God had in the days of Amos by different ways rebuked the sin of his people Israel. He had wasted them with famine and sword; he had withheld the rain; he had sent forth the pestilence after the manner of Egypt; he had smitten their fields and gardens with blast and mildew, and he had overthrown some of them, as Sodom and Gomorrah; but they still persevered in their rebellion, and therefore he declares that he will send them no more of his messengers, and shoot no more of his far-reaching arrows, but will come himself, in his own person, to deal with them. God’s way of dealing with rebellious humanity is, at first to upbraid and persuade with words, soft, gentle, tender words; these he repeats many times, accompanying them with tokens of tenderness and grace; by-and-by he exchanges these words of tenderness for words of mingled threatening: he begins to expostulate with them-why will they drive him to this, why will they die, why will they bring ruin upon themselves? Then, if words are of no effect upon them, he turns to blows, but his strokes fall softly at the first; yet if these avail not, his strokes gather strength, till at last he smites them with the blows of a cruel one, and wounds them sore. If after this the sinners remain obstinate, the Lord’s longsuffering turns to wrath, and he saith, “Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more. Already your whole head is sick and your whole heart faint; what shall I do unto thee? What shall I do unto thee?” Things have come to a dreadful pass when at last the Lord puts aside the rod, when he puts aside afflictions which he has sent as chastisements, and comes forth himself to end the strife, crying, “Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies.” Such was the position of Israel in the text. They had scorned all the milder dealings of God, and now he saith to them, “Prepare to meet me, even God himself, in all the terror of justice.” The prophet may be understood as in irony challenging the proud rebels to meet in arms the God whom they have despised. Let them prepare to fight it out with him whom they have made to be their enemy, and against whose laws they have so continually revolted. “Prepare,” says the prophet, “O ye potsherds, to strive with your Maker, ye worms, to battle with Omnipotence.” As it stands, the text is an awful challenge of almighty wrath when at last longsuffering vacates the throne, and justice bares its two-edged sword. Woe, woe, woe to boastful scoffers in that great and terrible day.

We shall not, however, dwell upon the particular position of the text, nor confine ourselves to the meaning of the words as the prophet used them. We shall, however, hope as fully as possible to illustrate the natural sense of the text, in the hope that such earnest and solemn words may awaken in some hearts tenderness towards God, and the desire to be prepared to meet him. “Prepare to meet thy God.”

We have before us a most important call, and we shall consider first the divers tones in which it may be uttered; secondly, the heavy tidings conveyed by it to the ungodly; and thirdly, the weighty admonition given therein.

First, then, let us think of these words in their divers tones, they vary from grave to gay, from dread to delight: “Prepare to meet thy God.”

Why, methinks there are no more joyous words under heaven than these under some aspects, certainly none more solemn out of hell under others. “Prepare to meet thy God.” These words may have sounded through the green alleys of Paradise, and have caused no discord there. Blending with the sweet song of new created birds, these notes would have but given emphasis to the harmony. Often from the mossy couch whereon he reclined in the happy life of his innocence and bliss, the great sire of men would be aroused by this holy summons. When the sun first scattered the shades of darkness, and began to gild the tops of the snow-clad hills with morning light, Adam was awakened by the birds amid the groves of Eden, whose earliest song his heart interpreted, as meaning, “Awake, O wondrous man, and prepare to meet thy God.” Then climbing some verdant hill from whence he looked down upon the landscape, all aglow with glory and with God, Adam would in holy rapture meet his God, and in lowly reverence would speak with him as a man speaketh with his friend. Then, too, at eventide the dewdrops as they fell, each one would say to that blest man, “Prepare to meet thy God.” The lengthened shadows would silently give forth the selfsame message, and peradventure it is no imagination, angels would alight upon lawns besprent with lilies, and pause where Adam stood pruning the growth of some too luxuriant vine, and would with courteous speech remind him that the day’s work was over, for the sun was descending to the western sea, and it was time for the favoured creature to have audience with his God. The faintest intimation would suffice for our first parent, for the crown of Paradise to him was the presence of the Lord God; and Eden’s rivers, though they flowed over sands of gold, had no river in them equal to the stream whereby the spirit of Adam was gladdened when he had communion with the Most High, for then he drank from that river of the water of life which floweth from underneath the throne of the Great Supreme. Unfallen man had no greater joy than walking with God. It was heaven on earth to meet in converse tender and sublime with the great Father of Spirits. No marriage bells ever rang out a sweeter or more joyous melody than these glad words as they were heard amid the myrtle bowers and palm groves of Eden by our first parents in the heyday of their innocence, “Prepare to meet your God.” Then, when Jehovah walked in the garden in the cool of the day, he had no need to say aloud, “Adam, where art thou?” for his happy creature whom he had made to have dominion over all the works of his hands was waiting for him as a child waiteth for his father when the day’s work is done, watching to hear his father’s footfall, and to see his father’s face. Oh, yes! those were words in fullest harmony with Eden’s joys, “Prepare to meet thy God.”

But, brethren, weep not over those withered glories as those who are without hope, for the words have something of a paradisaical sound to those who have been begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We, though fallen and sinful, and therefore naturally averse to God, have many of us been renewed in the spirit of our minds, and now oftentimes to us the welcome message comes, “Prepare to meet thy God,” in a sense most delightful and most entrancing. It is our summons to devotion. It is morning, and as we put on our garments before we go forth to the battle of life, the angel of the Lord whispers to us, “Prepare to meet thy God;” and on our knees we seek our Father’s face, and pray that we may be under his guardian care throughout the day. Think not that the holy voice is silent until nightfall. Oh, no! offtimes as business gives us pauses, and as our avocations may allow us leisure, we hear the inner life, or what if I say the indwelling Holy Ghost, softly saying to our heart, “Prepare to meet thy God,” and we, in spirit, put off our shoes from off our feet, and feel that the place whereon we stand is holy ground! We may be in a poor workshop, but our spirit makes it a cathedral as it hath communion with the Most High. Our study may be littered over with our books, and papers, and letters; but it becomes a sacred oratory on a sudden, and all things fall into order as the voice is heard and obeyed. Perhaps we may be in the cornfield, or on the barleymow, but if the voice saith, “Prepare to meet thy God,” the true heart stands as a priest before the altar, and worships in spirit and in truth. Even the streets of busy London may become a silent temple when the heart is solemnly absorbed in worship; for preparation to meet our God means no change of vestments, nor even the washing of the hands. There is a cleansing of the heart, and a putting on of the white linen, which in the righteousness of saints is performed in a moment, and the soul stands before her God in happy fellowship.

Then, my dear brethren, there are set times with us when we prepare to meet our God, as for instance, on the eve of the Lord’s-day. It always seems to me to be so pleasant at the family altar to make mention of the coming Sabbath-day, and to ask the Lord that we may lay aside our cares, and be quit of every earthly impediment, and may sit in the heavenly places on the day of rest with our Father and our God. I know how late some of you have to keep your shops open on Saturday nights, and how it almost runs into the Sabbath before you can be done with your business, but still I hope you do before you come here make a point of preparing for this meeting place with God by meeting him first at home. I would not have you come hither unprepared, as though the mere coming into the assembly would be enough; I anxiously desire to see you come with prepared hearts, with longing appetites, with holy aspirations. Bring your harps with you already tuned. Make ready for the holy convocation. Lay by in store your offering, prepare your song, uplift your heart. Yes, and besides the Sabbaths, there are certain other times with us when we are specially called to meet our God. We keep no holy days by the almanack, but we have holy days apportioned us by providence and by the Holy Spirit; I mean that there are seasons hallowed by holy memories, or by present circumstances when sorrow and joy, earth and heaven, all without and within, bear to us a call both loud and sweet, “Prepare to meet thy God.” Then we set apart a special time, the hour is consecrated to secret communion; God has claimed his portion of the day, and we sacredly guard it by entering into our closet, and shutting to the door. Inward motions of the Holy Spirit frequently calls us away to loneliness-let us not be slow to follow the blessed bidding; the voice of the Beloved invites us to his banquet of wine, he allures us to the secret chambers where divine love is revealed, he bids us stand in the cleft of the rock, while the glory of Godhead passes by. On such happy seasons, and I hope they are not infrequent with us, the silver trumpets of Jubilee ring through our souls the notes, “Prepare to meet thy God,” and then our motto is, “Up, and away, to the beds of spices, to the garden of pomegranates, where the Beloved will reveal himself and give us an audience with the King.”

Once again, these words, “Prepare to meet thy God,” have no gloomy significance to some of my dear brethren and sisters here present, even though we attach to them the sense of the believer’s meeting God in a disembodied state. Christians, especially when they grow aged, must often hear the angel-whisper, “Prepare to meet thy God.” From the inevitable process of decay which takes place in the body, from the failure of eyesight, the tottering of the limbs, and the grey hairs, there must come subdued and tender voices all saying, “Prepare to meet thy God.” The tent is being taken down, the cord is loosed, the tent pin no longer holds to the earth, soon must the canvas be rolled up and put away; but thou hast a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, look up, then, and prepare to dwell therein. Prepare thy spirit not to be unclothed, but to be clothed upon with thy house which is from heaven. My aged brethren, I can imagine how it is with you. The dear friends who have been the companions of your childhood and your manhood depart before you, and as they wing their happy flight to the land of the living, they look back and say, “Prepare to follow us.” Nor are you at all grieved at such an invitation, rather do you sometimes feel impatient for the gladsome time when you may join that cloud of doves which flock to those everlasting windows, and find their resting places with the Wellbeloved. Friends gathering in the upper sanctuary beckon to you whose years are threescore and ten, and you feel the attractions of their blest society. On happy Sabbaths when the atmosphere of your souls is clear, and the Sun of Righteousness shines forth with power, you dwell in the land Beulah, and behold so vividly the New Jerusalem and its royal Lord, that, as though an angel spoke, you hear the sound, “Prepare to meet your God.” Often when the hymn is swelling up to heaven, you feel as if you could mount upon it and pass through the gate of pearl. At the holy supper table, how loud is the call to come up higher into the excellent glory! Young as I am, and earthbound, to me, even to me, the communion table has made me unloose my cable, spread my sails, and long for that last voyage which shall make this world a foreign shore, and the glory land the harbour of our spirits. Surely, my aged brethren, it must be far more so with you who have so many friends across the water, so many of your best beloved on the other side of Jordan, your strength of experience and your weakness of body must both tend to give frequency to the message, “Prepare to meet thy God.” To you the tidings are happy; you are exiles and you long for home, you are children at school and you pine for your Father’s house.

But now I must pass on to notice that these words have not always that sweet ring of the silver bells about them. They are words of caution to the vast majority of men. “Prepare to meet thy God.” Alas! how many of you to whom I now speak are unprepared! It pains me to think of it. As I sat last night about eight o’clock, revolving in my mind a subject for this hour’s discourse, there came a knock at my door, and I was earnestly entreated by a father to hasten to the deathbed of his dear girl. I wanted much my time for preparation, but as the dear one was in such a case, and had long been a constant hearer of the word in this Tabernacle, I felt it my duty to go whether I could prepare a sermon or not. Glad I was to hear that sick one’s testimony. She told me with what I fear was her dying breath, that she was not fully assured of her interest in Christ, but she left me no room to doubt when, between paroxysms and convulsions, she said, “I know I do love Jesus, and that is all I know.” Ay, and I thought it is all I want to know. If any one of us always knows that he loves the Saviour, what more does he require of testimony as to his state?

But my mind was sore oppressed then, as it is now, with the thought that so many of you are not prepared to die at all. I see my sermons in sick rooms often, and I come to think of preaching sermons in a different light from what many do. I will try to preach sermons which will suit your most solemn hours and most serious circumstances. I would fain deliver sermons which shall haunt your sickbeds, and accuse you unless you yield to their persuasions, and believe in Jesus. When you lie on the borders of the spirit world, you will count all religious trifling to be cruel mockery; so let me say it affectionately, but very earnestly, to you, “Prepare to meet your God,” for I am afraid many of you are quite unprepared. You have seen others die; they preach to you from their graves, and they say, “So to the dust must thou also come, my friend. Be thou ready, for in such an hour as thou thinkest not, the Son of Man will call for thee.” You have had sicknesses in your own body; you are not now the strong man you once were; you have already passed through many perils; what are all these but voices from the God of mercy saying, “Consider your ways”? You are not such a simpleton as to think that you shall never die-you know you will. Neither are you so insane as to think that when you die, your death will be that of a horse or a dog. You know there is a hereafter and a state of being in which men shall be judged according to the deeds that they have done in the body, whether they be good or whether they be evil; may I therefore press upon your earnest recollection, and your intense consideration at this present moment, the exhortation of the text, “Prepare to meet thy God!”

Once more, let me say that this sound, which, as I have now put it, has little melody in it, will by-and-by be heard in ungodly ears as a peremptory summons, and then there shall be no music in it, but a horrid clangour that shall drive away all hope, “Prepare to meet thy God.” That summons will come to each one of you unconverted people, and when it comes it will admit of no postponement. Call in the wisest surgeon, or the most accomplished physician, and he cannot put off for an hour the execution of God’s death-warrant. “Prepare to meet thy God,” will mean that at such a time, and such an hour, and at such a moment, the spirit must return to God who gave it. There will be no evasion of that summons; there will be no possibility then of a substitue dying in your stead. “Prepare to meet thy God” will come to you, my hearer, beyond all doubt. Oh, how I wish that you were prepared for it! You must assuredly meet your God whom you have forgotten all these years, your Creator, whose rights you have ignored, your Preserver, to whom you have rendered no kind of recompense; your King, whose name it may be you have blasphemed. You have denied his existence, but you will meet him; you have lived in open revolt against his righteous laws, but you will certainly meet him. No exemption will be possible; before his judgment-seat you must stand. Prepared or unprepared at the sound of the resurrection trumpet, you must appear at his bar. No words of mine, however terrible they may be, can by any possibility equal the horror which the judgment to come and the wrath to be measured out will cause to the unregenerate heart. We are sometimes accused, my brethren, of using language too harsh, too ghastly, too alarming, with regard to the world to come; but we shall not soon change our note, for we solemnly believe that if we could speak thunderbolts, and our every look were a lightning flash, and if our eyes dropped blood instead of tears, no tones, words, gestures, or similitudes of dread, could exaggerate the awful condition of a soul which has refused the gospel and is delivered over to justice. “He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Remember his own words, “Consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” Ps. 50:22. Certain prophets of smooth things rise up among us, deluding the people with thoughts that the judgment to come will not be terrible, but will end in eternal sleep. Into their secret my soul cometh not. I must speak the Master’s truth and the Master’s words. O ye ungodly, your punishment will not end, for he hath said it, “These shall go away into everlasting punishment.” Your miseries shall have no cessation, for he who cannot lie, declares, “The smoke of their torment goeth up for ever and ever.” From the lips of Jesus at the day of judgment you shall receive the sentence of everlasting blessedness or everlasting punishment, and no other. May God grant that you may not dare to sin under the notion that your sin is a mere trifle, for both you and it will soon cease to be. Nature itself teaches you that your soul will exist for ever, O make it not for ever a ruin, bring not upon yourself everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power!

Thus have you rung the changes on the tones of these words, and I leave them with you.

Secondly, and very briefly. There are heavy tidings in these words, heavy tidings for the ungodly, for thus they run-“Prepare to meet thy God.”

I wish I could take hold of every unbeliever here, of every man whose heart is not right with God, and personally speak to him, just as of old the prophet spoke to Jeroboam’s wife, and said, “I have heavy tidings from the Lord for thee.” So would I speak to him, “I have heavy tidings, unconverted friend, from the Lord for thee.” And the tidings are these, “You will ere long have to meet your God. Listen to the words, ‘meet your God.’ You have by some means passed through this world without meeting him. He is everywhere, but you have managed not to see him. He has fed you, and in him you have lived and moved, and had your being; but you have contrived so to stultify yourself that you have never yet perceived him. You will perceive him soon. When the flesh shall fall off from your spirit, your disembodied soul will see without these eyes far more clearly than it now does, for you will begin to see the spiritual world which is now hidden from you, and chief and foremost you will meet your God. Now you say in your heart ‘no God,’ because the thought of God is objectionable to you. You could not sin as you do if you remembered that the all-seeing eye is in the chamber, nay, is in your heart itself. Remember you will not be able soon to shake off the thought of God, for you will meet him face to face. Not the thought of God only, but the actual being of God will confront you in your dying hour; you will be compelled to meet him. It will be a close meeting, not as though he looked upon you from afar, or you surveyed him from a distance; but you will so meet him that all the glory of his majesty will operate upon you like the fire which devoureth the stubble, for our God is a consuming fire. His holiness will become wrath against your sin, not wrath treasured up and removed far away, but wrath that shall come nigh to you to consume you. It will be an inevitable meeting, from which you will not be able to escape. From your fellow creature, whom you do not wish to see, you readily withdraw yourself, but you cannot escape from God. The rays of the morning’s sun could not carry you so fast as the Lord’s right hand can move; the uttermost parts of the sea cannot conceal you, the night shall be light about you. Neither the heights of heaven, nor the depths of hell, can conceal you from him. You must meet face to face your God; and it must be a personal meeting. God and you will meet as if alone. God alone and you alone. What if there be angels; what if there be ten thousand times ten thousands of your kindred sinners? yet to you, virtually, it shall be solitude itself. You must meet your God, you, you.” O my dear hearer, it is a sad thing that this should be heavy tidings to you, for if you were what you should be, it would be joy to you to think that you shall be near your God, and dwell in his embrace. But, unconverted as you are, no tidings can have more of horror in them than these, that you, do as you will and steel your heart as you may, must by-and-by confront your God.

Think awhile upon who it is that you have to meet! You must meet, your God-your God! That is, offended justice you must meet whose laws you have broken, whose penalties you have ridiculed; justice righteously indignant with its sword drawn you must confront. You must meet your God; that is, you must be examined by unblinded omniscience. He who has seen your heart, and read your thoughts, and jotted down your affections, and remembered your idle words, you must meet him; and infinite discernment you must meet; those eyes that never yet were duped; the God who will see through the veils of hypocrisy and all the concealments of formality. There will be no making yourself out to be better than you are before him. You must meet him who will read you as a man readeth a book open before his eyes. You must meet with unsullied holiness. You have not always found yourself happy on earth when you have been with holy men; you could not act out your natural impulses in their presence, they were a check upon you; but the infinitely holy God, what must it be to meet him? It will be such an interview for a sinner to meet with the thrice holy God as for dross to meet with the refiner’s fire or stubble with the flame. You will have, moreover, to meet with insulted mercy, and perhaps this will be the most dreadful meeting of the whole, when your conscience will remind you that you were invited to repent, that you were urged to lay hold of Christ, that you were honestly bidden to be saved, but you hardened your neck and would not be persuaded. O sinner, by so much as God is patient with you now, by so much will he be angry with you then. They who slight the warnings of his grace shall feel the terrors of his wrath. To none shall it be so hard to meet God in justice as to those who would not meet him in grace-vengeance taketh the place of slighted mercy. God grant you may never know what it is to meet insulted love, rejected mercy, and tenderness turned to wrath! O sinner, if thou hast to meet thy God as thou now art, thou wilt find him everlasting truth, fulfilling every threatening word of his law and gospel. Every black word that is in this book shall be fulfilled over thy head, and every dreadful syllable be verified in thy loins and in thy heart. Remember too, that thou wilt meet with him who has omnipotent power, against whom thou canst no more contend than the smoke against the wind, or the fuel against the furnace. Thou shalt then know how God can punish, and thou wilt find him not a weak and trembling God, but an omnipotent God, putting forth his power to destroy his adversaries who have dared to assail against his majesty.

Thus have I put a few thoughts together, in very feeble language I confess, but they ought of themselves, apart from mere words, to have power with you. I pray God the Holy Spirit that thou, dear hearer, mayst prepare to meet thy God. You see who it is you have to meet, and what it will be to meet him. May God make you to be prepared for what must occur.

The last point is this. Here is a weighty precept-prepare to meet God.

How can a man be prepared to meet God? In the text there is an allusion to preparing for battle, but none of you would wish to contend with God hereafter. Who is he that thinketh that with a thousand he can meet one that cometh against him with a countless host of ten thousand times ten thousand? O rebel, the warfare is hopeless, ground thine arms. It were worse than madness to dream of contending with God. Submit, for resistance is vain. Better far is it to prepare to meet God as sinners. We are to-day like prisoners who are waiting for the assize, and the news has come that the judge is ready, and we, the prisoners, are to prepare to meet him. Sooner or later it must be the lot of us all to come before the Judge. Now, brethren, what is the right way to prepare to meet a judge? If any of you can plead “Not guilty,” your preparation is made; but there is not one man among us who dares think of that. We have sinned, great God, and we confess the sin. What preparation, then, can we make? Suppose we sit down and investigate our case. Can we plead extenuations? Can we urge excuses or mitigations, or hope to escape by promises of future improvement? Let us give up the attempt, my brethren. We have gone astray wilfully and wickedly, and we shall do it again, and it is of no use for us to set up any kind of defence that is grounded upon ourselves. How, then, can we be prepared to meet our God? Hearken. There is an Advocate, and it is written, “If any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.” Let us send for him. We poor prisoners lying waiting in the cells, send for Jesus the Son of God to be our Intercessor and Advocate. Will he undertake our cause? O that he would plead the causes of our souls, and be our Daysman to speak with God on our behalf. Yes, he will accept the office, and be our Advocate, for he has said, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Then let us apply to him, and say, “Jesus, undertake our case.” Will ye not do this? Oh, I pray God you may! Sitting in these pews, you may engage the services of the great Advocate. Cry in your hearts, “Thou Son of David, undertake for me, undertake my case.” Well, now, supposing we have put it all into his hands, and he who is called Wonderful is received as our Counsellor to plead for us, what is next to be done? First he bids us prepare to meet our God by at once taking up our true position as sinners. Let us plead guilty. Let us make a full and penitent confession. We cannot be saved by Christ unless we will do as he bids us. Faith is only real as it is obedient. One of the first gospel exhortations which Jesus gives us is this, that we confess our sins. O that we may honestly plead guilty, for our iniquity stares us in the face, and we ought heartily to make acknowledgment of it, for it is an evil and a bitter thing, and has wrought us woful damage. O great Counsellor, if thou biddest us plead guilty, we do so with many tears and with broken hearts. We do confess that all our hope must lie in divine mercy, for we have no merit. Lost and undone we cry, “Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!” But what next? Why then, the great Counsellor will enter a plea for us, which will bar all further action against us. Though we have confessed that we are guilty, he knows how at the great judgment-seat to plead a legal argument for the removal of all punishment. And what doth he plead? Here is his argument, “My Father,” saith he, “I stood of old in the room, place and stead of these who have committed their case to my hands, and who plead guilty at thy judgment-seat. I suffered for their sins; I bore that they might never bear thy righteous ire; I satisfied thy law on their behalf. I claim, my Father, that they go free.” The infinite Majesty admits the plea. O brethren and sisters, if your case is in the hands of Christ, and you confess your guilt, do you not see how he sets you free so that you may be prepared to meet your God, because you can plead the blood of Jesus, the atonement of the great Substitute for sinners, and covered with that substitution, you can stand accepted in the Beloved! “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.”

But you have not heard the Counsellor through yet, for as he goes on to speak before the infinite Majesty, he pleads, “My Father, I obeyed the law on their behalf; I kept it in its very jots and tittles; I made it honourable, and now the righteousness which I achieved, I have made over unto them, for all that I am is theirs; my righteousness is their righteousness, and they shall stand accepted in the Beloved.” The great Judge of all admits the fact, and he receives into his bosom and into his glory poor souls who had sinned and pleaded guilty, but who now have imputed to them the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and are justified by faith which is in him, all their iniquities being blotted out. O see ye not, dear friends, what it is to be prepared to meet God! for now we have a good case, now we are not afraid of the last assizes; our case is in the hands of a blessed Advocate, whose pleading must prevail. All that you and I have now to do is to prove by our actions that we really have believed in Christ. Let us go on to justify our faith, if indeed our faith has justified us. Let us prove the sincerity of our confidence in Christ by the holiness of our lives, by the devotedness of those lives to his honour and glory. Let us wake up all our powers and passions that we may become his servants to the highest extent and manhood’s energy, living, labouring, working for Christ, because he has undertaken our case, and will save us at the last.

Thus have I set before you what it is to be prepared to meet God, in the hope that many here will make ready to meet him. And now let me remind you that the subject on which I have spoken, this morning, may have a much nearer interest to some of you than you imagine. It has a very near interest to every one of us; it is but a matter of time, and all of us must appear at the divine tribunal-but there are some to whom it may have a peculiarly close bearing. As I just told you, I did not select this subject, I had no idea of preaching from it: the subject selected me. I was dragged into this present line of thought; I am a pressed man in this service. That sick young woman’s necessities forced me to this subject. Why this special arrangement? I believe the reason is because there are some here this morning who are now receiving the last warning they will ever have. I am solemnly persuaded that I have among my hearers and readers some to whom this feeble word of mine is no other than an arrow from the bow of the Almighty God. To others it is a final message of mercy, and if this do not strike them, wound them, and drive them to Christ, nothing ever will. From this day forth they shall feel no more stirrings of conscience, or strivings of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps ere another Sabbath’s bell shall ring, some of you now listening to my voice will be in the land of spirits and have past the solemn test-weighed in the balances and found wanting. If it be so, and it were hard for any man here to prophecy that it shall not be so, for where several thousands are met together, the very chances of mortality, as men call them, go to make us fear it. The fact of this subject being thrust upon me, makes me feel as though a prophetic impulse were in it; then, if it be so, you and I, whoever you may be, fated for death this week, stand in a peculiar relationship to each other. I may be gazing straight into those eyes which shall never look upon me again till we meet at the judgment-bar, and if I be not faithful to your soul, you may rise up amidst that throng and say, “I strayed into that Tabernacle, and I listened to you, but you played with your theme, you were not earnest, and so I was lost.” So then I will be earnest. I conjure thee by the living God, escape from the wrath to come! As the Lord liveth, there is but a step between thee and death! Flee for thy life! Look not behind thee! Turn thy whole soul to Jesus! A crucified Saviour waits for a lost sinner, willing to receive him, willing to receive him now! Now thou canst not look me in the face in the next world, and say I did not speak to thee earnestly. O that the glance which we exchange at this moment may be succeeded in that tremendous day by a glance of recognition in which there shall be the soft emotions of gratitude and affection, as thou and I shall say to each other there, “Blessed be God we met on that hallowed Sabbath-day, for now we shall meet for ever before the throne of him that liveth and was dead, and is alive for evermore, and hath the keys of hell and of death.” God bless you, every one of you, richly, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

JESUS ONLY

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, April 3rd, 1870, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“And ‘when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.”-Matthew 17:8.

The last words will suffice us for a text, “Jesus only.” When Peter saw our Lord with Moses and Elias, he exclaimed, “Master, it is good to be here,” as if he implied that it was better to be with Jesus, and Moses, and Elias, than to be with Jesus only. Now it was certainly good that for once in his life he should see Christ transfigured with the representatives of the law and the prophets; it might be for that particular occasion the best sight that he could sec, but as an ordinary thing an ecstacy so sublime would not have been good for the disciples; and Peter himself very soon found this out, for when the luminous cloud overshadowed him, and the voice was heard out of heaven, we find that he with the rest became sore afraid. The best thing after all for Peter was not the excessive strain of the transfiguration, nor the delectable company of the two great spirits who appeared with Jesus, but the equally glorious, but less exciting, society of “Jesus only.” Depend on it, brethren, that ravishing and exciting experiences and transporting enjoyments, though they may be useful as occasional refreshments, would not be so good for every day as that quiet but delightful ordinary fellowship with “Jesus only,” which ought to be the distinguishing mark of all Christian life. As the disciples ascended the mountain side with Jesus only, and as they went back again to the multitude with Jesus only, they were in as good company as when they were on the mountain summit, Moses and Elias being there also; and although Jesus Christ in his common habiliments and in his ordinary attire might not so dazzle their eyes as when they saw his raiment bright as the light, and his face shining as the sun, yet he really was quite as glorious, and his company quite as beneficial. When they saw him in his everyday attire, his presence was quite as useful to them as when he robed himself in splendour. “Jesus only,” is after all upon the whole a better thing than Jesus, Moses, and Elias. “Jesus only,” as the common Jesus, the Christ of every day, the man walking among men, communing in secret with his disciples, is a better thing for a continuance while we are in this body than the sight even of Jesus himself in the excellence of his majesty.

This morning, in trying to dwell upon the simple sight of “Jesus only,” we shall hold it up as beyond measure important and delightful, and shall bear our witness that as it was said of Goliath’s sword, “there is none like it,” so may it be said of fellowship with “Jesus only.” We shall first notice what might have happened to the disciples after the transfiguration; we shall then dwell on what did happen; and then, thirdly, we shall speak on what we anxiously desire may happen to those who hear us this day.

First, then, what might have happened to the three disciples after they had seen the transfiguration.

There were four things either of which might have occurred. As a first supposition, they might have seen nobody with them on the holy mount; they might have found all gone but themselves. When the cloud had overshadowed them, and they were sore afraid, they might have lifted up their eyes and found the entire vision melted into thin air; no Moses, no Elias, and no Jesus. In such a case they would have been in a sorry plight, like those who having begun to taste of a banquet, suddenly find all the viands swept away; like thirsty men who have tasted the cooling crystal drops, and then seen the fountain dried up before their eyes. They would not have gone down the mountain side that day asking questions and receiving instruction, for they would have had no teacher left them. They would have descended to face a multitude and to contend with a demon; not to conquer Satan, but to stand defeated by him before the crowd; for they would have had no champion to espouse their cause and drive out the evil spirit. They would have gone down among Scribes and Pharisees to be baffled with their knotty questions, and to be defeated by their sophistries, for they would have had no wise man, who spake as never man spake, to untie the knots and disentangle the snarls of controversy. They would have been like sheep without a shepherd, like orphan children left alone in the world. They would henceforth have reckoned it an unhappy day on which they saw the transfiguration; because having seen it, having been led to high thoughts by it, and excited to great expectations, all had disappeared like the foam upon the waters, and left no solid residuum behind. Alas! for those who have seen the image of the spirits of just men made perfect, and beheld the great Lord of all such spirits, and then have found themselves alone and all the high companionship for ever gone.

My dear brethren and sisters, there are some in this world, and we ourselves have been among them, to whom something like this has actually occurred. You have been under a sermon, or at a gospel ordinance, or in reading the word of God for awhile delighted, exhilarated, lifted up to the sublimer regions, and then afterwards when it has all been over, there has been nothing left of joy or benefit, nothing left of all that was preached and for the moment enjoyed, nothing, at any rate, that you could take with you into the conflicts of every-day life. The whole has been a splendid vision and nothing more. There has been neither Moses, nor Elias, nor Jesus left. You did remember what you saw, but only with regret, because nothing remained with you. And, indeed, this which happens sometimes to us, is a general habit of that portion of this ungodly world which hears the gospel and perceives not its reality; it listens with respect to gospel histories as to legends of ancient times; it hears with reverence the stories of the days of miracles; it venerates the far off ages and their heroic deeds, but it does not believe that anything is left of all the vision, anything for to-day, for common life, and for common men. Moses it knows, and Elias it knows, and Christ it knows, as shadows that have passed across the scene and have disappeared, but it knows nothing of any one of these as abiding in permanent influence over the mind and spirit of the present. All come and all gone, all to be reverenced, all to be respected, but nothing more; there is nothing left so far as they are concerned to influence or bless the present hour. Jesus and his gospel have come and gone, and we may very properly recollect the fact, but according to certain sages there is nothing in the New Testament to affect this advanced age, this enlightened nineteenth century; we have got beyond all that. Ah! brethren, let those who can be content to do so, put up with this worship of moral relics and spiritual phantoms; to us it would be wretchedness itself. We, on the other hand say, blessing the name of the Lord that we can say it, that there abides with us our Lord Jesus. At this day he is with us, and will be with us even to the end of the world. Christ’s existence is not a fact confined to antiquity or to remote distance. By his Spirit he is actually in his church; we have seen him, though not with eyes; we have heard him, though not with ears; we have grasped him, though not with hands; and we feed upon his flesh, which is meat indeed, and his blood, which is drink indeed. We have with us at this very day Jesus our friend, to whom we make known our secrets, and who beareth all our sorrows. We have Jesus our interpreting instructor, who still reveals his secrets to us, and leads us into the mind and name of God. We have Jesus still with us to supply us with strength, and in his power we still are mighty. We confess his reigning sovereignty in the church, and we receive his all-sufficient succours. The church is not decapitated, her Head abides in vital union with her; Jesus is no myth to us, whatever he may be to others; he is no departed shade, he is no heroic personification: in very deed there is a Christ, and though others see him not, and even we with these eyes see him not, yet in him believing we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Oh, I trust it will never be so with us, that as we go about our life work our religion shall melt into fiction and become nothing but mere sentiment, nothing but thought, and dream, and vision; but may our religion be a matter of fact, a walking with the living and abiding Saviour. Though Moses may be gone, and Elias may be gone, yet Jesus Christ abideth with us and in us, and we in him, and so shall it be evermore.

Now, there was a second thing that might have happened to the disciples. When they lifted up their eyes they might have seen Moses only. It would certainly have been a very sad exchange for what they did see, to have seen Moses only. The face of Moses would have shone, his person would have awed them, and it would have been no mean thing for men of bumble origin like themselves to walk down the mountain with that mighty king in Jeshurun, who had spoken with God face to face, and rested with him in solemn conclave by the space of forty days at a time. But yet who would exchange the sun for the moon? Who would exchange the cold moonbeams of Moses and the law for the sunny rays of the Saviour’s divine affection? It would have been an unhappy exchange for them to have lost their Master whose name is love, and to have found a leader in the man whose name is synonymous with law. Moses, the man of God cannot be compared with Jesus, the Son of God. Yet, dear brethren, there are some who see Moses only. After all the gospel preaching that there has been in the world, and the declaration of the precious doctrines of grace every Sabbath day, after the clear revelations of Scripture, and the work of the Holy Spirit in men’s hearts, yet we have among us some who persist in seeing nothing but Moses only. I mean this, there are some who will see nothing but shadows still, mere shadows still. As I read my Bible I see there that the age of the symbolical, the typical, the pictorial, has passed away. I am glad of the symbols, and types, and pictures, for they remain instructive to me; but the age in which they were in the foreground has given way to a clearer light, and they are gone for ever. There are, however, certain persons who profess to read the Bible and to see very differently, and they set up a new system of types and shadows-a system, let me say, ridiculous to men of sense, and obnoxious to men of spiritual taste. There are some who delight in outward ordinances; they must have rubric and ritual, vestments and ceremonial, and this superabundantly, morning, noon and night. They regard days, and seasons, and forms of words and postures. They consider one place holy above another. They regard a certain caste of men as being priestly above other believers, and their love of symbols is seen in season and out of season. One would think, from their teachings, that the one thing needful was not “Jesus only,” but custom, antiquity, outward performance, and correct observance! Alas! for those who talk of Jesus, but virtually see Moses, and Moses only. Ah! unhappy change for the heart if it could exchange spiritual fellowship with Jesus for outward acts and symbolical representations. It would be an unhappy thing for the Christian church if she could ever be duped out of the priceless boons which faith wins from her living Lord in his fulness of grace and truth, to return to the beggarly elements of carnal ordinances. Unhappy day, indeed, if Popish counterfeits of legal shadows should supplant gospel fact and substance. Blessed be God, we have not so learned Christ. We see something better than Moses only.

There are too many who see Moses only, inasmuch as they see nothing but law, nothing but duty and precept in the Bible. I know that some here, though we have tried to preach Christ crucified as their only hope, yet whenever they read the Bible, or hear the gospel, feel nothing except a sense of their own sinfulness, and, arising out of that sense of sinfulness, a desire to work out a righteousness of their own. They are continually measuring themselves by the law of God, they feel their shortcomings, they mourn over their transgressions, but they go no further. I am glad that they see Moses, may the stern voice of the lawgiver drive them to the law-fulfiller; but I grieve that they tarry so long in legal servitude, which can only bring them sorrow and dismay. The sight of Sinai, what is it but despair? God revealed in flaming fire, and proclaiming with thunder his fiery law, what is there here to save the soul? To see the Lord who will by no means spare the guilty, but will surely visit transgression with eternal vengeance, is a sight which never should eclipse Calvary, where love makes recompense to justice. O that you may get beyond the mount that might be touched, and come to Calvary where God in vengeance is clearly seen, but where God in mercy fills the throne. Oh, how blessed is it to escape from the voice of command and threatening and come to the blood of sprinkling, where “Jesus only” speaketh better things!

Moses only, however, has become a sight very common with some of you who write bitter things against yourselves. You never read the Scriptures or hear the gospel without feeling condemned. You know your duty, and confess how short you have fallen of it, and therefore you abide under conscious condemnation, and will not come to him who is the propitiation for your sins. Alas, that there should be so many who with strange perversity of unbelief twist every promise into a threatening, and out of every gracious word that drips with honey manage to extract gall and wormwood. They see the dark shadow of Moses only; the broken tablets of the law, the smoking mount, and the terrible trumpet are ever with them, and over all an angry God. They had a better vision once, they have it sometimes now; for now and then under the preaching of the gospel they have glimpses of hope and mercy, but they relapse into darkness, they fall again into despair, because they have chosen to see Moses only. I pray that a change may come over the spirit of their dream, and that yet like the apostles they may see “Jesus only.”

But, my brethren, there was a third alternative that might have happened to the disciples, they might have seen Elijah only. Instead of the gentle Saviour, they might have been standing at the side of the rough-clad and the stern-spirited Elias. Instead of the Lamb of God, there might have remained to them only the lion who roared like the voice of God’s own majesty in the midst of sinful Israel. In such a case, with such a leader, they would have gone down from the mount, and I wot that if John had said, “Command fire from heaven,” Elias would have consumed his foes, the Pharisees like the priests of Baal would have found a speedy end, Herod’s blood, like Ahab’s, would have been licked up by dogs, and Herodias, like another Jezebel, would have been devoured of the same. But all this power for vengeance would have been a poor exchange for the gracious omnipotence of the Friend of sinners. Who would prefer the slayer of the priests to the Saviour of men? The top of Carmel was glorious when its intercession brought the rain for Israel, but how poor it is compared with Gethsemane, whose pleadings bring eternal life to millions! In company with Jesus we are at Elim beneath the palm tree, but with Elias we are in the wilderness beneath the stunted juniper. Who would exchange the excellency of Olivet for the terrors of Horeb? Yet I fear there are many who see Elias only. Prophecies of future woe fascinate them rather than thoughts of present salvation. Elias may be taken representatively as the preparer of Christ, for our Lord interpreted the prophecy of the coming of Elias as referring to John the Baptist. There are not a few who abide in the seeking, repenting, and preparing state, and come not to “Jesus only.” I am not myself fond of even using the term “preparing for Christ,” for it seems to me that those are best prepared for Christ who most feel themselves unprepared; but there is no doubt a state of heart which prepares for faith-a sense of need, a consciousness of sin, a hatred of sin, all these are preparations for actual peace and comfort in Christ Jesus, and oh! how many there are who continue year after year merely in that preliminary condition, choosing the candle and refusing the sun. They do not become believers, but are always complaining that they do not feel as yet fit to come to Christ. They want Christ, they desire Christ, they would fain have Christ, but they stay in desire and longings, and go no further. They never get so far as to behold “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” The voice from heaven to them they always interpret as crying, “The axe is laid unto the root of the trees; bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance.” Their conscience is thrilled, and thrilled again, by the voice that crieth in the wilderness, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” Their souls are rent and torn by Elijah’s challenge, “If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him;” but they remain still halting between two opinions, trembling before Elias and not rejoicing before the Saviour. Unhappy men and women, so near the kingdom, and yet out of it; so near the feast, and yet perishing for want of the living bread. The word is near you (ah, how near!), and yet you receive it not. Remember, I pray you, that merely to prepare for a Saviour is not to be saved; that to have a sense of sin is not the same thing as being pardoned. Your repentance, unless you also believe in Jesus, is a repentance that needs to be repented of. At the girdle of John the Baptist the keys of heaven did never hang; Elias is not the door of salvation; preparation for Christ is not Christ, despair is not regeneration, doubt is not repentance. Only by faith in Jesus can you be saved, but complaining of yourselves is not faith. “Jesus only” is the way, the truth, and the life. “Jesus only” is the sinner’s Saviour. O that your eyes may be opened, not to see Elias, not to see Moses, but to see “Jesus only.”

You see, then, these three alternatives, but there was also another: a fourth thing might have happened when the disciples opened their eyes-they might have seen Moses and Elias with Jesus, even as in the transfiguration. At first sight it seems as if this would have been superior to that which they did enjoy. To walk down the mountain with that blessed trio, how great a privilege! How strong might they have been for the accomplishment of the divine purposes! Moses could preach the law and make men tremble, and then Jesus could follow with his gospel of grace and truth. Elias could flash the thunderbolt in their faces, and then Christ could have uplifted the humbled spirits. Would not the contrast have been delightful, and the connection inspiriting? Would not the assemblage of such divers kinds of forces have contributed to the greatest success? I think not. It is a vastly better thing to see “Jesus only,” as a matter of perpetuity, than to see Moses and Elias with Jesus. It is night, I know it, for I see the moon and stars. The morning cometh, I know it cometh, for I see no longer many stars, only one remains, and that the morning star. But the full day has arrived, I know it has, for I cannot even see the morning star; all those guardians and comforters of the night have disappeared; I see the sun only. Now, inasmuch as every man prefers the noon to midnight and to the twilight of dawn, the disappearance of Moses and Elias, indicating the full noontide of light, was the best thing that could happen. Why should we wish to see Moses? The ceremonials are all fulfilled in Jesus; the law is honoured and fulfilled in him. Let Moses go, his light is already in “Jesus only.” And why should I wish to retain Elias? The prophecies are all fulfilled in Jesus, and the preparation of which Elias preached Jesus brings with himself. Let, then, Elias go, his light also is in “Jesus only.” It is better to see Moses and Elias in Christ, than to see Moses and Elias with Christ. The absence of some things betokens a higher state of things than their presence. In all my library I do not know that I have a Lennie’s English Grammar, or a Mavor’s Spelling Book, or a Henry’s First Latin Exercises, nor do I regret the absence of those valuable works, because I have got beyond the need of them. So the Christian wants not the symbols of Moses, or the preparations of Elias, for Christ is all, and we are complete in him. He who is conversant with the higher walks of sacred literature and reads in the golden book of Christ’s heart, may safely lay the legal school-book by; this was good enough for the church’s infancy, but we have now put away childish things. “We, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” My brethren, the principle may be carried still further, for even the most precious things we treasure here below will disappear when fully realised in heaven. Beautiful for situation was the temple on Mount Zion, and though we believe not in the sanctity of buildings under the gospel, we love the place of solemn meeting where we are accustomed to offer prayer and praise; but when we enter into perfection we shall find no temple in heaven. We delight in our Sabbaths, and we would not give them up. O may England never lose her Sabbaths! but when we reach the Jerusalem above, we shall not observe the first day of the week above the rest, for we shall enjoy one everlasting Sabbath. No temple, because all temple; and no Sabbath-day, because all Sabbath in heaven. Thus you see the losing of some things is gain: it proves that we have got beyond their help. Just as we get beyond the nursery and all its appurtenances, and never regret it, because we have become men, so do Moses and Elias pass away, but we do not miss them, for “Jesus only” indicates our manhood. It is a sign of a higher growth when we can see Jesus only. My brethren, much of this sort of thing takes place with all Christians in their spiritual life. Do you remember when you were first of all convinced and awakened, what a great deal you thought of the preacher, and how much of the very style in which he spoke the gospel! But now, though you delight to listen to his voice, and find that God blesses you through him, yet you have sunk the thought of the preacher in the glory of the Master, you see no man save “Jesus only.” And as you grow in grace you will find that many doctrines and points of church government which once appeared to you to be all important, though you will still value them, will seem but of small consequence compared with Christ himself. Like the traveller ascending the Alps to reach the summit of Mont Blanc; at first he observes that lord of the hills as one horn among many, and often in the twistings of his upward path he sees other peaks which appear more elevated than that monarch of mountains; but when at last he is near the summit, he sees all the rest of the hills beneath his feet, and like a mighty wedge of alabaster Mont Blanc pierces the very clouds. So, as we grow in grace, other things sink and Jesus rises. They must decrease, but Christ must increase; until he alone fills the full horizon of your soul, and rises clear and bright and glorious, up into the very heaven of God. O that we may thus see “Jesus only!”

Time hastens so rapidly, this morning, that I know not how I shall be able to compress the rest of my discourse into the allotted space. We must in the most rapid manner speak upon what really happened.

“They saw no man, save Jesus only.” This was all they wanted to see for their comfort. They were sore afraid: Moses was gone, and he could give them no comfort; Elias was gone, he could speak no consolatory word; yet when Jesus said, “Be not afraid,” their fears vanished. All the comfort, then, that any troubled heart wants, it can find in Christ. Go not to Moses, nor Elias, neither to the old covenant, nor to prophecy: go straight away to Jesus only. He was all the Saviour they wanted. Those three men all needed washing from sin; all needed to be kept and held on their way, but neither Moses nor Elias could have washed them from sin, nor have kept them from returning to it. But Jesus only could cleanse them, and did; Christ could lead them on, and did. Ah! brethren, all the Saviour we want, we find in Jesus only. The priests of Rome and their Anglican mimics officiously offer us their services. How glad they would be if we would bend our necks once again to their yoke! But we thank God we have seen “Jesus only,” and if Moses has gone, and if Elias has gone, we are not likely to let the shavelings of Rome come in and fill up the vacancy. “Jesus only,” is enough for our comfort, without either Anglican, Mosaic, or Roman priestcraft.

He, again, was to them, as they went afterwards into the world enough for a Master. “No man can serve two masters,” and albeit, Moses and Elias might sink into the second rank, yet might there have been some difficulty in the follower’s mind if the leadership were divided. But when they had no leader but Jesus, his guidance, his direction and command were quite sufficient. He, in the day of battle, was enough for their captain; in the day of difficulty, enough for their direction. They wanted none but Jesus. At this day, my brethren, we have no Master but Christ; we submit ourselves to no vicar of God; we bow down ourselves before no great leader of a sect, neither to Calvin, nor to Arminius, to Wesley, or Whitfield. “One is our Master,” and that one is enough, for we have learned to see the wisdom of God and the power of God in Jesus only.

He was enough as their power for future life, as well as their Master. They needed not ask Moses to lend them official dignity, nor to ask Elias to bring them fire from heaven, Jesus would give them of his Holy Spirit, and they should be strong enough for every enterprise. And, brethren, all the power you and I want to preach the gospel, and to conquer souls to the truth, we can find in Jesus only. You want no sacred state-prestige, no pretended apostolical succession, no prelatical unction; Jesus will anoint you with his Holy Spirit, and you shall be plenteously endowed with power from on high, so that you shall do great things and prevail. “Jesus only.” Why, they wanted no other motive to constrain them to use their power aright. It is enough incentive to a man to be allowed to live for such a one as Christ. Only let the thought of Christ fill the enlightened intellect, and it must conquer the sanctified affections. Let but Jesus be well understood as the everlasting God who bowed the heavens, and came down and suffered shame, and ignominy, that he might redeem us from the wrath to come; let us get but a sight of the thorn-crowned head, and those dear eyes all red with weeping, and those sweet cheeks bruised and battered by the scoffers fists; let us but look into the tender heart that was broken with griefs unutterable for our sakes, and the love of Christ must constrain us, and we shall thus “judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.” In the point of motive believers do not need the aid of Moses. That you ought to do such a thing because otherwise you will be punished will but little strengthen you, nor will you be much aided by the spirit of prophecy which leads you to hope that in the millennial period you will be made a ruler over many cities. It will be enough to you that you serve the Lord Christ; it suffices you if you may be enabled to honour him, to deck his crown, to magnify his name. Here is stimulus sufficient for martyrs and confessors, “Jesus only.” Brethren, it is all the gospel we have to preach, it is all the gospel we want to preach-it is the only ground of confidence which we have for ourselves; it is all the hope we have to set before others. I know that in this age there is an overweening desire for that which has the aspect of being intellectual, deep, and novel; and we are often informed that there are to be developments in religion even as in science; and we are despised as being hardly men, certainly not thinking men, if we preach to-day what was preached two hundred years ago. Brethren, we preach to-day what was preached eighteen hundred years ago, and wherein others make alterations they create deformities, and not improvements. We are not ashamed to avow that the old truth of Christ alone is everlasting; all else has gone or shall go, but the gospel towers above the wrecks of time: to us “Jesus only” remains as the sole topic of our ministry, and we want nothing else.

For “Jesus only” shall, be our reward, to be with him where he is, to behold his glory, to be like him when we shall see him as he is, we ask no other heaven. No other bliss can our soul conceive of. The Lord grant we may have a fulness of this, and “Jesus only” shall be throughout eternity our delight.

There was here space to have dilated at great length, but we have rather given you the heads of thought than the thoughts themselves. Though the apostles saw “Jesus only,” they saw quite sufficient, for Jesus is enough for time and eternity, enough to live by and enough to die by.

I must close, though I would fain linger. Brethren, let us think of what we desire may happen to all now present.

I do desire for my fellow Christians and for myself, that more and more the great object of our thoughts, motives, and acts may be “Jesus only.” I believe that whenever our religion is most vital it is most full of Christ. Moreover, when it is most practical, downright, and common sense, it always gets nearest to Jesus. I can bear witness that whenever I am in deeps of sorrow, nothing will do for me but “Jesus only.” I can rest in some degree in the externals of religion, its outward escarpments and bulwarks, when I am in health; but I retreat to the innermost citadel of our holy faith, namely, to the very heart of Christ, when my spirit is assailed by temptation, or besieged with sorrow and anguish. What is more, my witness is that whenever I have high spiritual enjoyments, enjoyments rich, rare, celestial, they are always connected with Jesus only, other religious things may give some kind of joy, and joy that is healthy too, but the sublimest, the most inebriating, the most divine of all joys, must be found in Jesus only. In fine, I find if I want to labour much, I must live on Jesus only; if I desire to suffer patiently, I must feed on Jesus only; if I wish to wrestle with God successfully, I must plead Jesus only; if I aspire to conquer sin, I must use the blood of Jesus only; if I pant to learn the mysteries of heaven, I must seek the teachings of Jesus only. I believe that anything which we add to Christ lowers our position, and that the more elevated our soul becomes, the more nearly like what it is to be when it shall enter into the region of the perfect, the more completely everything else will sink, die out, and Jesus, Jesus, Jesus only, will be first and last, and midst and without end, the Alpha and Omega of every thought of head and pulse of heart. May it be so with every Christian!

There are others here who are not yet believers in Jesus, and our desire is that this may happen to them, that they may see “Jesus only.” “Oh,” saith one, “Sir, I want to see my sins. My heart is very hard, and very proud; I want to see my sins.” Friend, I also desire that you should, but I desire that you may see them not on yourself, but on Jesus only. No sight of sin ever brings such true humiliation of spirit as when the soul sees its sins laid on the Saviour. Sinner, I know you have thought of sins as lying on yourself, and you have been trying to feel their weight, but there is a happier and better view still. Sin was laid on Jesus, and it made him to be covered with a bloody sweat; it nailed him to the cross; it made him cry, “Lama Sabachthani;” it bowed him into the dust of death. Why, friend, if you see sin on Jesus you will hate it, you will bemoan it, you will abhor it. You need not look evermore to sin as burdening yourself, see Jesus only, and the best kind of repentance will follow. “Ah, but,” saith another, “I want to feel my need of Christ more.” You will see your need all the better if you look at Jesus only. Many a time an appetite for a thing is created by the sight of it. Why, there are some of us who can hardly be trusted in a bookseller’s shop, because though we might have done very well at home without a certain volume, we no sooner see it than we are in urgent need of it. So often is it with some of you about other matters, so that it becomes most dangerous to let you see, because you want as soon as you see. A sight of Jesus, of what he is to sinners, of what he makes sinners, of what he is in himself, will more tend to make you feel your need of him than all your poring over your poor miserable self. You will get no further there, look to “Jesus only.” “Ay,” saith another, “but I want to read my title clear, I want to know that I have an interest in Jesus.” You will best read your interest in Christ, by looking at him. If I want to know whether a certain estate is mine, do I look into my own heart to see if I have a right to it? but I look into the archives of the estate, I search testaments and covenants. Now, Christ Jesus is God’s covenant with the people, a leader and commander to the people. To-day, I personally can read my title clear to heaven, and shall I tell you how I read it? Not because I feel all I wish to feel, nor because I am what I hope I yet shall be, but I read in the word that “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners,” I am a sinner, even the devil cannot tell me I am not. O precious Saviour, then thou hast come to save such as I am. Then I see it written again, “He that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved.” I have believed, and have been baptised; I know I trust alone in Jesus, and that is believing. As surely then as there is a God in heaven I shall be in heaven one day. It must be so, because unless God be a liar, he that believeth must be saved. You see it is not by looking within, it is by looking to Jesus only that you perceive at last your name graven on his hands. I wish to have Christ’s name written on my heart, but if I want assurance, I have to look at his heart till I see my name written there. O turn your eye away from your sin and your emptiness to his righteousness and his fulness. See the sweat drops bloody as they fall in Gethsemane, see his heart pierced and pouring out blood and water for the sins of men upon Calvary! There is life in a look at him! O look to him, and though it be Jesus only, though Moses should condemn you, and Elias should alarm you, yet “Jesus only” shall be enough to comfort and enough to save you. May God grant us grace every one of us to take for our motto in life, for our hope in death, and for our joy in eternity, “Jesus only.” May God bless you for the sake of “Jesus only.” Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Matthew 17.