-by; but at first, my dear friends, your faith must be grounded on the word of Jesus Christ, and on nothing else. Perhaps the devil will say to you, “What does that fellow here?” Tell the devil and all his angels, “He said it who died on the cross! He said it who reigns in heaven, that ‘Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.’ ” Stand to it, that if he said it that is enough. You have the King’s word for it; the imperial word, the word of the blessed and only Potentate, who cannot lie.

So, then, it is sufficient evidence to the believing heart that it has God’s word to rely upon. Let me point you to the thirty-sixth verse of the third of John: “He that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life;” and to the eighteenth verse of the same chapter, “He that believeth on him, is not condemned.” Are not these words quite sufficient, though as yet no other evidence can be seen? But sometimes I have heard persons saying, “Well, but we must have evidences; we cannot trust Christ without them:” and consequently they try to manufacture signs of grace, whereas, be it never forgotten, that evidences are the product of faith, and not the cause of faith. You go into a room at winter time, and you say to yourself, “There is not heat enough in this room; I must try to make more heat;” and you set to work, by some plan or other, to do this. You say there is no evidence of there being a fire because there is no heat; true, but you will never make the heat produce the fire. Would it not be much better to go and look to the fire at once? and then you would get the heat which is the result of a fire. So you say, “I am not so earnest, so reverent, so prayerful, so penitent as I should be, therefore I cannot believe.” Now, would it not be better to say, “If I believed more, I should have more of these evidences; therefore let me go to my faith, which is the cause of the evidences, and not go to my evidences to get faith out of them”?

It is as though you had a piece of ground, and you said to yourself, “Well, now, here are these trees; they produce very little fruit-if I could secure a large crop, that would be evidence that the soil is good. I must put fresh fruit on the trees, and then that will prove that the ground is fertile.” Not at all so. Make the soil good, and then the fruit will come naturally. So with your faith. Faith is the soil in which the fruits of faith must grow. Do not be thinking about the evidences. Think about the faith that will grow the evidences. Seek to go to Christ, and trust in him, and you will get the signs of grace soon enough. Your main business is with Jesus, not with evidences. Rest in him-his finished work and ascension power-and, if you depend there, without evidences, you will soon have plenty of them; but, if you look to external or other signs, in order to get faith, you look, as I have already told you, in the wrong quarter, and reverse the order of grace. To use an old proverb, you “put the cart before the horse.” You do not go logically and properly to work. Trust in Christ for evidences, and you will have plenty of them in due time.

3. Commonly enough we hear people say, “I want to have a deeper repentance, and then I could believe that I am saved.” Christ says, “He that believeth is saved.” You say, “Well, that is what Christ says; but I am not satisfied with that.” Oh, atrocious thing! to make Christ a liar, and suspect his word! Still, you say you want a deeper repentance. Now, you are very like a man who is in a high fever, and delirious, and he cries out, “I want to feel that I am in this fever; I want to know the top and the bottom of this typhus; I want to know when it goes, and how it will go.” But the doctor says, “Never mind, my dear friend; never mind the typhus; just trust to me; take the medicine.” He calms the man’s mind by reminding him that if he had not the typhus, he would not want the doctor; but now that the fever is there, it is not for him to know the disease so much as to trust the remedy; and when he gets well, he will understand about it better. So, poor sinner, till you have come to Christ, your repentance is not worth a farthing. If you had a ton weight of it, your repentance would be of no value till you trusted Jesus. We must get you well first, and then you shall know about the disease. Trust Jesus, and believe his word, and do not, in your delirium, be looking for those dark experiences which would not comfort you, though you think they would.

There is a man who has written a very offensive letter to a very kind friend who has often obliged him. This friend, when he received the letter, said, “Well, it was very wrong of you to write this letter, but I freely forgive you.” But the other said, “I do not think my friend has forgiven me, because I do not feel regretful enough; if I felt more repentant, then I should think that he had forgiven me.” As if his friend’s forgiveness were not quite well enough assured to him by his friend’s word! But now, supposing that man should bring himself to believe that his friend had forgiven him? Why, then he would find it an easy matter to repent, because he would say to himself, “Has my friend been kind enough to overlook so great a fault? Then how wrong it was of me to have written so against him! How grieved, how shocked I am to think that I should have fallen into such an offence against so generous a friend!” My dear hearers, you cannot get repentance by refusing to believe Christ’s word. Trust him! trust him, and believe that you are saved, and then the sluices will be drawn up, and you will repent. You will see Jesus Christ dying that you might live, and you will say, “Did I slaughter that blessed Saviour? Did I wound him? Did I scourge him, and put him to death? Then, ye monstrous sins, away with you, away with you!” You must first believe, and then repentance will come-not look to repentance as being the evidence, but look to Jesus, and to Jesus only, and, looking to him, repentance will follow as a matter of course.

4. Then, running to the other extreme, we have heard many troubled ones say, “I cannot think that I am saved because I do not feel great joy; if I had greater joy, then I should know that I was forgiven.” Somebody has left you a large estate, and you say to yourself, “Well, I have just read the letter in which the lawyer tells me that I am left a large estate, but, somehow or other, I do not believe it, for if it were true, I should feel greater joy about it.” Why, you talk like a fool, sir! If you believed it, you would feel joy. It is because you do not believe it that you do not have joy. You turn the thing upside down, and want your joy to help your faith, whereas your joy must flow from your faith, and cannot possibly contribute to it. So, may, if you will come and trust my Lord’s word, and believe that you are saved because you trust him, then you will have joy. You cannot be without joy. If you believed to-night that your sins were pardoned, would you not be glad? Certainly you would. Well, then, do believe it. If you are trusting Christ, if you are resting wholly upon Jesus, he tells you that you are saved. Do not begin to say, “I have not the bliss I hoped to have.” You shall have that joy when you have looked for it, and have looked alone to Christ.

5. Then, I have known others who have said, “I could believe that I am saved if I had more sanctification.” That also is the wrong way to go to work. In a sweet little book which I have read lately, the writer well remarks, “Suppose you were in Brazil, and you were in some of those brooks where diamonds are occasionally picked up, and you found a large one unpolished; no matter how rough it might be, if you knew it to be a diamond, you would get it polished; but if you had any suspicion about it, you would not be likely to incur the expense and trouble of polishing it. It is your assurance of its being a diamond that would set you to work to take it to the lapidary to have it put upon a seal, and set.” So we find salvation, and when we get it, it is a rough, uncouth thing. We want to have it, as we say, sanctified. Now, if we believe it is a diamond, if we believe that it is really and truly salvation, we shall then be in earnest to get that salvation perfected, to have the diamond’s facets all made to glitter in the light of heaven. But so long as we have any doubts about the matter, we shall not think, nor be troubled, about perfecting our salvation. The fact is, that strong faith is the great sanctifying agent through the power of the Holy Spirit, and the application of the precious blood of Jesus. Thou wilt never overcome thy sins by doubting Christ. Thou wilt never get sanctification by putting thy holiness into the place of Christ’s righteousness. It is no faith to believe that I am saved, being sanctified; but it is faith to believe that I, being sanctified, and with all my sins about me, am still saved through the precious blood of Jesus. O sinner, do not be looking to sanctification to back up the testimony of God’s Word. God’s Word is enough. O take it; rest upon it. Remember, thou dishonourest God when thou wantest any other evidence except his naked word. What would you, dear friends, think of this in your own case? You promise your child a present, and he wants evidences. You tell him that you love him, and he wants you to call to him somebody else to bear witness to it. Shame on your naughty child, or else there must be something ill about yourself. Now, as we cannot lay the blame on our heavenly Father, who is too wise to err, too good to be unkind, shame on us that we should be saying we want something else to make us believe God’s Word. O beloved, let us believe him when we cannot see it; and if we do not feel that we are saved, let us believe the word which says we are, seeing it is the word of Christ. I like that in Martin Luther. He says the devil said to him once, “Martin, do you feel that you are saved?” “No, I do not,” said he, “but I am quite as sure of it as if I did; get thee behind me, Satan!” And that is the true way to do. Do you feel that you are saved? No, I do not expect to feel it; it is a matter of belief. I trust my Lord and Master. It is very sweet to get feeling; but Mr. Live-by-feeling, as you well remember, according to John Bunyan, was a Diabolian, and got hanged. I wish he had been hanged to better purpose, for he still lives about these parts. If you live by feeling, it is miserable living. It is poverty sometimes, and riches at others. But if you live by faith upon the Son of God, who loved you, and gave himself for you, that is blessed living! O for grace to do this, not to see to believe, but to believe to see! Put believing first, and repentance, sanctification, evidences, and all else, will come afterwards.

6. I shall not weary you, I hope, if I mention that there are some who say they cannot trust Christ, cannot believe his affirmation that they are saved, because they do not feel more love to him. They are like a child who should say, “I do not believe my father’s word, because I do not feel so much love to him as I ought to do.” Oh! but, my child, if you believed your father’s word, a true and good love would come as the consequence. And, sinner, whilst thou art saying, “I cannot believe because I cannot love,” thou art putting things altogether out of gear. That is neither God’s method nor the way of wisdom at all. Go thou, and believe thy Father, and then thou shalt feel a flame of love within thy heart which thou hast never known before.

7. But another one says, “I could believe that I was saved if I had more of likeness to Christ about me.” Here again, you see, Christ has said, “He that believeth hath everlasting life;” and you say, “No, Lord, I do not agree with that, I believe that he that is like Christ hath everlasting life, and I cannot see that I am like him, though I once hoped I should be; and therefore I cannot think that I am saved.” That is to say, Christ and you differ in opinion, and you set your “No” up against Christ’s “Yes.” Oh! down, down, down with your proud “No,” and just take this sweet assurance, that “He that believeth on him is not condemned.” Now, here is a man who has been cutting a seal and making your crest, but when you come to stamp your letters with it, you find that the impression is very bad, that it is not your crest at all. You cannot make out what it is. It may be a griffin, but it is not at all like one. Well, what will you do? Will you try to polish up your wax, and so make the impression like what you wanted it to be? Would it not be a great deal wiser if you were to get the seal altered? Would not that set it all right directly? If you were to send the seal back to the man who cut the die, and get him to make the seal properly, would not the stamp then be right? Now, how do we get likeness to Christ? Why, it is faith which puts the stamp there, and instead of saying, “The impression upon my character is not like Christ, therefore I must try to alter it,” my dear friend, think about your faith; go to Christ, and through him get your faith altered; and when the stamp is set to rights, then the impression will be perfect. There is no holiness, no true holiness apart from faith. It is not by doubting that we come to be holy. I never could overcome a sin by saying, “I am afraid I am not a child of God.” The devil knows this, and consequently whenever he can get us alone, he always begins with this, “If thou be the Son of God.” He did this with our Lord, and if he could have led our Lord to doubt whether he was God’s Son, we know not what might have come of it, for certainly when he gets us to doubt whether we are children of God, then we very soon glide into other sins. But when we can say to him, “Now, Satan, I am not ignorant of thy devices; I know thou art about to tell me of my unfaithfulness and of my great sin; I know all that, but the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s dear Son, cleanseth me from all sin; thou mayst paint me as black as thyself, and blacker too, if so it pleases thee, and I will stand out that it is true; but then I will remind thee that Christ has said, ‘I have blotted out thy sins like a cloud, and like a thick cloud thy transgressions.’ ” Why, you are more than a match for the devil then!

O brethren, let us take Christ’s word as we find it. I bring you back to the story I told you about the emperor and the soldier; and seeing he has said that we are saved, let us believe we are. If we have nothing else to prove it, let us stand to it before angels and devils, the assembled courts of heaven and of hell, all joined together, and say, “I have God’s word for it, and I would put God’s word even before an angel’s word; if Christ has said I am saved, then I am saved; if he has declared that the believer hath eternal life, I do believe; I do trust in Jesus, and therefore I have eternal life, and I cannot perish; neither can any one pluck me out of Christ’s hands.” Now, that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I would to God you had grace to receive it! I pray that every one of us may be brought to depend upon the veracity of God and the merit of Jesus, and then, believing to see, instead of seeing to believe, we shall be sustained, and comforted, and greatly blessed.

And now I have a few directions to give to more advanced believers upon the same subject.

Beloved in the Lord, the whole course of the Christian’s life must be believing to see. We walk by faith, and not by sight. I hope the day may soon come when the noble example which has been set by our esteemed brother, Mr. Müller, of Bristol, will be more constantly followed in all the Lord’s work; for, rest assured, that if we will but believe to see, we shall see great things. I cannot forbear mentioning to you to-night what God has enabled us to see of late as a church. We met together one Monday night, as you will remember, for prayer concerning the Orphanage, and it was not a little remarkable that, on the Saturday of that week, God should have moved some friend, who knew nothing of our prayers, to give five hundred pounds to that object. It astonished some of you that, on the following Monday, God should have moved another to give six hundred pounds! When I told you of that at the next prayer meeting, you did not think, perhaps, that God had something else in store, and that the following Tuesday another friend came with five hundred pounds! It was just the same in the building of this house. We were a few and poor people when we commenced, but still we moved on by faith, and never went into debt. We trusted in God, and the house was built, to the eternal honour of the God who hears and answers prayer. And, mark you, it will be so in the erection of this Orphan House. We shall see greater things than these if only our faith will precede our sight. But if we go upon the old custom of our general societies, and first look out for regular income, and get our subscribers, and send round our collectors, and pay our percentages-that is, do not trust God, but trust our subscribers-if we go on that rule, we shall see very little, and have no room for believing. But if we shall just trust God, and believe that God never did leave a work that he put us upon, and never sets us to do a thing without meaning to help us through with it, we shall soon see that the God of Israel lives, and that his arm is not shortened that he cannot save, neither is his ear heavy that he cannot hear. Brethren, let us recollect Israel when they came to the Red Sea. There it was a roaring, billowy sea; but they were bidden to march through it, and they did march; and though the waters roared before them fiercely, yet so soon as the priests’ feet touched the flood, the depths stood upright on a heap, and the waters were congealed in the heart of the sea. And so shall it be with you, brethren, and with your faith. Believe in God, and face your difficulties, and they shall fly before you. Then, recollect the Egyptians. They essayed to do the same thing. They thought, “Oh! that is all right; we will do as these have done before us.” But notice, they said this because all their difficulties had been cleared away. There was the Red Sea all dry before them. Any fool could march through there! But, unfortunately, while faith can march through a sea dry-shod, unbelief only begins to march when it is all dry, and presently, unbelief gets drowned. Unbelief wants to see, and God strikes it blind. Faith does not want to see, and God opens its eyes, and it sees God, ever present to help and deliver it. Now, you who are working for Christ, and you who are troubled in your business, you who are in any way exercised, remember the life of faith. Remember that you are not called to walk by sight, but by faith. Like David, believe to see, and great shall be your joy.

Now, beloved Christian brethren, the same thing must happen in our inward conflicts. If we want to grow in grace, we shall not do so by humbling ourselves, as we call it. The way to make advances in divine life, is to believe that you can only grow in grace by God’s Spirit; to believe that since Jesus Christ is yours, all things are yours. My brother, have you a bad temper? You will never overcome that temper by saying, “I cannot overcome it;” but if, by faith, you are able to say, “I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me,” you will overcome it yet. No sin is ever slain by your saying, “Oh! it is my disposition; it is natural to me.” I know it is, and all manner of wickedness is natural to us, but you have to rest upon a supernatural arm; you are a twice-born man. You are a new creature, and you must not sit down in peace in any form of sin, but believe that you can overcome it by the power of your faith, and of the Holy Spirit that is in you. Believe, in order to see yourselves growing in grace; believe, to see yourselves conquering sin, in the name of Christ, and you shall do so.

And again, with regard to our perplexities in doctrines and matters of faith, you must apply the same rule. Believe first, and then you will see the truth as it is in Jesus. How often the Christian comes across a passage of Scripture which seems to be dark and mysterious. He cannot for a time understand its preciousness, nor behold its beauty; but though he cannot see the golden ore, he knows that it is there; and, like one that searches for gold amidst the nuggets of quartz where it is embedded, in due time he will be enriched. It will not do to cast it away because nothing at present is seen; for ere long the full value of it shall be known. The Christian drinks water from a well which is deep, and nothing but Faith’s long line can reach down so as to draw the living water. It is no surface supply which will do for us: down deep in the depths of God’s spiritual truths, where no hand of reason can reach, we can let down our faith, and the clear, fresh water will be drawn up to refresh our thirsty souls. If ever you are in a difficulty, bring faith to bear upon the truth first, and you will understand and see afterwards. It depends upon which end of the telescope you use first and put to your eye, how much you will see of the landscape; and the lengths and breadths of truth are only discovered when faith is first of all brought into exercise.

Remember, moreover, my beloved brethren, that our only safeguard in times of prosperity is to exercise faith beforehand. Our text says, “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Expect great things from God, work for them, and believe that God intends to do good to you. David was not taken by surprise when he saw God’s goodness. He had always believed in it; and when the full tide of divine beneficence met his view he was not overcome, for he always, by faith, comprehended it. You, my brother, now high up in the mount, still let your faith lead your eye upwards, and you will not grow giddy and fall. Walk by faith, and you will find yourself safe alike in trouble and in joy. In the night of adversity it will be as a pillar of fire to give you light, and in the day-time it will refresh you with its sheltering shade all through the wilderness. Believe, and you shall see, without fainting, “the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

And once more, beloved, we are on our journey to the skies. We are on our way to heaven, and if we want to have a foretaste of it, how shall we get it? We must not believe in heaven only because we have had enjoyments on the road-we must believe that there is a heaven because God has promised it, and we must go after it because the Word declares there is a great reward; and there, if we believe to see, we shall, even in this life, soon see something of that which we have believed.

Brethren and sisters, we are to-night like Columbus in search of the New World. Eye hath not seen it, ear hath not heard it; but we believe in it, and in our frail vessels we have launched, leaving the world behind us. Unbelief sometimes tells us that there is no goodly country, no land of life-unending, no city of the blessed, no haven of peace, no “Jerusalem the golden.” We have never seen it, but we believe in it. God has said it in his word-“There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God.” Therefore, up with all sail! Steersman, hold to the wheel! We are bound for another and a better land. We have no abiding city on that shore which we have left. If we were mindful of it, we might return to it; but we have left it once for all, and we are now steering for the land which eye hath not seen. And you know what happened to Columbus. It is happening to some here-to some of my grey-headed brethren and sisters. Ah! and young as I am, I also know something of that which I am about to describe. When Columbus was drawing near to the shores of America, though he could not see the land, yet he marked the land-birds flying round and round the masts, and lighting upon the cordage of the vessels, and he pointed up and said, “That is a bird that is not seen far out at sea; there is land somewhere!” His companions had been ready to throw him overboard, and make back for Spain; but they thought better of it now. And by-and-by there came floating along weeds and branches, of land produce, and they said, “Ah! after all, the old-fashioned navigator is right. We shall come to the land of gold!” Now, sometimes God gives us blessed foretastes, happy earnests, delightful tokens, that there is a better land, till some of us, having believed to see, are almost come to see. I envy some of my dear friends who have been long in the divine life, and are getting grey, because I know that the angels often bring them bundles from the hills of myrrh, and make glad their spirits with tastes of the wines on the lees well refined, which are reserved for the feasts of the immortals when they sit down in the banqueting halls of the Eternal, and see the King in his beauty, and bask in the vision of his glory. Oh! let us go on, we who are younger, who have scarce begun the voyage, knowing that all is well. Storms may toss us about; waves may dash against our prow; the billows may seem as if about to swallow us up. But our fathers have gained the beach. Their caravels, like those of Columbus, are drawn up on yonder shore. They are safe and blessed. Hark! We can almost hear their song. Their “Hallelujah! hallelujah! hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!” might almost be heard even here, were not this earth so full of noise, were not the whirl of the wheels of business so incessant. Let us, then, O let us believe to see, and we shall soon see it, and glorify him who taught us so to believe. May God bless you, dear friends, very richly in this believing to see, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-John 3:14-36.

THE ECHO

A Sermon

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at surrey chapel, blackfriar’s road.

“When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.”-Psalm 27:8.

This ready response to a divine call may be looked at in three ways. It may be said of it, first, that it is the natural duty of man to God, such as his responsibility to his Creator demands. I should not like to think it necessary to prove that statement in this assembly. Surely, when God creates a man, it is but a matter of right that the man created should answer to the call of his Maker. When the Creator saith, “Seek ye my face,” it is the natural duty of the creature to reply, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” And the more is this so, because our Creator renews our obligations hourly, by exercising his sustaining power, and maintaining our existence. In a certain sense we are “created” every day, because the creature would go back to its native nothingness, our bodies would return to the dust, and our spirits would expire, if it were not for a continued action of divine omnipotence, by which we are retained in being. Being, therefore, every day, dependent upon the Preserver of men, it is but an every-day obligation that when God saith, “Seek ye my face,” the daily debtor should cheerfully reply, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” If any should say that this is not a duty on such grounds, I would reply that the commands of God are always so good, and so reasonable, that it must be the duty of man to obey them. If it were possible for the Most High to command anything unrighteous, or unreasonable, the question of his claims might be raised; but since what the word of God commands is always most to our interest, at once the wisest and the best thing that we could possibly do, it becomes the duty of a rational and an intelligent being to follow the wise, loving, and tender counsels of the great God; and when his heavenly Father bids him seek his face, he should readily answer, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.”

But, while I am quite sure that this is the case, and dare never say otherwise, yet, although prompt obedience be a duty, wherever it exists, it is a work of the Holy Spirit. There never was a mere man in this world, since the days of Adam, who ever did heartily make the reply mentioned in the text unless the Holy Ghost made him willing so to do in the day of God’s power. We do not excuse those who are disobedient; but if any be obedient, the glory of their obedience must be given to the Holy Spirit, who worketh all our works in us, and maketh us both to will and to do of the Lord’s good pleasure. We are quite certain that in our own case this was so, for the Lord said unto us, “Seek ye my face,” hundreds and thousands of times, in our infancy, in his own word, both when we read it, and when we heard it preached, but we would not reply to the demand of God, but set our faces, like a flint, and went on after our own devices; but when he spoke effectually, with that still small voice of the Holy Spirit, which penetrates the soul, enlightens the understanding, sweetly bows the will, constrains the affections, and changes the nature, then it was, but never till then, that we said “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” We heartily join in Mr. Bonar’s sweet verses-

“All that I was, my sin, my guilt,

My death, was all mine own;

All that I am, I owe to thee,

My gracious God, alone.

The evil of my former state

Was mine, and only mine;

The good in which I now rejoice

Is thine, and only thine.

The darkness of my former state,

The bondage-all was mine;

The light of life in which I walk,

The liberty-is thine.”

And, therefore, in the third place, we may always view such a spirit as our text indicates as being an evidence of election, an evidence of a saving interest in divine grace. How can we tell the Lord’s people? They are discovered by the Lord’s call. The call is general, and put in the plural, “Seek ye my face;” but the response to it is personal, put in the singular, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” This becomes, sooner or later, the answer of every chosen soul. Every one ordained unto eternal life receives, in due time, the new nature, and this living and incorruptible seed, hearing the gospel of its great Author, responds to it as an echo to the voice.

There is a very excellent image which is sometimes used to illustrate this truth. When our brave King Richard was shut up in prison, far away in Germany, you know how he was found out by Blondel, a troubadour. The king and the minstrel had composed a song between them. First the minstrel sang one verse, and then the king sang one, and no other man the whole world over knew what the verses were except the king and the minstrel. So the minstrel wandered through many realms, and sang the first verse of his song, sang it at all kinds of castle gates and dungeon doors, but there came no response, for the king was not within; but at the last, as providence would have it, he sang it in the right place, and faintly from within he heard from the deep dungeon the voice which knew, and could sing, the second verse, and as he sang the third, and the fourth came through the iron bars, he knew that the king was there, for the verses could have been sung by no other than he. I am sometimes occupied in preaching the gospel, and I preach it to thousands who give no response: there is no evidence of the Lord’s having chosen them. But another time there is a heart that saith, “Thou sweat, ‘Seek ye my face;’ my reply is, ‘Thy face, Lord, will I seek.’ ” Then I have found out the Lord’s chosen ones, found out the hidden ones, discovered as many as were ordained unto eternal life, for their believing is the response to God’s gospel, and the evidence of their being the favourites of heaven. They, and they alone, thus believe. As for those who believe not, they perish in their sins; “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.”

Look, then, at the text, in these three ways. I should be happy if I felt that you would all accept it in these lights, for I find too much of chopping and choosing among Christians between this truth and that, and, by the Lord’s help, I am determined, so far as I know it, to pander to no man or set of men, but to hold myself ever free to preach every truth that I find in my Master’s book. You may call it Arminianism, or Calvinism, or whatever ism you like, yet, if it be in this book, you shall have to account for it at the last great day, whether you receive it or not. I say, again, then, that the obedience of the text is but the natural duty of man, but wherever it is carried out, it is by the work of the Spirit alone, and wherever it exists, it is an evidence of election, a proof of the indwelling of the grace of God in the soul.

But I intend to handle the text in another way, and shall endeavour to speak of the spirit of loving obedience to God’s word which this text breathes. I shall first say something upon the absence of that spirit; then upon the cultivation of that spirit; then upon a special outlet for that spirit; and, lastly, upon a reward for that spirit.

First, then, let me make a few remarks upon the absence of this spirit in so many persons.

Ah! my dear friends, it is mournful to think how few there are who can say, “When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek,” for the great mass of men, if they spoke honestly, would have to confess, “When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice? I know not the Lord, neither will I be obedient unto him.” With some of you now present this has mournfully been the case. There has been in your heart a total absence of every response to the divine word. It has come to you in all sorts of ways, till it might be asked, “What further can be done to you?” You heard it from a mother’s tender lips, and she spake it as no one else ever could have done. You had it after that in your own flesh, when through sickness you tossed on your bed. You had it afterwards from kind teachers, from earnest ministers. Some of you get a good word almost every day. The very glance of your wife is a loving, constant sermon. Some of you are not without sharp prickings of conscience-the stabbings of that sharp little dagger within your soul that would fain slay your sins. But, for all this, there has been no answer to God’s call. You have lived for vanity, if not for sin. You are neglecting the great salvation. He saith, “Seek ye my face.” It is the cry of all these houses of prayer which are open every Sabbath, “Seek ye my face;” but your answer has been, “I will seek anything but the face of God.

And this has been continued with some of you. Oh! that I should have to put this so seriously! You have done this, not a week-a week is a long time for a sinful creature to hold out against God-but you have done this, not for a week, but for months, ay, and even for years. A year is a long time for a child to hold out against its father. How few monarchs can keep their patience with a besieged city for twelve or fourteen years: “No,” say they, “we will drag each stone from its place, and hang every burgess in the city by the neck.” Their patience soon grows cold, and their wrath waxes hot. But God has laid siege to some of you by the instrumentality of the gospel, for thirty, forty, fifty, sixty-did the little bird say seventy years?-and all the time you have continued to give God the negative. And while the demands of friends, and the requests of kindred, have been complied with, that wonderful word, “Seek ye my face,” has received from you nothing but the cold reply, “With God I will have nothing to do.” “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me! The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” Oh! wonder of deep ingratitude-man, year after year turns a deaf ear to the sweet commands of grace!

Now, in some of you, this cold negative has been disturbed a little, but not broken. Perhaps, from this very pulpit, some of you have heard appeals which have considerably shaken you. Many of us, before conversion, were frequently the subjects of impressions, and some of you unconverted ones are not long without them. Christ has knocked at your door, and you have heard his voice again and again. You are not long without such knocks. Christ has often knocked. He stands at the door and knocks, as the Scripture says. He does not knock and walk on, but he stands at the door and knocks. The knocks have been repeated and continued, and you have frequently but falsely said, “I will open.” You have vowed that you would change and turn. Shall all those vows be registered against you, and those resolutions help to increase your doom, being evidence of your trifling with God, and attempting to deceive the omniscient One? O sinner, how much has been done for thee? What more can be done for thee, vain man? What more shall be done for thee, careless woman? It is useless that you should be stricken any more-you will revolt more and more. You have suffered and you have smarted, till your whole head is sick and your whole heart faint, and God’s rod has made you to smart till you are full of wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores; but still you do not turn. I have this much to say to you, and then I shall have to leave you to go to another part of the text. There is in this Book a very terrible passage, which I commend to you who have hitherto declined to accede to the divine word: you will find it in the first chapter of the Proverbs, at the twenty-fourth verse, “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord: they would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.” That is the voice of God to you, sinner, you who have said, “I will not serve the Lord.” Take that bitter morsel and masticate it. Roll it over again and again, till you have got the very quassia and bitterness out of it. O may God make your sins as bitter as the judgment upon your sins! May the blessed Spirit lead you to the cross of Christ, for you never will yield to the cross of Christ unless the Holy Ghost constrains you. O that you may “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way”-the worst place to perish in-to perish in the way and from the way, “when his wrath is kindled but a little.” Now, I will read the text again, and if any of you feel that its ready obedience is not found in you, that its joyful conformity to God does not in any way describe you, you need not listen to the rest of the sermon, but just cover your faces, and may God help you to pray, and then, I trust, before the sermon is done, you will get an answer to your prayer. “When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” Lord, if I cannot say that, break my heart now with thy great hammer, and help me to yield myself up to thy will, that I may be thine now and thine eternally.

Now, leaving that-not forgetting it in our hearts though, for I trust we shall continue praying God to bless that short word to the unconverted-I now come to talk to the believer about the cultivation of a constant spirit of obedience to the lord’s will.

My dear friends and brethren in Christ, will you please to notice in the text two or three points which I want you to attend to, and will you labour, by the help of God’s Spirit, to get your spirits up to them? The first point is, notice the universality of this spirit of obedience in the text. David says, “When thou saidst, Seek ye my face.” He does not mention any time. Notice, “When thou saidst.” If it was early in the morning, his heart said, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek; I want thee, for I have the day before me.” If it was at midday, and the Spirit of God said, “Seek ye my face,” David’s heart said, “O Lord, I will seek thee; I want thee now that the sun is scorching.” If it was towards evening, and the voice said, “Seek ye my face,” he said, “Ah! Lord, the day is far spent; I may well seek thy face now.” And if it were in the dead of night, when he awoke, his heart was still with God, and still ready to hear the divine word. “When thou saidst, then I said; when thou commandedst, I obeyed; when thou calledst effectually, I yielded cheerfully.” Oh! what a mercy it would be if every believer’s heart were in this state, so that we should not be sometimes obedient, and sometimes have our own way-sometimes respond to the divine voice, and at other times put our fingers in our ears; but to be in so sanctified a frame of mind that whenever the Master comes to us, whether at cock-crowing, or at the evening-watch, he may find us with our loins girt about, willing to go forth in his service. The text, you see, breathes the true spirit of service. It shows a mind that was constantly under divine influences, perpetually subject to the divine will. The magnetic needle always desires the pole: the Christian’s heart should always desire communion with God. The rivers run into the sea-their waters continually flow into the mighty ocean; so let our souls, by the stress of their new nature, continually be seeking conformity to the divine will. Oh! it is easy to say it, but it is hard to do it, when it comes to the pinch. To say, “Thy will be done,” on the top of Tabor, is as easy as possible, but to say it in the gloom of Gethsemane, is so difficult, that none but God himself can enable us to say it. And yet, it may be attained: entire resignation is within reach-for all things are possible to him that believeth. Let us seek it with the fulness of intense desire.

“Jesus, spotless Lamb of God,

Thou hast bought me with Thy blood,

I would value nought beside

Jesus-Jesus crucified.

I am thine, and thine alone,

This I gladly, fully own;

And, in all my works and ways,

Only now would seek Thy praise.”

Next to the universality, I would draw your attention to the promptness of the spirit of obedience expressed in the text. “When thou saidst, then I said.” He did not ask questions. He did not stop to say, “Lord, when shall I do it? How shall I do it? Where shall I do it?” No, but “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” Beware of a questioning spirit in plain matters of duty-to delay to fulfil a conviction is to abide in sin; the Lord’s command is not to be cavilled at, but to be obeyed at once. We find not cavilling here, much less do we find any objection. There are no objections about himself, the work, or its difficulties, but at once, and on the spot, he acts as with the prompt movement of a soldier when commanded by his officer. The word is no sooner heard than the mind is swayed by it, when the mind is under the sweet influences of divine love. The gospel according to Mark is regarded by some students as being peculiarly the gospel of service. It is said that in the early church, the emblem for Mark was an ox, to signify service; and it is very singular, whether that be so or not, that the evangelist Mark uses the word eutheos, or “straightway,” more frequently than any of the other evangelists when he is speaking of Christ. If you will notice, Mark always says, “Straightway,” or “immediately;” as, for instance, in the very first chapter, “And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: and immediately the spirit driveth him into the wilderness.… And when he had gone a little farther thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets. And straightway he called them.” This is the very mark of the true servant-when he knows his Lord’s will, he gives himself to it at once. As the centurion said, “I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it,” so should it be with us. There should be a prompt response at once to the divine will. Do you always find it so? Does not God have to speak to some of us many times, and to put a bit into our mouth, and a very sharp and cutting one too, and tug at the reins a long while? ay, and take to the whip, too, before he can get us to be as we should be? “Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose month must be held in with bit and bridle;” but seek, my brethren-this is what I am driving at-seek to cultivate a spirit of prompt obedience to the Lord’s will. Take the advice of Mary, which she gave to the guests at Cana’s feast, “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” Whatever be the word, follow it in the strength of God at once, and without delay. There is a little story told of an infant class being examined by its teacher. The text to be thought about was, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and the teacher said to one little girl, “How is that, my dear? How do they do God’s will in heaven?” One said, “They do God’s will in heaven always, sir.” “That is well, but what next?” “They all do it; they all do it cheerfully, sir.” The next one said, “Please sir, they do it directly,” and the next, “They do it without asking any questions.” Good answers certainly, and that is how we should do the Lord’s will; and so make a heaven of this poor earth. O that our lagging feet were winged with sanctified alacrity, our obstinate necks made pliant with hallowed submission, our wavering hearts confirmed in constant holiness! This is one of the noblest works of the Spirit of holiness-may he make our nature the seat of so transcendent a miracle, so glorious a change!

Observe, that next to universality and promptness, we are bound to note the personality of David’s reply. “Thou saidst, Seek ye my face;” that was the command to all thy people, but, “Thy face Lord will I seek,” was the personal reply of the waiting servant of God. Egotism is, no doubt, a very bad thing when it means self-conceit, self-seeking, self-confidence, self-laudation; but egoism in the sense of realising one’s own individual responsibility is a most desirable virture. We need two words-egotism to signify that vice which admires and loves itself, and is thoroughly detestable; and then egoism, which determines that self shall be obedient, and pure, and firm, whatever others may be: this to be cultivated daily. Look at good old Joshua, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Oh! it is a grand thing to see a man forcing his way up the stream, struggling with manful vigour against the general current, swimming as live fish will do, against the stream, not floating down it as the dead fish does, but saying, “Let the world take its way; I take mine.” “I, Athanasius, against the world,” said that brave old confessor; and so must we say sometimes, “I, I will seek thy face, Lord-let others do as they will.” Let us not be so attentive to other people’s vineyards that our own vineyard is not kept. Whatever else we neglect, let our own personal godliness be the object of our sedulous care. Let our heart be sound in the statutes of Jehovah, let us see that our own garments are kept unspotted from the world, and that in our pilgrim life we keep the very centre of the road. True religion must begin at home. Unless we ourselves are in good condition, our Christian efforts cannot be healthily conducted. Depend upon it, the worm at the root of our usefulness is bred amidst the decay of our personal piety. When you and I lose power in the family, power in the church, power in the world, it is because we have lost power with God in private. The Lord give us the habit and spirit of close, consistent, careful, conscientious personal obedience.

Then, too, the heartiness of David’s obedience demands our attention. “My heart said,” not my lips only, but my very heart said it; my soul was stirred to its depths, and moved to its centre by the voice of God. Men who have great hearts are the men for power; they are full of force, because their inmost nature is on fire. There have been some men in this world who have had little else to recommend them except that by which they have attracted their fellow men to yield them homage-like Napoleon Buonaparte, for instance, when he said to his soldiers at Austerlitz, “Soldiers, this battle must be a thunder-clap; we must hear no more of the foe.” And the men, filled with eagerness by his passionate energy, did his bidding, and made it such a thunder-clap that all Europe shook beneath the march of those men-at-arms. He had the power, somehow or other, of making men yield to him, as if they were all machines, impelled by the force or his personal will. They were not dragged into battle, but rushed with enthusiasm to the fight, longing to win glory or death. Now, the voice of God should be to the Christian a voice that speaks to all his soul, wakes up his dormant faculties, and stirs the enthusiasm of his noblest nature, so that his heart says, “I will indeed seek thy face.” As the British sailor, when Nelson said to him, “Ready?” replied, “Ready, ay, ready,” and fired red-hot shot at the foe, so should our hearts respond to God, “Seek ye my face.” “Lord, blessed be thy name for telling me to do that, for thou and I are of one mind here; thou lovest me to seek thy face, and I love to seek thee; my heart responds-not my lip, not my body, dragged slavishly into the form of obedience-but my heart says, ‘Thy face, Lord, will I seek.’ ” Dear friends, do get, do hold, do live out a hearty religion. Depend upon it, that the religion which has not your heart in it, is best left alone. I scarce can recommend you to go through religious performances if you look upon them as a dull routine. Do let your souls be in the ways of God. If ever you have a happy feast, let it be on the Sabbath; if ever there is a delightful walk, let it lead up to God’s house; if ever there is a sweet song, let it be one of the songs of Zion; if ever there is a choice, retired, happy moment, let it be the moment which you spend in your closet in communion with God. O for more heart-work in our devotions!

Once more, cultivate the spirit of resolution in this matter. “Lord, thy face will I seek;” not “I hope I shall; I trust I may; I desire to; I sometimes think that one day I shall.” No, but “My heart said, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” Men do not grow much better in this world by hoping that they will. If a man does not get so far as resolution, he may reckon that he has not started upon his journey. The Christian man resolves in his soul-

“Through floods and flames, if Jesus leads,

I’ll follow where he goes.”

And if he cannot always carry out his resolution as he would, yet oftentimes his Master accepts the will for the deed. To use John Bunyan’s homely metaphor, “You send your servant for a doctor, and put him on the horse: the horse is but a sorry jade, and cannot go fast; but if the man tugs at the bridle, and uses the spur, and kicks and strains as if he would go if he could, you set the pace down as what the man would have it to be. You do not blame him for not going faster, because you clearly perceive that he would go fast if he could. So the Lord often looketh upon his servants, and regardeth them.” But what shall I say to those who would not go if they could, who do not say, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek;” but who hope, and who trust, and so on? which means that they will give God the go-by with mere hopes and fears, and trusts, instead of the strong resolution-“Thy face, Lord, will I seek;” in the teeth of all my natural sluggishness, in the face of all my business cares, I am resolved and set on this, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” Cultivate, then, a spirit of universal response to the divine word-prompt, personal, hearty, and resolved.

Before I leave this point-and then I will not detain you long with the rest-I cannot help thinking on an image which keeps starting up to my mind while I am speaking. In the usual route which everybody takes in going through Switzerland, there is a long tract of country where there are innumerable beggars and people trying in various ways to get money from the traveller; and one way which generally succeeds, is that of blowing an enormous horn just opposite to certain rocks. As soon as this horn is blown, the rocks resound on either side, repeat the note exactly, and then again, and again, and again; sometimes, perhaps, twelve or twenty times the echoes take up the notes and prolong them, producing some of the sweetest effects that ever charmed the human ear-“Linked sweetnesses long drawn out.” You want the boy to blow again; and as he blows another blast, and gives intonations and notes to it, the rocks begin to sing again. Those rocks reminded me, as I stood and listened to their sweet notes, of God’s people. Ah! I thought, you could not sing if it were not for the horn; you could not make any of these sweet notes if it were not for the living breath that is here; but you are so placed by God in his arrangements, that so soon as the sound is made by the living mouth, it is taken up and repeated, sweet, and sweet, and sweeter still each time. Thus should all the people of God be, so that when the Lord speaks, all the Lord’s people should take up the echo, and repeat it again and again by practical obedience to the divine command. As the echo to the voice, so should your heart and mine be to the voice of God.

But, now, thirdly. We have spoken of the absence of this spirit, and the cultivation of this spirit, and now a word or two upon the special outlet for this spirit suggested in the text.

The outlet suggested is seeking God’s face, which I shall interpret to mean meditation, and especially the private and public worship of God. Now, you who love the Lord, you are all day long hearing God say, “Seek ye my face.” When the morning light awakens you, it is God saying, “Up, my child; the light natural streams from the sun: come and seek the light spiritual; seek my face.” If you wake to abundant mercies, why, all the provisions on the table ought to say to you, “I am God’s gift to you; seek the face of the Giver;” go to him with a note of praise; be not ungrateful, and suppose that you are in want, and have to say, “What shall I eat, and what shall I drink,” while all your wants say to you, “Seek the Lord’s face; he has provision, go to him.” Your abundance or your necessity may equally be a sign-post to point you on the road to God. Suppose your child comes and asks you for something: it is God teaching you to do the same-to go like a child to your heavenly Father. If you are full of joy, should not your joy be like the chariots of Amminadib, to bear you to Jesus’ feet? And if you are full of grief, should not your sorrow be as a swift ship that is blown by the winds? Should you not get nearer to God thereby? During the day, perhaps you hear of the fall of some professor: what does that say to you? “Seek God’s face, that you may be held up.” Perhaps you hear a sinner swear: what does that say to you, but “Pray for that sinner”? All the sins we see other men commit, ought to be so many jogs to our memory to pray for the coming of Christ, and for the salvation of souls. In this way you may go through the world; and the very stones in the street will say to you, “Seek ye the Lord’s face.” If you meet a funeral, what does that say? “You will soon be dying; seek the Lord’s face now.” And when the Sabbath comes, what a call is that-“Seek ye my face!” Brethren and sisters, I wish that we responded to each one of these invitations of our heavenly Father. His likeness is stamped in some of its lineaments on all his works. By the visible things of God the invisible things are to be discovered. Go forth, like Isaac, and meditate at eventide, and you will find the heavens declaring his glory, and the firmament showing forth his handiwork. The lilies of the field will tell you of one who has hidden his wisdom in the raiment which decks them more brilliantly than Solomon in all his glory. As the Master himself often retired for meditation and prayer to the mountain side and the garden’s shade, that alone with his Father he might seek the face of his God, so let us leave awhile the busy scenes of life and the haunts of men, to spend a still hour in quiet meditation over the works of God’s hands, and in pouring out our hearts into his ever-loving breast. How much we lose by not noticing a God in nature, and the presence of our Father besetting us behind and before! I would we were more in prayer. I long for it for myself-I desire it for you also. I wish we were more in praise too. Well would it be for us if the blessings of God, poured out upon us so lavishly, excited in us true gratitude at all times. Happy would that man be who responded to each touch of God’s beneficent hand, like a well-made instrument answers to the fingers of the player. If our whole life were thus vocal with praise, the music of our grateful souls would come up with acceptance before God, and we should find in our joyful spirits a continual feast; this joy of the Lord would be our strength-we should have a meat to eat which the world knoweth not of. O that our days were more filled up with what will be our heavenly occupation, namely, adoring love, grateful wonder, thankful praise. As God is so continually saying to us, “Seek ye my face,” let our spirit find vent for itself in this, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.”

Have you a marginal Bible with you? If so, kindly read the margin. It runs thus, “My heart said unto thee, Let my face seek thy face.” Ah! there is a new meaning there, and a blessed meaning too. Let me read it again, “My heart said unto thee, Let my face seek thy face.” I suppose that is the more literal, probably the more accurate rendering; and I gathered from that, the thought of the reward of those whose spirits yield to the will of God, that is to say, they enjoy communion with God. It is the long-lost blessedness of Eden restored to us, with greater sweetness added to it. In paradise God came and talked with Adam as a man talketh with his friend. Our first parents had communion with God, which they lost by sin, but it is now more than restored to us in grace. Heaven will be the place of perfect fellowship; but we may antidate much of the bliss of the future world, and eat of the grapes of Eshcol, before ever we tread the green fields of the better land. Yes, it means lost blessings restored, and future ones realised, when we can set ourselves face to face with God, and hold blest communion with him. Now, is this the life we are leading? Many Christians contrive to live without getting into the heart of Christianity at all. In the wilderness the children of Israel dwelt round the tabernacle, each tribe marching or resting in its appointed place. Now, they were all under the protection of the cloud, and followed the guiding pillar, and enjoyed the divine blessing; but this was not enough-they might enter, and were bound to do so, the precincts of the tabernacle, and there witness the worship of God, and, bringing their sacrifice, take part also in the homage paid to their God and King. Beyond the outer court of the people, was that of the priests, and there the favoured few might go, and present the incense before God on the altar of gold, spread before him the shewbread, and light the seven-branched lamp. These enjoyed nearer fellowship with God: emphatically they were called the “servants of the Lord.” There was, however, an inner place, shut out from eye of priest and people alike, where once a year the high priest entered alone, with blood, and he of all men living, drew nigh to God who dwelt between the cherubim in the holy place. Now, we are a royal priesthood, and through the rent vail we have boldness of access to the very mercy-seat in the holiest of holies, and we ought to realise and enjoy daily our high privilege. Far be it from us to remain in the camp outside the tabernacle. It is true we may be safe there, and enjoy many mercies, but it is not living up to our blessings. Go into the court and present your offering of prayer and praise; go as a priest and enter the inner place, and stay not till you have trodden the secret place of the Most High, and lace to face with God upon the mercy-seat, had real dealings with him himself. This is your right, and to neglect it is to despise one of the choicest blessings conferred by God on fallen, but now in Christ redeemed ones. Let your hearts ever cry:-

“Lord, let me see thy beauteous face!

It yields a heaven below;

And angels round the throne will say,

’Tis all the heaven they know.

“A glimpse-a single glimpse of thee,

Would more delight my soul

Than this vain world, with all its joys,

Could I possess the whole.”

But we find in the text another thought of blessedness. On our face is reflected the likeness of God, so that men see our good works and glorify our Father which is in heaven. We by communion with God may become manifestly like him, partakers of the divine nature. As men, we were made in God’s likeness: we fell and lost it; but by grace we are restored. How shall I illustrate this? Why, there is Moses. Moses on the Mount for forty days sees God, and when he comes down, the result, as shown in his face, is, that his face shines. How could it be otherwise? God had been shining right into his face, and he could not but reflect that delightful glory. That is the meaning, I suppose, of the passage, “Being changed from glory to glory, as by the image of the Lord.” It is our looking upon God, producing sanctification-the light of God shining into our faces till our faces also shine with the reflected glory. “Let my face seek thy face.”

Ah! beloved, I could say some things I scarcely like to say about that text; for it looks not only as if the saints said to God, “Lord, look at me, and let me look at thee; show me thy face, and do thou look at my face; Lord, let us spend our time and our eternity in lovingly looking at each other;” but I wish the saint to understand that there is another way in which our face seeks Christ’s face. It is thus expressed by the spouse, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine”-when the soul of the saint and the heart of the well-beloved fall into such visible union with each other that the conjugal kiss is given, and they come into the fullest, nearest, ripest, richest, and most celestial fellowship that can be known this side heaven.

“Like some bright dream that comes unsought,

When slumbers o’er me roll,

Thine image ever fills my thought,

And charms my ravish’d soul.”

And again, as Dr. Watts has well put it,

“The smilings of Thy face,

How amiable they are!

’Tis heaven to rest in Thine embrace,

And nowhere else but there.

“Thou art the sea of love,

Where all my pleasures roll;

The circle where my passions move,

And centre of my soul.”

May you and I often have in our hearts that panting, that longing, that sighing, that crying after fulness of fellowship with Jesus, our hearts always saying, “Lord, let my face seek thy face; let my face never be satisfied till it sees thy face; let my love never be satisfied till it is lost in the ocean of thy love; let myself never be content till self is wholly lost in the all-absorbing love of divine Immanuel.” O so may it be! Then so shall it be, if your heart now says, in answer to God’s voice, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.”

I hope you have not forgotten the first point, however, and what I said about the unconverted. Let them take their portion. God grant that by getting their portion to-night, they may not get their portion in the flames of hell. Then you believers get your portion also. Remember, the Lord’s portion is his people; and, on the other hand, “The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I trust in him.”

The Lord bless you for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Psalm 27.