Many in that crowd came together to behold the crucifixion of Jesus, in a condition of the most furious malice. They had hounded the Saviour as dogs pursue a stag, and at last, all mad with rage, they hemmed him in for death. Others, willing enough to spend an idle hour, and to gaze upon a sensational spectacle, swelled the mob until a vast assembly congregated around the little hill upon which the three crosses were raised. There unanimously, whether of malice or of wantonness, they all joined in mockery of the victim who hung upon the centre cross. Some thrust out the tongue, some wagged their heads, others scoffed and jeered, some taunted him in words, and others in signs, but all alike exulted over the defenceless man who was given as a prey to their teeth. Earth never beheld a scene in which so much unrestrained derision and expressive contempt were poured upon one man so unanimously and for so long a time. It must have been hideous to the last degree to have seen so many grinning faces and mocking eyes, and to have heard so many cruel words and scornful shouts. The spectacle was too detestable to be long endured of heaven. Suddenly the sun, shocked at the scene, veiled his face, and for three long hours the ribald crew sat shivering in midday midnight. Meanwhile the earth trembled beneath their feet, the rocks were rent, and the temple, in superstitious defence of whose perpetuity they had committed the murder of the just, had its holy veil rent as though by strong invisible hands. The news of this, and the feeling of horror produced by the darkness, and the earth-tremor, caused a revulsion of feelings; there were no more gibes and jests, no more thrustings out of the tongue and cruel mockeries, but they went their way solitary and alone to their homes, or in little silent groups, while each man alter the manner of Orientals when struck with sodden awe, smote upon his breast. Far different was the procession to the gates of Jerusalem from that march of madness which had come out therefrom. Observe the power which God hath over human minds! See how he can tame the wildest, and make the most malicious and proud to cower down at his feet when he doth but manifest himself in the wonders of nature! How much more cowed and terrified will they be when he makes bare his arm and comes forth in the judgments of his wrath to deal with them according to their deserts!

This sudden and memorable change in so vast a multitude is the apt representative of two other remarkable mental changes. How like it is to the gracious transformation which a sight of the cross has often worked most blessedly in the hearts of men! Many have come under the sound of the gospel resolved to scoff, but they have returned to pray. The idlest and even the basest motives have brought men under the preaching, but when Jesus has been lifted up, they have been savingly drawn to him, and as a consequence have smitten upon their breasts in repentance, and gone their way to serve the Saviour whom they once blasphemed. Oh, the power, the melting, conquering, transforming power of that dear cross of Christ! My brethren, we have but to abide by the preaching of it, we have but constantly to tell abroad the matchless story, and we may expect to see the most remarkable spiritual results. We need despair of no man now that Jesus has died for sinners. With such a hammer as the doctrine of the cross, the most flinty heart will be broken; and with such a fire as the sweet love of Christ, the most mighty iceberg will be melted. We need never despair for the heathenish or superstitious races of men; if we can but find occasion to bring the doctrine of Christ crucified into contact with their natures, it will yet change them, and Christ will be their king.

A second and most awful change is also foretold by the incident in our text, namely, the effect which a sight of Christ enthroned will have upon the proud and obstinate, who in this life rebelled against him. Here they fearlessly jested concerning him, and insultingly demanded, “Who is the Lord, that we should obey him?” Here they boldly united in a conspiracy to break his bands asunder, and cast his cords from them, but when they wake up at the blast of the trump, and see the great white throne, which, like a mirror, shall reflect their conduct upon them, what a change will be in their minds! Where now your quibs and your jests, where now your malicious speeches and your persecuting words? What! Is there not one among you who can play the man, and insult the Man of Nazareth to his face? No, not one! Like cowardly dogs, they slink away! The infidel’s bragging tongue is silent! The proud spirit of the atheist is broken; his blusterings and his carpings are hushed for ever! With shrieks of dismay, and clamorous cries of terror, they entreat the hills to cover them, and the mountains to conceal them from the face of that very Man whose cross was once the subject of their scorn. O take heed, ye sinners, take heed, I pray you, and be ye changed this day by grace, lest ye be changed by-and-by by terror, for the heart which will not be bent by the love of Christ, shall be broken by the terror of his name. If Jesus upon the cross do not save you, Christ on the throne shall damn you. If Christ dying be not your life, Christ living shall be your death. If Christ on earth be not your heaven, Christ coming from heaven shall be your hell. O may God’s grace work a blessed turning of grace in each of us, that we may not be turned into hell in the dread day of reckoning.

We shall now draw nearer to the text, and in the first place, analyse the general mourning around the cross; secondly, we shall, if God shall help us, endeavour to join in the sorrowful chorus; and then, ere we conclude, we shall remind you that at the foot of the cross our sorrow must be mingled with joy.

First, then, let us analyse the general mourning which this text describes.

“All the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned.” They all smote their breasts, but not all from the same cause. They were all afraid, not all from the same reason. The outward manifestations were alike in the whole mass, but the grades of difference in feeling were as many as the minds in which they ruled. There were many, no doubt, who were merely moved with a transient emotion. They had seen the death agonies of a remarkable man, and the attendant wonders had persuaded them that he was something more than an ordinary being, and therefore, they were afraid. With a kind of indefinite fear, grounded upon no very intelligent reasoning, they were alarmed, because God was angry, and had closed the eye of day upon them, and made the rocks to rend; and, burdened with this indistinct fear, they went their way trembling and humbled to their several homes; but peradventure, ere the next morning light had dawned, they had forgotten it all, and the next day found them greedy for another bloody spectacle, and ready to nail another Christ to the cross, if there had been such another to be found in the land. Their beating of the breast was not a breaking of the heart. It was an April shower, a dewdrop of the morning, a hoar-frost that dissolved when the sun had risen. Like a shadow the emotion crossed their minds, and like a shadow it left no trace behind. How often in the preaching of the cross has this been the only result in tens of thousands! In this house, where so many souls have been converted, many more have shed tears which have been wiped away, and the reason of their tears has been forgotten. A handkerchief has dried up their emotions. Alas! alas!, alas! that while it may be difficult to move men with the story of the cross to weeping, it is even more difficult to make those emotions permanent. “I have seen something wonderful, this morning,” said one who had listened to a faithful and earnest preacher, “I have seen a whole congregation in tears.” “Alas!” said the preacher, “there is something more wonderful still, for the most of them will go their way to forget that they ever shed a tear.” Ah, my hearers, shall it be always so-always so? Then, O ye impenitent, there shall come to your eyes a tear which shall drip for ever, a scalding drop which no mercy shall ever wipe away; a thirst that shall never be abated; a worm that shall never die, and a fire that never shall be quenched. By the love you bear your souls, I pray you escape from the wrath to come!

Others amongst that great crowd exhibited emotion based upon more thoughtful reflection. They saw that they had shared in the murder of an innocent person. “Alas!” said they, “we see through it all now. That man was no offender. In all that we have ever heard or seen of him, he did good, and only good: he always healed the sick, fed the hungry, and raised the dead. There is not a word of all his teaching that is really contrary to the law of God. He was a pure and holy man. We have all been duped. Those priests have egged us on to put to death one whom it were a thousand mercies if we could restore to life again at once. Our race has killed its benefactor.” “Yes,” saith one, “I thrust out my tongue, I found it almost impossible to restrain myself, when everybody else was laughing and mocking at his tortures; but I am afraid I have mocked at the innocent, and I tremble lest the darkness which God has sent was his reprobation of my wickedness in oppressing the innocent.” Such feelings would abide, but I can suppose that they might not bring men to sincere repentance; for while they might feel sorry that they had oppressed the innocent, yet, perceiving nothing more in Jesus than mere maltreated virtue and suffering manhood, the natural emotion might soon pass away, and the moral and spiritual result be of no great value. How frequently have we seen in our hearers that same description of emotion! They have regretted that Christ should be put to death, they have felt like that old king of France, who said, “I wish I had been there with ten thousand of my soldiers, I would have cut their throats sooner than they should have touched him;” but those very feelings have been evidence that they did not feel their share in the guilt as they ought to have done, and that to them the cross of Jesus was no more a saving spectacle than the death of a common martyr. Dear hearers, beware of making the cross to be a common-place thing with you. Look beyond the sufferings of the innocent manhood of Jesus, and see upon the tree the atoning sacrifice of Christ, or else you look to the cross in vain.

No doubt there were a few in the crowd who smote upon their breasts because they felt, “We have put to death a prophet of God. As of old our nation slew Isaiah, and put to death others of the Master’s servants, so to-day they have nailed to the cross one of the last of the prophets, and his blood will be upon us and upon our children.” Peradventure some of them said, “This man claimed to be Messiah, and the miracles which attended his death prove that he was so. His life betokens it and his death declares it. What will become of our nation if we have slain the Prince of Peace! How will God visit us if we have put his prophet to death!” Such mourning was in advance of other forms; it showed a deeper thought and a clearer knowledge, and it may have been an admirable preparation for the after hearing of the gospel; but it would not of itself suffice as evidence of grace. I shall be glad if my hearers in this house to-day are persuaded by the character of Christ that he must have been a prophet sent of God, and that he was the Messiah promised of old; and I shall be gratified if they, therefore, lament the shameful cruelties Which he received from our apostate race. Such emotions of compunction and pity are most commendable, and under God’s blessing they may prove to be the furrows of your heart in which the gospel may take root. He who thus was cruelly put to death was God over all blessed for ever, the world’s Redeemer, and the Saviour of such as put their trust in him. May you accept him to-day as your deliverer, and so be saved; for if not, the most virtuous regrets concerning his death, however much they may indicate your enlightenment, will not manifest your true conversion.

In the motley company who all went home smiting on their breasts, let us hope that there were some who said, “Certainly this was the Son of God,” and mourned to think he should have suffered for their transgressions, and been put to grief for their iniquities. Those who came to that point were saved. Blessed were the eyes that looked upon the slaughtered Lamb in such a way as that, and happy were the hearts that there and then were broken because he was bruised and put to grief for their sakes. Beloved, aspire to this. May God’s grace bring you to see in Jesus Christ no other than God made flesh, hanging upon the tree in agony, to die, the just for the unjust, that we may be saved. O come and repose your trust in him, and then smite upon your breasts at the thought that such a victim should have been necessary for your redemption; then may you cease to smite your breasts, and begin to clap your hands for very joy; for they who thus bewail a Saviour may rejoice in him, for he is theirs and they are his.

We shall now ask you to join in the lamentation, each man according to his sincerity of heart, beholding the cross, and smiting upon his breast.

We will by faith put ourselves at the foot of the little knoll of Calvary: there we see in the centre, between two thieves, the Son of God made flesh, nailed by his hands and feet, and dying in an anguish which words cannot portray. Look ye well, I pray you; look steadfastly and devoutly, gazing through your tears. ’Tis he who was worshipped of angels, who is now dying for the sons of men; sit down and watch the death of death’s destroyer. I shall ask you first to smite your breasts, as you remember that you tee in him your own sins. How great he is! That thorn-crowned head was once crowned with all the royalties of heaven and earth. He who dies there is no common man. King of kings and Lord of lords is he who hangs on yonder cross. Then see the greatness of your sins, which required so vast a sacrifice. They must be infinite sins to require an infinite person to lay down his life in order to their removal. Thou canst never compass or comprehend the greatness of thy Lord in his essential character and dignity, neither shalt thou ever be able to understand the blackness and heinousness of the sin which demanded his life as an atonement. Brother, smite thy breast, and say, “God be merciful to me, the greatest of sinners, for I am such.” Look well into the face of Jesus, and see how vile they have made him! They have stained those cheeks with spittle, they have lashed those shoulders with a felon’s scourge; they have put him to the death which was only awarded to the meanest Roman slave; they have hung him up between heaven and earth, as though he were fit for neither; they have stripped him naked and left him not a rag to cover him I See here then, O believer, the shame of thy sins. What a shameful thing thy sin must have been; what a disgraceful and abominable thing, if Christ must be made such a shame for thee! O be ashamed of thyself, to think thy Lord should thus be scorned and made nothing of for thee I See how they aggravate his sorrows! It was not enough to crucify him, they must insult him; nor that enough, they must mock his prayers and turn his dying cries into themes for jest, while they offer him vinegar to drink. See, beloved, how aggravated were your gins and mine! Come, my brother, let us both smite upon our breasts and say, “Oh, how our sins have piled up their guiltiness! It was not merely that we broke the law, but we sinned against light and knowledge; against rebukes and warnings. As his griefs are aggravated, even so are our sins!” Look still into his dear face, and see the lines of anguish which indicate the deeper inward sorrow which far transcends mere bodily pain and smart. God, his, Father, has forsaken him. God has made him a curse for us. Then what must the curse of God have been against us? What must our sins have deserved? If when sin was only imputed to Christ, and laid upon him for awhile, his father turned his head away and made his Son cry out, “Lama Sabachthani!” Oh, what an accursed thing our sin must be, and what a curse would have come upon us; what thunderbolts, what coals of fire, what indignation, and wrath from the Most High must have been our portion had not Jesus interposed! If Jehovah did not spare his Son, how little would he have spared guilty, worthless men if he had dealt with us after our sins, and rewarded us according to our iniquities!

As we still sit down and look at Jesus, we remember that his death was voluntary-he need not have died unless he had so willed: here then is another striking feature of our sin, for our sin was voluntary too. We did not sin as of compulsion, but we deliberately chose the evil way. O sinner, let both of us sit down together, and tell the Lord that we have no justification, or extenuation, or excuse to offer, we have sinned wilfully against light and knowledge, against love and mercy. Let us smite upon our breasts, as we see Jesus willingly suffer, and confess that we have willingly offended against the just and righteous laws of a most good and gracious God. I could fain keep you looking into those five wounds, and studying that marred face, and counting every purple drop that flowed from hands and feet, and side, but time would fail us. Only that one wound-let it abide with you-smite your breast because you see in Christ your sin.

Looking again-changing, as it were, our stand-point, but still keeping our eye upon that same, dear crucified One, let us see there the neglected and despised remedy for our sin. If sin itself, in its first condition, as rebellion, bring no tears to our eyes, it certainly ought in its second manifestation, as ingratitude. The sin of rebellion is vile; but the sin of slighting the Saviour is viler still. He that hangs on the tree, in groans and griefs unutterable, is he whom some of you have never thought of, whom you do not love, to whom you never pray, in whom you place no confidence, and whom you never serve. I will not accuse you; I will ask those dear wounds to do it, sweetly and tenderly. I will rather accuse myself; for, alas! alas! alas! was a time when I heard of him as with a deaf ear; when I was told of him, and understood the love he bore to sinners, and yet my heart was like a stone within me, and would not be moved. I stopped my ear and would not be charmed, even with such a master-fascination as the disinterested love of Jesus. I think if I had been spared to live the life of an ungodly man, for thirty, forty, or fifty years, and had been converted at last, I should never have been able to blame myself sufficiently for rejecting Jesus during all those years. Why, even those of us who were converted in our youth, and almost in our childhood, cannot help blaming ourselves to think that so dear a friend, who had done so much for us, was so long slighted by us. Who could have done more for us than he, since he gave himself for our sins? Ah, how did we wrong him while we withheld our hearts from him! O ye sinners, how can ye keep the doors of your hearts shut against the Friend of Sinners? How can we close the door against him who cries, “My head is wet with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night: open to me, my beloved, open to me”? I am persuaded there are some here who are his elect: you were chosen by him from before the foundation of the world, and you shall be with him in heaven one day to sing his praises, and yet, at this moment, though you hear his name, you do not love him, and, though you are told of what he did, you do not trust him. What shall that iron bar always fast close the gate of your heart? Shall that door still be always bolted? O Spirit of the living God, win an entrance for the blessed Christ this morning! If anything can do it, surely it must be a sight of the crucified Christ; that matchless spectacle shall make a heart of stone relent and melt, by Jesus’ love subdued. O may the Holy Ghost work this gracious melting, and he shall have all the honour.

Still keeping you at the cross foot, dear friends, every believer here may well smite upon his breast this morning as he thinks of who it was that smarted so upon the cross. Who was it? It was he who loved us or ever the world was made. It was he who is this day the Bridegroom of our souls, our Best-beloved; he who has taken us into the banqueting house and waved his banner of love over us; he who has made us one with himself, and has vowed to present us to his Father without spot. It is he, our Husband, our Ishi, who has called us his Hephzibah because his soul delighteth in us. It is he who suffered thus for us. Suffering does not always excite the same degree of pity. You must know something of the individual before the innermost depths of the soul are stirred; and so it happens to us that the higher the character and the more able we are to appreciate it, the closer the relation and the more fondly we reciprocate the love, the more deeply does suffering strike the soul. You are coming to his table some of you to-day, and you will partake of bread: I pray you remember that it represents the quivering flesh that was filled with pain on Calvary. You will sip of that cup: then be sure to remember that it betokens to you the blood of one who loves you better than you could be loved by mother, or by husband, or by friend. O sit you down and smite your breasts that he should grieve; that heaven’s Sun should be eclipsed; that heaven’s Lily should be spotted with blood, and heaven’s Rose should be whitened with a deadly pallor. Lament that perfection should be accused, innocence smitten, and love murdered; and that Christ, the happy and the holy, the ever blessed, who had been for ages the delight of angels, should now become the sorrowful, the acquaintance of grief, the bleeding and the dying. Smite upon your breasts, believers, and go your way!

Beloved in the Lord, if such grief as this should be kindled in you, it will be well to pursue the subject, and to reflect upon how unbelieving and how cruel we have been to Jesus since the day that we have known him. What, doth he bleed for me and have I doubted him? Is he the Son of God, and have I suspected his fidelity? Have I stood at the cross foot unmoved? Have I spoken of my dying Lord in a cold, indifferent spirit? Have I ever preached Christ crucified with a dry eye and a heart unmoved? Do I bow my knee in private prayer, and are my thoughts wandering when they ought to be bound hand and foot to his dear bleeding self? Am I accustomed to turn over the pages of the Evangelists which record my Master’s wondrous sacrifice, and have I never stained those pages with my tears? Have I never paused spellbound over the sacred sentence which recorded this miracle of miracles, this marvel of marvels? Oh, shame upon thee, hard heart! Well may I smite thee. May God smite thee with the hammer of his Spirit, and break thee to shivers. O thou stony heart, thou granite soul, thou flinty spirit, well may I strike the breast which harbours thee, to think that I should be so doltish in presence of love so amazing, so divine.

Brethren, you may smite upon your breasts as you look at the cross, and mourn that you should have done so little for your Lord. I think if anybody could have sketched my future life in the day of my conversion, and have said, “You will be dull and cold in spiritual things! and you will exhibit but little earnestness and little gratitude!” I should have said like Hazael, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?” I suppose I read your hearts when I say that the most of you are disappointed with your own conduct as compared with your too-flattering prophecies of yourselves! What! am I really pardoned? Am I in very deed washed in that warm stream which gushed from the riven side of Jesus, and yet am I not wholly consecrated to Christ? What! in my body do I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus, and can I live almost without a thought of him? Am I plucked like a brand from the burning, and have I small care to win others from the wrath to come? Has Jesus stooped to win me, and do I not labour to win others for him! Was he all in earnest about me, and am I only half in earnest about him? Dare I waste a minute, dare I trifle away an hour? Have I an evening to spend in vain gossip and idle frivolities? O my heart, well may I smite thee, that at the sight of the death of the dear Lover of my soul, I should not be fired by the highest zeal, and be impelled by the most ardent love to a perfect consecration of every power of my nature, every affection of my spirit, every faculty of my whole man! This mournful strain might be pursued to far greater lengths. We might follow up our confessions, still smiting, still accusing, still regretting, still bewailing. We might continue upon the bass notes evermore, and yet might we not express sufficient contrition for the shameful manner in which we have treated our blessed Friend. We might say with one of our hymn writers-

“Lord, let me weep for nought but sin,

And after none but thee;

And then I would-O that I might-

A constant weeper be!”

One might desire to become a Niobe, and realise the desire of Jeremy, “O that my head were waters.” Even the holy extravagance of George Herbert does not surprise us, for we would even sing with him the song of Grief:-

“Oh, who will give me tears? Come, all ye springs,

Dwell in my head and eyes; come, clouds and rain!

My grief hath need of all the wat’ry things

That nature hath produc’d. Let ev’ry vein

Suck up a river to supply mine eyes,

My weary weeping eyes; too dry for me,

Unless they get new conduits, new supplies,

To bear them out, and with my state agree.

What are two shallow fords, two little spouts

Of a less world? The greater is but small.

A narrow cupboard for my griefs and doubts,

Which want provision in the midst of all.

Verses, ye are too fine a thing, too wise,

For my rough sorrows. Cease! be dumb and mute;

Give up your feet and running to mine eyes,

And keep your measures for some lover’s lute,

Whose grief allows him music and a rhyme;

For mine excludes both measure, tune, and time.

-Alas, my God!”

Having, perhaps, said enough on this point-enough if God bless it, too much if without his blessing-let me invite you, in the third place, to remember that at Calvary, dolorous notes are not the only suitable music.

We admired our poet when, in the hymn which we have just sung, he appears to question with himself which would be the most fitting tune for Golgotha.

“ ‘It is finished;’ shall we raise

Songs of sorrow or of praise?

Mourn to see the Saviour die,

Or proclaim his victory?

If of Calvary we tell,

How can songs of triumph swell?

If of man redeemed from woe,

How shall notes of mourning flow?”

He shows that since our sin pierced the side of Jesus, there is cause for unlimited lamentation, but since the blood which flowed from the wound has cleansed our sin, there is ground for unbounded thanksgiving; and, therefore, the poet, after having balanced the matter in a few verses, concludes with-

“ ‘It is finished,’ let us raise

Songs of thankfulness and praise.”

After all, you and I are not in the same condition as the multitude who had surrounded Calvary; for at that time our Lord was still dead, but now he is risen indeed. There were yet three days from that Thursday evening (for there is much reason to believe that our Lord was not crucified on Friday), in which Jesus must dwell in the regions of the dead. Our Lord, therefore, so far as human eyes could see him, was a proper object of pity and mourning, and not of thanksgiving; but now, beloved, he ever lives and gloriously reigns. No charnel house confines that blessed body. He saw no corruption; for the moment when the third day dawned, he could no longer be held with the bonds of death, but he manifested himself alive unto his disciples. He tarried in this world for forty days. Some of his time was spent with those who knew him in the flesh; perhaps a larger part of it was passed with those saints who came out of their graves after his resurrection; but certain it is that he is gone up, as the first-fruit from the dead; he is gone up to the right hand of God, even the Father. Do not bewail those wounds, they are lustrous with supernal splendour. Do not lament his death: he lives no more to die. Do not mourn that shame and spitting:-

“The head that once was crowned with thorns,

Is crowned with glory now.”

Look up and thank God that death hath no more dominion over him. He ever liveth to make intercession for us, and he shall shortly come with angelic bands surrounding him, to judge the quick and dead. The argument for joy overshadows the reason for sorrow. Like as a woman when the man-child is born remembereth no more her anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world, so, in the thought of the risen Saviour, who has taken possession of his crown, we will forget the lamentation of the cross, and the sorrows of the broken heart of Calvary.

Morever, hear ye the shrill voice of the high sounding cymbals, and let your hearts rejoice within you, for in his death our Redeemer conquered all the hosts of hell. They came against him furiously, yea, they came against him to eat up his flesh, but they stumbled and fell. They compassed him about, yea, they compassed him about like bees; but in the name of the Lord did the Champion destroy them. Against the whole multitude of sins, and all the battalions of the pit, the Saviour stood, a solitary soldier fighting against innumerable bands, but he has slain them all. “Bruised is the dragon’s head.” Jesus has led captivity captive. He conquered when he fell; and let the notes of victory drown for ever the cries of sorrow.

Moreover, brethren, let it be remembered that men have been saved. Let there stream before your gladdened eyes this morning the innumerable company of the elect. Robed in white they come in long procession; they come from distant lands, from every clime; once scarlet with sin and black with iniquity, they are all white and pure, and without spot before the throne for ever; beyond temptation, beatified, and made like to Jesus. And how? It was all through Calvary. There was their sin put away; there was their everlasting righteousness brought in and consummated. Let the hosts that are before the throne, as they wave their palms, and touch their golden harps, excite you to a joy like their own, and let that celestial music hush the gentler voices which mournfully exclaim-

“Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?

And did my Sovereign die?

Would he devote that sacred head

For such a worm as I?”

Nor is that all. You yourself are saved. O brother, this will always be one of your greatest joys. That others are converted through your instrumentality is occasion for much thanksgiving, but your Saviour’s advice to you is, “Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.” You, a spirit meet to be cast away, you whose portion must have been with devils-you are this day forgiven, adopted, saved, on the road to heaven. Oh! while you think that you are saved from hell, that you are lifted up to glory, you cannot but rejoice that your sin is put away from you through the death of Jesus Christ, your Lord.

Lastly, there is one thing for which we ought always to remember Christ’s death with joy, and that is, that although the crucifixion of Jesus was intended to be a blow at the honour and glory of our God-though in the death of Christ the world did, so far as it was able, put God himself to death, and so earn for itself that hideous title, “a deicidal world,” yet never did God have such honour and glory as he obtained through the sufferings of Jesus. Oh, they thought to scorn him, but they lifted his name on high! They thought that God was dishonoured when he was most glorified. The image of the Invisible, had they not marred it? The express image of the Father’s person, had they not defiled it? Ah, so they said! But he that sitteth in the heavens may well laugh and have them in derision, for what did they? They did but break the alabaster box, and all the blessed drops of infinite mercy streamed forth to perfume all worlds. They did out rend the veil, and then the glory which had been hidden between the cherubim shone forth upon all lands. O nature, adoring God with thine ancient and priestly mountains, extolling him with thy trees, which clap their hands, and worshipping with thy seas, which in their fulness roar out Jehovah’s praise; with all thy tempests and flames of fire, thy dragons and thy deeps, thy snow and thy hail, thou canst not glorify God as Jesus glorified him when he became obedient unto death. O heaven, with all thy jubilant angels, thine ever chanting cherubim and seraphim, thy thrice holy hymns, thy streets of gold and endless harmonies, thou canst not reveal the Deity as Jesus Christ revealed it on the cross. O hell, with all thine infinite horrors and flames unquenchable, and pains and griefs and shrieks of tortured ghosts, even thou canst not reveal the justice of God as Christ revealed it in his riven heart upon the bloody tree. O earth and heaven and hell! O time and eternity, things present and things to come, visible and invisible, ye are dim mirrors of the Godhead compared with the bleeding Lamb. O heart of God, I see thee nowhere as at Golgotha, where the Word incarnate reveals the justice and the love, the holiness and the tenderness of God in one blaze of glory. If any created mind would fain see the glory of God, he need not gaze upon the starry skies, nor soar into the heaven of heavens, he has but to bow at the cross foot and watch the crimson streams which gush from Immanuel’s wounds. If you would behold the glory of God, you need not gaze between the gates of pearls, you have but to look beyond the gates of Jerusalem and see the Prince of Peace expire. If you would receive the noblest conception that ever filled the human mind of the lovingkindness and the greatness and the pity, and yet the justice and the severity and the wrath of God, you need not lift up your eyes, nor cast them down, nor look to paradise, nor gaze on Tophet, you have but to look into the heart of Christ all crushed and broken and bruised, and you have seen it all. Oh, the joy that springs from the fact that God has triumphed after all! Death is not the victor; evil is not master. There are not two rival kingdoms, one governed by the God of good, and the other by the God of evil; no, evil is bound, chained, and led captive; its sinews are cut, its head is broken; its king is bound to the dread chariot of Jehovah-Jesus, and as the white horses of triumph drag the Conqueror up the everlasting hills in splendour of glory, the monsters of the pit cringe at his chariot wheels. Wherefore, beloved, we close this discourse with this sentence of humble yet joyful worship, “Glory be unto the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost: as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Luke 23:27-56.

BROKEN BONES

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, March 21st, 1869, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.”-Psalm 51:8.

Backsliding is a most common evil, far more common than some of us suppose. We may ourselves be guilty of it, and yet may delude our hearts with the idea that we are making progress in the divine life. As the cunning hunter always makes the passage into his pits most easy and attractive, but always renders it most difficult for his victim to escape, so Satan makes the way of apostacy to be very seductive to our nature, but alas! the path of return from backsliding is very hard to tread, and were it not for grace, no human feet would ever be able to make progress in it. If I should be successful this morning in calling attention to decline in the spiritual life, especially in calling the attention of those to the matter whom it most concerns-I mean those who are themselves declining-I shall feel happy indeed. At the same time, if I should so speak that those who have backslidden may be encouraged to hope for restoration, and to seek, with earnestness and eagerness, that they may even now be restored, a second good result will have followed, and unto God shall be double praise. Dear friends, we make advance little enough in the divine life; as it is, it were a thousand follies in one to be going back. When I look at my own standing in the road to heaven, I am so dissatisfied with that to which I have attained, that to give up an inch of what I have gained would be excess of madness. A rich man may lose a thousand pounds, or more, and not feel it, but he whose purse is scant cannot afford to lose a shilling. Those who abound much in grace, might perhaps be able to bear some spiritual losses, but you and I cannot afford it; we are too near bankruptcy as it is, and so poverty-stricken in many respects, that it well behoves us to look to every one of the pence of grace, to watch our little drains and expenditures, and to neglect no means by which even a little might be gained in the divine life. May God grant to us now that while we are listening to his word we may derive a blessing.

There are three things to which I shall call your attention this morning. The first is, the plight in which David was-he speaks of his bones as having been broken; secondly, the remedy which he sought, “Make me to hear joy and gladness;” and then, thirdly, the expectation which he entertained, namely, that the bones which had once been broken would yet be able to rejoice.

In commencing, let us notice the plight in which David was. His bones had been broken.

We hear persons speak very flippantly of David’s sin, boldly offering it as an accusation against godliness, and as an excuse for their own inconsistent conversation; I wish they would look also at David’s repentance, for if his sin was shameful, his sorrow for it was of the bitterest kind; and if the crime was glaring, certainly the afflictions which chastised him were equally remarkable. From that day forward, the man whose ways had been ways of pleasantness, and whose paths had been paths of peace, limped like a cripple along a thorny road, and traversed a pilgrimage of afflictions almost unparalleled. Children of God cannot sin cheaply. Sinners may sin, and in this life they may prosper, ay, and sometimes prosper by their sins, but those whom God loves will always find the way of transgression to be hard; their follies will cost them that peace of mind, cost them their present comfort, and even cost them all but their souls, so that they are saved, but so as by fire. David had sinned, and for awhile the sin was pleasurable, and all the attendant circumstances appeared to be favourable to his escape from punishment. He had managed adroitly to conceal his crime from the injured Uriah, and then he had with horrible craftiness effected the death of the injured husband. Every circumstance in providence seemed to favour the concealment of the monarch’s sin. His conscience slept, his passions rioted, his heart was estranged, his grace was at the lowest ebb. Perhaps he even persuaded himself that his adultery, which might have been a great sin in others, was excusable in himself, because of his position as a despotic sovereign, who, according to Oriental notions, had almost absolute power over the persons of his subjects-it is so easy to persuade ourselves that what custom concedes to us, it is right to take. But because David was a man after God’s own heart, his ease in sin could not long continue; the Lord would not allow such a disease to destroy his servant. His rest was broken. The stern prophet, Nathan, delivers to him a parable, with a personal application; the sense of right in the king is awakened, conviction of sin, like a lightning flash, destroys the towers of his joy, and lays his peace prostrate in ruins. He trembles before God, whom in his heart he loved, but whom he had for awhile forgotten. The king goes into his chamber mourning and lamenting before the Lord, followed by the chastising rod, which drives the word home upon his conscience, while the Holy Spirit becomes the spirit of bondage to him, and makes him again to fear; by the rough north wind of conviction, all his joys are withered, and his delights cut off. He becomes one of the most wretched of mortals, his sighs and groans resound through his palace, and where once his harp had poured forth melodies of pleasant praise, nothing is heard but dolorous notes of plaintive penitence. Alas! for thee; O conscience-smitten monarch, thy couch is watered with thy tears, and thy bread made bitter with thy grief. Well dost thou compare thy sorrow to the pain of broken bones. Brethren, let us open up that poetical metaphor before us.

We may gather from this that David’s plight was very painful. “His bones,” he says, “were broken.” A flesh wound is painful-and who would not escape from it? but here was a more serious injury, for the bone was reached, and completely crushed. No punishment was probably more cruel than that of breaking poor wretches alive upon the wheel, when a heavy bar of iron smashed the great bones of the arms and of the legs-the pain must have been excruciating to the last degree; but David declares that the mental anguish which he endured was comparable to such extreme agony. You are on your way home to-day, and in affecting a passage across one of our most perilous roads, you are startled by a fearful cry, for some poor unwary passenger has been dashed down by a huge and impetuous vehicle; you rush to the rescue, but it is too late, the unhappy victim is pale and death-like, and the word sounds terribly on your compassionate ears when you are informed that his bones are broken. We think comparatively little of wounds which only tear the curtains of flesh, but when the solid pillars of the house of manhood are snapped in twain, and the supporters of the body are broken, then every man confesses that the pain is great indeed. David declares that such was his pain of mind. His soul was racked and tortured, anguished and tormented. The pain of a broken bone is as constant as it is excruciating. It prevents sleep by night and ease by day. The mind cannot be diverted from it. Men cannot shake off the remembrance that this their frame is so seriously injured. O beware, you believers, who are just now tempted by the sweets of sin, and remember the wormwood and gall which will be found in the dregs thereof. You who feel the soft blandishments of sin to be so pleasing to your flesh, and are ready to yield to its gentle fascinations, remember that when it reveals itself, the softness of its touch will all be gone, and it will be towards you as a huge hammer, or like the crushing wheels of the chariot of Juggernaut, crushing your spirit with anguish. The velvet paw of the tiger of sin conceals a lacerating claw. Beware in time!

The metaphor also signifies that the result of his sin and of his repentance, was exceedingly serious. A trifling thing is superficial; that which is merely on the surface is not a matter which may cause us deep anxiety: but a broken bone is not a thing to laugh at; such an injury compels a man to change his lightheartedness for apprehension. Had it been but a skin wound, he might have wrapped his handkerchief about it and have gone his way, and have said, “It will heal in due time;” but in the case of a broken bone he anxiously sends for the surgeon, and knows that he must lie by awhile; he feels the accident is no mere trifle. Believe me, dear friends, genuine sorrow for sin is not as some suppose it, mere sentimentalism. Under sorrow for sin, I have seen men driven almost out of their senses, until it seemed as if their minds would fail them under their apprehensions of guilt and its heinousness. Ay, some of us have personally felt it, and we bear witness that if all forms of bodily pain could be heaped upon us at once, we had sooner bear them all than the burden of sin. O believe me, as I am sure you will, who have felt the same, that guilt upon the conscience is worse than the body on the rack; that even the flames of the stake may be cheerfully endured, but the burnings of a conscience tormented of God are beyond all measure unendurable. Many have felt this soul anguish, and have endured this month after month, but have at last found rest; so that there is comfort in this misery, for it ends well and profitably. May you who now feel your bones to be broken, now plead, as David did, “Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.”

The plight into which David fell was more than serious and painful-it was complicated. The setting of one broken bone may puzzle the surgeon, but what is his task when many bones are broken? In one bone a compound fracture will involve great difficulty in bringing the divided pieces together, in the hope that yet new bone may be formed, and so the member may be spared; but if it should come to a broken bone of arm, of leg, of rib-if in many places the poor human frame has become injured, how exceedingly careful must the surgeon be! Often the very treatment which may be useful to one member may be injurious to the other: disease in one limb may act upon another. The cure of the whole, where all the bones are broken, must be a miracle. If a mass of misery, a man full of broken bones, shall yet become healthy and strong, great credit must be given to the surgeon’s skill. Brethren and sisters, you see the case of a man, then, who has sinned against God by backsliding from his ways, and who is heavily smitten by his conscience and by the Holy Spirit. It is a complicated sorrow which he endures. The metaphor of broken bones seems to indicate that the greater powers of the soul are grieved and afflicted. The bones are the more important part of the structure of the body. In our spirits there are certain graces which are, so to speak, the bones of the spiritual man; to these David refers. Our heavenly Father is pleased sometimes, when we have sinned, to allow our faith to become weak, like a broken bone; we cannot grasp the promises we once delighted in; we cannot rejoice in the encouraging word as we did in happier days: our faith brings us pain rather than rest. He suffers our hope to lose its joy-creating power, and like a broken bone our very hope for a better land, where rest remaineth, becomes a pining disquietude at our present forlorn condition; while even love, that notable limb of strength, which makes the soul to run so nimbly, is full of weakness and anguish, and makes us cry, “Do I love my Lord at all, and if so, how could I have offended him so greatly? When I have backslidden so far, surely for me to talk about love to God would be to take a holy word upon a polluted lip!” So that the great master graces within our spirit seem each of them to minister to our woe, and though they be there, as the broken bone is still in the man’s body, yet are so injured and weakened, and all but powerless, that their only vitality is the sad vitality of pain; our faith in the Scriptures leading us to tremble at their threatenings; our hope shocking us because, though we have hope for others, we cannot rejoice for ourselves; and our very love to God, yet alive within us, making us hate and despise ourselves to think we should have acted thus towards one so good and kind. O brethren, you who are lingering on the brink of sin, and are beginning to slip with your feet, may the thought of these broken bones awaken you from your dangerous lethargy as with a thunderclap, and may you fly at once to the cross, and to the fountain filled from Jesus’ veins, and begin your spiritual career anew with more earnestness and watchfulness than you have ever shown before. The case was painful, serious, and complicated.

In the fourth place, it was extremely dangerous, for when several bones are broken, every surgeon perceives how very likely it is that the case will end fatally. Around each shattered bone there lingers the evil spirit of gangrene: if that grievous ill shall intervene, the healing art will be all in vain. When a heart is broken with repentance, the gangrene of remorse is most urgent to enter it; when the spirit is humbled, the gangrene of unbelief covets the opportunity to take possession of the man; when the heart is really emptied, and made to feel its own nothingness, then the demon despair beholds a dark cavern in which to fix its horrible abode. It is a dreadful thing to have the faith broken, the hope broken, and the love broken, and the entire man, as it were, reduced to a palpitating mass of pain. It is a dreadfully dangerous condition to be in; for, alas! my brethren, when men have sinned, and have been made to suffer afterwards, how often have they turned to their sins again with greater hardness of heart than ever! With many, the more they are smitten the more they revolt. When the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint, and they seem to be nothing but “wounds and bruises and putrifying sores,” through the afflictions they have suffered; yet they return to their idols still; and the more they are chastened the more they revolt. Think, I pray you, how many professors have backslidden and have been chastened, but have continued in their backsliding until they have gone down to hell! I did not say children of God, but I said professors; and how do you know but what you may be mere professors yourselves. Ah! my friend, if you are living in known sin at this time, and are happy in it, you have great cause to tremble. If you can go on from day to day, and from week to week, in neglected prayer and neglected reading of the word; if you can live without the means of grace in the week days, if you are cold and indifferent towards our Lord and Master, if you are altogether becoming worldly, and covetous, and vain, fond of levity and the things of this world, and yet are at ease-you have grave cause to suspect that you are a bastard in the family and not one of the true children of the living God. I use that hard expression, remembering how the poet puts it:-

“Bastards may escape the rod,

Plunged in sensual, vain delight;

But the trueborn child of God,

Must not, would not, if he might.”

Ah, indeed, he would not if he might. Great God, never let us sin without a smart! Never suffer us to turn to the right or to the left without receiving at once a reproof for it, that we may be driven back into the strait and narrow path, and may so walk all our lives with thee! The danger is, when the man’s bones get broken, lest the gangrene of despair, or the mortification of indifference, should set in, and the man should become a castaway. How this ought to keep any of you, who know the Lord, from indulging in the beginnings of declension! How jealous should you be lest you run these frightful risks!

Yet again, the case of David was most damaging. Supposing the danger to be overpast, yet a broken bone is never a gain, but must always be a loss. Poor man! while his bone is broken he is quite unable to help himself, much less to help others. His being unable to help himself makes a draft upon the strength of the church of God. Power which might otherwise be employed, has to be turned into the channel of succouring him; so that there is a clear demand upon the Christian power of the church, which ought to be expended mainly in seeking after lost souls. There is a damage to the whole church in the declension of one backsliding believer. Moreover, while the man is in this state, he can do no good to others. Of what service can he be who does not know his own salvation? How can he point others to a Saviour, when he cannot yet see the cross himself? How shall he comfort another man’s faith, while his own faith can scarcely touch the hem of Jesus’ garment? By what energy and power shall he help the weak, when he himself is weakest of all? Ay, and let me say even after God in his mercy has healed every broken bone, it is a sad detriment to a man to have had his bones broken at all. Somehow or other there is never the freedom of action and degree of energy in the healed arm, that there is in the one that was never broken. It is a great blessing for the cripple to be helped to walk with a crutch, but it is a greater blessing never to have been a cripple; it is an unspeakable blessing to have been able always to run without weariness and walk without fainting. When a man’s bone has been broken in his boyhood, if it be ever so well set, yet, I have heard say, it will feel the changes of the weather, and will feel starts and shocks unknown before-unpleasant reminders that it was once broken. So it is with us: if we have fallen into a sin, even though we have recovered from it, there is a weakness left, and a tendency to pain. We never are the men after backsliding that we were before; we never make altogether a recovery from great spiritual decline, so as to be, all things else considered, quite what we were before. I grant that in some points we may become superior, as, for instance, in knowledge of self and in experience of the divine life, we may even have made an advance, but still in holy agility, in sacred vivacity, in consecrated exultation, we are not what we were. I will defy David to dance before the ark of God with all his might after the sin with Bathsheba had crippled him; ay, and there is no giant killing, there is no slaying his ten thousands, there is very little of high and mighty exploit in Israel’s cause after the sin, although succeeded by a gracious recovery. I grant you, David exhibited virtues of another class, and excellences of another kind, but even these are not such as to tempt us to risk the experiment for ourselves. God grant that our bones may not be broken, lest our soul be damaged for life. May we never be like a ship which has been all but wrecked and just escaped the rocks, tugged into harbour with extreme difficulty, her hull all but waterlogged, her cargo spoiled, her masts gone by the board, her streamers gone, her crew and passengers all wet, and saved as by the skin of their teeth, a mere hulk dragged into haven by infinite mercy: God grant, instead of that, that we may have an abundant entrance into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, sails all filled, with a goodly cargo on board, to the praise of the glory of his grace who hath made us accepted in the Beloved.

One more reflection on this point, and that is, although David’s case was very painful, very serious, very complicated, very dangerous, and very damaging, yet it was still hopeful. The saving clause lies here. “The bones which thou hast broken.” What, did God break those bones? Then the breaking was not done by accident, but by design. Did God in chastisement deal with David’s spirit, and bring him into this killing sorrow? Then he who wounds can bind up. Infinite power rests in God, and if he has, in wisdom, been pleased to break, he will, in mercy, be pleased to reset the bones. O you wounded spirits, far be it from me to wound you yet more; far rather would I help to bind on the splints and the strapping. Let this then be your consolation, like a piece of heavenly court plaister may this be to you-“The Lord killeth and maketh alive. The Lord woundeth and he maketh whole.” None but he can do it. If your sorrow is a hatred for sin, depend upon it the devil did not give you that sorrow, and your own nature did not breed it: it is a heaven-given sorrow, and when it has wrought its end, it shall be a heaven-removed sorrow. Those bones of yours shall yet be healed, ay, and they shall yet rejoice.

The lesson for this first part of the subject then, is, let as many as are now possessing any spiritual health and enjoyment, be careful that they do not lose it. Let such as have lost their nearness to God, be anxious to regain it before worse evils shall come. Let those who are almost in despair, take heart, for they cannot be in a worse plight than David was, and the God who rescued David can rescue them. Let them not sit down in despair, but, with the psalmist, let them rise up with humble hope, and address themselves, as we do now, in the second place, to the remedy.

The remedy which the psalmist resorted to.

Observe, negatively, he did not lie down sullenly, in despondency; he turned to his chastening God in prayer. He did not offer sacrifices, nor attempt good works of his own; he turned not to himself in any measure, but to God alone. He did not cast away his confidence in God. He believed still that there was power in heaven to save him, and therefore, by humble faith, he lifted up the voice of his cry to the Most High in these words: “Make me to hear joy and gladness.”

Now notice, brethren, in this, first of all, David believed that there was joy and gladness even for such as he. Notice the verse which comes before this text, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Ay, there is the key to his meaning. He believed that there was pardon, and that pardon would restore his joy and gladness to him; he was confident that God could pardon, that he could pardon completely, that he had already provided the means of pardon; for he alludes to that in the hyssop-that God could thoroughly pardon even him, “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Now, beloved mourner, I pray you believe the same precious fact. There is forgiveness with God, that he may be feared. Great as your sin may be, whether as a sinner or as a fallen Christian, yet still it cannot exceed the boundless extent of Jehovah’s compassion. He is able to forgive the greatest sins, through the blood of his dear Son. There cannot be so much enormity in your sin as there is merit in the Saviour’s atonement. What though you should have sinned against light and knowledge, and so far as you could do so, have crucified the Lord afresh, and put him to an open shame, yet, without injury to his justice or taint upon his holiness, God can stretch out the silver sceptre and forgive you, even you; and he can do that at this instant. Believe that, believe that now, for it is most certainly true.

In the next place, David knew that this joy and gladness must come to him by hearing. Observe, “Make me to hear joy and gladness.” He did not expect it by doing, he did not look for it merely by praying, he certainly did not expect it by feeling, but he expected it by hearing. Oh, those fops and fools, for what are they better, who attempt to preach the gospel, as they say (which gospel is no gospel), through the eye, by their vestments and pantomimes! Why, the gate of mercy is the ear. Salvation comes to no man through what he sees, but through what he hears. As saith the Scripture, “Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live.” As it was well observed this week by an eminent brother in Christ, there are some who despise sermons, and imagine that the saying of public prayers is everything; but these should remember that, nowhere in the New Testament, did Jesus commission special men to go forth and celebrate public prayer, nowhere did he give even a hint of a ritual; nowhere prescribe a liturgy, ordain matins and vespers, or so much as a collect for the day; but he did say to his disciples, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel.” Far are we from undervaluing the assembling of ourselves together for public prayer, but yet it is suggestive that so little should be said of that which we call public worship in the New Testament, while the same book teems with references to the preaching of the word, and plainly declares that, by the foolishness of preaching, God will save them that believe. Our Lord himself was, throughout his whole life, a preacher; and among the greatest signs of his Messiahship, he mentioned that the poor had the gospel preached unto them. The fact is, the sermon reverently heard, and earnestly delivered, is the highest act of worship; and the preaching of the gospel is, in the hands of the Holy Ghost, the grandest instrumentality for the salvation of men. Though all the liturgies that were ever said or sung had remained unwritten; though all the notes of pealing organs had been silent; though every morning celebration and evening chant had been unknown; though every “performing of service” had been foresworn; the world might have been all the better for the loss, but the gospel faithfully proclaimed is God’s gate of mercy-the preaching of his word by earnest lips, touched with the consecrating fire, is the power of God unto salvation. The hearing of the word is the great horror alike of papists and infidels, but it is the greatest of all means of grace. Let those who are disconsolate and cast down, remember the Master’s precept, and be diligent in listening to the preaching of the gospel of Jesus. God asks no sacraments of you: “Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it.” David turned away from ceremonies, and his truly evangelical prayer was, “Make me to hear,” for there is the point of healing. Notice, that the hearing which David intended was an inward and spiritual hearing with his whole soul. One is struck with the expression, “Make me to hear.” What, David, hast thou no ears? Does he mean, “Lord, send me a prophet”? No, there was Nathan, there was Gad; Israel was not without her prophets in those days. He does not ask for a preacher. What then did he seek? What, had the man’s ear become deaf? Spiritually, that was the case. He heard the word of comfort, but he did not hear it aright. He was distracted, his soul was tempest-tossed, conscience tormented him, the threatenings of the law thundered in his ears; so that when the good word came, “The Lord hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die,” he did not hear it as being his own. He took it with him into his prayer-closet, and he remembered the words, but he could not feel the inward sense to be true to himself. Therefore does he ask for the hearing ear. “Lord,” he seems to say, “Cleanse these ears of mine! O give my poor heart the power to grasp these absolving words, lest I should be like those who, having ears, hear not, and having eyes, see not, and do not understand.” Believe me I can make some of you hear well enough with your outward ear, but one of my most earnest prayers is, that God would make you all hear within; and especially those who are desponding, those who refuse to be comforted. I suggest this prayer to mourners to-day to take home with them, and I beg God’s people to join in supplication for them. “Make me to hear! Make me to hear that precious gospel! Make me to hear and to receive thine own true word! It has comforted so many, Lord, let it comfort me! I know thy blood has pardoned others, O help thy poor broken-hearted servant to get pardon as well as they. I do not doubt thy power or thy willingness to save others, but, Lord, there are such obstacles and difficulties about my case, I beseech thee roll away the stone from the sepulchre of my poor dead hopes, and make me to live in thy sight. It is really a making, Lord-a creation, a work of omnipotence, a work in which the attributes of thy power and thy grace will be resplendent. Make me to hear. Thou who hast made the ear at first can new make it. O make me to hear joy and gladness!” Do you catch the meaning of the psalmist? He knows that the comfort must come by hearing, but he knows it must be a spiritual hearing, and therefore he asks for it of the Lord.

And now, as time fails us, though we might have enlarged here, we shall turn in the last place to the hope which the psalmist entertained.

What was it? “That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.” Notice, not “that the bones which thou hast broken may grow quiet and be calm and at rest”-that was not enough. Not “that the bones which thou hast broken may become callous, indifferent, painless;” no, no; that he would have vehemently deprecated; but “that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.” He dares to ask for great mercy, yea, the greatest mercy. When a great sinner comes to a great God, if he pleads at all he will do well to plead for great things; for since he deserves nothing at all, all that comes to him must come of grace, and, therefore, the same mercy which freely gives the little may as well give the much; therefore, seeking sinners, make bold to open your mouths wide, for he will fill them.

Let us look at these words more closely-“that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.” He means, then, that if he is enabled by faith to look to Christ, whose blood is sprinkled by the hyssop upon the soul, if he receives perfect pardon through the atoning sacrifice, which makes sinners white as snow, then he will possess a deeper and truer joy than before. Aforetime, his tongue rejoiced, but now his bones will rejoice; before, his flesh rejoiced, now his bones and marrow will rejoice. The deep pain which he had felt within the inmost depths of his nature would now be exchanged for an equally deep content, which, like an Artesian well, gushes up from the very bowels of the earth all clear and fresh, would rise in continual flood from the bowels of his nature, all fresh with holy exultation. He would now know what sin meant as he never knew before; he would know what chastisement for sin was as he could not have dreamed before; he would know what mercy meant as he had not before understood; and therefore his inmost nature shall praise and bless God in a way in which he had never done until that hour. That deeply experimental, painful, and yet blessed experience of his weakness, and of God’s power to save, taught him a heart-music which only broken bones could learn. You know, brethren, there is a great deal of flash about many of our spiritual joys; they are in the grosser parts very near akin to carnal excitement; and especially with young beginners, the gladness is too apt to trail in the mire of mere mental pleasure. Our gladness is frequently far from being deep as we could wish, but after the bone-breaking everything is solid; after the bone-healing everything is true; what our joy lacks in vividness it makes up in stability and depth. So David means, “the innermost core of my nature, the very essentials of my spiritual being, shall sing and rejoice.”

Note again, he means that his joy would be more than ever a matter of his whole soul. “My bones which were broken shall all of them,” in the plural, “rejoice.” He had been a mass of misery-mercy shall make him a mass of music. It is not easy to get the whole man to praise God. You can bless God sometimes in his house with your heart and with your voice too, but your thoughts will wander after the sick child, or after the bad debt; some faculty or other is unstrung-the ten strings are not all in tune. But when the bone-breaking process has been suffered, when the man feels himself thoroughly crushed before God, all his thoughts are concentrated then upon his misery; and when he obtains relief, then all his thoughts are concentrated upon the mercy, for which he blesses God with a unanimity of all his powers nohow else to be reached. The bones which God has broken, without discord, every one of them praise him.

That rejoicing expected was peculiar to the brokenness which would be apparent in it. Every broken bone would then become a mouth with which to bless God; but there would be always a humility, gentleness, softness, and tenderness, in such praise. I must confess I like to listen to the high sounding cymbals, and I can shout as loudly as any, “Praise the Lord with the harp. Blow upon the trumpet in the new moon.” I can cry with ardour, “O for a shout, a sacred shout, to God, the Sovereign King.” But the dulcimer’s soft notes often have the most music in them to my weary ear. Trumpet notes of triumph may be too much like the noise of those who go forth to the battles of earth, or make merry in the feast; but the soft music of broken bones is peculiarly sacred, and reminds one of the Master’s sacred joy, the soft and solemn music of his soul when he said, “My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation; I will pay my vows before them that fear him.” When he blessed God on the cross, that a seed should serve him; that it should be unto the Lord for a generation, his joy was true and deep. “Still waters run deep.” The brokenness of heart has not in it the roaring as when the sea roars, and the fulness thereof, but it has the gentle flow of that silver river, “the streams whereof make glad the city of God.”

Once again, the joy which the psalmist expected would have much of God in it, for you observe that the Lord appears in this verse twice: “He breaks the bones, and he makes the ear to hear joy and gladness.” God is appealed to as the breaker and the healer. After having been sorely smitten, and having at last found comfort, we always think more of our Lord Jesus than we did before. If I have grown in anything since I have known the Lord, I think it is in this one thing, in having more frequent and realising thoughts of God the Father, Son, and Spirit, personally considered. There was a day when I thought doctrine the first thing and all important, and there was a time when I conceived inward experience to be most exceedingly worthy of my regard; I think the same now, but over and above all, that my soul possesses a deep sense of God, and a longing to be in daily personal fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. Surely this being filled with God is a more excellent way, for doctrine may be but food untasted, and experience may turn out to be but fancy, but to live upon God by faith, and to serve Christ with the heart, and to feel the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, this is reality and truth. Now, when a man has had such dealings with God as David had, and received such mercy from him, then his joy will be fuller of God than it ever was before.

You will notice in the verse, too, that David sets no end whatever to his joy. “The bones which thou has broken may rejoice,” but how long? Oh, as long as ever they please! Once let the bone be set, the ground of joy is constant and continuous. A pardoned sinner never need pause in his sacred gratitude. Let the Lord visit the most broken-hearted among his people, and light their candle, and the devil cannot blow it out; nor death itself, that last of foes, shall quench the sacred flame. O see, my brethren, how blessed a remedy Christ has provided for all the evils of your backsliding! See how to get at it, by an earnest prayer to God through Christ! Go to your chambers and breathe but a prayer, ye daughters of sorrow, and ye sons of woe, for-

“The mercy-seat is open still-

There let your souls retreat.”

God waits to be gracious. He comes to-day in the gospel to meet his poor prodigal, and to receive him with arms of love. Christ, this morning, by our ministry, is sweeping the house to search for his lost piece of money. The Good Shepherd is seeking his wandering sheep. O be joyful and thankful that you are in the land of mercy, in the place where the bowels of God yearn over his dear wandering ones! Come to Jesus now, O come now by faith, and let your prayer be the words of the text, “Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.”