What a golden sentence! But does it not begin with a hard word? A sad and sorrowful note is sounded in that word “sin.” ’Twas sin that blighted Eden and drove our first parents forth to toil in weariness outside its peaceful bowers. ’Twas sin that polluted all our blood, and left the leprosy still in our veins, as a legacy of ill to the latest generation. ’Tis sin that has been the parent of all our earthly sorrow. ’Tis sin that will be the cause of our everlasting misery unless we be delivered from it. Never has the world seen another tyrant comparable to this. Beneath its dragon-wings the light has been eclipsed, life has dwindled, joy has expired. Remember, you that fear the Lord, and are the servants of Jesus Christ, how many there are that are still the slaves of sin. There is no monarch who rules over so many souls as this tyrant iniquity. Millions that have departed now mourn for ever the thraldom from which they never shall escape; they have perished without Christ, and under the tyranny of sin they must live for ever. And millions more that are still upon the earth bow down to sin and suffer it to rule over them, and this fell monster lords it over the myriads of the human race. Sad contemplation! But, perhaps, Christian, it will be to yourself personally even sadder still, when you reflect that whatever you are now, you too were once the servant of sin. You now have the will to shake off that fetter, but you once hugged the chain. You now abhor the leprosy, but you once accounted the symptoms of your disease to be indications of health, and you were enamoured of yourself notwithstanding your revolting loathsomeness. There was a time when every affection of your nature went after evil, when you loved not the things of God nor served him. Yet now you are renewed in the spirit of your mind. Oh, what unspeakable joy! Though you were the servant of sin, you have now received the faith once delivered to the saints, and you have obeyed, from the heart, that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you. But remember the hole of the pit whence you were digged; be not exalted as though there were any goodness in your nature more than in that of other men, for had you been left to yourself, you had still been the bond-slave of evil, and so you would have continued evermore.

The prediction is encouraging. Although we have to encounter this horrible curse and deadly plague of sin, there is an immunity for believers; sin shall not have dominion over them. It sounds to me like the note of a celestial harper cheering on an earthly pilgrim. It rings out like a trumpet that proclaims a coming victory. Should not every soldier fight with dauntless valour; should not his spirit, faint and cowed, wax brave in contest with sin, when he hears as the argument of a holy apostle, as the oracle of inspired truth, such a sure word of prophecy-“Sin shall not have dominion over you”? You have been delivered from it once, and shall never come back to its slavery again; it shall never “have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law but under grace.”

I intend to use the text in three ways; first, as a test; secondly, in its proper acceptation, as a promise; and thirdly, as an encouragement.

In these words we have an important test of our profession.

Sin shall not have dominion over true believers. Has sin dominion over you? If so, then you are not a believer. I did not say,-“Do you sin?”-“for if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”-but I did say, “Has sin dominion over you?”

Would you answer the question? Would you try your own selves? Let me remind you of its deceitfulness. You may be under the dominion of sin, while yet there may be some forms of vice which you have successfully resisted. But it matters not what kind of transgression enslaves you, if you are after all in bondage. Whatever sin it may be that is the lieutenant in your heart, it does not signify; you are possessed of the devil. If there be but one sin that usurps authority, then sin has dominion over you. Satan does not send to all men the same temptations, nor does evil reign in every heart to gratify the same lusts or to satisfy the same propensities. The sin is adapted to the constitution, but if there is a single cherished sin in any one of you professors, which it is obvious you cannot conquer, and, perhaps, too apparent that you do not try, if you sit down quietly under the yoke of it, and cherish it as a friend rather than withstand it as a foe, then that sin has got dominion over you, and you are not in Christ, you are not a child of God.

Does this appear unreasonably severe? I must speak the truth. There are some professors who are under the dominion of sin in the form of anger. All constitutions are not alike. Happy for those who are not troubled with the passionate temper that chafes, irritates, vexes and annoys everybody they are associated with, as servants or companions. What shall I say of those who have such a quick, hot temper? They are like the small pot that quickly boils over, and scalds terribly. There are others whose temper is rather slower in coming up, but when it has once risen it is horrible, and will last long, and make them sulky, so that perhaps they will never forgive. I know not how long malice will be burning in their hearts. Now, mark you, a man may have a very bad temper, and yet be a true Christian, but if any man says, “My temper is so bad that I cannot curb it; I do not try to restrain it, for it is impossible to keep it under control,” that temper has got dominion over him, and, according to my text, he is not a Christian. Do you ask “How can a man master his temper?” In reply, my brethren, I must ask, how can a man go to heaven if he does not? If the grace of God does not change us and help us to bridle that lion that is within us, what has it done for us? If a man says, “I cannot help it,” I cannot help telling him that if there be no help, nothing can remain for him but despair. Only in salvation from sin is there salvation from wrath. In the name of God, you must help it; you must overcome it, and get it down by God’s grace, or else it will cast you down, down, down, where hope and light will never come. Do you imagine that Christ’s gospel comes into the world and says “You may let that one sin alone”? My Lord Jesus Christ is no lover of sin, and makes no excuse for it. He will forgive your anger, if you repent of it, and renounce it, but if you allow it, and tolerate it within your spirits, then you are strangers to his grace. O sirs, I speak the truth of God, and lie not in this respect; I have seen the grace of God change lions into lambs. Men of hot and fierce temper have become calm, and quiet, and gentle. Although the old man has sometimes appeared with his old propensities, and they have had to blush for him and bite their lips to keep back the hard word, or even to walk away, perhaps, for fear they should say something which they know they would be sorry for afterwards, yet they have resisted the vile propensity and prevailed. They have mastered their temper, and so must you. You must not be content until you have done so, for if you sit down and say, “There, I shall yield myself up to it, and let it alone,” it is clear as daylight that it has dominion over you, and you cannot be a child of God, for over the children of God it shall not have dominion. It may break out sometimes and hurl you down, but you will never allow it to keep you down; you will never say of it, “I cannot overcome it,” but you will fight against it till you die, and when it does break loose it will make you wet your pillow with tears, and repair to God with a broken heart saying, “O God, forgive me, and deliver me from this horrible sin which my soul loatheth!”

In some men the sin that doth most easily beset, takes another shape. Their propensity is to murmur, of which the apostle speaks when he says “Neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.” I know people-they are very uncomfortable people to live with-who are always grumbling at everything they meet with in this world. Trade is bad. According to the account of certain persons, who never were successful, if they ever were industrious or enterprising, trade always was bad: it never has been good since they were born, or had anything to do with it. As for their meals-instead of being thankful to God that they have an abundance whilst so many are hungry, they are perpetually finding fault. No! everything must be done to a turn. If there is a little too much salt here, or a little too much pepper there, what a noise they make about such trifles! Their very garments are never to their minds. The weather never suits them: it is “awfully hot,” or it is “dreadfully cold.” They go through the world murmuring at everything. There are men who think that this is no sin, but if it be a virtue to be thankful and contented, it is certainly a vice to be for ever rebellious and discontented with our lot, and at daggers drawn with every little thing that crosses our pathway. Why did the apostle put it so, “Neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer”? Now if any man among you murmurs, he may be a Christian needing to be purged of this defilement, but if you say, “I cannot help murmuring,” then murmuring has got dominion over you, and you cannot be a child of God. You must wage war against it, for if you are a child of God, neither this sin nor any other shall have dominion over you. Here, brethren, I can speak from my own heart. I do not suppose there is any person in this assembly who ever has stronger fits of depression of spirits than I have myself personally. I feel at times when I come into this pulpit, that instead of addressing you cheerfully, I could be a very Jeremiah, with tears and sorrows. I scarce know why, but so it is; these constitutional mischiefs will happen to us. But shall I say I cannot help it? Think you I will give way to it? Nay, but in the name of God I dare not say it! I must contend against it, lest if I should speak murmuringly I should set an ill example unto others, and thus open their mouths to offend against God. This sin is hard to overcome, but conquered it must be, for it must never have dominion over us.

With some other persons the peculiar reigning sin is covetousness. Oh! how tight those fingers are when they are once closed! How pleased they are when money accumulates! I do not say that they should be indifferent to business, when it behoves them to buy and sell and get gain. But why so penurious? how unhappy they are if there is a little demand made upon them for the poor, for the needy, for the church of God! How stingily they count out their threepences! How seldom it comes to fourpence they contribute! What manœuvres they practise in limiting themselves to the minimum of charity! How they grudge all they part with, and how much it seems to cost them when they give anything! It is indeed a bleeding which reduces their vital force when anything is given to further the interests of their Lord! Now, this covetousness is smiled at-perchance ye say, “’tis a gentlemanly vice”-but I myself think it a grievous wrong, base as any fraud; for what hast thou that thou hast not received? And what hast thou received for which thou art not accountable? And what hast thou earned for which thou shouldst not pay tribute? Moreover my God has said of it, “Covetousness is idolatry.” I do not doubt but you may fall into fits of covetousness, and yet be Christians. If, however, you are habitually covetous, and say, “Well, I cannot help it,” then your covetousness has got dominion over you, and according to the text you cannot be a child of God, for in the children of God sin shall not have dominion. O sirs, turn that covetousness out of doors. Do as the good man did who had resolved to give a pound to some good cause, and the devil tempted him not to do it. Said he, “I will give two now.” The devil said, “Nay, you will be ruining yourself with your contributions.” Said he, “I will give four.” Another temptation came, and he said, “I will give eight; and if the devil does not leave off tempting me I do not know to what lengths I shall go, but I will be master of him, somehow.” Do anything my brethren, rather than let the golden calf run over you. Who can be a baser slave than he who bows his neck to the mammon god? he is not a manly god. Dost thou live as if the world were made for you and none beside? To get, to hoard, but not to enjoy: he who loves not others is himself unblest.

It might so happen that some of my hearers never fell into that sin, it never reigned over them. Yet possibly another vice may be in the ascendant. Perhaps it is the sin of pride, as I have already told you, it does not matter what sin it is, if it has dominion over you, the text cuts you off from hope. Pride and arrogancy are an abomination to the Lord. Know ye not that the lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness, that is to say the arrogant bearing of men, shall be bowed down in that day when the Lord alone is exalted? Ah! I know some who are proud in this very manner. They treat all those they meet with, superciliously, as though they felt that they were altogether of a superior order. They do not deign to notice the common herd, the vulgar. Or, if not tossing their head and consequential in their manners-they are not quite so foolish as that perhaps-yet are they proud in everything else. Nobody can pray as they do; nobody can manage anything as they can. All other Christian people are very imperfect and poor things, but they themselves are quite of a superior class, casting their neighbours into the shade. Now, my dear friend, I do not say that you are no Christian because you occasionally forget the lowliness of heart and the modesty of demeanour that become you, but I do say that if pride reigns over you, and you tell me that you cannot help being proud, then you cannot be an heir of heaven, for if pride is your master, then Christ is not, and if pride reigns in your spirit and fashions your character, depend upon it Jesus Christ will despise your image.

The dominant sin of many who profess and call themselves Christians is sloth-downright idleness. They have said to themselves, “Soul, take thine ease.” Henceforth their faculties have become dormant; as asleep they pass their lives in protracted insensibility. They never do anything for Christ. Their hands are folded, their heart is sluggish, their talents are hid. They have no zeal, no love for souls. Pleasures, Profits, and private gratifications, take the place of duty and service. They like comfort remarkably much, but as to their ever enlisting in Christ’s army, it is not to be expected of them. They are an inglorious neuter to the church. Now, I will not say that the man who is sometimes slothful is not a Christian, for alas! we all have to contend with this disease, but the man in whom sloth rules cannot be a child of God, because no sin can have dominion over the man whom God has brought into the kingdom of grace.

But enough of this, I have given you sufficient tests to try yourselves with. Will you, brethren, be honest enough to subject yourselves to self-examination? As I desire to do with myself, so would I have you do with yourselves. Is there a reigning sin in your hearts? Never mind what it is-is there any sin that reigns and rules there? Then Jesus Christ cannot be in your soul, for-

“When he comes, he comes to reign,”

Nor can the Spirit of God dwell in you, for he is the Spirit of holiness.

But now, let us take a more pleasant view of the text, regarding it as a promise.

To every true believer the promise is-“Sin shall not have dominion over you.” It does not say that sin shall not dwell in you. We know that it will dwell in you while ye dwell in these corruptible bodies. In the holiest man there is enough sin to destroy him if it were not for the grace of God, which restrains its deadly operation. You cannot turn the old enemy completely out; he lurks, like aliens in a city, ever ready to do mischief. Nor are you told that you shall never fall into sin. Alas! alas! Some of those who have walked very near to God have yet fallen very foully. Need I mention such as David? O may we never repeat in our lives the lapses that tarnished the reputation of such godly men! The word, however, is passed and the security is given, that “sin shall not have dominion over you.” The fair and lovely dove may fall into the mire, but the mire has not any dominion over it, for she rises up as quickly as she can, and away she flies and seeks to cleanse herself at some crystal fount. As for the duck, put that into the mire, and the mire hath dominion over its nature. So the believer may fall into sin that he hates, and defile his garments with uncleanness that he loathes. Let a sheep tumble into a ditch, and it scrambles out again, but let the swine go there, and it rolls in it, for the mire has dominion over its nature. There is nothing here to excuse you from watchfulness, no reason shown nor any pledge that sin may not sometimes terribly overcome you. It may carry the war right into the province of your spirit, and ravage it, and the whole of your nature may for awhile seem to be subdued, except the heart. Happily a limit is prescribed. Though the enemy may seem to conquer the territory of your manhood, yet it cannot establish a kingdom there, for it shall be driven out again in due time, and that before long. When the enemy cometh in as a flood, the Spirit of God will lift up the standard against him, and the enemy shall yet be worsted in the combat.

Notice the reason that is assigned for the assertion of the text. “Sin shall not have dominion over you, for”-just look at that reason for a minute, when we have looked at a few others.

Sin cannot get confirmed dominion over the child of God, because God hath promised that it shall not. “Sin shall not have dominion over you.” Oh! how I love these “shalls!” There seems something grand in them. “Sin shall not.” Ah! Satan may come with temptation, but when God says, “Sin shall not have dominion,” it is as when the sea comes up in the fulness of its strength, and the Almighty saith-“Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther; here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” If there were no other promise in the Bible but this one, and I knew no more theology than that promise teaches me, I would be most happy. “Sin shall not have dominion.” O my God, if thou sayest it shall not, then I know it shall not. Hath he said, and shall he not do it? Hath he promised it, and shall it not stand good? If you trust in Jesus Christ, before sin can ever fully rule over you, God’s promise must be broken, and, beloved, that shall never be.

Another reason is-sin shall not have dominion over you because you belong to Christ, and he bought you at such a price that I am sure he will never lose you. He paid for you in the drops of his own heart’s blood. As a believer you are Christ’s purchased possession. Do you think that he will permit evil to come and run away with the heritage that he bought at such a price? Ah, never! He that bought you will fight for you against every enemy, and preserve his blood-bought heritage unto himself.

Sin shall not have dominion over you because the Holy Spirit has come to dwell in you. If you are a believer the Holy Ghost dwells in you as a king within his palace, and think you that he will be expelled thence by Satan and all his host of temptations?

“Sin is strong, but grace is stronger,

Christ than Satan more supreme.”

It is a hard struggle between you and Satan, but between the Holy Ghost and Satan it is an easy war. He can hold his own, and he will do it.

Moreover, the Holy Ghost has begun a good work in you, and it is his rule never to leave his work unfinished. The work which his wisdom begins, the arm of his strength will complete. It shall not be said of the Holy Spirit as we say of foolish builders, that they began to build, but were not able to finish. The first stone of grace laid in a sinner’s heart secures the top-stone of the sacred edifice, let hell and sin say what they will. Is not this a safeguard to prevent you from falling under the dominion of sin?

Further still, my brethren and sisters. There is in every Christian a new nature, a new nature which cannot die and which cannot sin. Christ, calls it “a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” The apostle calls it “a living incorruptible seed, which liveth and abideth for ever.” Now, if this seed within you be incorruptible, then sin cannot corrupt it; if it abideth for ever, then sin cannot expel it. If the inner life be there, and it be indeed the very life of God within your spirit, sin shall not have dominion over you.

There is another reason also, my dear brother, that specially applies to you as a Christian, your will is not the slave of sin, and never has been since your conversion. You sin, but if you could, you never would sin. To will is present with you. The bent and bias of your mind are towards righteousness if you are a Christian indeed. Now, if such be the case, sin can never get dominion over your whole nature, for the sovereignty of all your manhood lies with him who possesses the mastery of your will and your affections. As long as the blood-red flag of Christ’s cross floats over the castle of your heart, Satan may get possession of eye-gate, and ear-gate, and mouth-gate awhile, but Christ is still king; your will is still good towards righteousness-sin has not dominion over you. You know how John Bunyan represents poor Feeble-mind in the cave of Giant Slaygood. The giant had picked him up on the road, and taken him home to devour him at his leisure; but poor Feeble-mind said he had one comfort, for he had heard that the giant could never pick the bones of any man who was brought there against his will. Ah! and so it is. If there be a man who has fallen into sin, but still his heart crieth out against the sin; if he be saying, “Lord, I am in captivity to it; I am under bondage to it; O that I could be free from it!” then sin has not dominion over him, nor shall it destroy him, but he shall be set free ere long.

We now come to the reason given in the text. I want you to observe it narrowly, for it is not at first sight easy of apprehension, “Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law but under grace.” Look at this a minute. There are two principles in the world that are supposed to promote holiness. The one is the principle of law and duty, the other the principle of grace and faith. It is a popular notion that if you tell men what they ought to do, prove to them the authority or the law-giver, and show them the penalty of their wrong doing-this will enlighten their judgment, give a just bias to their inclination, and materially help to keep their conduct right. All the history of mankind goes to show that this pretext is without proof. Those who are under the law are always under sin. I will show you how it is so. The moment our mother Eve came under law, she was under law only on one point. She was not to pluck the fruit of one tree. She might eat as she liked of all the other fruits of the garden, and I do not know that she wanted to pluck any of them, or cared particularly to do so, but the prohibition to pluck that one, prompted her desire and excited an ardent craving for the forbidden fruit. On this very morning I talked with a person in great distress, who said to me, “I read in the Word of God such-and-such a text about a sin that was unto death, and no sooner did I begin to know what that sin was than I felt a fascination which made me want to do it.” Did you never notice the same in your children? You have a little garden you wish to keep private, and you accordingly forbid any of the children to go into it. Well, you had better give them leave to go in, and then perhaps they will be indifferent about it, but if you say, “Now, you may go anywhere else; but just inside that particular part of the garden you must not go,” why, they one and all want to go there at once. There is a kind of curiosity about us, that if there be a Blue-beard cupboard anywhere, we must go and try to find it out. The moment we are commanded not to do a thing, such is our perverse disposition, we try to do it. Men who are under law through the naughtiness of human nature, always get to be under sin too. There is a new crime lately come up. There is to be a communication in railway carriages between the passengers and the guard, and nobody must pull the rope unless there is sufficient reason for stopping the train. Now, I will be bound to say that somebody will be sure to do it. If you must not do it you want to do it. Such is our nature, the law instead of promoting holiness, does not promote it, but the flesh takes occasion to gratify its desires, lusts, and cravings, by infringing its precepts. Even the terrible penalties of hell have failed to inspire fear or promote holiness. When was there ever so much sheep-stealing, and theft, and highway robbery, and forgery, as when men were hanged for these things? Then such sins were always being committed. When Draco wrote his laws in blood, and every sin was punished with death, crime was far more rife than it is even now. Law has proved its utter powerlessness to protect men from the dominion of sin.

There is another principle, and it is steadfastly believed by some of us to be fruitful in every good word and work, a main instigator to righteousness and true holiness. Let me explain it; it is the principle of grace on the part of God, and operates by faith in the heart of man. It is on this wise. Grace does not say to a man, “You must do this or you shall be punished,” but it says this, “God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven you all your sins; you are saved; heaven is yours, and you shall enter into the bliss of the angels ere long; now, for the love you bear to God, who has done this for you, what will you do for him?” This does not appear to furnish, at first sight, a very powerful motive, but it has been proved in the history of Christ’s church, to be the most potent creator of virtue that was ever heard of. God’s great love wherewith he loved us has been indelibly impressed on the heart. The wondrous sacrifice of Christ has been verily depicted before the eyes. A constraining power, strong as death, has availed to consecrate the lives of those who have felt the sacred rapturous spell. Dissolved by mercy unmerited and grace unexpected, they have surrendered themselves in terms like these:

“Now, for the love I bear his name,

What was my gain I count my loss;

My former pride I call my shame,

And nail my glory to his cross.”

Look at the lives of the apostles, and the martyrs, and those earnest confessors of Christ who did resist to blood striving against sin. Why, my brethren, Christ has had such servants as Moses never had. He has had such self-devotion, such consecration such zeal, purely and simply the result of gratitude as mere law and duty never could create. Now, because you are not under the law, you Christian people, God does not say to you, “Do this, and I will save you; do not do that, and I will damn you;” but he says to you, “I have saved you beyond the fear of damnation: you are mine, my children, my favourites; now, what will you do for me?” Such is the motive power, such the irresistible instinct of love and gratitude, that sin shall never get dominion over you. I will give you an illustration. I rather think that I am indebted for it to a passage in Cowper’s works which I cannot at this moment recall. You have a servant who engages to do his allotted work for the wages that you give him, with no other motive than his stipend, and no further interest in his employment than to get over it as quickly as possible. He is under law. Notice how he watches your eye, that he may do while you are looking at him that which he must do. He renders you a service of a certain sort, but it is generally very poor and not much to be accounted of. But you have another servant, one who is old and tried, and honest to the backbone: he recollects you when a boy, and used to live with your father then. Now, if you could not pay him his wages it would not destroy his attachment to you, or his zeal for your interest. If you were to discharge him, I dare say he would tell you that if you did not know when you had a good servant he knew when he had a good master, and he meant to stick by you. Notice him how he watches your interests; he will not have anything wasted through neglect; he will not have you defrauded in anything for want of oversight; and if you were ill in the middle of the night, he would somehow or other discover it and be off for a doctor before you could call him. If he travelled with you, what care and attention he would pay you; he would be ready to risk his life for you. You could not buy such service as his for gold, you could not get it as a mere matter of duty. Love makes him do for you what mere duty never could. So, even if the law did make good servants, as it never does, yet it never could make so good a servant as grace and love. Indeed, the motive of love is always the strongest, and if it came to the pinch, and your man who serves you for your pay could make more out of betraying you than he could by being faithful to you, you know what he would do; but your other servant who serves you out of love would no more think of going beyond or imposing upon you than of sacrificing himself; he would, perhaps, be like the Roman slave, who was tortured to death sooner than he would run and point out where his master was concealed, because his master was sought in order to be slain. Love, love is the mighty principle. You Christian people are not under the law. It is true the moral law is your rule of life, but it has no tyrannous government over you. Christ fulfilled the law for you; it has been kept; you owe it no obedience as a matter of mere justice. You have been delivered from that, and being now under the law of love, and not under the law of force and duty, sin never shall have dominion over you.

But I cannot tarry longer, as our time is gone. The last point is to view the text as an encouragement.

In this assembly I fear there are not a few who are strangers to the holy jealousy which keeps a watch over the heart, and a guard upon the lips, lest they should sin. I wish we were all so on the alert, that we all kept our garments scrupulously white. Dear brethren, cultivate a holy jealousy. Be very watchful, and let this text animate you-“Sin shall not have dominion over you.”

In this assembly, too, there are some who are consciously very weak. You feel your depraved nature to be vigorous, and you are afraid that the grace within you is insufficient for the trials that beset you. My dear brethren, let this encourage you. Though you may be very weak, if you are a child of God, sin shall no more get dominion over the weak than over the strong. Though the life within you may be but a spark, it shall not be quenched; though it be but as a bruised reed, it shall not be broken. The text is for the weak as well as the strong-“Sin shall not have dominion over you.”

In this company there may be those who just now are fighting with some great sin. We noticed last Monday night the prayer of a dear brother evidently coming out of the bitterness of his soul, when he said, “O God, help me, or I shall fall; help me, or I shall fall!” Ah! brethren, we all know what it is to get to the pinch, when it is hand-to-hand work with some inbred corruption. You that have not strong passions may be very thankful, for they that have a lusty manhood are often drifted by terrible winds, and have a hard fight to keep clear of the rocks of sin. But oh! you warring Christians, you believers who are fighting, here is consolation for you. Put this bottle of cool water to your lips, and be refreshed. “Sin shall not have dominion over you.” You shall conquer yet; fight on!

Possibly there may be some here lately converted-some man who was a drunkard. Your chains are broken, but there are some links that are left hanging, and sometimes they will catch hold of a nail, and you will think you are tied up again. Oh! but, my brethren, if you have given your heart to Christ, sin shall not have dominion over you; you shall yet be helped. Probably there is a man here whose life was very bad before his conversion, and he says to himself, “I have to go and mix up with some of the people I used to sin with, and they laugh at me, and lay all sorts of traps for me. I am afraid I shall yet go back.” O cling to the cross; lay hold of the skirts of your dear Lord and Master, for if you trust him, though you be but a child lately born into the family, “Sin shall not have dominion over you.”

Perhaps I address a backslider to-night. O my brother, you have gone into sin; you have awfully defiled your garments; perhaps the church of God has had to cast you out. But do you now hate your sin? Have you now again began to cry unto God for mercy? Does the Lord help you to look to the cross, and rest in the work of Jesus? If so, be of good courage still, for if you are his child sin may get a temporary advantage, but it shall never have permanent dominion. You have sinned very terribly; it is an awful thing; God have mercy upon you for it. You will have to go with broken bones all your life, but you shall still be saved, for sin shall not have dominion over you.

And now, the last sentence is this, if there be any man here desirous to be saved from the reigning power of sin within his body, however much sin may now domineer over him, if he will come to Christ, my Lord and Master, and put his trust in him, he will take care to deliver him altogether from sin, beginning the good work in him this very night, and carrying it on till he at last brings him to heaven, without a spot or a sin, to see the face of God. And this is for every one of you who will trust Christ. O that you may trust in him now, and God shall have the glory while you will have the great salvation. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon.-Romans 6.

SAFE SHELTER

A Sermon

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust.”-Psalm 91:4.

What condescending words! I cannot express the sense I feel of the great lovingkindness of the Lord to us in using such a simile to set forth his protecting care of his people. Had any poet suggested the metaphor, we might have recoiled from it as unseemly, or rejected it as profane. It really is so familiar and so homely, that unless God himself had spoken it by the mouth of his Holy Spirit, we might have accounted it impertinent for any human being to have used the comparison. The Lord here compares himself to a hen covering her brood, and he speaks not only of the wing, which gives shelter, but he enters into detail, and speaks of the feathers, which give warmth, and comfort, and repose. “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust.” Using thus the maternal instinct as an emblem of his own parental tenderness, God compares himself to the mother bird, which fosters, cherishes, and protects her little ones.

You have stood sometimes in the farmyard, and there you have noticed the little chicks as they cowered down under the hen. She has given some note of warning that betokened danger; perhaps your very presence discomposed her, and made her betray some little fluttering of fear. She called her little ones by her peculiar cry; they came to her, and then stooping down and spreading out her wings, she covered them, and they were safe. You would have noticed that after they were safely nestled there, the warmth of her feathers made them seem peculiarly happy and at ease. You could hear them clacking to one another, and playfully pushing one another sometimes out of their places, but evidently cheerful, contented, and peaceful. It was something more than the protection which a soldier would give to a comrade: it was the protection of a mother of her young. There was love in it, there was homeliness, relationship, kindliness, heart-working in it all. It was not the relief merely that might supply a little cold comfort, but the breast feathers came down upon the little ones, and there they rested cosily and comfortably, serene and unmolested. Well now, that is precisely the idea that the text teaches. So, at least, I understand it. So, evidently, Dr. Watts thought, when he wrote the well-known paraphrase-

“Just as a hen protects her brood,

From birds of prey that seek their blood,

Under her feathers, so the Lord

Makes his own arm his people’s guard.”

There is even more fulness of meaning than the doctor has compassed. Not only is protection from danger vouchsafed; a sense of comfort and happiness is communicated, making the child of God feel that he is at home under the shadow of the Almighty; that he has all the comforts that he can want when he has once come to cower down under a blessed sense of the divine presence, and to feel the warm outflowing of the very heart of God, as he reveals himself in the tenderest relationship towards his weak and needy servants.

Carrying this picture in your mind’s eye, may it often cheer and encourage you. Though I have nothing new, no bewitching novelty to introduce to you, I want to bring the old, old truth vividly before your minds, to examine it in detail, and press it home to your souls.

Let our starting-point be a question-a question of paramount interest-when may this text be relied upon by a believer? “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust.”

Well, it may be relied upon in cases of extreme peril. I do not doubt that servants of God in times of danger at sea, when the huge billows have roared and the tempest has raged, and the vessel seemed likely to go to pieces, have often cheered their hearts with such a thought as this-“Now, he that holdeth the waters in the hollow of his hand, will take care of us, and cover us with his feathers, and under his wings may we trust.” Perhaps at this very moment, down in some cabin, or amidst the noise and tumult, and the raging of the ocean, when many are alarmed, there are Christians with calm faces, patiently waiting their Father’s will, whether it shall be to reach the port of heaven, or to be spared to come again to land, into the midst of life’s trials and struggles once more. They feel that they are well-cared for, they know that the storm has a bit in its mouth, and that God holds it in, and nothing can hurt them; nothing can happen to them but what God permits. On the dry land, too, the same blessed text has often comforted the Lord’s people. Some are particularly timid in times of storm, when the thunder comes peal upon peal, and the lightning flashes follow each other, when it seems as if the very earth did tremble, and the skies fled away from the glance of an angry God. Oh! how it calms the anxious breast, stills the boding fears, and makes the heart tranquil, to feel that he covers us with his feathers, and that under his wings we may trust. I always feel ashamed to keep indoors when peals of thunder shake the solid earth, and lightnings flash like arrows from the sky. Then God is abroad, and I love to walk out in the open space, and to look up and mark the opening gates of heaven, as the lightning reveals far beyond, and enables you to look into the unseen. I like to hear my heavenly Father’s voice, but I do not think we could ever come to a state of peace in such times as those if we did not feel that he was near, that he was our friend, that he would not hurt the children of his own love. It would be contrary to his own nature, and altogether apart from the kindliness of his character, as well as the constancy of his covenant engagements, that he should suffer anything to touch his people that could do them real ill. Nor is it only from violent commotions in the physical world that you are liable to suffer shocks. Many of you have known times of disruption in the mercantile world, which have been the occasion of frightful horror. The wheels of trade have run off the tramline through some violent collision of opposing interests. Or on a larger scale the whole system of commerce may appear to have collapsed as with an earthquake. Great houses, whose very names were the bulwarks of credit, have suddenly tottered and fell. While curious eyes have looked on with marvel, many have been the humble people struggling hard for a bare livelihood who were involved in loss and disaster which paralysed all their efforts. What though panic has prevailed on every side, has it not been sweet, passing sweet, to find succour under the wings of the Almighty, and hear his voice saying to you, “Trust in the Lord, and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.” I know that such calamities are heavy and hard to bear. Were it not so we should never have been furnished with such strong consolation. When the foundations of enterprise are slackened, and gigantic schemes burst like a bubble; when the mill is at rest, and looks like the hulk of a disabled vessel; when the workshops are closed, and the artisans skilled to labour, seek a pauper’s pittance at the gates of the union; or when the affliction falls upon the fields and the folds, a blight destroying the crops, and rhinderpest cutting down the oxen; these are the sorrows of the world, and chosen men of old have trusted in God nor found him to fail in straits like these. So said one, “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” Yet more, brethren, who among you need be reminded of the fears that seize the breast when pestilence is spreading through the land, and rumours that it has approached your own doors have reached your ears. Neighbours or kinsfolk are smitten down without warning. With anxious looks and eager enquiries you listen for tidings that ’twere well nigh death to hear. Have you never counted the watches of the night, dreading every sound, and pondering every sensation you felt, as if it were an ominous portent? When the cholera has been raging, or the fever has been making havoc; when science has been baffled to find out the cause or cure of some insidious disease that walketh in darkness, and wasteth at noonday; when those who were wont to jeer at religion and laugh at prayer, have uttered pious ejaculations, and said, “This is no doubt a visitation of God.” Well, at such times has it not been good for you to seek the covert of his wings, and rely on the gracious promise, “Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling”? In all times of public calamity, in any season of domestic grief, and on every occasion of personal danger, I beseech you, do not cast away your confidence which hath great recompense and reward, for if your faith will not bear up under such trials as these, what is it good for? What anchorage is there for your soul? If you cannot bear these little alarms, how will you do in the swellings of Jordan, when grim death appears in view? And amidst the terrors of the world to come, when the very pillars of the universe shall reel, and all things shall pass away, how will you be able to stand calmly and serenely, if these things move you? Nay, beloved, let the weakest of you play the man, and as you have believed in your God, be ashamed of craven fear, as Ezra was when having once made a protest, he resolved to abide by it at all hazard. “The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him, and his wrath is against all them that forsake him.” Pluck up courage, and say within yourselves, “Now will I prove that promise true, ‘He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust,’ ”

But texts of Scripture like this are not made to be hung up on the nail and only taken down now and then in stress of weather. Blessed be God, the promise before us is available for sunshiny days, yea, for every hour of this mortal life. When you leave your house to-morrow morning, you will little know what peril may befal you during the day. “At least,” said an old divine, who was accustomed to spend the most part of his time in his study-“at least the studious man is safe from the accidents which shorten the lives of others.” So he vainly thought. The very day after he had used the expression, a stack of chimneys fell through his study, and had he happened to have been sitting where he customarily did, he must have been crushed to pieces. There are dangers everywhere, and the guardian care of God can never be safely dispensed with. If we walk aright, we shall never venture upon a single day without first seeking divine protection. How many who have escaped out of terrible storms, have nevertheless died in a calm! Where some have passed through battles without a scar, they have afterwards been killed by an accident so slight that they would utterly have despised a precaution to avoid it. You always need divine protection, and, believer in Christ, you shall always have it, for “he shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust.” This is for you to-night when you strip off your garments and lay your weary frame upon your bed; then you may say, “Now, Lord, cover me with thy feathers.” And it is for you to-morrow, when you are going out to your daily labour, not knowing what may befal you, you can use the same petition, “This day, O God, grant that under thy wings I may trust.”

When-shall I ask again-may this promise be relied upon? Well, beloved, it may be particularly relied upon in times of temptation. Earnest Christian men are not so much afraid of trials as of temptations. If you could extract the tempting element from our afflictions you would have rendered the gall devoid of at least half its bitterness. To suffer is little, but to be provoked to sin-this is the great cause of fear. “Give me neither poverty nor riches,” said the wise man; but why? It was not because poverty would be inconvenient, but lest he should sin through poverty. “Give me not riches,” said he; not because riches might not be desirable, but lest he should sin through the deceitfulness of wealth. The great horror of a Christian is sin. Find him a place on earth where he could live without sin, and there he would fix his residence, not asking you whether it were a dungeon or a palace. If there were a place where my temper could never be ruffled, where I could never be agitated into pride or be silenced into cowardice; if I could find a spot where sloth would never molest me, or where earthly passions would never uprise for my casting down, thrice happy would I be to borrow the wings of a dove and fly thither at once. As your temptations are just the things which you dread, it behoves you to pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” but recollect, if the Providence of God should at any other time constrain you to go where you are tempted, and must be tempted, you may then fall back upon this gracious word-“He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust.” Do you know, I have noticed that young people who are often exposed to severe temptations are very generally preserved from falling into sin; but I have noticed that others, both old and young, whose temptations were not remarkably severe, have been generally those who have been the first to fall. In fact, it is a lamentable thing to have to say, but lamentably true it is, that at the period of life when you would reckon, from the failure of the passions, the temptation would be less vigorous, that very period is marked more than any other by the most solemn transgressions amongst God’s people. I think I have heard that many horses fall at the bottom of a hill because the driver thinks the danger past and the need to hold the reins with firm grip less pressing as they are just about to renew their progress and begin to ascend again. So it is often with us when we are not tempted through imminent danger we are the more tempted through slothful ease. I think it was Ralph Erskine who said, “There is no devil so bad as no devil.” The worst temptation that ever overtakes us, is, in some respects, preferable to our being left alone altogether without any sense of caution or stimulus to watch and pray. Be always on your watch-tower, and you shall be always secure. In looking forward to the temptations of next week-you working men who labour side-by-side with sceptics; you young women living in graceless families; you merchants who have to go amongst others whose mode of conducting trade is not clean (you each and all know the temptations common to your own lot in the busy commonwealth), resolve in the strength of God that you will walk uprightly, and that as Christians you will not soil your garments, and then you may come to your heavenly Father for his protection, and say to him, “My God, I am more afraid of sin than I am of lightning, or of fire, or of the murderer’s dagger; keep me day by day from sin, defend me from evil, ‘cover me with thy feathers, for under thy wings will I trust.’ ”

So, again, this text may be very blessedly applied to our souls, and I hope it will be, in times of expected trials. I do not know that it is right for us to anticipate trials at all. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” We ought never to sit down and begin fretting ourselves about what may happen, because the ill we dread may never come to pass. Many a true servant of God has said to himself-“What shall I do when I get old? I am just able now to pick up a living, but what shall I do when these withered limbs can no longer avail to earn my daily bread?” Do? Why, you will have the same Father then as you have now to succour you, and you will have the same Providence then as now to supply your wants. You thank God for your daily bread now, and you shall have your daily bread then, for he will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings shall you trust. Some of God’s servants who have been thus afraid have had no cause of complaint, for their latter days have been blessed, they have been placed in comfortable circumstances, and they have had to wonder at the liberal hand which furnished their table, and to chide the unbelief of their own fretful spirits. Others of them have been taken away from the ills they forecast and conveyed to heaven long before they had reached anything like the period of bodily infirmity or mental imbecility they dreaded. So with you, dear friends. God will take care of you; only rest on him. It is bad to make troubles. I always say of home-made troubles, that they are very like home-made clothes, they never fit well, and they are generally a long while before they are worn out. You had better take the troubles God sends you; they are more suitable for you; you will be able to carry them, and you will be able to get over them by his grace. Do not begin to think of what you will do in the year 1899. Why, Jesus Christ may come before then, or you may be absent from the body and present with him before then. But, if you are of such a nervous temper that you cannot help sometimes anticipating, or if you are so speculatively disposed that you will carry your almanacs with you, and chronicle black days in the coming years, then just make a note of this in the margin, “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust.” Let the unknown to-morrow bring with it what it may, it cannot bring us anything but what God shall bear us through. So let it come and let it go. The Lord’s name be praised. We shall bless his name in it and after it, and why not before it?

There is another hour in which this text will be particularly consoling to us, and that is the hour of death. Ah! we may sing what we will, and say what we will, but dying is no child’s play. Thank God, it is going home; we know that it is not death in some respects. It is but a change in our mode of life. Absent from the body we are present with the Lord. But still we cannot think of that death-dew which will lie cold on our brow, the failing voice, and the glazing eye, without some natural shrugs. When we would fain go forth to meet it, we shrink back again to life-“Fond of our prison and our clay.”

But what shall we do when we come to die, when the physician can no longer help us, and the beatings of the pulse wax faint and few? Why, then, “he shall cover us with his feathers, and under his wings shall we trust.” Oh! it will be so blessed to go cowering down right under the shadow of the Almighty, hiding ourselves as the little chickens do in the hen’s feathers; losing our own individuality in the realisation of our union to Christ; finding that it is not death to die, but coming nearer to God in very deed, in blissful experience, nearer than ever we were before. Looking forward into that unknown future, across the shoreless sea, and listening to the billows as we hear them sounding in the dark, we thank God that they are not billows of fire to us, that they are not waves of everlasting wrath, but that they are waves of eternal bliss. Bat, be they what they may, whatever there may be in the future, whatever may be meant by the millennium, and the burning of the earth, and the wreck of nature, whatever may be meant by vials and trumpets, and by all besides in the arcana of prophecy, “he shall cover us with his feathers, and under his wings shall we trust,” and amidst the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds, safe, safe, safe, and near our God, and blessed eternally shall we be. Beloved, in such an hour may such an oracle as this come rolling sweetly into your souls to cheer and comfort you.

Having thus answered a first question, and told you when this promise may be relied upon, let us proceed to answer another question-How may we expect the text to be fulfilled?

It may possibly be verified to us by our being preserved altogether from the danger which we dread. God has often, as predicted in the present Psalm, in times of pestilence, and famine, and war, preserved his people by remarkable providences. Especially has this been the case in the experience of those of his people who have been lively in their faith, and careful to follow his instructions. Now, if there is one instruction that Jesus Christ has plainly given to a Christian, it is this-“I say unto you, Resist not evil.” Our brethren of the Society of Friends have been admirably firm and consistent in their declaration, that they have no right to bear arms. In the times of the massacre in Ireland, when Protestants took a town, they generally cut the throats of the Catholics; and when Roman Catholics took a town, they always returned the compliment by killing the Protestants, but the cry always was-“Spare the Quakers! Spare the Quakers!” They had hurt no one; they had taken up no arms. Strange to tell, through that long and bitter warfare only three Quakers died, and those three had fled from their homes to find a refuge in a neighbouring castle with the troops. Of course they rested on an arm of flesh and it failed them. When the British bolts were flying through Copenhagen fast and furious, and the Danish town seemed given over to destruction by Nelson’s terrific bombardment, there was one house upon which not a shot or shell ever fell. Nelson and the British knew nothing of that house of course, but there it stood as safely as old Rahab’s house when the walls of Jericho fell down. It was the house of a Quaker, who when an order was given for all to defend their houses in a particular way, said he had nothing to do with fighting. The man rested in God, and God’s protection was wonderfully spread over him. In the literature of the Society of Friends, there is a large number of anecdotes showing how God has especially marked out times of peril for preserving those men, who scrupulously refused to defend themselves, and rested on the promise of their faithful God. We all know how singularly the Lord has shielded those who trusted in him in the times of pestilence. That old house, still standing in the High Street at Chester, is a lasting proof of the power of faith, with its old letters cut in the black wood “God’s Providence is mine inheritance.” When everybody else was flying out of Chester into the country, the man who lived in that house just wrote that inscription up over the door, and stopped in the town, depending on God that he should be preserved, and none in his house fell a victim to that black death which was slaying its thousands on all sides. Strong faith has always a particular immunity in times of trouble. When a man has really, under a sense of duty, under a conscientious conviction, rested alone in God, he has been enabled to walk where the thickest dangers were flying, all unharmed. He has put his foot upon the adder, and the young lion and the dragon hath he trampled under his feet. Having confidence in God, God has verified and vindicated his promise, and the child of God that could so trust has never been put to confusion.

There are some dangers from which the Providence of God does not preserve the Lord’s people, but still he covers them with his feathers in another sense, by giving them grace to bear up under their troubles. It little matters, you know, whether a man has no burden and no strength, or a heavy burden and great strength. Probably of the two, if it were put to the most of us, we should prefer to have the burden and the strength. I know I should. Now, there is generally this for you, that if you have little trouble, you will have little faith; but if you have great faith, you must expect to have great trouble. A manly spirit would choose to take the trouble, and take the faith too. Well, then, God will give you this covert with his feathers-though you have to carry the load you shall have strength enough to carry it. Nay, you shall find, as a dear saint once said, that the sweetest thing next to Christ in all the world, was Christ’s cross, and that to carry Christ’s cross was the next best thing to beholding his glory. You shall find your afflictions become your mercies, and your trials become your comforts. You shall glory in tribulation, and find light in the midst of gloom, and have joy unspeakable in the season of your sorrow. Thus God covers us as with his feathers.

In yet another way doth God set seal to this record when by his grace having sustained his servants in their trouble he brings them out of it greatly enriched thereby. Oh! it is a great blessing to be put through the fire, if you come out purified. It is a sweet mercy to have to go through the floods, if some filthiness may thereby be removed. The children of Israel went down to Egypt to sojourn there, but after hard servitude and cruel oppression they came up out of it with silver and gold, much enriched by their bondage. Did you ever notice that memorable passage, in which the Lord has borne witness to his gracious heed for them before he brought about their deliverance? “God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.” Comment is needless. In the season of their direst grief God was all in all to them. And you, child of God, shall lose nothing by your losses; you shall be a gainer by them, a greater gainer than others by their gains; for all your losses and troubles shall not touch your immortal part. As bars of iron make not a prison or a cage to a free soul, so afflictions that are merely temporal and bodily shall not hamper or lessen the joy of an immortal spirit. Nay, we shall mount above the billows of our griefs, and sing as we lift our heads above the spray. We shall rise above the clouds of our present afflictions, and look down upon them as they float beneath our feet, rejoicing that the Lord has borne us, as upon wings, above them all, to bring us to himself.

So you see, either by keeping us out of trouble, by helping us to bear it, or by bringing us through it with great gain to ourselves, “he shall cover us with his feathers, and under his wings shall we trust.”

A third enquiry suggests itself to me, in responding to which I shall be very brief: why may we be quite sure that it shall be so?

You may find a strong ground of personal assurance in the fact that faith enlists the sympathy of God. Faith seems to me to enlist everybody’s sympathy. There is a blind man going along, and he wants to get across the street, and he puts perfect confidence in you; though he cannot see you, and does not know you, he feels sure that you will lead him across. Now, I know you will. If there was a little child that had lost its way, and it came running up to you, big, tall man, and said, “O sir! I do not know my way home, nor where I came from, but I feel quite sure you will take care of me till I have found my mother.” Well, you would not any one of you turn round and spurn him away; you would feel as if you were firmly held with chains around you. Somehow or other, when others have faith in us we do not like, if we can help it, not to come up to their standard of opinion about us. We want to be as good as they think us to be, and we always try to be so. Now, it is a point with God that he always will be as good as you think him to be, ay, and a great deal better; and if you but think that he will be a gracious and merciful God to you, and so rely on him as his child, it is not in the heart of God to turn away from a humble faith that dares to lay hold upon his skirts. Try it, dear friends, and you will prove it true.

But, you may be quite sure that he will cover you with his feathers, because we have hundreds of promises to that effect. There is not time to quote them all, but there is one like this, “He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee;” and here is another, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.” And then there is this, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God! I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” “Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded.” There are hundreds of promises like these, and will he break them? You keep your promise to your child, and will not God keep his promise to you? O rest in him, then; he shall cover us with his feathers, for his own word declares it.

Moreover, you are his child, and what will not a father do for his own dear child? Were he a stranger you might take little heed though he were in trouble, in danger, or in deep distress-but your child, your own child-oh! you cannot rest while he suffers. How agitated we are when our little ones are sick; how we get the best advice for them; when they are in pain how willingly would we take their pain if we could relieve them, and spare those cries that seem to pierce our heart as well as our ears! if anybody hurts them, why the most placid of us find our temper soon roused. “And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.” Though he bear long with their adversaries, yet will he come to the help of his own beloved ones, for he is fatherly in all the sensitiveness of his heart, as well as in all the judiciousness of his chastisements. He will protect his own.

Remember there is one point of which God is always jealous, that is his own honour. There is no verse of any hymn we ever sing more scriptural than that one we were singing just now-

“His honour is engaged to save

The meanest of his sheep;

All that his heavenly Father gave

His hands securely keep.”

Christ must convoy even the smallest bark safe into the port of Paradise. He must not suffer one of these little ones to perish, for such is not the will of our Father who is in heaven. Come then, ye tremblers, ye doubters, ye little ones, ye that think ye cannot have a part in the promise, come now, come nestle down under those great wings which seem so close to you. The wings that are lined with the feathers of the Eternal will be strong wings, as though they were bars of iron, through which no storms of trouble can ever beat; through which the enemy, though he come from hell itself, shall not be able to drive his darts-strong wings, and yet so softly feathered, so tenderly lined with lovingkindness and affection, that the weakest and most trembling may find comfort there.

And now, dear friends, although I have not said anything new, yet I know that this is full of comfort to God’s people. It must be so; at least, if I am one of them, I know it is, for it has often greatly cheered and gladdened me in the times of darkness and despondency (and I have plenty of such times), to feel that I could abide under the wings of my God, and all was well and all was safe. But what must it be to be without a God? Blessed be his name, we do not mean to try it, but what must it be? “Sam,” said a man once to his negro, “would you give up your religion and be made a king, or would you keep your Jesus Christ and be flogged to death?” “Oh! Massa,” said he, “give me Jesus Christ, and flog me to death twenty times if you will; I could never give him up; he is my joy and my comfort.” And truly we can say that. Give us but a sense of divine love, and we will not strike about our condition; only to know that God is our friend we will not ask who else is on our side, for having God we have all: let who will be our enemies, all must be well when God befriends us.

What must you be without a God some of you? You may be trying to satisfy your soul with the love of kindred; your wife and children are your only inheritance under the sun. That is better than some men strive after. But they are dying comforts; there is a thorn in all these roses, sweet roses as they are. I do not think the dearest wife and the most beloved children can really fill the heart to satiety. I know you want something more sometimes: I know you do. Others of you have been trying to fill your hearts full with those idle associates of yours, those boon companions, those jolly fellows, just the sort you delight to spend an evening with. They are poor comforts when you are sick, and they will be poorer comforts still when you come to die. You must not suppose that if you loved Jesus Christ and put your trust in him, you would give up the joy of life. You would just have found it out. You would then begin to be happy, because you would have found what your soul wants to fill it. As quaint old Quarles says-“The heart is a triangle, and all the world is a globe, and you cannot fill a triangle with a globe. It is nothing but the Trinity that can fill the heart.” Let Father, Son, and Spirit, get into the heart by a living faith, and the heart is right full to the brim, and the man is content in all his trials. I would you had Christ to be yours. He is to be had, my friend. Whosoever trusts in him is saved. He is God-worthy to be trusted: moreover he died, the just for the unjust, bearing our sins. Depend upon the merit of that death of his, and you shall be saved.

God bring you into a state of faith, and bless you now for Christ’s sake. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Psalm 91.