Ever since man has fallen away from God, two things have been highly desirable. The one, that he should be forgiven all his offences; the other, equally if not more important, that he should be led to hate the sin into which he has fallen, and love the purity and holiness from which he has become alienated. These two disabilities must be removed; or, looking at the matter from a loftier point of view, these two purposes of divine mercy must be accomplished together. It were impossible to make a man happy unless both be equally and simultaneously realised. If his sins were forgiven, and yet he loved sin, his prospects were dark; over his future the direst portents would loom. If he ceased to love sin, and yet were lying under the guilt of it, his present condition would rather be deeply miserable than happy-his conscience pure and sensitive being tortured with pangs of remorse. By what process can the two requirements be met, or the double purpose be achieved? To use our common words, how can man be both justified and sanctified, obtain clearance from his guilt in the sight of God, and then be made holy and meet to appear in his presence?

Human reason suggests that a law should be given to man which he should keep. This has been tried, and the law which was given was the best law that could be framed. The law of God written on the conscience, of which the law given by Moses recorded in the book of Exodus is but a copy, is a perfect law. There is not a command in it that could be omitted; there is not one single arbitrary precept. The right must be true, the true must be right, and God’s law is never otherwise than right and true. “Of law,” said the judicious Hooker, “there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempt from her power.” If, therefore, that law which is promulgated from heaven should fail to make men what they should be, the fault will not be in the law, but in the man. As the text says, it was “weak through the flesh.” Because of our flesh and our tendency to sin, our weakness and our defilement of nature, it could not do what, indeed, God never intended it should do, but what some have thought law might do, to repair the breach and to renovate the depraved. The principle of law, which is, “Do this and you shall be rewarded;” or, “Do that and you shall be punished,” never can by any means achieve either of these two purposes. The law cannot forgive past sin. It evidently has nothing to do with that question. The law says, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” It can execute the sentence, but it can do no more. It ceases to be law if it lays aside the sword, and does not exact its own penalty. Yet it has been thought that surely law might make men love holiness, albeit experience and observation prove that it never has that effect. Very often men have needed nothing more than the knowledge of sin to enamour them of it, and they have loved sin all the better for knowing it to be sin. The apostle Paul tells us that he had not known lust if the law had not said, “Thou shalt not covet.” There was a citizen of Gaunt who had never been outside the city walls. For some reason or other the magistrate passed an order that he should not go outside. Strange to tell, up to the moment that the command had passed, the man had been perfectly easy, and never thought of passing the line, but as soon as ever he was forbidden to do it, he pined, and sickened, and even died moaning over the restriction. If a man sees a thing to be law, he wants to break that law. Our nature is so evil, that forbid us to do a thing, and at once we want to do the thing that is forbidden, and in many minds the principle of law instead of leading to purity has even offered opportunities for greater impurity. Beside, although you may point out the way of uprightness to a man, and tell him what is right and what is wrong with all the wisdom and force of counsel and caution, unless you can give him a heart to choose the right, and a heart to love the true, you have not done much for him. This is just the province of law. It can write out its precepts on the brazen tablets, and it can brandish its fiery sword, and say, “Do this or else be punished,” but man, carnal man, only wraps himself the more closely in his self-conceit, and perseveres the more doggedly in his obstinate rebellion. He defies God, defers to his own reprobate mind, goes on in sin, and waxes worse and worse, knowing the judgment threatened, yet committing the transgressions prohibited, and taking pleasure in those that do such things, as his boon companions. Because of the malignity, as well as the infirmity of our flesh, the mere principle of law will never do anything to purify or ennoble our moral nature. It has been tried by eminent teachers and social reformers. Dr. Chalmers tells us that in his early ministry, he used to preach morality, and nothing but morality, till, he said, he had hardly a sober or an honest man left in the parish. The preaching of morality seemed to lead to immorality. Something more is wanted than merely to din into men’s ears what they ought to be, and what they ought to do. Something is wanted more effectually to renovate the heart and move the springs of action. The water is nought, and if you make it flow it is bitter. You want an ingredient to be cast into it that will heal its poison springs, and make them sweet and clear.

Now, in the text, we are told how God interposed to do by his grace what his law could not do. I will read it to you again: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” There are here, then, two things; first, what God did; he sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh for sin; and then, what was the immediate result of this, he condemned sin in the flesh. After expounding these matters, I will try, in the third place, to show you how this bears upon the two desirable things I speak of, namely, the forgiving the offender, and the making the offender from thenceforth yearn after holiness and purity.

First, and very briefly, let me tell cu what, according to the text, God did-he sent his Son.

We believe in one God, but though we understand not the mystery of the Divine Existence, we accept the propositions declared in Scripture, clearly apprehending the obvious sense of the terms employed, and heartily assenting to the truth of the facts revealed. Thus we believe that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and we worship these three as the one God, the triune God of Israel. The second person of that blessed unity in Trinity was sent by the Father to this earth. He is God the Father’s Son, “the only-begotten of the Father.” What that means we do not attempt to define: of the matter of fact we feel no doubt, of the manner thereof we can offer no explanation. We suppose that the relationship implied in the words “Father” and “Son” is the nearest description that the Divine Mind can present to our feeble intelligence of that ineffable fellowship, but we do not assume therefore that it explains to us anything, or was intended to explain anything as the basis of an argument, or of a theory concerning the profound doctrine itself. It is a great mystery. Indeed, were there no mystery in God, he were no God to us; for how then should we fear him with the reverence due unto his name? The fact of there being mysteries should never stagger us, poor worms of a day, when we have to think or speak of the infinitely glorious Jehovah. So, however, it came to pass, that in the fulness of time God sent his Son. He is called in the text, “his own Son,” to distinguish him from us who are only his sons by creation, or his sons by regeneration and adoption. He sent his own Son, and he sent him in the flesh. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born into this world; he took upon himself our manhood. The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and the apostles declare that they beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The text uses very important words. It says that God sent his Son “in the likeness of sinful fles,” not in the likeness of flesh, for that would not be true, but in the same likeness as our sinful flesh. He was to all intents and purposes like ourselves, tempted in all points like as we are, though without sin, with all our sinless infirmities, with all our tendencies to suffer, with everything human in him except that which comes to be human through human nature having fallen. He was perfectly man; he was like ourselves; and God sent him in the likeness of sinful flesh. Though it is eighteen hundred years ago and more, the Christmas bells seem to ring on. The joy of his coming is still in our hearts. He lived here his two or three and thirty years, but he was sent, the text tells us, for a reason which caused him to die. He was sent for sin. This may mean that he was sent to do battle with sin, 01 that he was sent because sin was in the world; or, best of all, he was sent to be a sin-offering. He was sent that he might be the substitute for sinners. God’s great plan was this, that inasmuch as his justice could not overlook sin, and sin must be punished, Jesus Christ should come and take the sin of his people upon himself, and upon the accursed tree, the cross of ignominious note, should suffer what was due on our behalf, and that then through his sufferings the infinite love of God should stream forth without any contravention of his infinite justice. This is what God did. He sent his Son to Bethlehem; he sent his Son to Calvary: he sent his Son down to the grave, and he has now recalled him unto the excellent glory where he sitteth at the right hand of God.

Why, brethren, the immediate result was that God condemned sin. Let me show you how he did it. The very fact that God-I must use language which is for us, not for him-was under necessity, if he would save men and yet not violate his justice, to send his Son, condemned sin, for it said, “This sin is such an evil, such a plague, such a curse, that it cannot be stamped out of the world unless God himself comes down among the sons of men.” His usual presence among men in the power that sustains nature, it seemed, was not enough to put out sin. So venomous the serpent, that there must be born a seed of the woman that should bruise that serpent’s head. This world of ours was such an Augean stable, that omnipotence itself must come down and turn the sluices of divine perfection right through the hideous heap, or else washed it never could be; therefore down from the highest glory came the Saviour, that he might achieve a task which the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, but which he in the likeness of sinful flesh undertook to accomplish.

Moreover, the life of our Lord Jesus Christ on earth condemned sin. You can often condemn an evil best by putting side by side with it the palpable contrast, the purity to which it is so thoroughly alien, so totally opposite. So blameless was the conduct of this most blessed Man of Nazareth throughout his entire career, that even those who accept not his deity, do homage to his integrity. We have had in our own day, and in our midst, we grieve to say, some who have blasphemed our faith with bitterest words, but even they have paused as if they stood abashed when they came to survey the character of him whose divinity and mission they refused to acknowledge. They have seen about his life a something that they saw nowhere else, and if they have not adored they have admired. There was a condemnation of sin in his very look. The Pharisees felt it. They could not meet or encounter him without discovering and exposing what hypocrites they were. All sorts of men felt it. They could not fail to see through the purity of his life what crooked, ugly, deformed lives their own were in comparison with his, and thus the very existence of Christ, and the example of Christ, condemned sin. But what shall we who are his disciples say to that assemblage of graces found only in him, each sparkling with peerless lustre, and all blending with such exquisite gracefulness that we are at once moved with awe and touched with love as we contemplate him? Such majesty yet such meekness in his mien; such solemnity yet such tenderness in his speech; so impartial in judgment yet so forgiving in temper; so full of zeal yet so equally full of patience; so keen to detect malice yet so slow to resent it; such a wise Mentor in the inner circle of his followers yet such a gentle sympathising friend. Say, my brethren-why I think some of us never commit a trespass or betray an infirmity, but we say, and say it to ourselves, Would Christ have done this? And the remembrance of his holy harmless life condemns sin in our conscience.

God condemned sin still further, by allowing it to condemn itself. The scoff has always been on this wise, “Oh, sin, sin! well, it is a mere trifle,” and the most of men disdain to allow that their particular transgressions are at all heinous. “No, we never killed anybody; we never committed adultery; we are not thieves; ours are only sins of a common sort; there can be no harm in us.” But see now, God seemed to say, “I will let sin do what it can; I will let sin ripen in this world; I will let it grow to its perfection; and men shall see henceforth what sin is from that sample.” “What am I aiming at, do you ask?” Why, there came into this world a Man perfectly innocent, harmless, gentle, meek, loving, tender. All his words were love; all his actions were kindness. He raised the dead; he healed the sick; he spake nothing but peace and goodwill towards men. And what did sin do? Sin said, “Away with such a fellow from the earth; it is not fit that he should live.” Sin murdered the perfect man, as it would lay violent hands on all who interfere with its evil maxims and base habits, and utterly destroy all goodness if it could. It convicted itself. Ferocious as a wild beast, it is always to be feared and hated, for it never can be tamed or trusted. That Man came into this world on an errand, and that errand was one of disinterested mercy and pure affection. He need not have come; he had nothing to gain by it; he never did gain anything while here. They would have made him a king, but he would not be a king. His was all disinterested kindness, benevolence to his bitterest foes. When they nailed his hands to the wood, they could get nothing vindictive from his lips, but he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He came to save his enemies. Now, surely sin will not touch such a blessed Being as this! Surely sin will say, “I hate his holiness, but I reverence his philanthropy”! Not so, sin shouted, “Crucify him! crucify him!” Sin made a jest of his prayers, and mocked at his tears. As we hold and believe, this Man was no other than God, God’s Son. You know how the wilfulness and atrocity of this sin against Christ is represented to us in the parable of a certain man that had let out his vineyard unto husbandmen. He sent unto them his servant that at the time of the crops they should pay a portion of the produce, but they treated him despitefully, and when he sent another they beat him, and stoned another. At last he said, “I will send my son; they will surely reverence my son.” But they said, “This is the heir; let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.” And so with this very God, they seemed to say, “Let us kill him;” and though they could not give a death blow to his deity, they showed that they would if they could, and red-handed sin stands out before the world this day as a deicide. It would wreak its vengeance on him that inhabiteth eternity if it could, and hurl destruction at the lawgiver, to secure a triumph for its own lawlessness. The fool hath said in his heart, “There is no God,” and the great aim of human nature is to get rid of God in fact as well as in faith; this it attempts to do, either by discoursing of him in an abstraction, or by setting up blocks of wood and stone in simple credulity, as a correct representation of his fashion or his attributes. To the one true and glorious God men will not pay any allegiance. If sin had power equivalent to its purpose, had it means to accomplish its menace, it would cast down the throne of the Most High, and assail Jehovah himself in the heaven of his dwelling. Oh, thou abominable thing, sin! Thou standest convicted. God shall smite thee, thou accursed thing. Thou hast condemned thyself by thine own act and deed, even where thy craftiness has been foiled and thy desperate prowess has issued in defeat.

Thus, brethren, I have shown you that Christ’s coming condemned sin, Christ’s life condemned it, and by putting Christ to death, sin condemned itself. But here comes the peculiar doctrine of our faith. God condemned sin by bruising Christ, by suffering him to be put to death, by deserting him in the hour of nature’s extremity, by permitting his soul to undergo an agony beyond all conception. Sirs, our sin, your sin, my sin, the sin of as many as do believe or ever shall believe in Jesus, was laid on him, “who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” He was the Father’s Best-beloved. He had never offended, and the Father loved him. Will he not spare him? Will he not spare him? Infinite love loved us, and infinite love loved Christ, but infinite love said, “I cannot pass by sin without punishment; what justice demands must be done;” and it was love that made the Father pour forth the vials of his wrath upon the head of the Only-begotten Son, till in the garden he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Oh, there was an inner sweat, of which those outward drops were but the faint types! His soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death, and then on the cross he died. I have often painted you that scene, but for the present I forbear. His inward sufferings, his soul-sufferings, were the soul of his sufferings.

“Twas thus the Lord of life appeared,

And sigh’d, and groan’d, and pray’d, and fear’d;

Bore all incarnate God could bear,

With strength enough, and none to spare.”

There and then he made expiation for man’s guilt. What a condemnation that was of sin! Methinks it were as though the righteous Judge of all the earth had said, “I cannot suffer sin, I cannot pass by sin, even if it lie on the innocent one; I must smite even my own Son if sin be imputed to him; I cannot and will not clear the guilty; the Judge of all the earth am I. If my Son should be spared, or my law should be put on one side, the thousands of worlds I govern might well be in high revolt against me.” Poised was the cause in the impartial scales of justice, and on his Son he visited our transgressions, into his hands the cup of wrath was given; against him the sword of vengeance was unsheathed; of him the uttermost penalty was exacted; that we for whom he surety stood might be clear by his dying, justified by his rising from the dead, and henceforth accepted in the Beloved.

Now, I know it will be said, “But why did not God exercise the sovereign prerogative of mercy, and at once forgive sin? Why did he not by his own absolute fiat condone the offence and pardon the offenders?” I reply, how then could God have condemned sin? If sin be only such a simple misdemeanour as an arbitrary act of God can forgive, then its evil were not infinite in turpitude, the prolific parent of crimes and curses numberless. But if there must be an atonement for it, an atonement as wonderful as that which I have essayed to preach to you, then sin descried in the light of that altar-fire where it was propitiated, appears worse than felonious, worse than any word I can use, more hideous than any ghastly form I can depict. Its summary condemnation alone could vindicate the unimpeachable holiness of the Judge. Some one else may say, “But if the righteous law be really so spiritual, and carnal man so weak, why not alter the law and adapt it to the exigency?” I reply again, because such a procedure would not condemn the sin. On the contrary, it would condemn the law. It would be an admission that the law originally was too severe. It would be making an apology for sinners, and henceforth encourage them to sin with both hands greedily. To relax the prescript, and forego the punishment, were to trifle with sin and make the law to be a thing contemptible. The criminal will ask to have it altered still, and lowered to suit his basest passions. But would not a part-punishment have sufficed, and then let the rest be excused? I answer, No; that, too, would have condemned the law for having asked a greater punishment than was absolutely necessary. Whatever was laid down as being the necessary punishment of sin must be enforced, or else God changes, the statute is set aside, and the law breaks down altogether. The only way to condemn sin to the full is this-let the sin be punished, and if there be one found who, without a breach of justice, may be permitted to suffer in the stead of another, let him so suffer; but let care be taken that it is no sham, but a reality; that sin, from the dignity of the sufferer, from the amount of the suffering, from the completeness of the atonement, is effectually and thoroughly condemned.

Thus far have I led you. God has sent his Son into the world, and has thus condemned sin by his Son’s life and death.

Now, thirdly, I come to the main business of this evening, which is to show you how this does what the law could not do.

There were two desirable things, you will remember, that I started with. The first was, that the offender should be pardoned. You can clearly see how that is done. If Jesus did suffer in my stead, henceforth it becomes not only mercy that absolves me, but justice that seals my acquittal.

“Since Christ hath my discharge procured,

And freely, in my room, endured

The whole of wrath divine;

Payment God cannot twice demand,

First at my bleeding Surety’s hand,

And then again at mine.”

If Jesus paid the debt, it is paid, and I am clear. There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Your only question, dear hearers, is-have you a part in the sufferings of Christ? Was he a substitute for you? According to this grand old Book, on which we fix our trust as an infallible guide in this matter, Jesus died for every soul that trusts him. So is it written-“He that believeth, and is baptised, shall be saved.” Have you these personal evidences? Do you unfeignedly trust him? Then you are forgiven. You are this night absolved; you may rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom you have now received the atonement. Your sins, past, present, and to come, are all blotted out.

“Here’s pardon for transgressions past,

It matters not how black their caste;

And, O my soul, with wonder view,

For sins to come, here’s pardon too.”

The red mark is drawn across the bill, it is discharged. The load of obligation is gone, from its thraldom thou art released. The sin of the believer has ceased to be. Christ has been punished in his stead. Is not that simple enough for all of you to understand, and scriptural enough for all of you to receive?

But how comes the second necessity to be supplied? How does this tend henceforth to make such a man pure in heart, and produce in his very soul an aversion and a total abhorrence of sin? This is not difficult to apprehend, if you will give it a little quiet consideration. When the Holy Spirit comes with power into a man’s heart, and renews his nature (oh, matchless miracle!)-a miracle that has been wrought many times in this house; forthwith the unhallowed and the impure are made chaste, the dishonest are made honest, and the ungodly are made to love God-” for if any man be in Christ he is a new creature.” Such motives as the following now begin to influence his mind:-The man says, “Did God, instead of forgiving my sin without a penalty, make the anointed Substitute smart for it? Then, I reverence the lawgiver, the mighty lawgiver who would not, even though he is love itself, suffer his law to be broken. I reverence that dreadful Judge of all the earth, who, though I be his child, yet since I had offended, would not spare me for my sin, but executed the penalty that was due to me upon himself. Himself! for Christ his Son was one with him, and dear to his Father’s soul. Why, more than that, it makes me feel an intense love to him. What, was he so just, and yet was he so determined to save me, that he would not spare his only Son, but freely gave him up to die? O blessed God. I tremble at thy justice, which yet I come to admire; but oh! thy love-what shall I say of it? It wins my love. I must love thee, my God; the just and yet the gracious One. I must love thee.”

Then there comes into the heart an enmity against the sin which caused the suffering of Christ. “What,” says the heart, “did sin make my Redeemer, who gave himself for me, suffer? Then, away with it; it must be a foul, vile thing, to put such a blessed One as he to death; I will not tolerate it.” It makes the soul cry, “Revenge” against itself; a blessed vengeance it decrees against all sin. “Bring out the gallows, and let sin be hanged thereon. The dearest idol I have known, bring out the hammer and the axe, and let it be broken in pieces. The choicest transgression I have ever nurtured in my bosom, I see what a viper it is, and I shake it into the fire; away with it. If it grieves my Christ, and makes him bleed, my own beloved Saviour, away with it, away with it!”

And let me tell you, there is another matter that comes in and supplies the basis for holiness, such a basis as cannot be found anywhere else. The man says, “Now I am pardoned through the love of Jesus Christ and the shedding of his precious blood; I have God for my Father, and he is my friend; there is no one to part me from him; my sin was laid on another, it has been expiated, and it is gone: I am saved, I am forgiven.” The man is happy; the man is cheerful; the man is joyful, and what springs up? “Now,” says he, “there is that glorious Christ of God who has wrought this for me, and I see him with the eye of faith; I see him in heaven, and I am his man-body, soul, and spirit; I am not my own; he has bought me with his blood; I lay myself at his feet; what he bids me do I will do; what he asks of me I will give; what he forbids me, it shall be my joy never to touch.” Here breaks forth in the soul an enthusiastic love to the person of Jesus Christ, which, as it burns and glows like a refining fire, becomes a great motive-power to the spirit to pursue holiness in the power of God. When do the soldiers fight best, sirs? When you have read their rules to them as to how they must keep place, and how they must load their guns, and fire in due order? No; law does not inflame the soldier with martial ardour, though it is good in its place. But just when the battle lingers-take an instance from our own history-just when the battle was about to turn with the Ironsides, and the Cavaliers were coming on with one of Rupert’s hot charges, ready to break the line, and the brave old Ironsides were half inclined to turn, up came the general old Noll, riding on his horse, and they passed the word along, “’Tis he, boys; here he comes!” and every man grew into a giant at once; they stood like iron columns, like walls of granite, and the Cavaliers as they came on broke like waves against rocks, and dashed away, and were heard of no more. It was the presence of the man that fired each soldier. And so it is now with us. We believe in Jesus Christ. We know that he is with his church. He was dead, but he rose again. He has gone to heaven, but his spirit is with us-King of kings, and Lord of lords is he. If he seems to sleep in the midst of our ship, yet he sleeps with his hand on the helm, and he will steer the vessel rightly; and now the love that we bear his name steers our souls to holiness, to self-denial, to seek after God, to make full proof of the faith and the fellowship of the gospel, to seek to become like God, and to be absorbed into God that he may be all in all. This is what was wanted-a stimulus potent enough, under God’s grace, to break through the barriers of sin. What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God has accomplished by sending his own dear Son in the likeness of sinful flesh for sin, and having condemned sin in the flesh, he has now removed its guilt, and destroyed its power.

To the best of my ability, I have thus set before you a doctrine in which my own heart finds perfect rest. I would that you all had the like rest, the same sweet heart’s ease in your breasts. Two words of counsel I must address to you before I close. One is, I do beseech you to receive this doctrine. It is of God; it is true. They who first bore witness to it were humble fishermen. Unsophisticated as they were, they had no motive for inventing it; indeed, it is a theory which they had not the brains to invent if they had tried. They nearly all of them died for it. They never gained honour or emolument by professing or publishing it, but they endured contumely and persecution, even to the loss of their lives, for testifying to what they saw and heard. Ah! since then the church has had long lines of martyrs. Who could help bearing the same witness, fortified with the same assurances, whatever it might cost them, however they might be ridiculed as ignorant, old-fashioned, and not up to the progress of the age? I pray you accept this-specially would I address myself to those of you whom I have preached to so long, who yet are unsaved. I do not know what forms of speech to use with some of you, or in what shape to fashion my appeal. If I thought that coming round to your pews, and kneeling down before you, and entreating you to receive Christ would have any effect upon you, I would fain do it. I have prayed very anxiously that if perhaps my voice should not be the one, that God would bless to your conversion, my brother’s voice next Sabbath-day, or that of some one else on the following Sabbath on which I shall be absent, may have the effect of leading you to Christ. O that you may but be saved! I will make no terms with God if you will but accept Christ. I am somewhat of the mind of a dear little girl, who is now dying, if she has not already departed. She sent a little note in pencil to her minister, and it was delivered at the prayer-meeting. “A little believer in Christ, nine years of age, asks the prayers of the people for her father, for he is an unbeliever.” She was visited by her minister, and she said to him, “O sir, I have asked father to come and hear you preach; I thought he might get saved, but he mocks at it, and will not come; but, sir, he must hear you preach one day, and that is when I shall be buried, for I shall soon be with Jesus. O sir! when he stands at the grave do be sure to tell him about the love of Christ, and say that I asked you to do so, for perhaps when I am dead that might help to break his heart.” Oh, yes! if anything would break your hearts, that were a mercy if it happened. If the preacher himself were dead, if his interment in the grave could bring you to the Saviour, it were a cheap price to pay. Only may God save you; may the Holy Ghost renew you; may the Saviour wash you in his precious blood; and I shall be well content.

The other word is this. You that profess to be Christians, to believe what I have told you, take care that you do not give the lie to it. Not everyone that says, “I am a Christian” is so. Nay, nay. It is a heathenish nation this, that has had the impudence to call itself Christian. “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it,” is as true to-day as when Christ uttered it. To be a Christian in name is nothing worth; to be a Christian in the power of these truths, having received Christ Jesus the Lord, and being rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith as ye have been taught, that is to be a Christian in all good conscience. If your lives should be unholy, if you tradespeople should be dishonest, if you rich people should be proud and selfish, if you poor people should be envious, if any of you should be drunken, if you should be loose in speech, if you should be unclean in deed or in conversation, men may say: “The preacher has only laid down a theory, let him show us facts.” Well; but I can show facts. I bless God that I have it in my own soul to say that I believe the most of you do so live as to prove these things; even though there should be others of you of whom I tell you even weeping that you are the enemies of the cross of Christ. Enemies! of all enemies the worst of enemies, too, because whilst professing to be actuated by them you live in opposition to the teachings of Jesus. O blessed Saviour! wounded worse by thy treacherous friends than by thine open foes. O holy faith! more damaged by thy professors than by thy antagonists. The Lord grant us to walk and live in holiness, and in his fear, till the Master shall come, as come he will a second time without a sin-offering unto salvation.

Finally, brethren and sisters, farewell. Let me dismiss you with a blessing.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Isaiah 53.

ANGELIC STUDIES

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Evening, May 1st, 1870. by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.”-Ephesians 3:10.

The “principalities and powers in heavenly places” to whom the apostle here refers, are, no doubt, the angels. These bright and glorious spirits, never having fallen into sin, did not need to be redeemed, and therefore, in the sense of being cleansed from guilt, they have no share in the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Yet it is interesting to notice how our Lord did as it were pass and repass their shining ranks, when he sped his way down to the regions of death, and when he came back triumphant to the realms of glory. Thus in one place “we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death,” and in another place we learn, “that the Father raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, and might and dominion.” It is possible that the mediation of Christ has a bearing upon them, and has henceforth confirmed them in their holiness, so that by no means shall they ever be tempted or led into sin in the future. It may be so, but this much seems to be evident, that though they had no direct share in redemption, they feel nevertheless an interest in it, and are to be instructed by its results. The sublime plan of the gospel of the grace of God, which is so entirely beyond the compass of our natural faculties that we could never by searching have found it out, appears to have been equally beyond the grasp of angelic intelligence-a mystery that excited their wistful enquiry-until by the church (that is to say, by the divine counsel and conduct in forming and perfecting the church) there is made known unto them the manifold wisdom of God as they have never learned it before. They have kept their first estate, and have been obedient to God’s behests. They delight to be known as the servants of God, doing his commandments, and hearkening unto the voice of his word. They are appointed to exercise some sort of power over various parts of God’s creation, hence they are called “principalities and powers.” Certainly they are engaged in hymning Jehovah’s praise. Much of the music that rises up before his throne comes from the harps of spirits, pure and immaculate, who have never known sin. Yet, though they are thus pure, thus engaged in worship, of such eminent rank in the universe of God, they are never represented as indifferent spectators of anything which our mortal race can do or suffer, but their sympathy with men is constant. Do they not watch over the saints? Is it not written, that they “encamp round about them that fear the Lord”? Are they not charged to take care of the saints, to bear them up in their hands, lest they dash their feet against the stones? Angels, we know, have often been messengers of God’s will to the sons of men. They have never shown any reluctance, on the contrary, great has been their joy to bear God’s tidings down from heaven to earth, and their sympathy even with fallen men, with men who have grievously sinned and gone astray, is shown by the fact that they “rejoice over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.” They are, as it were, in yonder gilded vessel, untossed of tempest; but they have sympathy with us in this poor heavy-laden bark, tossed with tempest and not comforted. I see them there on yonder sea of glass mingled with fire. I hear their harpings, as incessantly their joy goes up in music to the throne of the Most High. But they do not look down with scorn on us poor denizens of this dusky planet. On the contrary, they delight to think of us as their brethren, as their fellow servants, as it will be the consummation of their happiness when we shall all be gathered to the church of the firstborn, that they shall make up the innumerable company of angels that surround the blood-washed throng.

The subject of our meditation, which will be brief, resolves itself into a question, how exclusively through the church do angels come to see the manifold wisdom of God? Some other matters in connection with this we shall have to speak of afterwards.

Who can doubt that the angels had seen much of the wisdom of God in creation? With faculties keener and more elevated than ours, faculties that have never been blunted by sin, they can perceive the various contrivances of God’s skill both in the animate and the inanimate world. Doubtless as each new star has been minted by God, as each planet has been struck off like a spark from the everlasting anvil, angels, those sons of the morning, have lifted up their songs, and have poured forth their pæans of joy and gladness. They have seen the wisdom of God in the greatness of creation; in every sphere they have been able to perceive it, for their vision is far more comprehensive than ours. And they have also, no doubt, seen that wisdom in all its minuteness, as manifest in the delicate structure of organised beings, and the skilful economy of the operations of creative power, for there again they are able with the singleness and certainty of superior optics to perceive what only after long years we have been able to discover, and that by reasoning from the ingenuity of the works to the excellence of the design. What a scale of survey must a seraph have! How readily can we imagine an eye that takes in at once the landscape of the world! He need not confine himself to one single spot in God’s universe, but with rapid wings he can steer far and wide over the infinity of space. May he not pause here a moment and there a moment, and with a glance peer into the multiform wisdom of God in all the ten thousand thousand worlds that stud the realms of space? Yet with all that facility of observation, it seems that the angels have some parts of the wisdom of God to learn, and some lessons of heavenly science to study which creation cannot unfold to their view, to be ascertained and certified by them only through the transcendent work of redemption which the Lord has carried on in his church.

Fix your attention for a moment on the word “now” as it is used in the text. On that word it seems to me much of the meaning hangs. Long before our Lord came into the world, God had been pleased to reveal somewhat of the wisdom of his grace in the types of the old law. These were full of significance, but at the same time not free from perplexity to the minds of most men. They appear not to have been very intelligible, even to the angels, for they are pictured as standing over the mercy-seat, with wings outspread, looking down upon its golden lid, anxiously enquiring, but not clearly discovering the secret of the old covenant dispensation. Peter says, I suppose in allusion to this, “which things the angels desire to look into.” But Paul here vehemently sets forth the yearnings of his heart in the exercise of his ministry, “to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.” May we not infer from this that though angels saw Moses and Aaron, and the long succession of priests that followed them, though they doubtless mingled invisibly in the solemn gatherings that went up to Mount Zion, and heard the chantings of the glorious psalms, that though they saw the streams of blood that flowed at the altar of burnt offering, and marked the rising clouds of smoke that went up from the altar of incense that was in the holy place before the Lord, they had not as yet discovered the wisdom of God in its fulness and clearness, the spotless mirror of his power, the reflex image of his glorious perfection; but it must have remained for them to learn it from the church? Since Christ has come, angels are to be students of the manifold wisdom of God as revealed in his work towards his people, preparing them for that grand climax, the espousal of the church and the marriage of the Lamb.

To come closer to the matter we must trace it progressively, as though it were step by step that the angels pursued their study, and acquired an insight into this manifold wisdom. It may be they do so. Certainly among the children of men there is much pleasure in the getting of knowledge; the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. As we gradually break up fresh ground, decipher that which is obscure, sift out analogies, solve difficulties, and follow out the tracks of history in one continuous line, our enjoyment of study rises to enthusiasm. Do you not think that the angels perceived the manifold wisdom of God now that they began to understand what man was and what man is? They must have already seen that God had created an order of pure spirits who served him faithfully and never sinned. There was one form of wisdom displayed in that. Other spirits, equally pure, went astray, and in the wisdom of God, for there is wisdom in it, these were suffered to continue astray, reserved in chains until the judgment. Anon the angels perceived that God was about to make another intelligent creature, not altogether spiritual, but a spiritual creature that should be linked with materialism, a creature that should abide in a body of clay; and that God intended to make this creature a mixture of earth and heaven-such a one, that he should occupy the place which fallen angels had left vacant. They discerned in this at once the wisdom of God. He had formed a pure spirit; he had fashioned material substances; now he was about to make a creature in which the two should be combined, a creature that should be spiritual, and yet should be material. But, before this creature should be permitted to take his place for ever at the right hand of God, he was to be permitted to pass the test of temptation; being tempted, he was to fall into sin; out of the condemnation into which he should sink he was to be elevated by an act of grace; from the guilt of that sin he was to be cleansed by a matchless system of substitutionary sacrifice; and then, after having been alienated in heart, he should nevertheless become as pure as if he had never been conscious of evil; and contaminated with it he should be redeemed from it, and stand in allegiance to the Most High, to serve him with as absolute a perfection as if he had never transgressed or lost his first estate. Herein is manifold wisdom, that the Lord God should make so strange a creature, that he should be formed of the dust of the ground, and yet created in the image of God; a creature that should know sin, and whatever of pleasure there might be in it, and yet be restored to purity and holiness; a creature who though awhile estranged in heart, and guilty of rebelling with a high hand against his Creator, should return to its allegiance through the infinitely wise workings of God’s Spirit, and henceforth should remain for ever the liege servant of God, and, something more, the child of God, lifted up and exalted into a nearness of connection and intimacy of communion with the Great Father of Spirits, into which no creature had ever been brought before. In that grand design, the angels must have seen much of the sublime wisdom of God, and that conspicuously through the church.

But, brethren, may not the admiration of angels at the unfolding of this wisdom have been increased by the mystery in which it had long been shrouded from their apprehension? Observe, that Paul was exulting in a revelation “which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” What use will he make of it? First he looks round among the saints, and sounds the note of welcome; then he looks out among his fellow men, and proclaims it to the Gentile world; and at length he looks up and descries among the angelic throng, creatures of noble mind and exalted rank, who could sympathise the joy and hail the solution of so grand a problem. Be it remembered that the decree had previously been proclaimed from the throne of the Most High; for, “when he bringeth the first-begotten into the world, he saith, Let all the angels of God worship him;” yet the means by which the counsels of God concerning Christ and the church should be brought to pass had not thus far been shown. With what pleasing wonderment, therefore, would the principalities and powers in heavenly places regard the plan as it was unsealed! How well might the apostle look forward to those ages to come which have yet to prove the reality of all that has been foreshadowed; the truth of all that has been prophesied; and (the work now in progress being completed) the actual form and fashion of all that from the beginning was predestinated. Even while the mystery was unexplained, it was not for pure angelic minds to doubt; still their thoughts must have been full of marvel, and startling questions must have occurred to them. Shall the only-begotten Son of the Father take the nature of man into union with the Godhead? Can it be safe to put such a creature as man into so sublime a relationship with the Creator? Will pride never inflame his breast and provoke his soul to transgress? By what strange process shall he be made meet to partake of the inheritance of the saints in light? While the details are concealed, the destiny seems incomprehensible. It is therefore that the church becomes as a museum which angels may visit with ever expanding interest and ever-increasing delight; over the minutest particulars of the divine workmanship in the saints they may pore with pleasure; for there they have open to their observation by the church the manifold wisdom of God. And all this redounds to the glory of the Saviour.

That creature, man, when thus elevated, can never be proud, for he remembers what he was. If ever the feeling of exultation crosses his mind, he transfers the honour to Christ, who can receive it as his rightful due. There is not in heaven, of all the creatures, a humbler creature, though none more elevated; made to have dominion over all the works of God’s hands, with all things put under his feet, made to be akin to Deity itself, by virtue of union with the Son of God, and yet safe to stand there, without cause to fear that he should pervert his high prerogative or usurp any adoration or prerogative which does not belong to him. The process through which he has passed, his annealing, as it were, in the fire of his fall and of his repentance, his deep obligations to sovereign grace, shall make it safe to grant that he shall sit with Christ on his throne, even as Christ also overcame, and is set down with his Father on his throne. I talk of these things feebly and superficially, but I am persuaded that this is a subject which angels can think of with enchantment, and as they think it over they see transparent proofs of the manifold wisdom of God.

But to come down to more familiar topics, probably you will be more impressed with the excellence of this wisdom as you look at the first principles of Christianity, than would arrest your attention in any refinements of reasoning. The wisdom of God is clearly seen by angels in this, that though God was dishonoured in this world by sin, that sin has redounded to his greater honour. Satan when he led men astray and tempted them to rebel, thought he had marred the glory of God, but he never did more palpably outwit himself. As Augustine ventured to say of the fall, “Happy thought,” so, when we see how God’s mercy and his love have shone resplendent through that dreadful breach, we can only admire the wisdom of God which has thus outmatched the subtlety of hell. The serpent was exceeding wise, but God was wiser far. Satan’s craft was dexterous, but God’s wisdom was infinite in its prescience. Wisdom has outmatched craft. Is it not glorious to think that this world where God was dishonoured most is the world where he shall be most revered? There is no such display of the attributes and perfections of Godhead in the whole universe beside as there is here. On our blighted soil God has stood foot to foot with moral evil. God incarnate, the Son of God has sustained the conflict, and won the victory, for while the heel of Christ was bruised, the head of the dragon has been most effectually broken! A triumph that God would have us commemorate in time and in eternity, has come through the sin that threatened the destruction of the world.

This wisdom of God is to be seen in the way that our redemption was wrought. The doctrine of substitution is a marvel which, if God had never revealed, none of us could by any possibility have discovered. You remember how it was. We had sinned and were condemned. How could God be gracious and yet be just? How could he keep his law and yet at the same time show his mercy towards us? Of old that problem was solved by the suretyship of Christ. He who had determined to be man put himself from before the foundation of the world into our place, and offered himself to God as the head of the race in covenant that he might make recompense to the broken law. Angels could not have conjectured this, but when it was made known to them, how could they refrain to chant fresh songs to the praise of him who could undertake so loving a responsibility?

It became necessary when Christ was our surety, that he should afterwards take upon himself our nature. Oh, how it must have surprised the angels when they heard that the Son of God was coming down to earth to be born of a virgin! What marvel must there have been when the announcement was made through the courts of Paradise that he was going down to Bethlehem! One of the angelic number who had been sent to attend him proclaimed his advent, but while he was making the announcement, “Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host,” who now came in to swell the song, “Glory to God in the highest; on earth peace; good will toward men.” The swell of that music, how grand! The cadence of those simple words, how charming! Yes, the angels must have discovered something of the wisdom of God when they saw that God thus tabernacled among men, that the Word was made flesh in order to be capable of carrying out his surety engagements, and really become a substitute for those who had offended. I think his whole life must have struck them with wonder. They must often have observed wisdom in his actions and in his prayers, in his speech and in his silence; but, when at last he came to die, methinks even cherubim and seraphim were wrapt in amazement. That he should stoop from heaven and become a friend to the fallen race might surprise them much; but that he should stoop to die must have appeared utterly incomprehensible. Something more of the love and wisdom of God should yet be revealed to them. I think our hymn must fitly describe how they gathered round that cross-

“And could their eyes have known a tear,

They must have wept it there.”

When they beheld the griefs and torments of the dying Son of God, the Lamb of God’s Passover, when they heard him say, “It is finished!” what a door must have been opened to them! They saw then, that he had finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in an everlasting righteousness; and then, perhaps, they saw more clearly than before, how Christ by suffering put an end to our sufferings, and by being made a curse for us had made us the righteousness of God in him. If they marvelled during the three days of his slumber in the tomb his resurrection must have opened up another door to them. And, when after his forty days’ sojourn, they came to meet him with glad acclaim, when they joined him, and with him rode up to the gates of heaven, singing, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; that the King of glory may come in;” when they came in triumph with “the Lord mighty in battle, the King of glory,” in that procession to his throne, they must still have been more and more amazed, and said one to another, “What thing is this; what mighty marvel! He that became Man to suffer, is the very one that now rises to reign; he who was born to die now liveth for evermore. Behold, he is now the head over all things, and made to have dominion over all the works of God’s hands, for it hath pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell!” Thus, brethren, though time and voice fail me, permit me to say, the whole history of our blessed Lord, who is the Head of the church, is making known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places the manifold wisdom of God in such a way as they never could have otherwise seen it.

The wisdom of God is seen through the church in the Holy Spirit’s work as well as in the work of Christ. It is “manifold wisdom.” You know the children’s toy, the kaleidoscope. Every time you turn it there is some fresh form of beauty. You seldom see the same form twice. So it is with nature, each time and season has its special beauty. There is always variety in its scenery; diversities of form and colour are strewn throughout the world. You never saw two hills moulded to the same pattern, or two rivers that wound after the same fashion from their source down to the sea; nature is full of variety. So is the work of the Holy Spirit. In calling sinners to Christ, there is singleness of purpose but no uniformity of means. Your conversion, my dear friend, in the main outline, is very like mine, yet your conversion has its distinctive incidents. God’s wisdom is displayed equally in bringing you in that way, and in bringing me in another way. I believe there will be found evidence at the last of the wisdom of God in the very date, the very place, the very means in and by which every soul is brought to believe in Jesus, and angels will, no doubt, be able to perceive in every conversion some singular marks of beautiful originality proceeding from the inexhaustible Artist of Grace, the Holy Spirit. That same wisdom will be seen in the biography of every convert-how the Lord afflicts, or how he comforts; how he upholds us, how he keeps back that which cannot yet be endured, how he gently leads us, how he makes us to lie down. We find fault sometimes with the way of Providence, because we do not understand it; when we shall get a clearer sight of it we shall see that every mark and line was dictated by his love, and ordered by his infinite counsel. As each Christian shall be conformed to the likeness of Christ, angels will see in the products of grace fresh displays of the manifold wisdom of God. I could suppose that the death of a martyr must be such a spectacle as those holy watchers regard with extraordinary interest. Would they not have gathered around such a woman as Blandina, for instance, who was made to sit in a red-hot chair, after having been tossed upon the horns of a wild bull, yet constant to the last she maintained her faith in Christ while passing through the torture? Pure spirits as they were, they must have commiserated the physical anguish and admired the spiritual triumph of this feeble woman thus devoted in her love to their Lord and Master. Yes, ye ministering spirits, ye who live to serve our Eternal King, surely ye must rejoice at the loyalty of those servants of his who die for his truth. In late years, since this house of prayer was built, when the martyrs of Madagascar were burned at their stakes for Christ, as they stood erect in the fire, and began to sing, the angels, celestial vocalists as they are, must have been ravished with a music that they could not emulate; and when they breathed the prayer,” Into thy hands we commend our spirits,” the angels must almost have envied them the ability of serving God in that sphere of suffering, and the possibility of bearing in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus. Ay, and when they have seen your boldness and your constancy, your self-denial, and your patience, and heard your importunate prayers and groans, as you have pleaded for the souls of others, seeking with tears to bring others to Jesus, I do not doubt that they have ascribed to the manifold wisdom of God the production of such luscious fruits from such inferior creatures-fruits that bring to his name so much of glory, and so much of renown to his grace. In all the saints, through the history of their vocation and the development of their sanctification, angels can discern the manifold wisdom of God.

The subject is far too large for me. I shall leave you to think it out, after thus introducing you to but a few aspects of it. There is much room for meditation as to how these bright and happy spirits do and shall see the wisdom of God in the salvation of the church.

But ask you now, Do angels gain anything by the church of God?

I think they do. Certainly they acquire increased knowledge. With us knowledge is sometimes sorrow. To know is often to mourn. What the eye does not see the heart does not rue. “Where ignorance is bliss”-and it sometimes is-there are those who think “’tis folly to be wise.” But ignorance is not bliss in heaven. Knowledge increases the joy of the angels, and I will tell you why, because it makes them take a greater delight in God when they see how wise and gracious he is. If it is possible for the angels to be happier than natural innocence and honourable service can render them, they must be happier through knowing and seeing more of God, as his attributes are reflected, and his perfections mirrored forth, in the church.

Angels, methinks, will be enriched by the society of the saints in heaven. Commerce always enriches, and commerce between angelic and human natures will be enriching to them both. They love in heaven: they show their love by rejoicing over repenting men. They will be glad to see us there. I do believe they will make much of us, as we do if we we have seen some poor child reclaimed, and afterwards grow up to honour; we like to think of such a one; it brings the tears into our eyes that our father did so good a deed for the orphan, the pauper, or the outcast. And will not the angels rejoice over those in whom the Father’s mercy has wrought such wonderful happiness?

Again, to my imagining (can it be illusive?) angels are gainers by the church because they get nearer to the throne of God than they were before. Another order of beings, our own to wit, is advanced. Surely when one creature gets near to God, all unfallen creatures are promoted. God, in vital union with the creature, was not to be conceived of until Christ came down to earth, and clothed himself in manhood, thus raising creatureship nearer to God by just that length; so angels by inference seem to me interested in the honour that Jehovah has put on his works-the endowed works of his own formation.

Do you not think, too, that perhaps they can see God better in Christ than even they did before? Is it not possible that even they who erst did veil their faces with their wings in the presence of the Almighty, because the brightness of glory was excessive, may now stand with unveiled faces and worship God in Christ? I think it is so. They never saw much of God before until they saw God veiled in human flesh. There was too dazzling a splendour for them till the interposing medium of the manhood of Christ came in between them and the absolute Deity. It may be so.

And may not there be a reflex sense of gratitude in the very heart of angels when they see us in heaven, or while they see us wending our way thither, as they perceive what it would have cost to have restored them had they been beguiled by sin, and therefore what debtors they are to God that they were never suffered to fall? Does it not make their state and standing more and more joyful to them when they see in us how the righteous scarcely are saved, and at what an expense men were lifted up from the ruins of death and the dread doom of the damned? Why, methinks they say not one to another, with Pharisaism: “We thank thee, great God, that we are not as men are.” Nay, they say, with lowliness of mind: “We bless thee, O God, that we were permitted to stand in our fidelity, and were not left to the natural weakness which might have succumbed to temptation, for thou chargedst even thine angels with folly, but thou hast held us, and here we are to bless thy name.” It may be so; it may be so.

Let me detain you one minute more, while we meet the question, What is all this to us?

Ought it not to make us prize the gospel? If the angels think so much of it, oh! what should we think? If they who have only seen it, esteem it so, how ought we to value it who have tasted it? If they admire the veins that filled the fountain, what shall we say who have washed in that fountain? If they wonder at Christ, who took not on him the nature of angels, how shall we admire him who espoused the house of Abraham and the seed of Adam? Let us appreciate the gospel beyond all price, emolument, or honour.

How, too, should we study it, if it be the research of angelic intellects! Is the church their school-book whence they learn lessons of the divine wisdom, because no science is equal to that of the wisdom of God in Christ revealed in his church? O be not, ye converts, ignorant of the word of God; be not oblivious of the operations of God in your own souls! The angels desire to look into these things. Do you look into them? Blessed shall ye be if ye abide in the study of the word of God! Ye shall be like trees planted by the rivers of water, that bring forth their fruit in their season. O do apply every faculty you have to acquire increasing knowledge of that which angels love to study.

And now take courage, ye feeble-minded ones, and never fear again the sneer of the man who calls the gospel folly. Account him to be the victim of folly who despises this manifold wisdom. Shall I set the judgment of a poor puny mortal against the judgment of an angel? I suppose that even Newton, and Kepler, and Locke, and those mighty master-spirits, would be mere infants compared with seraphs. Those great men loved to study the Scriptures, and when your modern pretenders to a little smack of philosophy come in and sneer at our holy gospel, we can well afford to sneer at them. What are their sneers to us? In proportion to a man’s ignorance is generally his impudence when he meddles with the gospel. I think it was Hume who confessed that he had never read the New Testament, and said he never would; yet he was one of the most glib in cavilling at that of which he nothing knew. Ah! ye sceptics, sciolists, and scoffers, we can well afford to let you rail; but you can Ill afford to rail when angels are awed into wonder, and so would you be if there were anything angelic about your temper, or anything of right wisdom in your attainments.

Last of all; if this be so, how we ought to love Christ who have a saving interest in it, and how they ought to tremble who have it not! Unsaved men, unsaved women, if it wants manifold wisdom to save men, then men’s ruin must be very great, and your peril must be very imminent. If it amazes angels to see how God saves, it must be a terrible destruction from which he saves them. That destruction is coming upon you; its dark shadows have already began to gather round you. How great your folly to refuse a salvation so wise, to reject a Saviour so attractive as Jesus! Bethink you of his loving gentleness, and consider the simple way in which he saves-believe and live. The supplies necessary for your salvation are all waiting. There is nothing to be done; it is all complete. There is nothing to be found; it is all ready. Salvation is finished. What a fool must he be that will not have it! O stretch out thy withered hand and take it! God give thee power. If thou sayest “How?” I answer thus: Trust, trust, trust. Come and confide in Christ. Rely upon Christ, and he will save thee. God grant thee grace to do it at once, and he shall have the praise. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon.-Ephesians 3.