C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.”-Solomon’s Song 5:1.

I believe this text to be appropriate to the spiritual condition of our church. If I am not very sadly mistaken, the Lord of Hosts is with us in a very remarkable manner. Our meetings for prayer have been distinguished by an earnest and fervent spirit; our meetings with enquirers have been remarkably powerful; in a quiet manner, without any outward outcries, souls have been smitten down with conviction of sin, and have been comforted as they have received Christ by faith. We are not a deserted church, we are not left with broken hedges, with the wild boar of the wood committing devastations; but the Lord hath sent a gracious rain, which has quickened the seed, and he hath watered the plants of his garden, and made our souls to rejoice in his presence. Now if the text be appropriate, as I believe it is, the duty to which it especially calls us should have our earnest attention. The workers for Christ must remember that even if they have to care for the garden, their chief business must be to commune with the Lord and Master of that garden, since he himself this morning calls them to do so. “Eat O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.” In happy and auspicious times, when the Spirit of God is working, it is very natural to say, “We must now work more abundantly than ever,” and God forbid that we should hinder such zeal, but the more spiritual privilege is not to be put in the second place. Let us commune as well as work, for therein shall we find strength for service, and our service shall be done the better, and become the more acceptable, and ensure the larger blessing. If while we serve like Martha, we at the same time commune like Mary, we shall not then become cumbered with much serving; we shall serve and not be cumbered, and shall feel no fretfulness against others whose only faculty may be that of sitting at the Master’s feet.

The text divides itself readily into three parts. First, we have the presence of the heavenly Bridegroom-“I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse;” we have, secondly, the satisfaction which he finds in his church-“I have gathered my myrrh with my spice, I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk;” and, thirdly, we have the invitation which he gives to his loving people-“Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.”

He tells us he is come. What? Could he come without our perceiving it? Is it not possible? May we be like those whose eyes were holden so that they knew him not? Is it possible for us to be like Magdalen, seeking Christ, while he is standing very near us? Yes, and we may even be like the disciples who, when they saw him walking on the water, were afraid, and thought it was a spirit, and cried out, and had need for him to say, “It is I, be not afraid,” before they knew who it was! Here is our ignorance, but here is his tenderness. He may come and yet we may not recognise him; but here when he cometh, he takes care to advertise us of the blessed fact, and calls us to observe and to consider, and to delight in it. He would, for our own comfort, prevent its being said of us, “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”

Let us observe, first, this coming was in answer to prayer. Our translators, in dividing the Bible into chapters, seem to have been utterly regardless of the connection or the sense, so that they brought down their guillotine between two verses which must not be divided. The church had said, “Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden;” she had also said, “Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.” In answer to that prayer the Beloved replies, “I am come into my garden.” Prayer is always heard, and the prayer of faithful souls finds an echo in Jesus’ heart. How quickly the spouse was heard! Scarce had the words died away, “Let my Beloved come,” before she heard him say, “I am come!” “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” He is very near unto his people, and hence he very speedily answers their request. And how fully does he answer it too! You will perhaps say, “But she had asked for the Holy Spirit, she had said, ‘Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south;’ and yet there is no mention of the heavenly wind as blowing through the garden.” The answer is that the Beloved’s coming means all that. His visit brings both north and south wind; all benign influences are sure to follow where he leads the way; spices always flow out from the heart when Christ’s sweet love flows in, and where he is, Christians have all things in him. There was a full answer to her prayer, and there was more than an answer, for she had but said, “Let him come and eat,” but, lo, he gathers myrrh and spice, and he drinks of wine and milk; he does exceeding abundantly above what she had even asked or even thought, after the right royal manner of the Son of God, who doth not answer us according to the poverty of our expressions and the leanness of our desires, but according to his riches in glory, giving to us grace upon grace out of his own inexhaustible fulness. Brethren, this church has had a full reward for all her prayers. We have waited upon God often, all the day long there has been prayer in this house, and during this last month there has scarcely been an hour in which supplication has been suspended; and the answer has already come. We are so apt to overlook the answer to prayer. Let it not be so. Let us praise the Lord that prayer has not been a vain service. It has brought down his presence, the chief of all blessings, and that for which we most interceded at his throne. Let us exalt him. We can hear him say now, “I am come into your meetings, I am blessing you, I am saving souls, I am elevating some of you into nearness of fellowship with myself, I am chastening some of your spirits with sadness to think you have lived in so grovelling an estate; I am with you, I have heard your prayers, I have come to abide with you as a people.”

Now, if this be the case, let us next observe what an unspeakable blessing this is! If the voice had said, “I have sent my angel,” that would have been a precious boon; but it is not so spoken; the word is, “I am come.” What, doth he before whom angels adoringly bow their heads, doth he before whom perfect spirits cast their crowns, doth he condescend to come into the church? Ay, it is even so. There is a personal presence of Christ in the midst of his people. Where two or three are met together in his name, there is he in the midst of them; his corporeal presence is in heaven, but his spiritual presence, which is all we want-all it is expedient for him as yet to grant-is assuredly in our midst. He is with us truly and really when we meet together in our solemn assemblies, and with us too when we separate and go our ways in private to fight the battles of the Lord.

Brethren, for us to enjoy his presence as a church, is a privilege whose value is only to be measured by the melancholy results of his absence. Where Jesus Christ is not in the garden, the plants wither, and like untimely figs, the fruits fall from the trees. Blossoms come not, or if they appear, they do but disappoint when Jesus is not there to knit and fructify them; but when he comes, even the driest boughs in the garden become like Aaron’s rod that budded. Yes, our older brethren in the church remember times of trouble, times when the ministry was not with power, when the gatherings on the Lord’s-day were joyless, when the voice of wailing saddened the courts of Zion; but now we do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. The contrast between the past and the joyous present should increase our gratitude till we praise the Lord on the high-sounding cymbals with jubilant exaltation.

Remember, too, that if he had dealt with us according to our sins, and rewarded us after our iniquities, we should never have heard the footfall of the Beloved traversing the garden. How many have grieved the Holy Spirit by careless living and backsliding! How have most of us followed him afar off instead of keeping step with him in service and fellowship! Alas! my Lord, if thou hadst regarded only the sins of the pastor of the church, thou hadst long ago left this flock; but thou hast not dealt with us severely, but according unto thy love and to thy mercy thou hast blotted out our sins like a cloud, and like a thick cloud our transgressions, and still dost thou condescend to come into thy garden.

If you take each word of this remarkable sentence, you will find a meaning. “I am come.” There is the the personal presence of Christ “I am come.” There is the certainty that it is so. It is no delusion, no dream, no supposition. “I am truly come.” Blessed be the name of the Lord, at this present time it is assuredly so. Many of his saints can bear testimony that they have seen his face and have felt the kisses of his lips, and have proved even this day that his love is better than wine. Note the next word, “I am come into my garden.” How near is the approach of Christ to his church! he comes not to the garden door, nor to look over the wall, nor in at the gate and out again; but into his garden. Down every walk, midst the green alleys, among the beds of spices he walks, watching each flower, pruning the superfluous foliage of every fruit-bearing plant, and plucking up by the roots such as his heavenly Father hath not planted. His delights are with the sons of men. His intercourse with his chosen is most familiar; so that the spouse may sing, “My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies.” Jesus Christ the Lord forgets not his church, but fulfils the promise: “I the Lord do keep it, I will water it every moment; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.” Brethren, this is a solemn as well as a pleasant fact. You who are members of this church, recollect that Jesus is come into the church, that he is now going his rounds among you, and marking your feelings towards him; he knows to-day who is in fellowship with him, and who is not; he discerneth between the precious and the vile. He never comes without the winnowing fan when he visits his threshing floor; beware if thou be as chaff. He hath come into his garden. O you that have not enjoyed much of his gracious company, pray him to cast a look towards you, and be you like the sunflower which turns its face to the sun, to refresh itself with his beams. O pant and long for his presence. If your soul is as dark as the dead of night, call out to him, for he heareth the faintest sigh of any of his chosen.

“I am come into my garden,” saith he. Note here the possession which Christ claims in the church. If it were not his garden, he would not come into it. A church that is not Christ’s church shall have none of his presence, and a soul that is not Christ’s has no fellowship with him. If he reveal himself at all, it is unto his own people, his blood-bought people, the people that are his by purchase and by power, and by the surrender of themselves to him. When I think of this church as committed to my care, I am overawed, and well may my fellow-officers be cast down under the weight of our responsibility; but after all we may say, “Master, this garden is not ours; it is thy garden. We have not begotten all this people, neither can we carry them in our bosoms; but thou, great Shepherd of the sheep, thou will guard the fold.” Since the garden is his own, he will not suffer even the least plant to perish. My brethren who work for Christ, do not be downcast if certain portions of the work should not seem to succeed. He will attend to it. “The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” It is more his work than ours, and souls are more under his responsibility than ours. So let us hope and be confident, for the Master will surely smile upon his “vineyard of red wine.”

The next word denotes cultivation. “I am come into my garden.” The church is a cultivated spot; it did not spring up by chance, it was arranged by himself, it has been tended by himself, and the fruits belong to himself. Thankful are we if we can truly know that as a church-

“We are a garden walled around,

Chosen and made peculiar ground.”

Christ, the Great Cultivator, exercises care and skill in training his people, and he delights to see his own handiwork in them.

And then there are the two choice words at the close, by which he speaks of his church herself rather than of her work. As if he would draw the attention of his people to themselves and to himself, rather than to their work; he says, “My sister, my spouse.” There is one name for the garden, but there are two names for herself. The work is his work, the garden is his garden, but see, he wants communion not so much with the work as with the worker, he speaks to the church herself. He calls her, “My sister, my spouse.” “Spouse” has something in it of dearness that is not in the first word, for what can be dearer to the husband than the bride? But then there was a time when the spouse was not dear to the bridegroom, there was a period perhaps when he did not know her, when there was no relationship between them twain; though they are made of one flesh by marriage, yet they were of different families; and for this cause he adds the dear name of “sister,” to show an ancient relationship to her, a closeness and a nearness by blood, by birth, as well as by betrothal and wedlock. The two words put together make up a confection of such inexpressible sweetness, that instead of seeking to expound them to you, I will leave them to your meditations, and may he who calls the church “Sister” and “Spouse” open up their richness to your souls.

Here, then, is the gist of the whole matter. The Master’s presence is in this church in a very remarkable manner. Beloved, I pray that none of you may be like Adam, who fled among the trees to hide himself from God when he walked in the garden. May your business not act like an overshadowing thicket, to conceal you from fellowship. He calls yon, O backslider, he calls you as once he called Adam: “Where art thou?” Come, beloved, come and commune with your Lord; come away from those carking cares and anxieties which, like gloomy groves of cypress, conceal thee from thy Lord, or rather thy Lord from thee. Hearest thou not his call, “O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.” Let none of us be like the disciples in another garden when their Lord was there, and he was in agony, but they were sleeping. Up, ye sleepers, for Christ has come. If the midnight cry, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh,” awoke the virgins, shall not “I am come” awaken you? It is his own voice; it is not “He cometh,” but “I am come.” Start up, ye slumberers, and now with heart and soul seek fellowship with him. It would be a sad thing if while Christ is with us any should be slumbering, and then should wake up and say, “Surely God was in this place and I knew it not.” Rather may you invite him to come into your souls, and abide with you until the day break and the shadows flee away, and you behold him face to face.

Thus much upon the first point; and now may his Holy Spirit help us to view our Lord’s satisfaction in his church.

The beautiful expressions of the text are capable of many holy meanings, and it is not possible that any expositions of mine could fully unveil their treasures; but let me observe, first, that Christ is delighted with the offerings of his people. He says, “I have gathered my myrrh with my spice.” We may consider myrrh and spice-sweet perfumes-offered by way of incense to God as being indicative of the offerings which his people bring to him. What if I say that prayer is like sweet-smelling myrrh, and that the Beloved has been gathering the myrrh of holy prayer, the bitter myrrh of repenting sighs and cries, in the midst of this church, lo, these many months! You perhaps thought that poor wordless prayer of yours was never heard, but Jesus gathered it, and called it spice; and when some brother was praying aloud, and in silence your tears fell thick and fast for perishing sinners, for you could not bear that they should die, nor endure that Christ’s name should be blasphemed, the Beloved gathered up the precious drops, and counted them as costly oil of sweetest smell. Was it not said in the Psalm, “Prayer also shall be made for him continually”? And you did pray for him that his name might be as ointment poured forth, and that he might gird his sword upon his thigh, and ride forth prosperously. Jesus oberved, and delighted in your heart’s offering. Others knew not that you prayed, perhaps you thought yourself that you scarcely prayed, but he gathered his myrrh with his spice from you. No faithful prayer is lost. The groanings of his people are not forgotten, he gathers them as men gather precious products from a garden which they have tilled with much labour and expense.

And then, may not spice represent our praises? for these, as well as prayer, come up as incense before his throne. Last Thursday night, when my brother spoke to you, if you felt as I did I am sure your heart sent up praise as a smoke of incense from the warm coals of a censer, as he cast on them handfuls of frankincense in the form of various motives for gratitude and reasons for praise. Oh, it was good to sing God’s praises as we then did by the hour together. It was delightful, too, to come to his table and make that ordinance in very deed a eucharistical service of praise to God. Praise is pleasant and comely, and most of all so because Jesus accepts it, and says, “Whosoever offereth praise glorifieth me.”

When the Lord in another place speaks of offering sweet cane bought with money, does he not refer to other offerings which his people bring in addition to their prayers and their praises, when they give to him the first fruits of all their increase, and present thankofferings to his name. He has said, “None of you shall appear before me empty,” and I hope none of you have been content to do so! The contributions given for the spread of his cause, for the feeding of his poor, and clothing of his naked ones, are given by true hearts directly to himself. Though they may be but as two mites that make a farthing, yet offered in his name are they not also included in this word, “I have gathered my myrrh with my spice”?

The Saviour’s satisfaction is found, in the next place, in his people’s love-“I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey.” Shall I be wrong if I believe that this sweetness refers to Christian love, for this is the richest of all the graces, and sweetens all the rest. Jesus Christ finds delightful solace in his people’s love, both in the inward love which is like the honey, and in the outward manifestation of it, which is like the honeycomb. He rejoices in the love that drips in all its preciousness from the heart, and in the honeycomb of organisation, in which it is for order’s sake stored up and put into his hand. Or, what if it should mean that Christ overlooks the imperfections of his people? The honeycomb is not good eating, but he takes that as well as the honey! “I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey.” As he looks upon his people, and sees what he has done for them, his loving heart rejoices in what his grace has accomplished. As a benevolent man who should have taken a child from the street and educated it, would be pleased see it growing up, prospering, happy, well-informed, talented, so when Jesus Christ, remembering what his people were, sees in them displays of grace, desires after holiness, self-denials, communion with God, and the like, this is to him like honey. He takes an intense satisfaction in the sweet fruits which he himself has caused us to produce; notwithstanding every imperfection, he accepts our love, and says, “I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey.”

Turning again to our precious text, we observe that our Lord’s satisfaction is compared to drinking as well as eating, and that drinking is of a twofold character. “I have drunk my wine.” Does he intend by this his joy which is fulfilled in us when our joy is full? Does he mean that, as men go to feasts to make glad their hearts with wine, so he comes to his people to see their joy, and is filled with exultation? Meaneth he not so? Surely he doth. And the milk, may not that mean the Christian’s common, ordinary life? As milk contains all the constituents of nourishment, may he not mean by this the general life of the Christian? Our Lord takes delight in the graces of our lives. One has said that wine may represent those actions resulting from well-considered dedication and deep spiritual thought; for wine must be expressed from the grape with labour and preserved with care, there must be skill, and work, and forethought spent upon it; but milk is a natural production, it flows freely, plentifully, spontaneously; it is a more common and ordinary, yet precious thing. So the Lord delights that his people should give to him these elaborate works which they have to tend with long care and watch over with much anxiety before they are produced. These are the wine; but he would have them give him the simple outgushing of their souls, the ejaculations which flow forth without labour, the little deeds of love which need no forethought, the every day outgoings of their inner life-these are milk, and are equally acceptable to him. Well, if it be so, certain it is that Christ finds great pleasure in his people, and in their various forms of piety he drinks his wine with his milk.

Permit me now to call your attention to those many great little words, which are yet but one-I refer to the word “my.” Observe, that eight or nine times it is repeated. Here is the reason for the solace which the bridegroom finds in his church. Does he walk in the church as men do in a garden for pleasure? Then he says, “I am come into my garden.” Does he talk with his beloved? It is because he calls her “my sister, my spouse.” Does he love her prayers and praises? It is because they never would be prayed or praised if he had not created these fruits of the lips. He says not, “I have gathered your myrrh with your spice.” Oh, no I viewed as ours these are poor things, but viewed as his they are most acceptable, “I have gathered my myrrh with my spice.” So if he finds any honey in his people, any true love in them, he first put it there. “I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey.” Yes, and if there be any joy and life in them to make his heart glad, he calls it “my wine,” and “my milk.” When I read these words, and thought of our Lord’s being fed by us, I could almost have, cried out, “Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? Dost thou find any satisfaction in us? Surely, our goodness extendeth not to thee. Whence should we give thee aught to eat?” Yet he declares it, and we may blushingly believe him, and praise his name, for surely if he found it so, it is because he made it so. If he has gotten anything out of us, he must first have put it in us; if he sees of the travail of his soul, it is because the travail came first.

Note well, ye lovers of Jesus, that our Lord in this heavenly verse is fed first. “I have eaten,” says he, and then he turns to us, and says, “Eat, O friends.” If any of you seek friendship with the Wellbeloved, you must commence by preparing him a feast. Remember our Lord’s own parable: “Which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by-and-by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? and will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?” Even if your poverty compels you to say, “As the Lord liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse,” listen to him as he answers, “Fear not, make me thereof a little cake first.” Be assured that after you have so done, your barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail. The way for believers to be fed by Christ is to seek to feed him; look to his being satisfied, and he will assuredly look to you. “Ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God.” (Lev. 23:14.) “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” See, my brethren, ye must find meat for your Lord, and then, but not till then, there shall be meat for you.

In the feast, it is remarkable how complete the entertainment is. There is the sweetest food, and the most nourishing and exhilarating drink, and then over and above there is the rarest perfume, not counted to be needful in ordinary entertainments, but crowning all and makingup a right royal feast. How marvellous that our Beloved should find within his church all that his soul wants! Having given over himself to her, he delights in her, he rests in his love, and rejoices over her with singing. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and this day he continues to be filled with the selfsame delight.

I would fain linger, but time forbids. We must now remember, in the third place, that the text contains an invitation.

The Beloved says, “Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.” In the invitation we see the character of the invited guests; they are spoken of as friends. We were once aliens, we are now brought nigh; we were once enemies, we are made servants, but we have advanced from the grade of service (though servants still) into that of friends, henceforth he calls us not servants, but friends, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but all things that he has seen of his Father he has made known unto us. The friendship between Christ and his people is not in name only, but in deed and in truth. Having laid down his life for his friends, having brought them to know his friendship in times of trial and of difficulty, he at all times proves his friendship by telling his secrets to them, and exhibiting an intense sympathy with them in all their secret bitternesses. David and Jonathan were not more closely friends than Christ and the believer, when the believer lives near to his Lord. Never seek the friendship of the world, nor allow your love to the creature to overshadow your friendship with Christ.

He next calls his people beloved as well as friends. He multiplieth titles, but all his words do not express the full love of his heart. “Beloved.” Oh, to have this word addressed to us by Christ! It is music! There is no music in the rarest sounds compared with these three syllables, which drop from the Redeemer’s lips like sweet-smelling myrrh. “Beloved!” If he had addressed but that one word to any one of us, it might create a heaven within our soul, which neither sickness nor death could mar. Let me sound the note again, “Beloved!” Doth Jesus love me? Doth he own his love? Doth he seal the fact by declaring it with his own lips? Then I will not stipulate for promises, nor make demands of him. If he loves he must act towards me with lovingkindness; he will not smite his beloved unless love dictates the blow; he will not forsake his chosen, for he never changes. Oh, the inexpressible, the heaped-up blessednesses which belong to the man who feels in his soul that Christ has called him beloved!

Here, then, you have the character in the text of those who are invited to commune with Christ; he calls his friends and his beloved. The provisions presented to them are of two kinds; they are bidden to eat and to drink. You, who are spiritual, know what the food is, and what the drink is, for you eat his flesh and drink his blood. The incarnation of the Son of God, and the death of Jesus the Saviour, these are the two sacred viands whereon faith is sustained. To feed upon the very Christ of God is what is needed, nothing but this can satisfy the hunger of the spirit; but he who feeds on him shall know no lack. “Eat,” saith he, “and drink.” You ask, “Where are the provisions?” I answer, they are contained in the first words of the text, “I am come.” If he is come, then eat; if he is come, then drink; there is food, there is drink for you in him.

Note that delightful word, abundantly. Some dainties satiate, and even nauseate when we have too much of them, but no soul ever had too much of the dear love of Christ, no heart did ever complain that his sweetness cloyed. That can never be. Some things, if you have too much of them, may injure you, they are good to a certain point, beyond that, evil; but even the smallest child of grace shall never over-feast himself with Jesus’ love. No, the more ye have the more shall ye enjoy, the more blessed shall ye be, and the more shall ye be like the Lord from whom the love proceeds. O ye that stand shivering in the cold shallows of the river of life, why tarry ye there? Descend into the greater depths, the warmer waves, and let the mighty stream lave you breast-high; yea, go farther, plunge where you can find no bottom, for it is blessed and safe swimming in the stream of Christ’s everlasting love, and he invites you to it now. When you are at his banquet-table, pick not here and there a crumb, sip not now and then a drop: he saith, “eat,” and he adds, “drink abundantly,” and the invitation to receive abundantly applies to both refreshments. Your eating and your drinking may be without stint. Ye cannot impoverish the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth. When ye are satiated with his love, his table shall still be loaded. Your cups may run over, but his flagons will still be brimmed. If you are straitened at all you are not straitened in him, you are straitened in yourselves.

But now let me say to my brethren, and especially to my fellow workers in the kingdom of Christ, it is for us just now while our Lord is walking in his garden, while he is finding satisfaction in his work and in his people, to beware of taking any satisfaction in the work ourselves, and equally to beware that we do not neglect the appropriate duty of the occasion, namely, that of feasting our souls with our Lord’s gracious provisions. You are caring for others, it is well; you are rejoicing over others, it is well; still watch well yourselves, and rejoice in the Lord in your own hearts. What said he to the twelve when they came back glorying that even the devils were subject unto them? Did he not reply, “Nevertheless rejoice not in this, but rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven”? It is your personal interest in Christ, you being yourself saved, Christ being present with you, that is your main joy. Enjoy the feast for yourselves, or you will not be strong to hand out the living bread to others. See that you are first partakers of the fruit, or you will not labour aright as God’s husbandmen. The more of personal enjoyment you allow yourself in connection with your Lord, the more strong will you be for his service, and the more out of an experimental sense of his preciousness will you be able to say with true eloquence, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” You will tell others what you have tasted and handled; you will say, “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and delivered him from all his fears.” I put this before you with much earnestness, and I pray that none of you may think it safe so to work as to forget to commune, or wise to seek the good of others so as to miss personal fellowship with the Redeemer.

I might now conclude, but it strikes me that there may be some among us who are, in their own apprehensions, outside the garden of Christ’s church, and are therefore mourning over this sermon, and saying, “Alas! that is not for me. Christ is come into his garden, but I am a piece of waste ground. He is fed and satisfied in his church, but he finds nothing in me. Surely I shall perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little!” I know how apt poor hearts are to write bitter things against themselves, even When God has never written a single word against them; so let me see if by turning over this text we may not find thoughts of consolation for the trembling ones. Who knows? There may be a soft breath in the text which may fan the smoking flax, a tender hand that may bind up the bruised reed. I will briefly indicate two or three comfortable thoughts.

Seeking soul, should it not console thee to think that Jesus is near? The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you, for he is come into his garden. He was in our last meeting for anxious souls, for many found him there. You are not, then, living in a region where Christ is absent, mayhap when he passeth by he will look on you. Canst thou not put out thy finger and touch the hem of his garment, for Jesus of Nazareth passeth by? Even if thou hast not touched him, yet it should give thee some good cheer to know that he is within reach, and within call. Though thou be like the poor withered lily in the garden, or worse still, like a noxious weed, yet if he be in the garden he may observe thee and have pity on thee.

Notice, too, that although the text speaks of a garden, it never was a garden till he made it so. Men do not find gardens in the wilderness. In the wilds of Australia or the backwoods of America, men never stumble on a garden where human foot hath never been, it is all forest, or prairie, or mountain; so, mark thee, soul, if the church be a garden, Christ made it so. Why cannot he make thee so? Why not, indeed? Has he not said, “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle free: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off”? This garden-making gives God a name, Jesus gets honour by ploughing up the wastes, extracting the briers, and planting firs and myrtles there. See, then, there is hope for thee yet, thou barren heart, he may yet come and make thy wilderness like Eden, and thy desert like the garden of the Lord.

Note, too, that the Bridegroom gathered myrrh, and fed on milk, and wine, and honey. Ay, and I know you thought, “He will find no honey in me, he will find no milk and wine in me.” Ah! but then the text did not say he found them in the church; it is said, “I have eaten my noneycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk;” and if he put those things into his church, and then took comfort in them, why not put them into you, and take comfort in you too? Be of good cheer; arise, he calleth thee, this morning.

Another word perhaps may help you. Did you notice, poor hungry soul, how Jesus said, “drink abundantly”? “Ah,” say you, “he did not say that to me.” I know it. He said that to his friends and to his beloved, and you dare not put yourselves among those; but do not you see how generous he is to his friends, and how he stints nothing? He evidently does not mean to lock anything up in the store-room, for he tells them to eat and drink abundantly. Now, surely, where there is such a festival, though you dare not come and sit at the table with the guests, you might say with the Syrophenician woman,” Yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.” It is good knocking at a door where they are keeping open house, and where the feast reveals a lavish hospitality. Do thou knock now and try it. If it were a poor man’s dinner with a dry crust and a poor herring, or if it were a miser’s meal spread most begrudgingly, I would not advise you to knock; but where there is wine and milk in rivers, and the good man of the house bids his guests eat and drink abundantly, I say knock, for God saith it shall be opened.

Another thought. Jesus finds meat and drink in his church, and you are afraid he would find neither in you-I want to tell you a truth which, perhaps, you have forgotten. There was a woman that was a sinner; she had had five husbands, and he with whom she then lived was not her husband, she was an adulteress and a Samaritan; but Christ said, after he had conversed with her, that he had found meat to eat that his disciples knew not of. Where did he get it then? If he had drank that day, he did not get it from Jacob’s well; for he had nothing to draw with, and the well was deep. He found his refreshment in that poor woman, to whom he said, “Give me to drink.” The Samaritan harlot refreshed the soul of Jesus, when she believed in him and owned him as the Christ. Have you never read that word of his, “My meat and my drink is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work”? And what is the will of him that sent him? Well, I will tell you what it is not. “It is not the will of your Father, that is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” The will of God and the will of Christ are these, to save sinners; for this purpose was Jesus born and sent into the world: he came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost. See, then, poor lost one, in saving thee Christ will find both meat and drink. I trust, therefore, thou wilt look to him and cry to him, and cast thyself upon him, and thou shalt never, as long as thou livest, have any cause for regretting it.

Finally, the text represents the Lord saying, “I am come into my garden.” It may imply that he is not always in his garden. Sometimes his church grieves him, and his manifest presence departs; but hearken, O sinner, there is a precious thought for thee: he is not always in his garden; but he is always on the throne of grace. He does not always say, “I am come into my garden,” but he always says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” He never leaves the merey-seat, he never ceases to intercede for sinners. Come, and welcome, then. If you have not seen the Beloved’s face, come and bow at his feet. Though you have never heard him say, “Thy sins are forgiven thee,” yet come now with a broken and a contrite heart and seek absolution at his hands. Come, and welcome! Come, and welcome! May the sweet bridegroom with cords of love draw thee, and may this morning be a time of love; and as he passes by, if he sees thee weltering in thy blood, may he say unto thee, “Live!”

May the Lord grant it, and on his head shall be many crowns. Amen.

Portions of Scripture bead before Sermon-Psalm 75. & 147.

BACKSLIDING HEALED

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, March 13th, 1870, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“I will heal their backsliding.”-Hosea 14:4.

Which rings with the more sonorous voice, the knell, “their backsliding,” or the marriage peal, “I will heal”? All through the Scripture records there is revealed a vehement contest between man’s sin and God’s grace, each of them striving to become more abundant than the other. Sin like a dragon pours forth floods from its mouth, and God’s mercy as a shoreless ocean rolls in greater majesty. Sin aboundeth, so that none can measure its heinousness or power; but where sin aboundeth grace doth much more abound. In the text sin abounds, “their backsliding,” there is a comprehensiveness in that word, a dreadful abyss of iniquity; but grace aboundeth yet more, “I will heal their backsliding;” here is a height and depth of grace like the God from whom it came, incomprehensible and infinite.

I shall ask you, this morning, in order that we may get the full measure of benefit which this text may bestow upon us, under the teaching of God’s Spirit, first, to notice the words of the text one by one; secondly, to consider the blessing of the text; and then, thirdly, if we are led of the Holy Ghost, let us not leave this house till we have gained the realisation of the text.

First, then, let us take the words of the text, “I will heal their backsliding.”

We shall call your attention first, to a word of humiliation, “backsliding.” The very sound of it ought to arouse our spirits, and the consciousness of having fallen into it should make us lay our mouths in the dust, and confess that we are unclean. Backsliding is among God’s people very common; not common perhaps in its highest degree, God forbid it should be! but in its earlier forms; from its commencement in backsliding, of thought, and heart, on to backsliding in act, I fear the disease is so rife among the people of God that there is scarcely one of us who has not at some time or other suffered from it, and I fear that the most of us might confess if we judged our own hearts rightly, that in some measure we are backsliding even now. The proper condition for a child of God is walking in the light as Christ is in the light, and so having fellowship with Jesus. Our right condition, and our only safe standing is to abide in him, and to have his words and himself abiding in us; but too often we follow afar off, we are living in very limited and remote fellowship with our Redeemer. These things ought not so to be; there is no necessity that they should be, but alas! alas! alas! search the whole church through, and you shall find that in multitudes, grey hairs here and there, and they know it not; while in some you shall perceive signs of most sorrowful decay through an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.

Think, beloved, each one of you who are Christ’s, how much you may have backslidden of late. Have you not become lax in prayer? You maintain the habit of it, and you could not give that up, but you have not that power in prayer you once had. You still read the word, but mayhap the Scripture is not so sweet to you as it was aforetime. You come now to the communion table, you have not learned to forsake the assembling of yourselves together there; but oh, the face of the King in his beauty, have you seen that as once you did? Perhaps you still are doing a little for his cause, but are you doing what you once did or all you might do? Instead of going on unto perfection, is not your growth stunted? Must you not confess that you are not a runner towards heaven so much as a loiterer in the road thither? Do these accusations evoke no confessions? I fear the most of us, if we came to search, would have to say, “I do remember when the love of my espousals was upon me, and my heart was warm with love to Christ; but now, alas! how slow are my passions in moving towards him! O that I could feel once again the glow of my first love, and that my spirit did rejoice in him as on the day of my conversion.”

I ask you, brethren, if you have to make such acknowledgments, whether you would have believed such things of yourselves when you first came to Christ? If a prophet had told me that I should be so ungrateful to the dear Lover of my soul, I should have said, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?” Bought with his precious blood, and delivered from going down to the pit in those younger days of our attachment, we thought we should evermore closer and closer cleave to our Deliverer. No sacrifice appeared too great, no duty too irksome, if Jesus did but command. Yes, we have sorrowfully failed in many respects, and had need, with deepest heart-sorrow, confess our backsliding, and bemoan ourselves before God.

But I will not dwell longer upon that word. Such lamentations may end when the heart grows tender; if we see sin sufficiently to make us bewail it, we may then look away from it, for the next word which we shall consider is a word of consolation-“heal.” “I will heal their backsliding.” There is consolation in the very fact that the Lord here looks upon the grievous sin of backsliding under the image of a disease. It is not said, “I will pardon their backsliding,” that is included in the term, but “I will heal” it-as though he said, “My poor people, I do remember that they are but dust; they are liable to a thousand temptations through the fall, and they soon go astray; but I will not treat them as though they were rebels, I will look upon them as patients, and they shall look upon me as a physician.” Why, there is consolation in that very fact, that God should condescend, for Jesus’ sake, thus to look upon our loathsome, abominable, ill-deserving, hell-deserving sin, as being, not so much a condemning iniquity in his sight, as a disease upon which he looks, pitying us that we should endure the power of it.

And then observe, having looked at backsliding as a disease, he does not say, “I will put this diseased one away.” Under the legal dispensation he who had leprosy, or any contagious disease, must be put without the camp, but it is not here said, “I will banish them for their backsliding.” O my dear friends, if we had been put out of God’s church, if we had never been suffered again to come to his table, we confess we have richly deserved to have it so, but it is not so written here. It is not, “I will put them in quarantine; I will expel them out of the goodly land, and from amongst my people.” No, but, “I will heal their backsliding.” Much less does he say, “I will destroy them, because of their backsliding.” Some will have it that God’s people may sin, partially and finally, so as never to be the Lord’s beloved again, they sin themselves out of the covenant; but we have not so learned Christ, neither have we so understood the Fatherhood of our God.

“Whom once he loves, he never leaves,

But loves them to the end.”

“The gifts and calling of God are without repentance,” on his part towards his people. “The God of Israel saith he hateth putting away.” No, it is not, “I will strike their names out of the book of life;” it is not, “I will disinherit them, seeing they have proved unfaithful to me,” but, “I will heal their backsliding;” that is to say, whatever their sin may have been I will overcome it, I will drive it out, I will restore them to their first condition of health; I will do more, I will so heal them that one day without spot or wrinkle or any such thing they shall see their Father’s face.” A word of consolation then.

The next is a word of majesty. It is the first word of the text, “I will heal their backsliding.” “I.” It is Jehovah himself who here speaks, the omnipotent, to whom nothing is difficult, the all-wise, to whom nothing is secret. He has not promised that their backsliding shall be healed by unknown means, but that he himself will heal it. Suppose he had said,” I will let them alone, and see to what their backsliding will turn. It may be perhaps after a period it will work out all its venom, and the wound will be cured.” No, my brethren, had we been left to ourselves, our wounds have become corrupt, and our spirit would have perished utterly. We have gone astray like lost sheep, and one of the ways in which lost sheep go astray is this, they never think of returning; the shepherd must seek them, or else they will wander further and further from home.

Note well that the Lord does not say in the text, “My word shall heal their backsliding,” or, “I will send my minister to heal their backsliding.” He graciously uses his word, it is his ordained means of blessing his people; and he condescendingly employs his ministers, unworthy though they be, to do much service for his children. But after all, it is neither the word nor the minister that can do anything; only when the Lord puts his hand to the work is it done effectually. “I will heal their backsliding.” Just as Jesus himself going among the sick folk scattered healing here and there, and made yonder lame man leap as a hart, and yonder dumb tongue to sing, opened blind eyes, drove out fevers and chased away devils, even so it is thy touch, Immanuel, it is thy presence, thou Saviour of sinners, that doth heal us of all our sins. He himself took our sicknesses, and hence he knows how to deliver us from them. Is not his name Jehovah-Rophi, the Lord that healeth thee? and hath he not said, “The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity”? It is Jehovah that saith it, then rest assured the work will be done. Hath he said, and shall he not do it? It is Jehovah that saith it; then, however desperate our soul-sickness, it shall be recovered; for is anything too hard for the Lord? “I will heal their backsliding.” Blessed be his name, when you and I feel our backsliding, if it had been said that the backsliding should be healed by any ordinary means, we should have replied, “Not mine; nay, Lord, mine is a case beyond all others, hopeless, helpless, incurable.” But when it is said, “I will heal,” how it takes away all power to be unbelieving, for what cannot the Lord do? What diseases cannot he chase away? He can speak even to the dead, and make them live. Therefore let us have hope in him, for however far we may have gone, and however broken our heart may be concerning it, he can bind up all our wounds, and make each broken bone to sing, and this shall be the song, “Lord, who is like unto thee, passing by transgression, iniquity, and sin, and remembering not the backslidings of thy people”?

Thus we have had three out of the five words of the text; one for our humiliation, the second for our consolation, and the third for our adoration, since it reveals the majesty of God.

Another word is in the text, which I shall venture to lift up out of the background in which it dwells ordinarily, “I will heal their backsliding.” Here is a word of certainty. “I will”-“I will heal their backsliding.” But why will he heal? Why does he say so positively that he “will”? Here is no perhaps, no peradventure. The men of Nineveh went to God with nothing to encourage them, but “who can tell?” but the children of God come to him with “shalls” and “wills” to plead. I pray thee, backslider, if thou desirest to return to the Lord this morning, observe the certainty of the text, and plead it. God who saith “I will,” is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent. If he saith, “I will,” do thou say, “Lord, fulfil this word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.” But why will God heal his people? He will because he has assumed the office of physician, and for a physician to fail in his attempts reflects upon him no honour. Every patient that the physician loses is so much loss to the fame of his skill. “I will heal their backsliding,” saith he; “I have undertaken to save them, and I will go through with it. I have made with them in Christ a covenant, ordered in all things and sure, and I will not suffer one of these my little ones to perish, and I will heal their backsliding.” Are they not his children? Now, if a physician failed to exercise his skill on a stranger, yet surely not upon his own child. There is nothing in the whole compass of pharmacy that the child should not have, there is nothing in all the art of surgery which the surgeon would not exercise upon his own beloved child if he hath need of it. Of all his children the divine Father saith, “I will heal their backsliding.”

Beloved, we have cost our God too dear for him to suffer us to perish, and perish we must without healing, therefore he will heal us. On every child of God the Father sees the marks of the Redeemer’s blood. Every heir of heaven carries about with him momentoes that touch the Father’s soul, for he remembers well the bloody sweat of Gethsemane, and the groans and cries of the Wellbeloved. Ye who believe in Jesus cost too much, he cannot let you die. The Lord has loved you too long to let you perish, for before the foundation of the world his heart went out towards his chosen. From of old his delights were with the sons of men; ere you were fashioned and curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth, you lived in the heart of God, and lay upon the bosom of your Redeemer with whom even then you were accounted as one in the covenant of grace.

“I will heal their backsliding.” No disease shall slay them, no sin shall fester in them so as to destroy them. I, Jehovah, who have chosen them, who have redeemed them and called them by my grace, I will heal them.” Heaven and earth may pass away, but this word shall not pass away. Oh, the blessed certainty of the divine word!

There is yet a fifth word in the text, and that is a word of personality. “I will heal their backsliding.” That is to say, the backsliding first, of all his Israel. He is speaking of Israel, “I will heal their backsliding;” his own peculiar people, his own elect ones, himself shall and will heal them. He will not suffer one of them so to become sick with sin that sin-sickness shall be fatal to them. That we may know whether we share in this promise we may judge from other words which precede the text. Those of whom he spoke were willing to come to him and say, “Take away all iniquity, receive us graciously, and love us freely.” If there be any man here who desireth to be forgiven for Christ’s name’s sake because of the free grace of God, if there be any here bemoaning his iniquity and desirous to return unto his God, if there be any soul who now sincerely closes in with God’s way of salvation, and would fain find deliverance from every sin, such a man may be assured that he is one of those of whom God hath said, “I will heal their backsliding.” Dost thou hate thy backsliding? Dost thou, like David, cry, “against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest”? Do your sins pain you, have they become a very plague to your heart? Oh! then he will heal your backslidings. Are you earnest in prayer? Do you cry out that he would have pity upon you? Can you weep the penetential tear? Has he looked on you as he looked on Peter, and can you go out and weep bitterly, if not with actual drops that distil externally from the eye, yet with inward drops that fall within from the alembic of the heart? If so, he that breaks hearts always means to heal them; he never yet did give a wounded and a contrite spirit, but what he was sure ere long to bring to it a better balm than Gilead ever knew, and to let the blood of Jesus speak better things than that of Abel, even peace eternally within that wounded spirit. “Their backsliding,” take the word and turn it to the singular and make it in the first person; say, “Lord, heal my backslidings! Heal those I know not of, ‘cleanse thou me from secret faults.’ I do know some of them, and I mourn them. Deliver thy servant as a bird out of the snare of the fowler, and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.” So you see the text has a meaning in every one of its words. I have drawn already five lessons from the five words which it contains.

But we pass on to try and bring out more clearly the blessing of the text. “I will heal their backsliding.”

That blessing must be measured first by the evil from which it delivers-“backsliding.” Backsliding is treated as a disease; let us speak awhile upon that fact. Let us say concerning backsliding, that it is one of the most dangerous things into which a child of God can fall; it endangers all present joy; it greatly injures usefulness; and it imperils the future. No professing Christian falls into the great open sin all at once; much backsliding has gone before. See the tree blown down by the strong winds; nine times out of ten, if you look carefully at it, you will see that insects have been at work at it years before, and rotted it; and, therefore, when at last the trial came, it only consummated what had long been going on. When, some years ago, many of our greatest commercial houses suddenly collapsed, and bankruptcies were so terribly frequent, you do not imagine that they lost their money all in a day! In the investigation of their accounts it was proved in many cases that ten or even twenty years before, the firms began to go back in the world. By little and by little, as a rule, backsliding leads on to overt apostacy and sin. No, no, so mature a servant of the devil as Judas is not produced all at once; it takes time to educate a man for the scorner’s seat. Take care, therefore, of backsliding, because of what it leads to. If you begin to slip on the side of a mountain of ice, the first slip may not hurt if you can stop and slide no further; but, alas! you cannot so regulate sin; when your feet begin to slide, the rate of their descent increases, and the difficulty of arresting this motion is incessantly becoming greater. It is dangerous to backslide in any degree, for we know not to what it may lead.

It is a defiling thing to backslide, for a man cannot lose the intensity of his love to Christ and holiness, without becoming thereby worldly and impure in heart. You cannot be less in prayer without being less like God. Sin is quite certain to seek a dwelling for himself in any heart where the Spirit of God is not actually present.

Let your God withdraw his manifest fellowship, and sin is sure to come in to fill up the vacuum. Backsliding mars the whiteness of the righteousness of saints, and blots their beauty. And as it is defiling, so is it contagious. One believer cannot be living a starveling life of little grace without weakening those believers who come into contact with him. I know some holy men (I wish to be more like them) who are a blessing to all with whom they converse. Wherever they are, like an Oriental perfume, they spread a fragrance all around. Their lives are like the star in the east, which led men to Christ. Their graciousness reminds us of the blessing of Asher, whose promise was that he should dip his foot in oil, for wherever they go they leave the tokens of the unction of the Holy One behind them. But the dark side to this picture is the fact, that if we decline in grace, our backsliding has a down-dragging tendency on others. The whole army is impeded by the lagging of a single regiment. The old naturalists used to speak of a creature they called a remora, which they believed could fasten with its suckers upon a sailing vessel and hinder its progress. Backsliding Christians are just such remoras to the good ship of the church, they are barnacles upon her, and impede her voyage.

“One sickly sheep infects the flock,

And weakens all the rest.”

When there is a parliamentary train crawling along in front, even the limited express mail is hindered. When one professor acts in a worldly, careless, indifferent, or covetous spirit, he encourages others to do the same, and the example soon multiplies itself.

I wish I could make you see what a backslider is. I am afraid I cannot, but a simple illustration may help you. Do you remember that fine, athletic young man who was for years among us, and almost envied for his robust health and remarkable vigour? Exertion was to him a pleasure. He rejoiced as a strong man to run a race. Strong as an oak, upright as a palm tree, and comely as a cedar, you had but to see him to admire him. Alas! we miss him from his usual seat, and his place of daily service knows him no more. He cannot mix in our assemblies, and never will again. He rises very late in the day, and the slightest motion is labour to him; he has a horrible deep-seated cough, and he is reduced to a skeleton. His cheeks are sunken; there is a peculiar brightness of the eye; but, with the exception of that, there is nothing about him that reminds you of what he was; and, if you should take a stranger to see him, you would say, “You cannot imagine what that young man used to be.” His mother weeps to think that this is her son, once the image of manly power. It pains her inmost heart to know that this is certainly her boy, her once strong and healthy boy. Yet he is not dead; no, but it is grievous to see how near death he has come, and with what difficulty he breathes, how weak are his lips, how languid is his pulse, how small his appetite! The strong man is now weaker than a little child. In fact, man as he is, his father has to take him in his arms and carry him up and down stairs, for he cannot otherwise come out of his chamber. Here is a sadly truthful picture of what a Christian may become in spirit; he may suffer spiritual consumption, and decline from weakness to weakness till life barely retains its hold. He shall not die, for his life is hid with Christ in God; but he may gradually backslide until he is weak as water, and full of doubts and fears, and a thousand ills. The backslider has no strength for service; he renders nothing to the church, but rather requires other Christians to watch, and help, and tend him; he wants comforts and cordials, but from them all he has little or no enjoyment: he lives, blessed be God, he lives, but it is a struggling, unhappy, meagre life. His religion gives him little rapture and very much anxiety. Few are the promises that he feeds upon, and many are the threatenings that haunt him. He will be saved, yet so as by fire. God forbid that you or I should run the frightful risks that backsliders run who thus walk wide of Jesus Christ, and dwell far below the elevated region where spiritual health is sustained. May our souls prosper and be in health, and may we follow the Lord fully, and evermore abide in him. What a mercy it is that, while we have to give such a distressing description of what backsliding leads to, we can turn to the text and find it written, “I will heal their backsliding”: Consumption, when it once comes to be really consumption, is, beyond all doubt, utterly incurable by ordinary medicine; and, though many remedies may assist the sufferer and prolong life, yet, as a rule, consumption is the herald of death; and so backsliding is quite incurable by any human means, and would be the forerunner of total apostasy were it not for divine grace. When a man’s heart begins to fall from God, like a stone falling from a tower, it descends at an ever-increasing ratio, and none can call it back again to the place from which it fell, or stay it in mid-air, except that divine hand which can suspend the laws of gravity, and arrest the course of sin, and restore the falling one to his place.

“I will heal their backslidings.” I understand, then, the glory of this blessing to lie in this, that though backsliding is of all things most dangerous, most defiling, and injurious, and in itself most deadly, yet if we have fallen into it we need not despair, but on the contrary, may hopefully listen to the voice which saith, “Return, O backsliding children,” backed up as it is by the promise, “I will heal their backsliding.”

That we may see this blessing in a still clearer light, let us notice the healing itself. What is the healing of backsliding? It may be said to lie in two things, namely, forgiveness of its sin, and release from its power: but that eminent man of God, Bishop Reynolds, who has written upon the last two chapters of Hosea, says there is a fourfold healing of backsliding, and I think he is correct. First, as we have said, backsliding is healed when all the sin of it is forgiven. Dwell on that a minute. Thou hast been a backslider, perhaps thou art so now, but God, even the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, can purge thee with hyssop, and thou shalt be clean. Thy leprosy shall depart, and thy flesh shall become fresh as a little child. “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins.” Oh, the blessedness of this! If sin returns upon you, child of God, that fountain filled with blood, which washed him once, has by no means lost its power. You may wash again, backslider. The mercy seat is not removed, nor is the permission to approach it revoked. My heart delights to think I may go to Jesus as a sinner, if I cannot as a saint. I want a Saviour now as much as ever I did; I want new pardon for new sin. I thank the Master for having taught us to say every day, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Even those who can say,” Our Father which art in heaven,” with a full assurance begotten in them by the filial spirit of grace, yet have need to ask that sin may be forgiven. We want daily pardon, and we shall have it. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

The next fact of healing is the removal of all the injurious effects which sin has caused. A man does not backslide without feeling a tendency to go further into sin, contamination is sure to ensue. Backsliding deprives a Christian of many of his privileges; it hides out the face of Christ, it darkens the Sun of Righteousness, or rather blinds our eyes to his brightness; it robs us of all present joys; it grieves the Holy Spirit, and causes him to withdraw from us in a measure. Now when it is said, “I will heal their backsliding,” it means this, “I will take away from them all the pollution which their sin has caused, all the injury which their sin has done to their moral and spiritual nature; I will give back to them all that they lost by giving way to evil.”

But, “I will heal their backsliding” means thirdly, “I will take away those judgments which I have sent upon them in consequence of their backsliding.” The Ephraimites were subject to invasions by cruel tyrants because they had revolted from the Lord, but as soon as they repented, God took away the oppressors, and so healed their wounds. Now you perhaps, dear brother, have been a long while under the rod, and you have said, “Lord, when wilt thou comfort me?” Perhaps his answer is, “I will comfort thee when thou hast fully confessed thy wanderings, and forsaken thine idols.” Hear ye that rod and him that hath appointed it. Many a child of God suffers long series of losses and crosses, the cause of which will be found in the fact that he has not fully turned to the hand that smote him. The Lord will bring his people back; and if one blow does not do it, they shall have another; and if that is not enough, they shall be smitten with many stripes, till at last with weeping and lamentations they shall return unto the Lord their God. You know not how many temporal griefs would vanish away like smoke before the wind, if your heart were but humbler before the Most High. “I will heal their backsliding,” that is, “I will take away the temporal chastisement with which I have visited them.”

Then, again, the fourth kind of healing is the restoration of lost comfort. Instead of the despondency which the believer feels when day and night the hand of God is heavy upon him, he shall yet rejoice in the Lord. God’s children always have to smart for sin. If they were ungodly they might sin, and enjoy the sweet of their stolen waters; but if they are in very deed the Lord’s own people, smart must follow sin. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” Hear how David cries out, how hoarse his voice is in that fifty-first Psalm, and all through those seven penitentials how he dips every verse in the brine of his repentance! He did not find it a profitable or a harmless thing to commit unrighteousness; and so, brethren, you and I, if we are God’s children, will be sure to find that backsliding is a root that beareth gall and wormwood. Yet, after his mournful confession and deep soul travail, David received the consolation of God, and his tongue sang aloud of God’s righteousness. He said, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation;” and God did restore it, and the bones which had been broken were made to rejoice This is conclusive healing of our backsliding, when we receive beauty for ashes, and the oil of joy for mourning. Do not believe, O penitent wanderers, that his mercy is clean gone for ever. He is ever mindful of his covenant, and he will restore your souls, and lead you in the paths of righteousness, for his name’s sake. My brother, if the sin be once drowned, your sorrow shall be assuaged. If you remove the cause, the effect shall follow. Did you once leap like David before the ark, or like Miriam dance to the timbrel of triumph, and have vour knees grown stiff, and do your hands hang down through sin? May the Lord help you to break off your sin by righteousness, and the weak hands shall be strengthened, and the feeble knees shall be confirmed; then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing, for the Lord will again say unto your soul, “I am thy salvation.” Your Sun may seem to have gone down, but unto you that fear the Lord he shall arise with healing beneath his wings. Only return unto the Lord, and he will restore to you “the years which the locust hath eaten,” for he hath said it, and he will make it good in its fullest extent: “I will heal their backsliding.”

Now, brethren, consider the mode in which this backsliding is healed, for that is part of the mercy. It very frequently happens that by divine grace the healing of backsliding is brought about in God’s providence by severe afflictions. The previous chapters to this all go to show how God can act as a lion or a leopard, or as a bear robbed of her whelps, to his people when they wander into sin; but I shall not dwell on that point, only I would say that the severest trial that ever happens to you, if it brings you to your God, is a surpassing blessing. I would not, and I dare not, pray that the Lord would keep me from all future affliction and pain. “It is good for me that I have been afflicted.” “Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.” This is true of all believers. The cross is our best earthly heritage. Whenever we imagine that we have won the crown we should remember that it would be an unseasonable mercy, for this is not a palace, but a battle field; but when we feel the cross it is a seasonable blessing, suitable for followers of the Crucified. “In the world ye shall have tribulation.”

The connection of the text leads me to remark that our heavenly Father in Christ Jesus heals our backslidings, as a usual rule, by presenting to our minds afresh a sense of his great love. The next sentence seems to say that, “I will love them freely.” I never find that my heart is so moved to return unto her rest as when she feels that the Lord has dealt bountifully with her. When I remember that I am still his child, my soul cries, “I will seek again my Father’s love.” If I believed the doctrine of the final falling of the saints, I fear I should feel no motive constraining me to return unto my Lord, I should feel the hardening effect of slavish fear, and like Hagar flee into the wilderness. If the prodigal son had once suspected that he was unsonned and was no more a child, he would have given up all thoughts of return; but though he confessed that he was not worthy to be called a son, yet he knew he was a son, and so back he came, and his father received him. We are willing to confess that to cast us away would be just, as we are considered in ourselves; but the fact that he hath not cast away his people, whom he did foreknow, draws us with invisible but invincible bonds back to our Lord. Yes, oftentimes the child of God, when he is cold in heart, has been revived and refreshed by some such thoughts as these-“He is still faithful to me, though I am faithless to him. Jesus bought me with his blood, and he will not lose me; in his heaven I shall dwell, notwithstanding all this unworthiness of mine. O my heart, how canst thou be so like an iceberg to him when he has loved thee despite thine innumerable faults? How canst thou give thine eternal benefactor so base a return!” The great furnace of Christ’s love sends out sparks which fall into our hearts, and then they also begin to glow:-

“Depth of mercy, can there be

Mercy yet reserved for me?

Can my God his wrath forbear?

Me, the chief of sinners spare?”

Does he bid me return to him, and doth he say, “I am married unto you?” “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim?” Oh! then, while God’s bowels of mercy are moved, our repentings are kindled, our soul melteth while our Beloved speaks. Our stony heart is like the rock which gushed with water, the mountains flow down at his presence, as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil. We feel revenge against sin, and sacred jealousy is aroused. Then we return unto our first husband, and our first love; with weeping and with supplications we return, and with desire we desire him in the night.

“Love, mighty love, our soul subdues;

We fly into our Saviour’s arms;

Her former vow our heart renews,

Ravish’d afresh with mercy’s charms.

Love is the cord that draws us home,

The bond which holds our spirit fast;

Forbids us e’er again to roam,

And captivates us to the last.”

It sometimes happens that the healing of our backsliding is as sudden as it is gracious. When we awoke this morning, we were all startled to find how suddenly the ground had been covered with snow; I should not wonder when we leave this place if we shall be almost as much startled to find how soon the snow has disappeared under the rapid thaw. The Lord who casts forth his ice like morsels, can cause his wind to blow so that the waters flow. Have you never found it so in the little world within? Your heart has been dull and dead, and by a word Jesus has quickened you! “Or ever you were aware, your soul made you like the chariots of Ammi-nadib.” Blessed be God, his cures can be wrought in a moment; he can raise his children from their graves of backsliding, and redeem them from death. Pray that so glorious a work may be wrought in you, my dear brother or sister. Let me pause awhile to give you space to breathe the prayer-

“Come, Lord, on wings of flaming love,

My spirit to upraise;

Fly like the lightning from above,

And fill my soul with praise.”

Even if restoration from backsliding be gradual, brethren, as sometimes it is, and attended with much mourning and much sorrow, yet is the blessing still so choice that no words of mine can ever express its value, and I leave it with your hearts to do what my lips cannot.

The third point was to be the realisation of the blessing of the text, but our time is gone, therefore let me hope that you have already obtained it, or will not rest till you have.

If you would be savingly and thoroughly revived from blacksliding, earnestly desire it. “O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God.” Set your face towards God. Resolve upon obtaining renewal by his grace. Then next make a confession of your fault. “Thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.” Acknowledge your grievous fault, and be humbled for it. It is a mark that God is recovering a soul when it is deeply, penitentially, humbled. I have noticed, whenever any who have been excommunicated from this church, have been restored, in every case they have walked in lowliness, and won all our hearts by their contrition and little esteem of themselves. Whenever those who have grievously transgressed apply to be received again, and at the same time complain of the sentence of the church, and of the conduct of the members, I feel that I dare not advise my brethren to loose them from the sentence, for if they were really penitent, they would find no fault with others, but with many tears would lament their own shortcomings. It is one mark of grace when the backslider puts his finger on his mouth as to the fault of his brethren, feeling, “It is not for me to say a word against any, I am so involved in fault myself, that I dare not throw a stone.”

If thou wouldst have thy backsliding healed, be much in prayer. “Take with you words, and turn to the Lord.” Backsliding begins in forsaking prayer, and recovery will begin in renewing supplication. If thou wouldst be recovered, cast away thy false confidence. “Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses.” Turn Mr. Carnal Security out of doors, he is thine enemy and God’s enemy, be rid of him. Abjure thine idols: “We will not say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods.” You cannot recover from backsliding while you love any child or friend inordinately, or while anything stands in your heart before Christ. You will never be right while your money holds an undue position in your minds, or while your position in society is more precious to you than Christ. Away with your idols, or they will cry, “Away with Christ.” Either give them up, or give hope up.

Lastly, return again by simple faith to God in Christ, remembering that in him the fatherless findeth mercy.” If you are like an orphan, having none to help or to provide for you, and feel your spiritual destitution, then, in confidence in the abounding grace of God, return to him and live.

O brethren, let us all seek to get nearer to Christ. Let us all take the eagle’s motto, “Superior.” Higher, higher, higher; soar yet beyond. Let us seek to attain what we have not as yet known; and as for the things which remain, let us hold them fast that no man take our crown. “Whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.” Let us not decline from our first love, but rather, “not as though we had already attained, either were already perfect,” let us forget the things which are behind, and press forward to that which is before, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. The Lord bless his church richly, and send his dew upon Israel, and make us all to grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. For his name’s sake we ask and expect it. Amen.