Some of the richest comforts are lost to us for want of clear perception. What consolation could be greater to the tempest-tossed disciples than to know their Master was present, and to see him manifestly revealed as Lord of sea as well as land? Yet because they did not discern him clearly, they missed the incomparable consolation. What is worse, at times the dimness of our perception will even turn the rarest consolation into the source of fear. Jesus is come, and in his coming the sun of their joy has risen, but they do not perceive it to be Jesus, and therefore thinking it to be a phantom, they are filled with alarm, and cry out in dread. He who was their best friend, they were as much afraid of as though he had been the arch enemy. Christ walking on the wave should have put all fear to rest, but instead thereof they mistake him for a phantom appearing amidst the storm, foreboding darker ill. They were filled with dismay by that which ought to have lifted them up with exultation. Oh, the benefit of the heavenly eyesalve by which the eye is cleared! May the Holy Spirit anoint our eyes therewith. Oh, the excellence of faith which, like the telescope, brings Christ near to us, and lets us see him as he is! Oh, the sweetness of walking near to Christ, and knowing him with an assured, confident, clear knowledge, for this would give us comforts which now we miss, and at once remove from us distresses which to-day unnecessarily afflict us.

The subject upon which I wish to speak, will be indicated to you if I supply you with the outline of it first of all. The first head will be this:-it is too common an error to make a phantom of Christ; and, secondly, we are most apt to do this when Jesus is most evidently revealed; and therefore, thirdly, from this spring our greatest sorrows; and, fourthly, if we could be cured of this evil, Jesus would rise very much in our esteem, and many other blessed results would be sure to follow.

It is too common an error to make a phantom of Christ.

There are some who make a Christ of a phantom, I mean they take that to be their Saviour which is but a delusion; they have dreamed so, they have excited themselves up to a high pitch of presumptuous credulity, they have persuaded themselves into delusive comfort, and they make their excited feeling or fancy their Christ. They are not saved, but they think they are; Jesus is not known to them, they are unspiritual, they are not his sheep, they are not his disciples, yet they have put something up before their mind’s eye which they think to be Christ, and their ideal of Christ, which is but a phantom, is Christ to them. A terrible error! May God save us from it and bring us to know the Lord in deed and in truth by the teaching of his Holy Spirit; for to know him is life eternal. But an equally and probably a more common error is to make a phantom of Christ. More or less we have all erred in this direction. Let me show you this for reproof and direction.

First, how often we have done this in the matter of sin and the cleansing of it! Our sin seems to us, when we are convinced of it, very real. Real indeed it is, our offences against God are no imaginary ones, we have really provoked him to wrath, and he is angry with us every day. The stain of sin is not on the surface merely, the leprosy lies deep within. Sin is a horrible evil, and when our spirits have been able to see the reality and the heinousness of it, they sink within us. But oh, what a glorious thing it is when we can with equal vividness see the actual cleansing from sin which Christ confers on all believers by his precious blood! To see the scarlet and to weep over it is well, but then to see that same scarlet vanish in the pure white of the atoning sacrifice, this is better. Did you ever get as clear a perception of the second as you have done of the first? It is a great blessing when God makes sin to be experimentally heavy to you so that you feel it, but it is a greater blessing still when the atoning blood is quite as vividly realised, and you see the sweatdrops bloody of Gethsemane, and the pouring out of the life of the Redeemer upon Calvary, and the agonies unknown by which guilt was fully expiated before the eternal throne. My brethren, when we are under concern of soul, or even after our first conviction, when sin returns heavily upon our spirits, our fears, and terrors, and alarms, are real enough; no one dares to say to us then that we are in a state of nervous excitement about a fiction; our danger then is right before us, as clearly as the flames are before some poor person immured in a burning house: we are sure of the danger, we see it, we perceive it, we feel it in the very core of our nature. But there is salvation provided by the Redeemer; he took our sin upon himself, he suffered the punishment of it, he has put the sin away; believing in him our sin has gone, we have a right to peace, we are fully warranted in standing before God and saying, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?”

What we want is not to think of this as a dreamy thing, which may or may not be, but to realise it as a fact quite as sure, quite as certain as our distress and the sin which caused it. We are not to look through the storm upon the Saviour and view him as though he were a will-o’-the-wisp, a ghostly thing, while the storm that surrounds us is real, but to see a real Saviour for real sin, and to rejoice in real pardon, a pardon which has buried all our sins; a real salvation, a salvation which has set our feet upon a rock beyond the reach of harm. Brethren, if we came to this point about sin we should have less of the groaning, or if as much of the groaning, we should still have more of the rejoicing. We lament for sin, and we do well. I hope we shall till we reach the gates of heaven. Sin can never be too much lamented or repented of; but at the same time we are not so to mourn over sin as to forget that Jesus died, and thereby cancelled all our guilt. No, with every note of lamentation lift up the joyful strain of triumph, for iniquity is gone, Christ has finished transgression, made an end of sin, and he that believeth in him is not condemned, neither can he be, world without end.

The same remarks apply to the matter of our acceptance with God after our pardon. Dear brethren and sisters, if I may speak for the rest of you, our shortcomings in Christian duty are often very painfully real to our souls; we cannot preach a sermon, or offer prayer, or give an alms, or do any service for our Lord but what we feel, when all is done, that we are unprofitable servants. The faults and imperfections of our service stare us in the face, and there is not a day we live but what we are compelled to say that we come very far short of what Christians should be; in fact, we are led sometimes to question whether we can be Christians at all, and very rightly are we anxious as to the truthfulness of our professions. When we come to the Lord’s table and examine ourselves, we find many causes of disquietude, and much reason for trembling of spirit. Looking through the whole course of our Christian career, shame must cover our face; we have good need to say, “Not unto us, not unto us be glory;” we cannot suppose ourselves able to take any glory, our life has been so inglorious, so undeserving, so hell-deserving. And there are some Christians to whom this state of things is very, very, very, very painfully conspicuous. They are of a desponding turn of mind, much given to looking within, and their inward corruptions and the outward displays thereof cause them continued disquietude and alarm. My brethren, there is so much that is good about all this, that who shall condemn it? But at the same time the sacred balance of the soul must be maintained. Are my shortcomings real? Equally real is the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, in which all believers always stand. Are my prayers imperfect? Ay; but equally perfect and prevalent are the prayers and intercessions of my great Advocate before the throne. Am I defiled with sin, and therefore worthy to be rejected? Is that true? Equally true is it that in him is no sin, and his eternal merits have weight with the ever-blessed Father, and stand me in good stead as he, my representative and surety, stands before the throne. Yes; I am in myself unworthy, but I am accepted in the Beloved. “I am black;” “Yes,” says the believer, “it is so;” add however the next clause, “but comely;” equally sure it is that we are comely, yea, in God’s sight, we are “without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.” As Jehovah sees us in Christ Jesus, he beholdeth no iniquity in us; Christ has put our blemishes away, and made us comely in his comeliness; he sees everything that is lovely in us; Christ has bestowed his own beauty upon us, for he is made this day of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. All we want is in Christ. Our standing is safe in him, and the love of the Father towards us comes to us without diminution at any time, despite our flaws and failures, through the perfection of the beloved One’s acceptance. Now do not overcloud this fact. Do not look at the Lord your righteousness as a phantom; do not cry out as if you thought his work to be an impalpable something that comforts others, but cannot comfort you. The work of Jesus is the grandest of all facts. O for faith to grasp it, and rely upon it as such!

The principle applies next in the matter of sanctification. Very real and close to our souls, my brethren, is the flesh; it makes us groan daily, being burdened; very close home to us are our corruptions-these foes of our own household worry us too much to allow us to forget them. Very plain to us also are our temptations, they await us on all sides. And the inward conflict which comes of our fallen nature, and the temptations of Satan and the world-this too is very clear. We can no more doubt our conflicts than the wounded soldier doubts the bloodiness of the battle. All these things are evermore before our eyes to our grief. But I am afraid that here, too, Christ Jesus is often to us as an apparition merely, and not as a real sharer in our spiritual conflicts Know ye not, beloved, that Jesus Christ is touched with tender sympathy for you in all your temptations? Understand you not that he has prepared provision for you in all your conflicts that you may surely win the day? Expect you not even yet to say, I have overcome through the blood of the Lamb? Will you not at this hour shout the anticipatory note of triumph, “Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory though our Lord Jesus Christ”? You have corruptions within-this is a fact; but Christ is formed in you the hope of glory-this is an equal fact. There is that in you which would destroy you, but there is also that implanted in you which cannot be destroyed-this is equally true. You are in the first Adam made in the image of the earthy, over this you lament, but in the second Adam you already begin to bear the image of the heavenly, and you shall perfectly bear it ere long. Can you not grasp this? Alas! we do not lay hold of these things, do not get to say, as the apostle John did, “which we have seen, with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.” Too much is this with us a doctrine to be accepted because we are taught it, a matter to be received because some other persons have experienced it, but too little is it a subject of inward living experience. For you and me to know by blessed realisation that it is so, that the Holy Spirit sent forth from the Father is in us and with us, and that Christ will overcome our sin within us by the power of the cleansing water which flowed with the blood from his side, and will as much deliver us from the power of sin, as he has already saved us from the guilt of sin-this is heavenly experience indeed.

We must not forget to illustrate this state of mind also by the condition of many saints when under trial. How often when the storms are out, and our poor bark is filling, do we realise everything but what we should! We are like the disciples on the Galilean lake. The ship is real-ah, how the timbers creak! the sea is real-how the hungry waves leap up to destroy them! the winds are real-see how the canvas is rent to ribbons, how the mast bends like a bow! their own discomforts are real-wet to the skin with the spray, and drenched, and cold are they all! their dangers are real-the ship must certainly go down with all on board! everything is real but the Master walking on the waves; and yet, beloved, there was nothing so real in all that storm as the Master. All else might be a matter of deception to them, but he was real and true. All else did change, and pass away, and subside into calm, but he remained still the same. Now, observe how often we are in a similar condition. Our wretched circumstances, the bare cupboard, our bodily weakness, the loss of that dear child or parent, all the distresses that await us, the dread of bankruptcy, or penury, all these seem real; but that word, “I am with thee,” appears often in such circumstances to be a matter of belief certainly, but not a matter of realisation; and that promise, “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose-” we dare not deny it, but we are not comforted by it to the degree we should be, because we do not grip it, grasp it, know it. The holy children in the fire knew they were in the fire, but they were safe because they knew to an equal certainty that the Son of man was there with them. And so in the furnace you know that “no trial for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous;” know equally well that where Jesus is, the trial is blessed, and the affliction hath a sweetness in it unknown to aught beside.

I shall only illustrate this in two other points. My dear brethren, in the matter of death, I do not know whether you can all think of death without a shudder. I am afraid there are not many of us who can. It is very easy to sing, when we are here on Sundays rejoicing with all our brethren-

“On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,

And cast a wishful eye.”

I am afraid, I am afraid, I am afraid we would rather live than die after all. A missionary told me the story of an old negro woman in Jamaica who used to be continually singing, “Angel Gabriel, come and take Aunty Betsy home to glory,” but when some wicked wag knocked at the door at the dead of night, and told her the angel Gabriel was come for Aunty Betsy, she said, “She lives next door.” I am afraid it may possibly be so with us, that though we think we wish the waves of Jordan to divide that we may be landed on the other shore, we linger on the bank shivering still. It is so. We dread to leave the warm precincts of this house of clay; we cast many “a longing, lingering look behind.” But why is it? It is all because we realise the dying bed, the death sweat, the pangs, the glazing eye-we often realise what never turns out to be reality, but do not realise what are sure to be realities, namely, the angelic watchers at the bedside, waiting to act as a convoy to bear our spirits up through tracts unknown of purest ether. We do not realise the presence of the Saviour receiving saints into his bosom that they may rest there until the trumpet of the archangel sounds. We do not really grasp the rising again-

“From beds of dust and silent clay,

To realms of everlasting day.”

If we did, then our songs about dying would be more true, and our readiness to depart more abiding. For what is death? It is a pin’s prick at the worst, often scarce that, the shutting of our eyes on earth and the opening of them in heaven. So rapid is the departure of the saint, the movement of the soul from the body here to the presence of the Lord yonder, that death is scarcely anything, it is swallowed up in victory. O for the realisation, then, of Jesus, and death would lose all its sting.

And once again, and this is the last illustration I will give on this point, I am afraid that in Christian work we very often fall into the same style of doubt. Here is an enterprise, and straightway if we are wise we realise the difficulties, if we are something more than wise we exaggerate these difficulties and conclude that with our slender means we shall never be able to grapple with them; but ah! why is it that we so seldom think of the living present Saviour, who is the church’s Head? Calculate the forces of the church if you will, but do not forget the most important item of all, the omnipotence of the Lord her King. Reckon up if you will all the weakness of her pastors, and teachers, and evangelists and members, but when you have done that, fancy not you have calculated all her resources, you have only considered the very fringe thereof; the main body and the strength of the church lies in the fulness of the Godhead bodily, which dwells in the person of Jesus Christ. Shall heathendom be real? shall priestcraft be real? shall Romanism be real? shall the corruption of the human heart and the alienation of the human will be real? and shall I not equally realise the omnipotence of Christ in the realm of spirit, and the irrresistible power of the Holy Ghost, who can turn men from darkness into light, and from the power of Satan unto God? Let not Christ be a phantom to his church. In her worst hours, though tossed like a ship in the storm, let her Lord, as he walks the waves, be real to her, and she will do and dare right valiantly, and the results will be glorious. Thus much on the first point.

Secondly, the worst of it is that we make Christ a phantom most when he is most really Christ, most really revealed as the Son of the Highest.

Observe, my dear brethren, when our Lord Jesus Christ walked on the land by the sea shore, none of his disciples ever said, “It is a spirit;” none of them said, “It is an apparition;” yet they did not see Christ when he walked on the shore, on terra firma; they saw his manhood, that was all; there was no more to be seen of Christ as he walked there than there is to be seen of any other-simply a man, no Godhead is there revealed; but when Christ walked on the waves, there was more of Christ visible than there was on the land; then they saw his manhood, but they also saw his Godhead, who could make the liquid waves upbear him. There was most of Christ to be seen, and yet then they saw the least. Is it not strange where he uncovers most, we see least, where he reveals himself most clearly, our unbelieving eye is least able to see! Yet, mark you, Christ is never so truly Christ anywhere as when he works beyond the ordinary course of nature. He is Christ if he takes a little child upon his knee and blesses it, but more of the Christ is seen when he puts his hand upon the damsel, and raises her from the dead, or calls Lazarus out of the tomb. He is the Christ when he speaks a gentle word to a sorrowing heart, but oh, what a Christ he is when he says, “Winds be hushed, and waves be still”! Then is his glory laid open to faith’s strengthened eye. Truly he is most himself when he is most above all others; when, as high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are his thoughts above our thoughts, and his ways above our ways. And, brethren, we have never seen Christ unless we have seen him far above all others, and acting beyond the bounds of expectation and reasoning. The Christ is half hidden when he acts as another man. The whole Christ does not appear in the ordinary run of our affairs; it is in the extraordinary, the unusual, the unexpected, that we view the glory of Christ, and see him fully. So it is that we refuse most to discern and glorify him when he is most openly displayed. Let me show my point. Christ, I say, walking on the sea, is most of all Christ there, and yet his disciples do not perceive him; so in the pardon of very great sin you see the most of Christ; yet whenever a man has fallen into a great sin, that is, a vile sin in the esteem of others, then he says, “Ah! now I cannot be forgiven this.” Why, man, Jesus is most truly Jesus when he pardons grievous iniquity. The putting away of your little transgressions, as you have thought them to be, do you think this is all he came for-to redeem such as have a little fallen and a little transgressed? Is he a little Saviour for little sinners to be little worshipped? Oh! but herein he comes to be Christ in deed and in truth, when bloody murders, black adulteries, scarlet blasphemies, and crimson filthinesses, are all washed away by his blood. Then see we him as “a Saviour and a great one,” as one who is “mighty to save.” Why is it that we will not discern him when he abundantly pardons? Why, my brethren, do we honour him as he should be honoured, if we only think that the sentimentalism of sin is put away by him? If we own that the reality, the filthiness, the damnableness of sin is put away by Jesus, and trust him when our sins seem blackest, foulest, most abhorrent, then we do him honour and see him to be the Christ he is.

So again in great distresses of the soul. It pleases God often after conversion to allow the fountains of the great deeps of our corruption to be broken up, and we never felt before as we do then; we had not expected this, and are overwhelmed with surprise to find ourselves such corrupt, such deceitful, such foul things. Then at the same time Satan will invade the heart with fierce temptations and diabolical insinuations, and, alas! our suspicious spirits will imagine that Jesus himself cannot help us in such a condition. Oh, but man, now is the time for the divine manifestation! Now shall you see the Christ. Do you suppose that the Lord Jesus comes only to speak peace to those who have peace already, or to give peace to those enduring a trifling disturbance of mind? Man, do you think Jesus a superfluity? Or do you imagine that he is only suited for little occasions? Be ashamed of such insinuations; for he reigns on high above tremendous storms; he rules the hugest waves and the most roaring floods: when all our nature is vexed, when our hopes are gone, and our despair is uppermost, it is amid the tumult of such a tempest that he says, “Peace, be still,” and creates a calm. Believe in the Christ who can save you when most your temptations threaten to swallow you up. Do not think him to be only able to save when you are not in extremities, but believe him to be best seen when your uttermost calamities are near.

I might select many other cases as illustrating this, but I will run over one or two in rapid review. We are perhaps enduring an unusually severe trial, and need more than usual support; but we fearfully say, “I cannot expect to be supported under this affliction.” Ah! your Christ is a phantom, then. If you saw him you would know that there is nothing too hard for him, that the sustenance of a soul, when it is at its lowest famine point, is easy enough work for the divine Consolator, and you would cast yourself on him believingly, and not act towards him as now you do. Yes, but you need great supplies for the present time of distress; your circumstances are trying to the last degree. Do not, now that you need great supplies, make Christ to be poor and stinting in your esteem; but rather, like Abraham, say, “The Lord will provide.” Abraham, in extremity, when about to slay his son by God’s command, finds that God interposes, and the ram is found for a burnt-offering. In your worst poverty Christ will interpose; Jesus will prove himself to be the Lord of heaven and earth. You shall see that in him all fulness dwells. Can you only rely upon Jesus in little and ordinary troubles? I know it is sweet to run to him in such times, but is he to be only an ordinary, fair-weather friend to cover you from little showers, and walk with you when a little gale is blowing; will he refuse to be with you in stormy weather, or to traverse with you the boisterous sea? O do not so miserably spirit away the Saviour! Do not phantomise the Redeemer when you want him in very deed. You have real poverty, and a real cross, and real difficulties; now in the mount of the Lord shall it be seen that he is true to his word, and his name, Jehovah-Jireh, across the darkness of your want shall be written as with letters of fire.

In times of great danger, again, we sometimes gloomily mutter, “Now we shall not be preserved; Christ has kept us up till now, and we quite believe that he would do so if the circumstances of to-day were no worse than those of times gone by, but now we are extremely tempted, now we are violently assailed, now our sorrows multiply, will he help us now?” Dare you say, “Will he?” when you know that he cannot change? Dare you say, “Can he?” Is anything too hard for the Lord? Are you going to make your Saviour into a mere appearance? He is a real Saviour, lean on him; he will bring you safely through, cover you with his shield, and keep off the fiery darts from you. He will not leave you or forsake you. Great deliverances! alas! we fancy that these will never occur: Jesus will not work these as aforetime, so we wickedly imagine; and if they are wrought, we are like Peter, who could not realise his escape from prison. He knew the saints had prayed for him, but when he was delivered from the prison, and found himself in the street of the city, he could not think it was a fact, he “wist not that it was true which was done by the angel, but thought he saw a vision. Often before God has delivered us, we have said, “It cannot be”-our Christ was only a spirit; and when he has delivered us we have said, “I do not understand it, I am overwhelmed with amazement;” the fact being, that we do not get such a grip of Christ as to be assured that he is real, present, mighty, gracious; or if we did, we should receive even his greatest deliverances as natural proofs of his goodness and greatness such as faith is warranted to expect. “Is it not surprising,” said one, “that God should have heard my prayers, and have been so gracious to me in providence?” “No,” said an old saint, whose long experience had taught her more of the Lord, “it does not surprise me, it is just like him, it is his way with his people.” Oh, to feel that great mercy is like him; that it is what we should expect of God, that he should give great deliverances, should walk the waters of our griefs, and bid them cease their raging! It is a blessed faith which enables us to recognise Jesus on the waters, and to say, “I know it is Jesus, nobody but Jesus could act so wondrously; I might not have known him if I had seen him working in an ordinary way, or travelling like a common wayfarer, but here amidst extraordinary seasons I expected his help; if I never had seen him before, I expected to see him now; and now I do see him, I am not amazed, though I am delighted. I looked for him, and knew that when the need of him was greatest, his coming would be sure.” When faith brightens the eye of hope with the flash of expectation, joy is not far away.

I will only add that if we will but realise Christ, our great successes which will be sure to come, over spiritual foes within and over difficulties without, will again infallibly prove to us his reality; but the probabilities are that we shall think him not capable of giving us such great successes, and shall toil on despondingly where we ought to have rejoiced in the Lord.

As to our ultimate future we have too often thought it will be hard to die, we have trembled at standing before the judgment-seat, we have read of the day of judgment, and thought, “How shall I bear it?” forgetting that we shall know our Redeemer better in death than before, and in the resurrection and in the glory that shall follow we shall see him more clearly revealed than now; and therefore we ought to think more of him and lean upon him in all the great concerns of eternity with a great, a confident, and childlike faith.

But I must pass on to the third head. Our greatest sorrows arise from our treating our Lord as unreal.

It is because of our attenuating, vapourising, and spiriting our Lord away, and making him into a myth so often, instead of gripping him with a common-sense, practical, firm, realising faith, that we suffer so much from our troubles. For, brethren, it is a sad cause of trouble to have a phantom Redeemer, a Saviour who cannot actually pardon sin when it comes to be great sin, a Saviour who gives us only a little indefinite hope about our guilt, but does not literally put it away. This is the seed-bed of all manner of evil weeds. I do not wonder if you are vexed with doubts and fears if you have not realised Christ. O that you would all learn to sing with Hart these precious lines-

“A Man there is, a real Man,

With wounds still gaping wide,

From which rich streams of blood once ran,

In hands, and feet, and side.

(’Tis no wild fancy of our brains,

No metaphor we speak;

The same dear Man in heaven now reigns,

That suffered for our sake.)

This wondrous man, of whom we tell,

Is true Almighty God;

He bought our souls from death and hell,

The price, his own heart’s blood”

Beware, my brethren, of resting content with anything short of faith in an actual, literal, living Mediator, for nothing but reality will be of any use to you in the matter. Of course, with a phantom Saviour for real sins, an apparition of a Redeemer for real bondage, you cannot find comfort. Of what use is the appearance of bread and the resemblance of water to famishing pilgrims in the desert? If you have a phantom helper for real woes you are the worse for such help. If your Saviour does not actually and practically support you in times of need, and supply your wants and console you under depression, then in what respects are you better off than those who have no helper at all? Jesus is a friend indeed. His grace, love, and presence, are no fictions; of all facts they are most sure. If I have to carry a real load, and then have a ghost to assist me, I am in truth unassisted. We want true power, force, and energy, in our helper, and all that faith sees in Jesus her Lord; but you will readily see how sorrows multiply where Jesus is lightly esteemed.

Besides, to some Christ is not only, as it were, an impalpable spirit, but he is really an indifferent, unfeeling spirit. Jesus to his disciples on the sea seemed as though he would have gone by them and left them to their fate, and we often dream that our gracious Lord is unmindful of us; at any rate, we forget that he is tenderly mindful of our case. It did not strike you when you were so poor last week that Jesus knew it, and was grieved for your affliction. You forgot, dear brother, when you were trembling as you went into the pulpit, that Jesus knew you trembled, and would uphold you while bearing your testimony. Too seldom do we remember that-

“In every pang that rends the heart

The Man of Sorrows bears a part.”

Ah! good husband, you knew your wife pitied you, you noted well the tear-drop when she saw your grief. Ah! dear child, you knew your mother sorrowed for you. Ah, but if you did but know Christ, you would know this too, that he never puts you to an unnecessary pain, nor ever tries you with an unneeded trial. There is a needs be for all, and he has sympathy for you in all.

Many a poor sinner even imagines Jesus to be an angry spirit, and he cries out for fear. He imagines that Jesus is wrathful and will reject him with indignation. Ah! thou dost not truly realise my Saviour if thou thinkest he would ever reject any one who came to him. When on earth what a real Physician of souls he was! he mingled with publicans and sinners; he did not talk about them as people who ought to be looked after, but he actually went after them himself and suffered one of them to wash his feet with her tears, and wipe them with the hairs of her head. He was wont to touch diseased sinners with his finger as he healed them. He was not a dilettante Saviour, he did not come into this world to save us from suppositious sin and imaginary trouble. There is nothing which is more overlooked, but which ought to be better remarked about our Lord, than his common-sense practicalness. He is utterly devoid of sham and pretence. He is always in the gospel history as real as the scenes of life around him; he never strikes you as theatrical and pretentious. May we all feel that he is really a loving Saviour, a tender Saviour, and a practical Saviour to us. May you know him, may you realise him, and then your sorrows will either come to an end, or be accepted with thanksgiving.

Lastly, if we could but be cured of this desperate mischief, our Lord Jesus Christ would have a higher place in our esteem, and many other beneficial results would follow.

For, first, did you notice that after the disciples knew it to be Christ, and he came into the ship with them, they said, “Of a truth thou art the Son of God”? If you once realise Christ, you will know him in his person as you never will know him by all I can tell you, or you can read about him. You once read about a man, you saw his likeness in the “Illustrated News,” you heard people talk about him, but at last you were in his company, and sat down with him, and then you said, “Now I know the man; I did not before.” Oh, if you can realise Christ so as to draw near to him by faith, you will feel that you now begin to know him in truth, and, what is best, you will know him then with assurance. They said, “Of a truth thou art the Son of God.” You were persuaded that he is God by what you found in Scripture, but when you came to see him, when he became real to you, the doctrine of his Deity needed no arguments to support it, the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord, is woven into your very being. He is the Son of God to you, if to no one else. What did those mariner disciples when they saw that it was indeed Jesus who trod the wave? It is added, “They worshipped him.” You will never worship a phantom, an image, an apparition. Know Jesus to be real, and straightway you prostrate yourself before him. Blessed God, blessed Son of Man, coming from heaven for me, bleeding for me, standing in glory, pleading for me, I had thought of thee and heard of thee, but now I see thee, what can I do but worship thee? It is the grasping of Christ that produces devotion; it is the mistiness of our thoughts about him that is the root of our undevout frames of mind. God give us a firm hold of Christ, and we shall instinctively adore him.

They not only worshipped Christ, but they served him. Their worship was such that whatever he bade them do they did it, and the vessel was steered whither he would until it brought him to the other side where he wished to go. They who realise Christ are sure to obey him. I cannot obey that which floats before me like a cloud; but when I see the man, the God, and know him to be as real a person as myself, as much a matter-of-fact existence as my brother, then what he bids me do I do: my obedience becomes real just in proportion as the Master who commands it becomes real to my soul. Then it is, dear friends, that we become humbled in spirit. No man realises Christ without also realising himself, and being bowed down in self-humiliation. “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” But with the humility comes a deep and profound joy and peace. With Christ in the vessel, known to be there, we smile at the storm; whether it continue or subside we are equally peaceful now that we have realised that Christ is with us. I do believe that the actualising of their Lord is the main thing that Christians want; they require, first and foremost, a real Leader, they want to grasp his reality, and feel his actual power. And is it needful for this that he should come here in person? I trust not. If he were to appear this morning on this platform, and his servant should hide his head, you would say, “Behold the glorious sight, yonder is our Lord.” I know your heads would bow to worship, and then you would open your eyes and gaze on him, and feast your souls with the sight, and then each one would say, “What can I do for him?” And if the condescending Master gave you each leave to come and spread offerings at the feet of the Crucified, oh, what heaps of treasure would be brought! Each one would feel, “I have not with me what I wish,” but you would say, “Take all I have, my blessed Lord, for thou hast redeemed me with thy blood.” Is not he just as dear to you now, though unseen? Is not faith as mighty a faculty as sight? Is it not “the evidence of things not seen”? Is not Wesley’s verse true?-

“The things unknown to feeble sense,

Unseen by reason’s glimmering ray;

With strong, commanding evidence,

Their heavenly origin display.

Faith lends its realising light,

The clouds disperse, the shadows fly;

The invisible appears in sight,

And God is seen by mortal eye.”

Does not faith make Jesus as real to us as our sight would do? It should do so; I pray it may. And then see how true will be your consecration, how abundant will be your service, how ready your thanksgiving, how abounding your offerings! May God grant you grace to get into this true position, both you who are saints and you who still are sinners, for in having a real Christ you will have the reality of every good. God give it you for Jesus’ sake. Amen and Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Matt. 14:12-36.

DEI GRATIA

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, October 30th, 1870, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“To the praise of the glory of his grace.”-Ephesians 1:6.

No truth is more plainly taught in God’s word than this, that the salvation of sinners is entirely owing to the grace of God. If there be anything clear at all in Scripture, it is plainly there declared that men are lost by their own works, but saved through the free favour of God; their ruin is justly merited, but their salvation is always the result of the unmerited mercy of God. In varied forms of expression, but with constant clearness and positiveness, this truth is over and over again declared. Yet, plain as this truth is, and influencing, as it should do, every part of our doctrinal belief, it is frequently forgotten. Many of the heresies which divide the Christian church, spring from a cloudiness upon this point. Were that word “grace” but fully read, marked, and learned, the great evangelical system would be far more firmly held, and plainly preached: but forgetfulness that “by grace ye are saved,” is a common fault among all conditions of men. Sinners forget it, and they seek salvation by the works of the law; they refuse to surrender to the sovereign grace of God, and entrench themselves behind the tottering fence of their own righteousness. And saints forget this, too, and therefore their minds become dark, their spirits fall into legal bondage, and where they ought to rejoice in the Lord unceasingly, they become despondent, and full of unbelieving dread. Brethren, I am incessantly preaching here the doctrines of grace, they are growingly dear to me; but often as I preach them, I trust they are not wearisome to you; and if they should be, that sad fact would not induce me to be silent upon them, but rather urge me to proclaim them more frequently and fervently, for your weariness of them would be a clear proof that you required to hear them yet again, and again, and again, until your souls were brought to delight in them. There is no music out of heaven equal to the sound of that word “grace,” save only the celestial melody of the name of Jesus. One of the early fathers was called the angelic doctor, surely he is most angelic who preaches most of grace. Grace among the attributes is the Chrysostom, it has a golden mouth; it is the Barnabas, for it is full of consolation; it is the Boanerges, for it thunders against self-righteousness. It is man’s star of hope, the well-spring of his eternal life, the seed of his future bliss.

We shall draw from the text our first observation. In salvation as a whole we see the glory of God’s grace.

So the apostle tells us, “To the praise of the glory of his grace.” Every attribute of God has its own appropriate opportunity for displaying itself; to each quality of the divine nature there is a glory, and the Lord takes care that there shall be a time when this glory shall be so seen as to become the subject of praise to intelligent creatures. There is great glory in his power, and long ago he who speaks and it is done, who commands and it stands fast, made the heavens and the earth. It was a great triumph of power, and other grand attributes combined to make the display still more glorious; wisdom was there to balance the clouds, prudence set a compass upon the face of the deep, truth appointed the times and the seasons, and goodness arranged the habitable parts of the earth for the living creatures and for the sons of men. All the attributes of God were exercised, but power was greatly magnified, the power which by a word created, and by its mere will made all things to stand forth. On that occasion, when the glory of God’s power was revealed, “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” They saw the glory of the divine power, and rendered their joyful homage. On that august occasion many of God’s attributes were extolled, but there was no room for “the praise of the glory of his grace.” Grace found no objects in a pure creation upon which to display its full glory; there was room for kindness, benevolence, favour, goodness, and love, but grace in its truest and deepest meaning needs undeserving creatures to operate upon, sinful creatures that may be pardoned, fallen creatures that may be restored, condemned creatures that may be justified, and there were none such in the creation as it came from the divine hand.

Further on, the Lord took occasion to give a display of the glory of his justice. We know not precisely when or how, for the record is not full and clear, but we have the outlines of this fact, that there was once a great rebellion in heaven, certain of those bright intelligences known to us as angels, for some reason or other, revolted from the divine government under the leadership of that bright son of the morning, who is now for ever called the Prince of darkness. There was war in heaven against the rule of the Eternal. Then flew forth the thunderbolts of Jehovah’s strength, and the rebels were subdued at once by his irresistible might. Then his justice flamed forth in splendour, for we read of the pit that was digged for the wicked, and of everlasting fire in hell prepared for the devil and his angels. Hurled from the battlements of heaven, they fell into the deeps of perdition, driven from the throne of their glory they became hopeless wanderers throughout the realms of misery. The praise of the glory of divine justice may be read in these terrible lines, “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.” Divine justice shall yet further be displayed in that tremendous day when the great white throne shall be set, and all nations shall be gathered before it, and the unjust shall receive the vengeance due for their rebellion against the majesty of God. Glorious shall be the attribute of justice “when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” In all this we see no revelation of “the glory of his grace.” To fallen angels he dealt out justice, upon them holiness shot forth her consuming fire, but no word of mercy was heard, no hope of restoration was given; the Mediator took not up the angels, but he took up the seed of Abraham. So, too, in the last dread assize, justice, not mercy, shall rule the hour he shall render unto every man according to his works. Still there must needs be an opportunity to glorify the attribute of grace. Whenever we can clearly perceive that an attribute exists in God, we may fairly infer that there will be something for that attribute to exercise itself upon. It is always a hopeful circumstance that there is mercy in God, and that this mercy endureth for ever; for it seems to be inevitable that mercy should be exercised, and hence when we see sin in the world we expect to see mercy displaying its power. Yonder I see in the surgeon’s dispensary a potent remedy, and it suggests to me that a certain disease falls under his eye, and when it is raging I naturally look to see the remedy much in use. When you read of grace in the heart of God, of pity, of free favour, of sovereign mercy, it is clearly implied that there would be guilty ones upon whom that free favour would in due time be bestowed. Accordingly, we find that God has selected the salvation of the sons of men as the platform for the exhibition of his grace, that in his elect his grace may show forth its glory, just as in other events the glory of his power or of his justice has been shown.

I want you to note that a display of the glory of any attribute is not a mere proof that such an attribute exists, but an unusual revealing and magnifying of that attribute, so that it excites the attention and wonder of all beholders. Let me go back again to a display of power, and remind you of a memorable event in the history of this world during our own historical period. We read of Pharaoh, “For this purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show forth my power in thee.” Pharaoh, a man of a peculiarly determined disposition, of a high and haughty spirit, resolved to resist the commands of Jehovah, and to hold Israel in bondage. Jehovah ordained to reveal in him what his power could do. After first having warned him by his servants Moses and Aaron, who wrought great wonders in his presence, the Lord began to deal with the haughty king. He turned the waters of Egypt into blood, and slew their fish; the land brought forth frogs in abundance in the chambers of their kings. “He spake, and there came divers sorts of flies, and lice in all their borders. He gave them hail for rain, and flaming fire in their land. He smote their vines also, and their fig-trees; and brake the trees of their coasts. He spake, and the locusts came, and caterpillars, and that without number, and did eat up all the herbs in their land, and devoured the fruit of their ground.” He sent a thick darkness over all the land, even darkness that might be felt. The king’s heart was cowed for awhile, but in desperate obstinacy he hardened his heart yet more, put on a brazen forehead, and again said, “Who is Jehovah that I should obey his voice? I will not let his people go.” Volley after volley the artillery of heaven was discharged upon him; the Lord mighty in battle gave his enemy no respite. One by one he brought up his reserves, and fitted fresh arrows upon his bow. The lordly monarch found himself stunned with the repeated blows, and bewildered by the terrors of his omnipotent adversary. At last the master-stroke was given which brought the tyrant to his knees. The angel of destruction was sent to smite all the first-born of Egypt. And an exceeding great and bitter cry went up from every household in that dread night: for all the first-born were slain, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat upon the throne, to the first-born of the woman servant behind the mill. Then it was that the astonished monarch rose up in the night, and said to Moses and Aaron, “Rise up, and get you forth from my people, and go serve the Lord as ye have said.” Yet, ere long, Pharaoh hardened his heart again, and pursued after the Israelites with horses and with chariots. Ye know the story, but we will rehearse it yet again, for great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, and his mighty acts which were of old are to be had in perpetual remembrance. Even in heaven they shall sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and of the Lamb; let us then rehearse it here below. Ye remember how Pharaoh in his pride pursued the children of Israel, saying, “I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.” In his high presumption he dared to follow the chosen of the Lord into the heart of the sea. Then “the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, and took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians.” But in vain they turned themselves to flee, for in a moment when Moses stretched forth his rod, the waters, at the command of God, returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the hosts of Pharaoh; they sank like lead in the mighty waters, the depths covered them, there was not one of them left. Then was seen the glory of Jehovah’s power, and then was heard the praise of that glory, for Miriam took her timbrel, and went forth in the dance, while the daughters of Israel followed her, and all the hosts of Israel took up the refrain of her song, “Sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and the rider hath he thrown into the sea.” Then was made known the praise of the glory of Jehovah’s power. Now, brethren, in the work of the salvation of man you have a parallel case, for one attribute is not more glorious than another. “The praise of the glory of his grace” in rescuing man from the deep ruin into which he had fallen, in giving the Wellbeloved to bleed and die, in routing sin, death, and hell, in leading our captivity captive, in uplifting us into heaven, and giving us to be partakers of his glory through the merit of Jesus Christ our Lord-in all this, I say, grace is as glorious as was power at the Red Sea. No stinted thing then, no small matter, no subject to be whispered of, or described with bated breath, but something great and grand and glorious will that work of salvation be, which is to the praise of the glory of so great and favourite an attribute as the grace of God. I have tried if I could to think of what grace at its utmost must be; but who by searching can find out God? It is not possible for the human mind to conceive of power at its utmost. Pharaoh’s overthrow gives you but a guess at what the omnipotence of the Lord can accomplish, it can shake all worlds to dust, dissolve the universe, and annihilate creation. Power at its utmost, who shall compass it? And grace, my brethren, grace at its utmost! I was about to say you see it in the Lord Jesus; and shall I err if I so speak? For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; he is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. But, my brethren, our minds cannot see the utmost power of grace-human intellect is not gigantic enough to grasp it all, but believe me, if anywhere the full praise of the glory of God’s grace is seen, it is beheld in the salvation of the chosen sons of men. When all the chosen ones shall be gathered together, and the church of God in heaven shall be perfect, not one living stone lacking of the entire fabric, then across that edifice shall this inscription be written in letters of light, “To the praise of the glory of his grace.” The work of salvation from first to last, as a whole, was devised and carried out and shall be perfected to the praise of the glory of the grace of God. Thus much upon the first head. Salvation is of the Lord, and in it grace reigns without a rival.

Secondly, this is true of each detail of salvation.

I gather that from the position of my text. The fifth verse speaks of predestination and adoption, and the sixth verse speaks of acceptance in the Beloved, and the position of my text puts all three of these under the same mark, they are all “to the praise of the glory of his grace.” Brethren, the sea is salt as a whole, and every drop of it is salt in its degree: if the whole work of salvation be of grace, every detail of that work is equally of grace. The rays of the sun as a whole possess certain properties, analyse one single sunbeam and you shall find all those properties there. I have just now said that the whole of salvation might be resembled to a great temple, and that across its front would be written, “To the praise of the glory of his grace;” now some of the ancient Eastern buildings were erected by certain monarchs, and were dedicated to them, and not only was the whole pile set up to their honour, but each separate brick was stamped with the royal cartouche or coat of arms; not only the whole structure but each separate brick bore the impress of the builder; so is it in the matter of salvation: the whole is of grace, and each particular portion of it equally manifests in its measure the free favour of God. Let me begin at the beginning, and very briefly rehearse the different steps of the salvation of a sinner.

There was, first of all, the election of men by God before all time. He it was who chose unto himself a people to show forth his praise. That choice was not made in any degree on account of any debt due to man, on account of any merit that existed in men or was foreseen to exist; it was the result of free favour on God’s part that any were chosen to become his sons and daughters. “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight,” is the Saviour’s answer to the question why God has hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes. If any man be chosen it is not because of a natural worthiness or claim to preference, or any essential excellence in him which demanded that God should make the choice. We were heirs of wrath even as others. No works were taken into account whatever. The divine choice according to Paul in the ninth of Romans was “not of works, but of him that calleth.” “It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.”

This is clearer still, perhaps, when we come to the next step, namely, that of redemption. Christ has redeemed his people from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for them. Can any man see the Son of God expiring upon Calvary, bearing the sin of man, and say that those for whom he died were worthy that Christ should die for them? It is downright blasphemy to connect any idea of merit with a gift so vast and free as the gift of Jesus Christ to redeem us from our sins. Why, sirs, had we every one of us been perfect, and had we kept God’s laws without omission, even as seraphs do in heaven, we should still have only done what was our duty to have done; and there could have been no merit about our service which could deserve that Christ should die for us. Should the Eternal God ever be thought to be such a debtor to his creatures that he must needs veil his splendour in human form, and be despised and rejected and spat upon? Shall it be said that the Son of God owes to man that he should bleed and die for him? I shudder while I raise the question or suggest the thought. It must be pure, spontaneous, disinterested mercy that nailed the Saviour to the tree. Nothing could have brought him from the throne of glory to the cross of woe but grace, unalloyed, unbounded grace.

And when I turn onwards from redemption to the next step, namely, that of our effectual calling, it is the same. God is pleased to call many of us by the word of the gospel, and every gospel call is a gracious thing, for we do not deserve to be called away from our sins. If we reject those calls, and resist them, and yet after all the effectual grace of God comes in a more powerful way and makes the unwilling willing, and corrects the obstinacy of our hearts, why, this must be grace emphatically. To give the common call of the gospel to every sinner to come to Christ, and to believe in him and live, which call is given in the gospel every day, is grace; but to continue that call, and to make it effectual, even to those who have hitherto resisted it, why, this is grace upon grace, superabounding grace. If you spread a table for the hungry, there is favour to them; if you invite them to come, and invite again and again, it is great favour; but if you “compel them to come in,” as the parable has it, and bid them sit there, and lay yourself out until you have won their hearts and persuaded them to accept your bounty, this is mercy upon mercy. Yet such is effectual calling. That ever the love of God should have constrained you and me to come and be saved when we so long stood out against it-oh! this is “to the praise of the glory of his grace.”

My dear brethren, take the next step from effectual calling to pardon and justification. I think it is not needful that I should say that the pardon of sin must always be the effect of grace. That statement is self-evident. It cannot be due to any man that he should have his sins pardoned, for sin that deserves a pardon is no sin; it cannot be due to any man that God should make him righteous, he being himself unrighteous; that must be a spontaneous action on God’s part, flowing from his pure bounty and love. No man can claim forgiveness, it were sacrilege to suggest that he could. Pardon and justification, then, must be freely given us by God’s grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

Mark you well, that the next series of steps which we call sanctification, or perseverance, or better still, gracious conservation, all of these must be of grace too. No man has any claim upon God to keep him from going into sin. I am bound to keep from sin, it is my duty, but for God to send me grace by which I am enabled to keep from sin, is no right of mine; it must be his free love that does it; and if from day to day he is pleased to direct my waywardness and bring my wandering spirit back, if after a thousand slips he still restores my soul and establishes my goings, I dare not praise myself for it, but I must gratefully put the crown of my perseverance in righteousness upon the head of that infinite grace which has wrought all my works in me.

Beloved, if you will thus at your leisure survey all the steps of the work of grace, you will be persuaded that you could not say of one more than another, “This is of divine grace,” but you would have to confess it equally of all. There is no point in the Christian’s life where his own merit avails him, no period where his own strength comes to the rescue of divine power. It must be grace that makes the dead soul live, but it is equally grace which keeps the living soul alive; it must be grace that washes the black soul, and makes it white as snow, but it must be equally grace which keeps that soul from going back to its former filthiness. From foundation to pinnacle the temple of our salvation is all of grace.

Certain sceptical philosophers have half conceded that there may have been an exhibition of divine strength in the beginning, when the great orbs of heaven were first caused to revolve, but then they affect to question whether any fresh power is put forth to preserve the stars in their courses; but you and I know that no forces of the past will suffice for the present demand, and we believe that divine power is always streaming forth to urge on the wheels of the universe. It is even so in the little world within us. It was grace that set our hearts moving towards Christ and holiness; it is equally grace that keeps us still following after the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus. As the waters cover the channels of the sea, so does grace cover all our salvation. In every jot and every little of our heavenly charta, grace guided the pen. From first to last salvation is free. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Now, brethren, in the third place, having shown that salvation is of grace as a whole and of grace in all its details, I shall notice that the peculiar glories of this grace ought to be pointed out, and to be considered by us.

What are the peculiar glories of divine grace? This is not a fashionable doctrine, but we will speak it out plainly and honestly. In the first place, it is a peculiar glory of grace that it is sovereign, that the favour of God is given to man according to the absolute will of the Almighty God, and for no reason known to us but the good pleasure of his will. When a man gives away anything in kindness to the poor, he likes to exercise his own sovereignty in the gift, but no man is so absolutely a possessor of the good things of this life as to have a right to the exercise of an altogether absolute sovereignty over his goods. There must be some limit to human rights; a man, even in his free gifts, ought not to give to some, and he ought in preference to give to others; but the great and gracious God has no limits to his absolute will. There are no rights remaining to fallen man before God, except the right to suffer the infliction of justice. Man has so forfeited all claims upon God, that on the ground of right he can receive nothing but eternal wrath-nothing whatever. Nor does any claim or pretence of claim in any degree influence the determination of the Most High in the gift of his grace. Over the heads of all men he speaks with thundering voice, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” Absolute sovereignty is one of the glories of divine grace.

Another glory of this grace is its entire freeness. Man is not expected to do anything to earn or obtain the grace of God; he would not if he were expected; he could not if he were required. He has so utterly departed from God that he has lost the favour of God: to lose it was in his power, to gain it again is not. Nor does God bestow his favour on any man because of anything he sees in the man, neither his wealth, nor his fame, nor his position, nor his character. He looks down on man and passes by kings and princes to let his love settle on the poor; he looks on men, and often selects the grossest transgressor and the chief of sinners, that these should become eternal monuments of his power to save them. This he does, and continues still to do most freely, spontaneously, because so it seems good in his sight.

Another glory of his grace is its fulness. Where God bestows his grace it is no little grace. It is grace to cover all the man’s sins, whatever they may be. Though they may be so multiplied that he cannot count them, and so gross that he cannot estimate them, yet the grace of God makes a clean sweep of them all. “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins.” “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men.” Blasphemy is expressly mentioned as a violent form of evil and direct attack upon God. The most heinous forms of human iniquity the grace of God blots out of the book of remembrance, and he takes those who committed those heinous sins, changes their nature, makes them his children, receives them at last into his glory, and all because of the free favour which is in his heart towards them.

Another glory of this grace is its unfailing continuance. Where once the grace of God has fallen, it is never taken away. If God in his mercy visits a man with grace, he never afterwards revokes the pardon he gives, or recalls the favour he has bestowed. “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” Grace is no intermittent brook flowing to-day and dried up to-morrow, no fleeting meteor dazzling all beholders and then vanishing in thick darkness.

“Whom once he loves he never leaves,

But loves them to the end.”

His grace is unchanging, his mercy endureth for ever.

Another glory of it is that it is unalloyed and unmingled. God’s grace in saving souls rules alone. Human merit does not intrude here and there to make a patchwork of the whole. Grace triumphant can say, “I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me.” Grace is Alpha, grace is Omega. It is grace’s glory that no mortal finger touches her work, and no human hammer is lifted up thereon. This is what men cannot bear. They will have it that man must have some merit, must do some little. But it must not be. A clear stage the grace of God demands; it saves, and it alone from first to last.

Need I add that it is one glory of this grace that while it thus reveals itself so fully, it never interferes with any other attribute of God? Interfere, did I say? It only tends to illustrate all the other glories of the divine character. God is absolute in his favour, but he is never unjust. He gives justice to all; he allots to each one his portion due. “What,” say you, “is he just to those whom he favours? Does he not pass by their sins?” I answer, “Yes,” but I also say, “No.” He does pass by their sins so far as they are concerned, but he does so justly; for he first laid their sins upon their Surety, and exacted from Christ the vengeance due for their transgressions. He is as just towards his saints as if he had no mercy upon them, for in their Substitute his justice has received the full payment of his demands. There is no attribute of God that grace ever slights. It is on the best terms with God’s truth, though truth said, “I will by no means spare the guilty.” God has not spared the guilty, for he laid the guilt on Christ and did not spare him; and now his people are not guilty, they are absolved, there is no condemnation to them, their transgression is forgiven, their sin is covered. I say, again, this is the glory of grace, one of its especial crowns and adornments, that though it has its way and works as freely as if justice were dead, and holiness were withered, yet it never does invade the realm of any one of those bright attributes, but God is as just, and as holy, as if he were not gracious, and yet his infinite sovereignty sways its undisputed sceptre in the realm of salvation.

I have brought you thus far on, into the very bowels of the text, and now, in the fourth place, this grace ought to be the subject of praise. It is “to the praise of the glory of his grace.”

Here needs a tongue more fluent far than mine; or rather here is wanted no tongue but a warm heart and grateful thought to sit down and contemplate. As many of you as have been bought with blood and washed in it, as many of you as have been taken from among men and made to be the Lord’s own peculiar people, I ask you now in silence to praise God while your mind surveys the whole plan of your salvation. Chosen or ever the earth was-grace, free grace; given into the hands of Christ to be his treasure-all of grace; redeemed with the heart’s blood of Immanuel, all out of his free favour to you; preserved when you were running into sin, slaves of Satan, mad on your idols, preserved in Christ Jesus by longsuffering grace; called with that voice which wakes the dead, and endowed with spiritual life, altogether of grace; adopted into the divine family, made partakers of the divine nature, because grace so willed it-what wonders are here! Brother, in your case it was grace of the most eminent degree. If you do not say so of your case, I must say so of mine. Above all the sons of men I humbly claim to be most indebted to the grace of God. But I doubt not, my brother, you also claim the same. There were specialities about our character, there were peculiarities about our sin, there were difficulties about our constitution, which all tended to make it very remarkable that we should be the subjects of the divine love. Each one of us can say-

“What was there in me that could merit esteem,

Or give the Creator delight?”

Now, you will glorify God if you let your soul in silence muse at the foot of the throne of grace, and worship him of whose mercy you have so largely been made a recipient.

When you have done this, may I ask you in the next place to let all men see the result of grace in you! It has been a common slander against the doctrine of grace that it makes light of good works, and leads men to licentiousness, a slander which the lives of the people of God have amply answered in the past. Now ye to whom this mercy has been shown, by your watchfulness, your hatred of the very appearance of evil, your careful walking, your close fellowship with Christ, prove to gainsayers to a demonstration that grace is a holy thing wherever bestowed, for it renews the heart and sanctifies the life. You are degrading the grace of God when you are not walking as becometh the household of faith; you are honouring God better by holiness than by writing the sweetest poetry, or by uttering the most seraphic sentences upon it. Holy living is “to the praise of the glory of his grace.”

Add to your holy living your own personal testimony. I do not care to hear people who are converted talking much about what they were before conversion. I am not sure that the records of horrid lives of base men are ever profitable if they are written; perhaps the best thing to say is, “Of which things we are now ashamed;” but at the same time tell it to others that the grace of God has saved you. If you were before conversion given to great sins, be ashamed of them, but do tell that grace has saved such as you are. Be bold to testify in all companies that the grace of God is equal to all emergencies, and can save the lost from going quite down into the jaws of perdition. Publish it everywhere that the mercy of God can blot out the grossest and vilest sins, that no man need despair, that the great heart of God is large enough to receive the most devilish of sinners, and that he passes by transgression, iniquity, and sin, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Let the angels know it. When you are introduced to heaven, publish there what God’s grace has done, and till you get there let men know it here below, “to the praise of the glory of his grace.”

And now, lastly, let me say that the doctrine which we have taught this morning, the truth which we have tried fully to preach, is the great ground of hope for sinners.

For, in the first place, if it be so that salvation is all of the free favour of God, then here is hope for every man. You will enquire “How?” I will reply thus. Suppose there be here a man who has been guilty of some gross crime, yet others who have been guilty of the like crime have been pardoned, and have been the subjects of divine grace; why should he not be? If salvation were by merit, such a man clearly would be shut out of hope, and rightly considered every man would be, for we have none of us a half a-grain of merit if we were ransacked through and through; but if it be of grace, why should not the grace of God pitch on me as well as on any other man? And if it be proved that the grace of God is so sovereign that it has often fallen on the very worst of men, why not on me, if I am the very worst of men? And if I find it written, that him that cometh to Christ he will in nowise cast out, then I, even if I be the worst of men, am encouraged to come to Christ. He has saved others, the worst of men, he tells me if I come, if any one comes, he will not cast him out; then why should not I go? Why not, indeed? If there were anything like preparation, or readiness, or merit, or adaptation, then there would be no hope for me; but if it is a matter altogether of pure, gratuitous gift, then why should it not be given to me as well as to another? It holds out a bright encouragement to every sinner, and it holds out hope even to the exceedingly gross transgressor, because grace is evidently magnified in changing the nature of great sinners. If I be a great transgressor and have desperately sinned, what room there will be for grace to glorify itself in me! Here is hope for me. Why should I not go to God in prayer, and ask to be made a trophy of his grace?

And if any should say, “But if we are not the grossest of sinners, then we seem to be shut out!” I answer, No, but rather to be included, because if any will say, “God saves the greatest of sinners, because they glorify his grace most,” I should reply, God is not actuated by any selfish motive. He does not save men that he may get anything by it, and you from whom he can derive nothing are the very people he is likely to save, to prove the utter freeness and disinterestedness of his love. Do not for a moment imagine we are going to put sin in the place of merit, and make it appear that the greatness of their sin is the reason why the Lord will save men. If there be no reason for grace in human merit, much less in the degree of demerit; if you have never gone into gross sin, thank God for it, but for all that you are sinner enough; if you see yourself as you are, you are black enough in all conscience, you need not be any viler; and because your case does not to you appear as though you could glorify God, it is not therefore to be argued that it appears so to him who seeth not as man seeth. When a surgeon meets with a case which apparently will bring no credit to him in vulgar eyes if he cures it, it is the highest honour to him that he was not deterred by the fear that it would bring him no honour. It is highly glorious to God that he is not affected by the praise of men. There is hope, then, for you who cannot be numbered with the grossest of transgressors. If all is of grace, then it neither shuts out big nor little, and while the gracious promises ring like a peal of silver bells, “Come unto me all ye that labour,” and that with a general and universal note, to every sinner under heaven, “Whosoever believeth in him is not condemned,” “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” “He that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved,” and such like passages, why, we are greatly encouraged to come to Jesus. This doctrine that salvation is all of grace, and not of us at all, is one of the very best reasons why I, though I do not feel right, nor act right, nor am right, but am just a lump of sin, a mass of filthiness, and nothing else, should come as I am, even now, and put my trust in the blood and righteousness of Christ, and trust that I, even I, shall find acceptance in the Beloved. O that some hearts, to-day, may by the Holy Spirit be encouraged to come to Christ. If you have any goodness, this sermon is a death knell for you. If you have any merits, away with you, away with you; Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. If you are not sick, what do you here? The physician is come to heal the sick, not those who are in health. But if you have nothing that could deserve aught of God, then to you is the word of this salvation sent, “To the praise of the glory of his grace.”

My last word shall briefly indicate what is the privilege of each sinner who would rejoice in the sovereign grace of God. Often as we explain faith, yet still we need to explain it again. I met with an illustration taken from the American war. One had been trying to instruct a dying officer in what faith was. At last he caught the idea, and he said, “I could not understand it before, but I see it now. It is just this-I surrender, I surrender to Jesus.” That is it. You have been fighting against God, standing out against him, trying to make terms more or less favourable to yourself; now here you stand in the presence of God, and you drop the sword of your rebellion and say, “Lord, I surrender, I am thy prisoner. I trust to thy mercy to save me. I have done with self, I fall into thy arms.”

“A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,

On Christ’s kind arms I fall,

Be thou my strength and righteousness,

My Jesus and my all.”

May God bless you. Amen.

Portions of Scripture read before Sermon-Psalm 14; Ephesians 1:1-14.