This prophecy may relate to the Jews literally, and it is by their learned doctors referred to the days of the Messiah. We believe, also, that it refers to the days of the Messiah, and we look for times when again the Holy Land shall be fully inhabited, and the people shall rejoice to meet together to worship the Lord their God. We do not see, however, that this prophecy has yet been accomplished, and we look for it to be fulfilled in the latter days. Spiritually it teaches just this, that when God returns to bless his church there are certain signs and marks of his return. Just as the coming back of the sun, when he advances north of the Equator, and again cheers us with his warmth, is marked by the upspringing of flowers and the singing of birds, so the return of God’s Holy Spirit to bless his church is marked by certain signs and tokens. The text tells us what those signs and tokens are, but before I mention them let me suggest that every believer should pray that these cheering indications may be manifest in our midst, that in these our days the Lord may return unto his Jerusalem, and be jealous for her with a great jealousy, that we may see glad seasons such as our fathers have told us of, which happened in their days and in the old time before them. As far as shall lie in the ability of any one of us, may we help towards such revivals by our prayers, by our efforts, and by our consistent obedience to the gospel, and may the Lord visit us according to the desire of our hearts.

One of the first signs of God’s presence among a people is that they take great interest in divine worship. “The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts.” It is clear from this that they no longer despise assemblies for worship, and no longer count divine service to be a weariness; but, on the contrary, they begin to value the means of grace, and desire to make good use thereof.

The first solemn assembly mentioned here is the prayer-meeting, and certainly one of the surest tokens of a visitation of God’s Spirit to a community, is their delighting to meet for prayer. The first cry of the people mentioned in our text was, “Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord.” It is no statement of mine, suggested by unreasonable zeal, but it is the result of long-continued observation, when I assert that the condition of a church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer-meetings. If the spirit of prayer be not with the people, the minister may preach like an angel, but he cannot expect success. If there be not the spirit of prayer in a church there may be wealth, there may be talent, there may be a measure of effort, there may be an extensive machinery, but the Lord is not there. It is as sure evidence of the presence of God that men pray as the rising of the thermometer is an evidence of the increase of the temperature. As the Nilometer measures the rising of the water in the Nile, and so foretells the amount of harvest in Egypt; so is the prayer-meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church it must pray; and if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be slothfulness in prayer.

God’s people by their saying one to another, “Let us go speedily to pray,” manifest that they have a sense of their needs; they feel that they want much, much that nature cannot yield them; they feel their need of grace, their need of quickening, their need of God’s help if sinners are to be converted, their need of his help if even those who are saved are to be steadfast, their need of the Holy Spirit that they may grow in grace and glorify God. He who never prays surely does not know his own needs, and how can he be taught of the Lord at all? God’s people are a people sensible of their wants, and hence the absence of a sense of poverty is a sad token.

Moreover, the love which God’s people have for prayer shows their desire after heavenly things. Those who frequently meet together for importunate, wrestling prayer, practically shew that they desire to see the Lord’s Kingdom come; they are not so taken up with their own business that they cannot afford time to think of God’s business, they are not so occupied with the world’s pleasures that they take no pleasure in the things of God. Believers in a right state of heart value the prosperity of the church, and, seeing that it can only be promoted by God’s own hand, they cry mightily unto the Lord of hosts to stretch out his hand of mercy and to be favourable to his church and cause. Church members who never pray for the good of the church, have no love for it; if they do not plead for sinners they have no love for the Saviour, and how can they be truly converted persons? Such as habitually forsake the assembling of themselves together for prayer may well suspect the genuine character of their piety. I am not, of course, alluding to those who are debarred by circumstances, but I allude to those who, from frivolous excuses, absent themselves from the praying assemblies. How dwelleth the love of God in them? Are they not dead branches of the vine? May they not expect to be taken away ere long?

Earnest meetings for prayer, indeed, not only prove our sense of need and our desire for spiritual blessings, but they manifest most practically our faith in the living God, and our belief that he hears prayer; for men will not continue in supplication if they do not believe that God hears them: sensible men would soon cease their prayers if they were not convinced that there is an ear which hears their petitions. Who would persevere in a vain exercise? Our united prayers prove that we know that God is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. We know that the Lord is able to work according to our desires, and that he is willing to be entreated of us. I have never known a thirsty man by a well, who would not use the bucket which was there ready to hand; unless indeed he was of opinion that the well was dry. I have never known a man who wanted wealth, and had a good trade at his foot, who would not exercise his trade; and so I have never known a man who believed prayer to be really effectual, and felt his great needs, who did not engage in prayer. It is an ill token to any community of Christians when prayer is at a low ebb, for it is clear evidence that they do not know their own need, they are not anxious about spiritual things, neither do they believe that God will enrich them in answer to their petitions. Beloved, may we never as a church deserve censure for neglecting prayer. Our meetings for prayer have excited general astonishment by their number, but they are not all they might be. I shall put it to the conscience of each one to say whether you are as prayerful as you should be. Did you ever hear of a church member who had not attended a prayer-meeting for a month? Do you know of church members who never assemble with the brethren so much as once in a quarter of a year? Do you know of any who have not been to the prayer meeting in this place for the last six months? Do you know such? I will not say I know any such; I will do no more than hint that such people may exist; but if you know them will you give them my Christian love, and say that nothing depresses the pastor’s spirit like the absence of church members from the public assemblies of prayer, and that if anything could make him strong in the Lord, and give him courage to go forward in the Lord’s work, it would be if all of you were to make the prayer meeting your special delight. I shall be satisfied when I see our prayer meetings as crowded as the services for preaching, and it strikes me if ever we be fully baptized into God’s Spirit, we shall arrive at that point. A vastly larger amount of prayer ought to be among us than at present, and if the Lord visits us graciously he will set us praying without ceasing.

But next, these people also took an interest in meetings for instruction. I find that the Chaldee translates the second sentence, “Let us seek the doctrine of Jehovah of Hosts.” The Lord’s coming near to any people will be sure to excite in them a longing to hear the word. God sends impulses of enquiry over men’s minds, and suddenly places of worship become crowded which were half empty before; preachers also who were cold and dead become quickened, and speak with earnestness and life. No doubt waves of religious movement pass over nations and peoples, and when God comes to a people the crest of that wave will be seen in this form, that the kingdom of heaven becomes an object of interest and men press unto it. During the revival under John the Baptist, the people went in crowds into the wilderness to hear the strange preacher who bade them repent. The revival under the apostles was marked by their everywhere preaching the word, and the people listening thereto. This was the great token of the Reformation; meetings were held under Gospel Oaks, out upon the commons and away in lone houses; and in glens and woods men thronged to listen to the Word of God. The processionals of popery were forsaken for the simple preaching of the truth. This also marked the last grand revival of religion in our own country under Whitfield and Wesley. The word of the Lord was precious in those days; and whether the gospel was preached among the colliers of Kingswood or the rabble of Kennington Common, tens of thousands were awakened, and rejoiced in the joyful notes of free grace. Men loved to hear the word: they said one to another, “Let us seek the Lord.” It is said that Moorfields would be full of light on a dark winter’s morning at five o’clock when Mr. Whitfield was to preach, because so many people would be finding their way to the rendezvous, each one carrying a lantern: and so also over there in Zoar Street, in Southwark, when Mr. John Bunyan was out of prison and was going to preach, a couple of thousand would be assembled at five o’clock in the morning to enjoy his honest testimony. It is a token for good when people press to hear the word. I think we have in a measure the first token,-a love for prayer, but we want it far more; as for the second token, namely, an earnest love for listening to the word of God, we have that in abundance. See ye not how the crowds rush in like a mighty torrent as soon as the doors are open to them.

Putting the two together, it seems that both these forms of meeting were loved by the people because they sought salvation therein, or as the margin has it, they “entreated the face of the Lord.” They came to pray with a view to be saved; they came to hear preachings with a view to divine favour; they wanted reconciliation with God; they had wandered from him, but now they sought him; they wanted fellowship with God: they had said to God, “Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways:” but now they said, “Reveal thyself unto us, O God, as thou dost not unto the world.” They longed to promote God’s glory, even as before they dishonoured him. Yes, when prayer-meetings and preaching-meetings shall be attended with this end and object,-that we may get near to God, and that we may glorify God, there shall be happy days indeed for us. Master Fox in his “Acts and Monuments,” speaking of the time when the Reformation was breaking out, uses language something to this effect: “It was lovely to see their travels, earnest seekings, burning zeal, Bible readings, watchings, sweet assemblies, resort of one neighbour to another for conference and mutual confirmation:” and, he adds, “all which may make us now to blush for shame in these our days of free profession.” We may take the good man’s hint, and feel shame for neglected opportunities, cold devotions, and disregard of the word of God. Our fathers loved to meet for prayer, and to hear the preaching of the truth; and when they came together it was with an intensely earnest desire to obtain the divine blessing. To get this they risked life and liberty, meeting even when fine and imprisonment, or perhaps the gallows might be their reward. O to see the like earnestness among ourselves as to the means of grace! May the Lord Jesus send it to us by the working of his Holy Spirit.

Another sign of God’s visiting a people in mercy is that they stir each other up to attend upon the means of grace, for “the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, let us go speedily to pray before the Lord;” that is to say, they did not merely ask one another to go if they casually met; they did not bring in the subject accidentally if they could do so readily in common conversation; but the inhabitants of one city went to another on purpose to exhort them. They made a journey about it. As men go to market, from town to town, so did these people try to open a market for Christ; and not only one messenger, but many of the inhabitants of one city went on purpose all the way to another city, with set design, to induce them to join in worship, saying, “Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord.” They put themselves out of the way to do it. They had such a desire that great numbers might come together to worship the Most High that they took much trouble to invite their neighbours. God will be with us, indeed, if each one of us shall be anxious to bring others to Jesus, and to that end shall try to bring them to hearken to the word of God.

Why were these men so earnest? The reply will be, they persuaded others to come to the meetings for worship, out of love to God’s house, to God’s cause, and to God’s self. God’s house is honoured and beautified when great numbers come together. The ways of Zion do mourn and languish when but few assemble for prayer. Christ has promised to be where two or three are met together in his name; still it is not helpful to comfortable fellowship for a mere handful to meet in a large house. We feel like sparrows alone on the house-top when such is the case. A great space and only a sprinkling of people to occupy it is like a big barn with only one bundle of straw in it, the winds howl in and out of it very miserably. I am sure if any of you attend a place of worship where there are very few beside yourselves, you must feel unhappy; and if you do not, why surely your hearts cannot be in the right place. Warm hearts are not easily kept alive among empty pews. A coal must be very lively to burn alone, but many glowing coals laid together help to keep each other alight. No one can doubt, moreover, that full houses give opportunity to the preacher to glorify God. It is hopeful work to throw the net where there are great shoals of fish. Where men are hearing, we may hope that God will be blessing, and hence earnest Christians love to see the aisles and seats crowded. Besides, God is glorified when great numbers come together with earnest minds to celebrate his worship. In early days, in the Jewish Church, the men of Israel did not come by twos and threes and meet together in scant numbers, but from all parts of Judea’s land, north, south, east, and west, they came together in companies, singing through the glades of the forest, singing through the dells, and singing over the hills; and when they reached the city of Jerusalem in their hundreds of thousands, their praise was a great shout, like the voice of thunder, and the smoke of their sacrifices rose up in clouds to heaven. Those were grand days. Does not David seem to relish the service of the Lord his God all the more because of the multitude that kept holy day? Hence, the saints love to see many come to pray and to listen to the word, because the multitude honours the house, and God thus honours God himself. O brethren, we think the cause is sadly declining when hearers are like the gleanings of the vintage, when service time comes and sees vacant seats by the score, because professors shrink at the weather, or hunt up an excuse for staying at home, being too idle, too indifferent to cross the threshold of their houses, unless some eloquent preacher or fresh comer shall attract them; but we reckon that God’s cause prospers when the people come joyfully in their bands to listen to the truth, and God’s Spirit applies it to their hearts with power, leading them to prayer and praise.

Moreover, believers love to bring others to the House of God, because they wish to do good to them. Did you ever notice how the little birds, when they find a heap of corn, begin to chatter and twitter as if they would call all the other birds to come and feast also? Grace is generous, and is never akin to churlish Nabal. Misers would fain keep all their wealth to themselves, but a man who is rich in faith, feels his happiness increased when others have faith too. As soon as we drink of the water of life, a sacred instinct within us bids us cry, “Come.” “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” He knows not the grace of God who has no desire that others should know it also. Thou wilt assuredly long for the souls of others if God has saved thy soul. Natural humanity, let alone our alliance to the divine nature, leads us to bid others come to Christ.

Besides, the love of company in the Christian makes him invite his neighbours to gospel worship. Believers are like sheep in this among other things, namely, that they are gregarious. A man who loves to keep his religion to himself, must surely be a stranger to the religion of Christ. Communion is one of the sweetest joys of the spirit. Fellowship with saints above will be one jewel of our everlasting crown, and fellowship with saints below is one of the sweetest cordials of our mortal cares. “I went to the House of God in company,” saith David, as if it made the house so much the sweeter to go in company with others who went there. “I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the House of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy day.” For the sake of communion we long to see many going upon the heavenly pilgrimage.

Observe in our text, there does not appear to have been any minister or missionary employed to go from one city to another, and to say, “Let us go and pray,” but the inhabitants themselves undertook the duty of invitation and persuasion, and said, “Let us go and pray unto the Lord.” The people themselves attended to mutual provocation to love and to good works. How I wish they did so now! They did not wait for the exhortations of one specially set apart to be a prompter, and a remembrancer; but their own hearts were so warm that they did it spontaneously among themselves. My brethren, may you thus be pastors to one another; there are far too many of you for me to look after personally, therefore I pray you be stirrers of one another up to every good word and work. I believe that when a man stirs others up it is good for himself, for a man cannot in common decency be very cold himself who bids others be warm; he cannot surely, unless he be an arrant hypocrite, be negligent of those duties which he bids others attend to. Beloved, I commit this charge to you, and then I have done with this point. This morning I ask you to visit one another, and to say, “Come, let us not as a church lose the presence of God after nearly twenty years’ enjoyment of it: let not our minister’s hands grow weak by our neglect of prayer; let not the work of the church flag through our indifference; but let us make a brotherly covenant that we will go speedily to pray before the Lord and seek the Lord of Hosts, that we may retain his presence and have yet more of it, to the praise of the glory of his grace.”

I must pass on to notice that it appears from our text that it is a sure mark of God’s visiting a people, when they are urgent to attend upon these holy exercises at once. The text says, “Let us go speedily to pray;” by which is meant, I suppose, that when the time came to pray, they were punctual, they were not laggards; they did not come into the assembly late; they did not drop in one by one long after the service had begun, but they said, “Let us go speedily.” They looked up to their clocks and said, “How long will it take us to walk so as to be there at the commencement? Let us start five minutes before that time lest we should not be able to keep up the pace, and should by any means reach the door after the first prayer.” I wish late comers would remember David’s choice. You remember what part he wished to take in the house of God: he was willing to be a doorkeeper, and that not because the doorkeeper has the most comfortable berth, for that is the hardest post a man can choose, but he knew that doorkeepers are the first in and the last out, and so David wished to be first at the service and the last at the going away. How few would be of David’s mind! It has been said that Dissenters in years gone by placed the clock outside the meeting-house, so that they might never enter late, but the modern Dissenters place the clock inside, that their preachers may not keep them too long. There is some truth in the remark, but it is not to our honour. This was, however, a fault with our forefathers, for quaint old Herbert said-

“O be drest,

Stay not for th’ other pin: why thou hast lost

A joy for it worth worlds.”

Let us mend our ways and say one to another in the language of the text, “Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord.” Let us go with quick feet. If we go slowly to market, let us go quickly to meeting; if we are slow on week days, let us go quickly on the Sabbath. Let us never keep Jesus Christ waiting, and we shall do so if we are not in time, for he is sure to be punctual, even if only two or three are met together in his name.

The expression, however, means more than this. “Let us go speedily” means, let us go heartily: do not let us crawl to prayer, but let us go to it as men who have something before them which attracts them. When the angels serve God they never do it as though they were half asleep. They are all alive and burning like flames of fire. They have six wings, and, I warrant you, they use them all. When the Lord saith, “Gabriel, go upon my bidding,” he outstrips the lightning. O, to exhibit some such ardour and zest in the service of God. If we pray, let us pray as if we meant it: if we worship, let us worship with all our hearts. “Let us go speedily,” and may the Lord make our hearts to be like the chariots of Ammi-nadib for swiftness and rapidity; glowing wheels and burning axles may God give to our spirits, that we may never let the world think we are indifferent to the love of Jesus. “Let us go speedily.”

The words, “Let us go speedily” mean-let us go at once, or instantly. If any good thing has been neglected, and we resolve to attend to it better, let us do it at once. Revivals of religion,-when is the best time for them? Directly. When is the best time to repent of sin? To-day. When is the best time for a cold heart to grow warm? To-day. When is the season for a sluggish Christian to be industrious? To-day. When is the period for a backslider to return? To-day. When is the time for one who has crawled along the road to heaven to mend his pace? To-day. Is it not always to-day? And, indeed, when should it be? “To-morrow,” say you. Ah, but you may never have it; and, when it comes, it will still be to-day. To-morrow is only in the fool’s almanack: it exists nowhere else. To-day, to-day, let us go speedily. I beseech the Church of God here to be yet more alive, and at once to wake up. Time is flying-we cannot afford to lose it. The devil is wide awake, why should we be asleep? Error is stalking through the land, evil influences are abroad everywhere; men are dying, hell is filling, the grave is gorged and yet is insatiable, and the maw of destruction is not yet satisfied; shall we lie down in wicked satisfaction, yielding to base supineness. Awake, arise, ye Christians! now, even now, lest it be said of you, “Curse ye Meroz, saith the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof, because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” I know we are all apt to think that we live in the most important era of history; and I admit that under certain aspects every day is a crisis, but I claim liberty to say that there never was a period in the world’s history when Christian activity, and prayerfulness, and genuine revival were more needed than just now. Where is our nation? Is it not on the very verge of becoming once again a province of the Pope’s dominion? Are not the modem Pharisees compassing sea and land to make proselytes? Does it not seem as if the people were gone mad upon their idols, and were altogether fascinated by the charms of the whore of Babylon, and drunken with her cup? Do you not see everywhere the old orthodox faith forsaken, and men occupying Christian pulpits who do not believe, but even denounce the doctrines which they have sworn to defend? Might I not say of Christendom in England, that “her whole head is sick and her whole heart faint”? The daughter of Zion staggers in the street for weakness: there is none to help her among all her sons; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies. Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper. Her Nazarites were purer than snow, and their separation from the world was known of all men, but now they are defiled with worldliness until they are blacker than a coal. From the daughter of Zion her beauty is departed. O ye that love her, let your bowels sound as a harp for her! O ye that love her, weep day and night for her halting, for except the Lord return unto her the time of her sore distress draweth nigh. Thus saith the Lord, “Arise, cry out in the night season, pour out your hearts like water before the Lord, and then the Lord will return and be gracious to his inheritance.”

For a moment I shall call your attention to another point. When God visits a people they will not only attend to prayer and preaching, and stir each other up to do so at once, but they will have a special eye to God in these duties. Observe, they shall say, “Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts.” Alas, many go to religious meetings to be seen of men. I am afraid there is a great deal too much exhibition of dress in some quarters, and there certainly cannot be a greater abomination than to make the house of God a show-room for our finery. Jesus might say, “Take these things hence. It is written my house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it an exhibition wherein to display yourselves.” Some go to worship because it is the custom, and it would not be respectable to stay away. “We must have a pew in church,” you know, “or we should be remarked upon in society.” I am glad that people attend divine worship for any reason, but mere custom is a poor motive, and is no sign of grace. The people in the text did not say, “We will go that we may see our neighbours, and that our neighbours may see us.” No: they went to “pray before the Lord.” They did not assemble to seek a man; they did not go to hear Mr. So-and-so preach. Of course they would sooner hear one who preached all the gospel, and preached it plainly, than another who preached half the gospel and fired over their heads; but still, they looked through the man to the man’s Master, and they did not think that the Master was tied up to any one man. May we cultivate in our midst the desire to worship for God’s sake, not for the preacher’s sake, whoever he may be. I believe it is not wrong for a Christian man to feel that he is better fed by one minister than by another, and therefore to be most glad when God’s servant is in the pulpit; but if that feeling grows so that if he cannot hear his favourite preacher he will stay at home, it is most mischievous. I thank God that my Master has other preachers besides Paul; there is Apollos, there is Cephas, and beyond these I see a great company of them that publish the good news. I will hear what God will speak through them.

I would have you note, beloved, how different is my text from that formal worship into which it is so easy to fall. “I have been to the prayer meeting. I have done my duty, and I can go home satisfied. I have taken a seat at the tabernacle and listened to two sermons on the Sunday, and I feel I have done my duty.” Oh, dear hearer, that is a poor way of living. I want a great deal more than all that, or I shall be wretched, At the prayer meeting I must see God, I must pour out my soul before him; I must feel that the spirit of prayer has been there, and that I have participated in it, otherwise, what was the good of my being there? I must, when in the assembly on the Sabbath day, find some blessing to my own soul; I must get another glimpse of the Saviour; I must come to be somewhat more like him; I must feel my sin rebuked, or my flagging graces revived; I must feel that God has been blessing poor sinners and bringing them to Christ; I must feel, indeed, that I have come into contact with God, or else what is my Sunday worth, and what is my having been in the assembly worth? If God shall bless you, indeed, you will worship spiritually, and you will count nothing to be true worship which is not of the spirit and of the heart and soul. May God quicken us all up to that point, and he shall have the praise.

The last thing is this: it is a blessed sign of God’s visiting a people when each one of them is resolved, personally, that he will, in a spiritual manner, wait upon God. Notice the last four words. “I will go also.” “Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts: I will go also.” That is the point-“I will go also.” The Christian man should neither be content, when he goes to worship, to leave others behind, nor should he be content to drive others before him and stop behind himself. It is said of Julius Cæsar that he owed his victories to the fact that he never said to his soldiers, “Go,” but always said, “Let us go.” That is the way to win. Example is mightier than precept. We read of the Pharisees of old that they laid burdens on other men’s shoulders, but they themselves did not touch them with one of their fingers: true Christians are not so. They say, “I will go also.” Was not that bravely spoken of poor old Latimer, when he was to be burnt with Ridley. Ridley was a younger and stronger man, and as he walked to the stake, old Latimer, with his quaintness about him to the last, cried to his brother Ridley, “Have after, as fast as my poor old legs can carry me.” The dear old saint was marching to his burning as fast as he could; not at all loath to lay his aged body upon the altar for his Lord. That is the kind of man who makes others into men; the man who habitually says, “I will go also; even if I am called to be burned for Christ. Whatever is to be done or suffered, I will go also.” I would be ashamed to stand here and say to you, “Brethren, pray; brethren, preach; brethren, labour,” and then be an idler myself; and you also would be ashamed to say to others, “Let us pray; let us be earnest,” while you are not praying and not earnest yourselves. Example is the backbone of instruction. Be thyself what thou wouldst have others be, and do thyself what thou wouldst have others do.

“I will go also,” because I need to pray as much as anybody else. I will go to hear the word, for I need to hear it as well as others; I will go and wait upon God, for I need to see his face. I will cry to him for a blessing, for I want a blessing. I will confess my sin before him, for I am full of it. I will ask mercy through the precious blood of Jesus, for I must have it or perish. “I will go also.” If nobody else will go, I will go; and if all the rest go I will go also. I do not want to pledge any of you this morning; I shall not, therefore, ask you to hold up your hands, but I should like to put it very personally to all the members of this church. We have enjoyed the presence and blessing of God for many years in a very remarkable manner, and it is not taken from us; but I am jealous, I believe it is a godly jealousy and not unbelief,-lest there should be among us a slackness in prayer, and a want of zeal for the glory of God, and a neglecting of the souls of our neighbours, and a ceasing to believe to the full in our mission and in the call of God to be each one of us in this world as Christ was, saviours of others. My brethren, knit together as we are in church fellowship, and bound by common cords to one blessed Master, let each one say within himself, “I will go also”; the church shall be the subject of my prayer; the minister shall share in my petitions; the Sabbath school shall not be forgotten; the College shall be remembered in supplication; the Orphanage shall have my heart’s petitions; I will plead with God for the evangelists; I will consider the congregation at the Tabernacle, and pray that it may gently melt into the church; I will pray for the strangers who fill the aisles and crowd the pews that God will bless them; yea, I will say unto God this day, “My God, thou hast saved me, given me a part and lot among thy people, and put me in thy garden, where thy people grow and flourish; I will not be a barren tree, but abound in fruits, especially in prayer: if I cannot do anything else I can pray; if this be my one mite, I will put that into the treasury; I will put thee in remembrance, and plead with thee, and give thee no rest, until thou establish thy cause and make it praise in the earth.” I am not asking more of you than Jesus would ask, nor do I exact anything at your hands: you will cheerfully render that which is a tribute due to the infinite love of your Lord. Now, do not say, dear brother, “I hope the church will wake up.” Leave it alone, and mind that you wake up yourself. Do not say, “I hope they will be stirred up this morning.” Never mind others! Stir up yourself. Begin to enquire, “Which prayer-meeting shall I go to, for I mean to join the people of God, and let them hear my voice, or at least have my presence; and if I cannot go to the Tabernacle I will drop in near my own house; and if there is no meeting there I will open my own house: the largest room of my cottage shall be used for a prayer-meeting, or my parlour if I have one. I will have a share in the glorious work of attracting a blessing from the skies; I will send up my electric rod of prayer into the clouds of blessing to bring down the divine force.” Do it; do it! Let each one say, “I will go also.” May God bless this word to his people, and I am sure it will result in benediction to sinners. For, remember, you ungodly ones, that all this noise is about you. What we want the blessing of God for, is that you may be saved. We cannot bear that you should remain as you are, unconverted, and I am asking God’s people to pray specially with an eye to your salvation. Shall we think about your souls, and will you not think about them yourselves? Are we inclined to move heaven and earth that you might be saved, and will you sit still and perish? May the Lord awaken you to say, “If others are going to pray unto the Lord and seek his face, I will go also”; and the Lord bless you, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Zech. 8

PLENARY ABSOLUTION

A Sermon

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”-Psalm 103:12.

We shall aim at no novelty to-night, nor shall we try to serve up the old truths in any new and attractive forms. Upon your tables you always require bread, and generally you account salt to be indispensable. Some kinds of food are presented to us over and over again, and it would augur ill for our health if they were not always relished. It was an evil lusting which made Israel tire of the manna; an Israelite in his right mind found it to be a dainty still, though he ate of it for every day of his forty years’ pilgrimage. Who tires of the verdure of the fields, the light of the sun, or the air we breathe? These things are ever fresh and new, and ever needful to us. The doctrine of forgiving love is one of those necessaries of daily life, concerning which it may be affirmed that if we should set them before you every day we should not be guilty of vain repetition. None need fear of tiring man, or vexing God’s Spirit by harping too much on this string. Therefore come we to our favourite theme to-night. To speak of the great gospel truth of the forgiveness of sin in the simplest manner we possibly can, is the purpose we have immediately in view. To babes, to young men, and to fathers in Christ, this all-important truth will be equally precious; while the poor trembling sinner who cannot yet claim to be one of the sacred family may be encouraged by it.

Our text has in it a word of peculiarity, and to this I call your attention at the outset. It is not every man in the world that could truly use the language of this verse, for it does not refer to all mankind: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” A people separated and set apart, a people upon whom there has been a peculiar work of divine power, a people whose experience of the grace of God towards them has melted their hearts with devout gratitude-such as these can sing this joyous stanza, and none beside. I will describe these people to you I should gather from the ninth verse, that they are a people who have been made truly, deeply, painfully conscious that they are sinful, and have felt the chidings of God in their conscience;-therefore, it is that they say, “He will not always chide.” They know that God is angry with sin. They have felt some bitings of that wrath upon their spirit, and they have been humbled into contrition, repentance, and confession;-therefore do they now say, “Neither will he keep his anger for ever.” They are a people who have keenly realised the desperate condition they were redueed to, who know that if forgiven it must be through mercy, and through mercy only; that they have no claim upon God; that they deserve to be cast away from his presence;-therefore they say, “He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.” But they are a people who have tasted of that surprising mercy which baffles all human thought, and excites the adoring wonder of all who contemplate this darling attribute of the Most High. They have gone to Jesus, in whom the mercy of God is treasured up. They have believed in him, and they have received mercy through him; for mercy comes to men through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ; and having tasted of that mercy, they say, “As the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.” Then they go on to sing, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” Oh, priceless gift! oh, matchless boon! Say now, out of this vast throng, how many of us have been made to feel that sin is sinful, to loathe it, and to confess it with bitterness of heart? How many of us have fled to the great atoning sacrifice, and have believed in Jesus to the saving of our souls? So many may repeat this verse, and affirm it of themselves, with truth, but no more. Separate yourselves, then: let the force of conscience now be exercised, and let this text be to you, for a moment, like the throne of Jesus, before which he exercises the prerogatives of his gospel sovereignty, and divides the sinners from the saints, making men either tremble or rejoice.

Our text has a word of positiveness. In this song the Psalmist speaks of the pardon of sin as a positive fact; he celebrates it in grateful strains as a matter of certainty to himself and to others associated with him. David was a Positivist of the right sort. Ifs and perhapses would not suit him. “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” He does not indulge in fond hopes, or express vague wishes, or point in hesitant tones to some favourable omens, but he speaks of his sins being forgiven, knowing it to be a matter of fact which there was no room to question. Now there are many professing Christians who do not think that you ever can know that you are forgiven while you remain in this world. They are not of this mind merely because they are ignorant of the gospel, but because that gospel is beclouded with errors. Their teachers throw dust into their eyes, or envelope them in mist. They see men as trees walking, and no more. They are brought up in orthodox fashion to repeat a mournful litany, and to call themselves “miserable sinners,” in stereotyped phrases. They are taught to go on for ever asking for pardon as if they had never received it. They are made to look upon themselves still as needing to be dealt with as lost sheep, and reconciled as rebels. Their standing is always at the foot of Sinai, they are not taught that the Lord has forgiven us all trespasses. Their Church, as if to chasten it for its alliance with the State, has lost the jubilant tone of faith, and made its daily service rather a wail for sinners than a song for saints. Now the gospel of Jesus Christ tells us that there is pardon; that we may have it; and that when we believe in Jesus, we have obtained full remission-that we are pardoned when we believe in Jesus, and that our iniquities are forgiven us. It is a matter signed, sealed, and delivered, a fact accomplished before the Lord, and infallibly ascertainable by us. Sin is put away. Though we shall never be in such a condition here that we shall not have need to confess daily sin-for new sins will rise-yet, at the same time, the moment the soul believes in Jesus, no condemnation is upon it, nor ever can be: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” We are forgiven. Pardon is a fact-a fact most certain in the history of believers: there is nothing more sure to them than this, that they are certainly forgiven inasmuch as they have believed in Jesus Christ. I know there are many professed Christians who shrink with morbid apprehension from claiming this great act of God’s love as a benefit which they really enjoy. They venture to hope it may be so, but still they dare not speak with confidence of their own pardon. This to their view would be presumption. But is it not far more presumptuous to pay so much respect to your own misgivings, as totally to ignore the blessedness of knowing that you are forgiven? Is it not awful presumption to settle down as so many do while their eternal state is a matter of question to them? Do you tell me that you do not know whether you are forgiven? Why, sir, you are indeed in a wretched bewilderment! You do not know if you were to die at this moment whether you would be in heaven or hell! How dare you sit in comfort in that seat? Dare you go to your bed in doubt about whether you are saved or not? How can you sleep? It seems to me to be profane presumption for a man to dare to be at peace till he is sure about his reconciliation to God. The presumption lies in settling on your lees, in resting short of the inheritance, and in saying, “Peace, peace” to one’s soul till you know that you are a saved man. Oh, I beseech you if you have any doubts do not play with them! Do not trifle with your soul’s affairs! This is a matter about which there should be no doubt whatever. No man would like to have a doubt as to whether there is a thief in the house when he goes to his bed at night. You would not like to be in doubt as to whether a mortal disease is upon you. You are anxious to be sure of your safety and your health: will you not desire to be as sure about your soul’s safety and the health of your inner nature? Surely you ought to be!

But can a man be sure? Ay, assuredly. See you here: The best evidence in all the world is the witness of God, who cannot lie. Any number of men in the world bearing witness to a thing can never be equal to the testimony of God. What he says none may dare to question. God’s witness is much more reliable and has much more weight in it than the most exact observations, and the most delicate inferences that can be drawn from them. Suppose I can see a thing with my eyes. Men say, “Seeing is believing.” Yes, but eyes deceive, as everybody knows. There are many things we think we see which we do not see after all. Eyes may deceive: God’s witness, therefore, is better than the sight of our eyes. “But surely,” says one, “feeling will not deceive you.” Alas! there is nothing in the world more deceptive as to a man’s state than his feeling. Those who are worst will often imagine themselves to be best, and some of the best of God’s children have often felt in their humiliation as though they were the worst. I say, God’s witness is to be preferred above our feeling, our eyesight, or the witness of men. What does God say? He says, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Do I believe in Jesus? Have I been obedient to the other part of the command? God says I shall be saved, and therefore so I shall be, despite all the devices of Satan, despite all the sins I ever have committed or shall commit, despite anything and everything however unlooked for which may occur in time to come, for God’s witness must be true. “Let God be true and every man a liar.” God saith it. “He that believeth in him is not condemned.” Have I believed in him, then? To believe is to trust,-have I trusted my soul with Jesus? Yes, yes, I am sure of that. Then I am equally sure that I am not condemned, equally sure that sin is forgiven, because as sure as I possess faith, so sure is it that “as far as the east is from the west, so far hath God removed our transgressions from us.” Who wants better evidence than God’s word? O, we may live on it; we may die on it; and we may stand before the judgment seat with it as our strong consolation. God has spoken it, and his word cannot be impugned, or his counsel invalidated.

But, because we sometimes are troubled and vexed within, there is another assurance which God is pleased to give to his children. Over and above his written word, he gives them the inward witness. The man who has believed in Jesus feels a deep peace in his soul. “Jesus died for me,” saith he. Then if Jesus died in my stead my sin is put away. God will not be so unjust or inconsistent as to punish me for the very sin for which he put Christ my substitute to grief. If Jesus suffered in my stead, I shall not suffer. It were not just that two should suffer for the selfsame sin. The believer, knowing this, finds satisfaction, smells a savour of rest, and feels peace. O, what a peace! Believe me, there is nothing like it in this world, it is the peace of God which passeth all understanding, a peace like that which rules amid angelic thrones. Then, in the midst of that deep calm the Holy Ghost comes down like the dove brooding over the waters, the calm and quiet waters of the believer’s soul, and bears witness with the man’s own spirit that he is born of God. The man’s own spirit bears witness in the peace it feels, and then God’s Spirit comes and sets a seal thereto, and the man knows and is persuaded by the witness of God in the word, and the living witness of God in his soul, that as far as the east is from the west, so far hath God removed his transgressions from him. Some of us recollect the very day and hour wherein our sins were put away, and can look back to the date, and call it our spiritual birth-day. It shall be to us the beginning of days, even as was that day in which Israel came out of Egypt. And others, who have not so distinct a recollection of the time, yet as they look to yonder cross and see the incarnate God bleeding on it, feel that their transgressions are blotted out, and every time they look they get a renewed assurance of complete absolution. There are some, I know, who think it best always to gaze upon their crucified Lord, as if they had never before looked upon him. They stand and hug the cross, and kiss those bleeding feet, and look up to that dear face bedewed with drops of grief, and that dear brow becrowned with thorns, and say, “Thou art my Saviour! Dear lover of my soul, I rest in thee! Thy side riven for me yields me my pardon. Thy death is my life. Thy life in heaven is the guarantee of my immortality.” O happy they who can so stand at the cross-foot and feel always that as far as the east is from the west, so far hath God removed their transgressions. None can sing so heartily and joyfully the high praises of God.

“Since I have found a Saviour’s love,

To him my hopes are clinging;

I feel so happy all the time,

My heart is always singing.

A light I never knew before

Around my path is breaking,

And cheerful songs of grateful praise

My raptured soul are waking.

I feel like singing all the time,

I have no thought of sadness;

When Jesus washed my sins away

He turned my heart to gladness.”

Now, brethren, as we return to our text I would have you notice the comprehensiveness of it. I do not find any list of sins here. All I find about sin is contained in these two words, “our transgressions.” I am not skilful in matters of common law, but I remember hearing a lawyer make this remark about a man’s will, that if he were about to leave all his property to some one person, it would be better not to make a recapitulation of all that he had, but merely to state that he bequeathed all to his legatee, without giving a list of the goods and chattels, because in making out the catalogue he would be pretty sure to leave out something, and that which he left out might be claimed by some one else. Indeed he gave us an instance of a farmer, who, in recounting the property he devised to his wife, intending her to have had all, actually omitted to mention his largest farm and the very house in which they lived. Thus his attempt to be very particular failed, and his wife lost a large part of the property. We do not want too many particulars, and I am thankful that in this verse there is a broad way of speaking which takes in the whole compass of enumeration. “He hath removed our transgressions.” That sweeps them away all at once-“our transgressions.” If it had said “our great transgressions,” we should have been crying out, “How about the little ones?” We should have been afraid of perishing by our lesser faults even if the huge crimes were pardoned. Suppose it had said “our transgressions against the law.” Oh! but we should have asked, “What shall we do with our transgression against the gospel?” Suppose it had said, “our wilful transgressions,” that would have been very gracious; but we should have said, ‘Ah, but what will become of our sins of ignorance?” Suppose it had said, “our transgressions before we were converted,” then we should have exclaimed, “Ah but how shall we escape from our sins since our conversion?” But here it is-“our transgressions”-he hath removed them all, all, all! from the cradle to the tomb-they are all gone; sins in private and sins in public, sins of thought, word, deed, they are all removed. The moment you believe in Jesus they are all, all, all gone! I cannot help giving you a picture I have sketched before. When Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, with her timbrel in her hand, went forth, the women of Israel following her, dancing by the Red Sea, one of the sweetest notes of her song was this:-as she looked over the dark waters of that mighty sea, there could not be discovered the crest of a single Egyptian captain, nor one solitary horse struggling for his life, nor a chariot, nor a banner, nor any implement of war, nor one solitary champion that had borne arms, and therefore she struck the timbrel, and the damsels sounded it out aloud: “The depths have covered them! There is not one of them left-not one! not one! not one! not one of them left!” I think I hear their song. I think I see their feet twinkling like stars as they dance forth their joy and Jehovah’s praise: “There is not one, not one, not one of them left!” Even thus do I look upon Jesu’s precious atoning blood, and think of all my sins and yours, my brethren who have believed in him, and I shout with equal, if not greater joy, “The depths have covered them. There is not one, not one of them left. He hath removed our transgressions from us.” “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

Another thing which claims special note in the text is the perfection-the absolute perfection of the pardon. The text says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our trangressions from us.” Can anybody tell how far the east is from the west? You begin to calculate perhaps upon the surface of the globe; but I say, “No, not so. The east is farther off than any distance you can travel on this globe. Look to you sun.” Then you begin to measure within the bounds of the solar system towards the east; but I say, “No; the solar system is but a speck in the universe: I must have larger measurement than that.” “We will measure space, then,” saith one. Space! What mean you by that? Do you mean all that has ever been seen by the optic glass of the astronomer when he has gazed at night upon the milky way? Ah, but that is only a corner of boundless space! I must have the infinite measured; and you shall go that way with your line to the east, and I will go this way with my line to the west, and you shall tell me how far the two are asunder. Why, the interval is boundless; it means an infinite distance! Now God has taken his people’s sins away from them to an infinite distance, that is to say, there is no fear that their sins should ever return to them. They are gone, gone, gone, gone completely! I do not know how it is, but some of our friends of a certain school of theology believe that after men are pardoned they may yet go to hell. I will never quarrel with them about that doctrine. If it gives them any comfort, they are welcome to it. It does not seem to me worthy of a God, or even of a man. Poor is that pardon which may yet be followed by eternal torment. If God has pardoned his people, surely no fresh proceedings can be opened, no subsequent indictment preferred against them. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” I have heard of the Duke of Alva pardoning a man, and then hanging him; but I do not believe God ever trifles thus with mercy. If he has pardoned my soul, then I am saved. If he has done it once, he has done it for ever. He has removed my transgressions not a little way, but “as far as the east is from the west.” I think that means just this, that the pardon of our sin is so complete that when a man is pardoned he never can be punished for his sin-not in any measure or degree. He becomes a child of God, and, as a child, he may be chastened, but he will never have to stand before God as a Judge, and be called to account for those sins; for they are not-they do not exist. “Strong language,” say you. I say it again, they do not exist; for Jesus Christ has “finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness.” What does that mean? “Made an end of sin”? Why, it means what it says, and sin is made an end of. No soul, then, for whom Jesus bled, who has believed in Jesus, being redeemed from sin, can ever be punished for his sin before the bar of divine justice. Christ has been punished for him, and his sin is gone. “But, though not punished for sin, may not a man suffer some detriment? If God will not send me to hell, yet, at any rate, it may be, he will not love me so much because I have been a sinner. He will not treat me as if I had never fallen.” Ay, but when God wipes out sin, he puts away all the consequences of sin. “But do we not feel the consequences in our bodies?” Yes, assuredly, but it is for a season only, and for loving reasons. Our mortal bodies are doomed to death, and they are full of pain sometimes, but they shall not always be so. Our bodies shall rise again, and there shall be no detriment through sin upon those bodies. They will be just as glorious as they would have been had God made them perfect in the garden of Eden. Nay, they will be even more so, for they shall be fashioned like unto the glorious body of our Lord Jesus; but upon that I will not stay.

At this day God loves us, and he will love us for ever. He loves us infinitely, and he could not love us more than that if we had never fallen. At this time, in Christ Jesus, we are brought nigh-I will say it-as nigh as if we had never sinned, yea, and nearer. I do not see how, if we had never sinned, we could have been so nigh as we now are; for, had we never sinned, there would never have been a Mediator, and Jesus might never have been “Immanuel, God with us.” But now we poor sinners have one who is our brother, who is very God of very God, even Christ, the Son of Mary, and yet the Son of Jehovah. This is a wonderful nearness which God has given to us! We are made his children: we are made to come into his immediate presence, and to taste of his love. Our sins are so effectually removed that we shall not ultimately suffer any loss or damage through having sinned. That detriment was laid on Christ. His was the loss: ours is the gain. His was the tremendous suffering: ours is the unutterable joy.

“Thy blood, not mine, O Christ,

Thy blood so freely spilt,

Has blanched my blackest stains,

And purged away my guilt.

Thy righteousness alone

My soul doth beautify,

Wrapped in that glorious robe

Thy Father I draw nigh.”

And, dear brethren, this is what the Lord means also when he tells us he has put sin away “as far as the east is from the west.” He means that he has forgotten it. Can God forget? Well, we speak of the nature of God sometimes after the manner of men, and rightly so if we adopt those forms of revelation which have been vouchsafed to us. We rightly regard everything as in his remembrance, because he dwells in all ages and everything is present with him, and yet if he tells us he forgets we may not venture to disbelieve him. But I do not inquire just now what our conceptions of God may be: enough that we should cordially receive what he would have us believe. Here is a text-“Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more for ever,” that is God’s own assertion. He knows his own memory and he has put it so. Let me repeat those words. They melt my own heart while I speak them, and therefore I hope every child of God will feel the sweetness of them. What inconceivable love! What force, what pathos, what grace there is in every syllable!-“And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more for ever.” O, blessings, blessings on his dear name for such a word as that. Has he not said, “I have blotted out, like a cloud, thy transgressions?” Has he not said, in another place, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow: though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool?” That is, they shall vanish as colours fade: they shall disappear and shall no longer exist. These are glorious truths. I want every child of God to endeavour to realize the fact that at this very moment his sins are gone,-effectually, completely, perfectly gone,-through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ!

Beloved, there is in the text a ray of divinity, full of hope to us: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.” God is the great remover of sin. There be some who, when they feel the guilt of sin weighing heavily on their conscience go to a priest and ask him to remove the burden. The theory they act upon is this-that the priest is ordained of God, and has received power from the Most High to declare and pronounce absolution in God’s name. They think it too great a thing for God himself to deal personally with men, and, therefore, he employs some ordained person to speak in his name. Now, I have no doubt that there are many persons who get a good deal of comfort from the declaration of the priest that they are forgiven. I cannot understand how they can be so wretchedly duped, but I suppose the manner of administering a sacrament may be so imposing as to stifle any enquiry into the prerogative which the Father Confessor pretends to exercise. And yet I know, on the other hand, that there are some who, after they have obtained that kind of absolution, are not so comfortable as they expected to be. They feel somehow or other as if it did not quite meet the case. Perhaps such a person may have dropped in here. You want to know that your sin is forgiven with greater authority than the lips of any mortal can impart. O may the Lord himself put away your sins and your heart will know it and be at rest. To some people these scruples will cause the most agitation just when they looked for the most tranquillity; and if they are God’s people, and God is working in their hearts, I am sure of this, that fifty thousand priests could never give them an assurance that could make them feel true peace or heart’s ease. They would still be disquieted, still be troubled, even if Bishops and Popes should pronounce them absolved. God’s voice alone can still the tempest of their souls. See how the Romanist is pursuing phantoms all the while that he is following the directions of his church and observing her laborious ordinances. He never reaches the goal of peace; he can never be free from anxiety in life or apprehension in death, because his church never speaks to him of perfection through the one sacrifice, offered once for all, and when he dies he does not know where he may go. He conceives himself to be really forgiven, after a sacerdotal fashion, but he is not so divinely pardoned but that he has to go to purgatory for a time, to be purged from spots which still remain. He is never certain where he is with regard to the bar of divine justice. His pardon at the best is not worth having as a guarantee of heaven. In most cases the most religious Papist only goes to purgatory, a place which certain of their ablest writers say, is so cold on one side that they are all frozen like the inhabitants of the arctic regions; and then the victims are tossed to the other side, which is so extremely hot that it is as though they were being baked alive; so they are tossed about from one side to another till sin is either frozen or dried out of them. This is a fine prospect for good religious Romanists! The statements of Romish theologians as to the purgatorial regions are even more grim and terrible, for in some such imaginary place the remainder of sin is to be put away! But, beloved, we have it in the text that God is to remove our transgressions. O what a remove is that! Hands off, ye priests! Ye are too feeble for such weights as ours. Our sins are too stupendous for your puny strength. But the Lord comes with his own right hand of majesty, puts away our sins, and lifts them on to Christ, and Christ comes and flings them into his sepulchre, and they are gone and buried for ever: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”

“He seiz’d our dreadful load, our guilt sustained;

And heaved the mountain from a guilty world.”

Our transgressions were against the Lord our God; to him therefore appertained the right to pardon them. These transgressions had done dishonour to his Holy Name; he has a right, if he wills, to put them away if he can do so without tarnishing his glory. By the substitution of Jesus justice is satisfied, and God himself blots out our sins. And here is the beauty of it: since the Lord has removed our transgressions from us the thing is done completely, and it is done for ever and for ever! What a man does he may undo. You know how some men are like children-they will give a thing and take a thing back, and so play fast and loose with you. They will speak well of you to-day, and say “Yes, they forgive”; but they cannot forget; they recollect again to-morrow, revive their old resentments, and, in their anger, call up again past grievances. No so, our God. “I am Jehovah! I change not,” saith the Lord, “therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” When God removes transgression, the work is so done that it never shall be undone-certainly not by himself; and if not by himself, who then can do it? My brethren, what consolations you have since you have believed in Jesus! I pray you, feast upon them and be satisfied to the full.

Our text has in it also a touch of personality for each one of us. I was ruminating upon this passage the other day, and it came to me with a peculiar sweetness,-not on account of any of the thoughts I have given you, but on account of this: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from”-himself? Yes, that is true, but it is “from us,” from us. And this was what passed through my mind-Then my sin is gone away from me, from me! Here am I, fretting that I am not what I should be, and groaning, and crying before God about a thousand things; but, for all that, there is no sin upon me; for, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” From ourselves the sins have gone; from us, as well as from his eye, from his book, and from his memory; they have gone from us.” “But I committed them,” says one. Ah, that you did. Your sin was yours, yours with a vengeance! It was like that fiery tunic which Hercules put on, which he could not drag from him let him do what he might, but which ate into his flesh and bones. Such were your sins. You could not tear them off. But God has taken them off, every one of them, if you have believed in Jesus; and where is that tunic of fire now, which would have devoured you for ever? Where is it? Ye shall search for it, but it shall not be found, yea, it shall not be, saith the Lord. It is gone away from you. I sometimes see believers troubling themselves as if all their sins were laid up in an iron safe in some part of the Lord’s house. It is not so; it is not so. They are fretting as though somewhere or other there were a horde of sins in ambush which would accuse them and bear witness against them before God’; bar, and so they would be condemned after all. It is not so; it is not so. They are all gone; they are all gone. Satan may stand and howl for accusers, and say, “Come, gather yourselves together, and accuse the child of God!” and you yourself may tremblingly fear that they will come, and therefore you may put on your filthy garments, and come in before God, and stand there like a poor wretched criminal about to be tried. But what does Jesus say when he comes into the court? He says, “Take away his filthy garments from him! What right has he to put them on; for I have taken them away from him long ago by my substitution? Take them off! Set a fair mitre on his head. This is one whom I have loved and cleansed: why does he stand in the place of condemnation when he is not condemned and cannot be condemned, for there is now no condemnation since I have died.” Ah, we many times go down into the hold of the vessel and there we lie amongst the baggage, and our doubts and fears fasten down the hatches, and there we are, half stifled, when we might as well come up upon the quarter deck and walk there, full of delight and peace. We are moaning and fretting ourselves, and all about what does not really exist. I saw two men, yesterday, handcuffed and marched to the carriage to be taken off to prison. They could not move their wrists. But, suppose I had walked behind them, with my wrists close together, and had never opened my hands, nor stirred them, and said, “Alas! I committed, years ago, some wrong, and have handcuffs put upon me.” You would naturally say, “Well, but are they not taken off?” and I reply, “Yes, I have heard they are, but somehow, through habit, I go about as if I had them on.” Would not everybody say of me, “Why, that man must be insane!” Now you, child of God, once had the handcuffs on; your sins were upon you; but Jesus Christ took them off. When you believed in him, he broke all your fetters, and now they are not there. Why do you go about trembling and saying, “I fear!-I am afraid!” What fearest thou, O man? What fearest thou? Are you a believer and afraid of your old sins? You are afraid of foes which do not exist. Your sins are so gone that they cannot be laid to your charge. Do you not believe this? Can you not rise to something like the true estimate of your position? You are not only pardoned, but you are a child of God. Go to your Father with joy and thankfulness, and bless him for all his love to you. Wipe those tears away, smooth those wrinkles from your brow: take up the song of joy and gladness, and say with the apostle Paul, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” Be glad in the Lord, ye pardoned ones!

“Shout, believer, to thy God,

He hath once the winepress trod;

Peace procured by blood divine,

Cancell’d all thy sins and mine.

In thy Surety thou art free,

His dear hands were pierced for thee;

With his spotless vesture on,

Holy as the Holy One.

Oh the heights and depths of grace!

Shining with meridian blaze;

Here the sacred records show

Sinners black but comely too.”

As for you who have never received that pardon, does not the mention of it make you long for it; cry for it; and beg for it. O that you would above all, believe for it; for it is to be had by you. The guiltiest of the guilty shall have forgiveness if they believe in Jesus. Whoever among you will trust in the crucified Saviour shall be pardoned this night. The moment you trust him you shall have a full acquittal for all your sins and crimes; yea, all transgressions, and you shall sing, as our poet Kent does,-

“Hene’s pardon for transgressions past,

It matters not how black their cast,

And O my soul, with wonder view,

For sins to come here’s pardon too.”

God be praised! Let his word be believed: let his name be trusted; and then he shall be praised. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Psalm 103

[The fifth number of “The Interpreter” is nearly ready. Our friends would find it a great help at family reading. It has cost us great labour, and we hope we have not toiled in vain; yet far fewer have purchased it than we had hoped. Friends should order at once the numbers published, and take it in month by month; and then the expense will not be too great for them. A gentleman from Scotland in writing to us kindly says:-“I find much good in the use of the ‘Interpreter’ at worship. It gives something like a stated Bible Lesson, and more point and definiteness to prayers: all the family are more interested thereby.” The ‘Interpreter’ is published on the 20th of each month, in Shilling Parts containing 36 large pages. Passmore and Alabaster, 4, Paternoster Buildings.]