Observe that the verse which precedes the text describes the Lord as appearing in his glory. His Zion is to be built up, and therefore her King puts on the robes of his splendour. The imagery sets forth the Lord as a great monarch, superintending with great pomp and state the building of a sumptuous palace. We see him commanding the architects and the workmen, and passing from point to point amid attending courtiers. Trumpets are sounding, banners are displayed, princes and nobles glitter in their array, and the King appears in his glory. But who is this whose mournful wail disturbs the harmony? Whence comes this ragged mendicant who bows before the Prince? Surely he will be dragged away by the soldiery, or cast into prison by the warders, for daring to pollute so grand a ceremonial by such wretched presumption! Were there not streets, and lanes, and dark corners enough for beggars? Why need he thrust himself in where his rags are so much out of place? But see, the King hears him, the sound of the trumpet has not drowned the voice of the destitute. His Majesty listens to him while he asks an alms, and in matchless compassion pities all his groans. Who is this King but Jehovah? Of him only is it said, “He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.” The verse is enhanced in its beauty by its connection, even as a fair jewel receives an added beauty from the lovely neck upon which it sparkles. Let us read the verse again in this soft silver light. “When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory. He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.” It is clear that the heart of the Lord delights in the cries of needy souls, and nothing can prevent his hearing them. No occupation is so sublime as to distract the Lord’s attention from the prayer of the humblest of his mourners. The songs of seraphs, the symphonies of angels, the ceaseless chorales of the redeemed, are not more sweet in the ears of the all-merciful Jehovah than the faint breathings of poor dying wretches who confess themselves condemned by his justice, and, therefore, appeal to his lovingkindness and tender mercy.

This morning I am going to preach about the destitute. I hope there are many of them here; at any rate many are here who once were destitute, and would be so now if it were not for the riches of divine grace. Hear me, ye poor in spirit, and may the Lord comfort you by my words. Our first work this morning shall be to speak about a spiritual pauper, the “destitute;” then we will talk of his special occupation-it is clear that he has taken to begging, for the text speaks twice of his prayer, and prayer is the essence of begging; then, thirdly, here is a very natural fear of this spiritual mendicant, namely, that his prayer will not be regarded, and will even be despised; and then, fourthly, the whole text is a most comfortable assurance to this spiritual mendicant that his begging will be successful, for the Lord of whom he begs will regard his prayer, and will not despise his supplication.

First, then, let us go down among the beggars, and look upon the spiritual pauper. It will do you good to have your spiritual gentility shocked for a while, and it will be a lasting benefit if you are made to feel anew your own poverty, and to cry, “I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.”

The spiritual pauper is, in our text, described as destitute, and you may take the word in its extreme sense-the spiritually poor man is not only positively but utterly, thoroughly, terribly destitute. He is destitute of all wealth of merit or possession of righteousness. Time was, years ago, when he was as good as anybody else in his own esteem, and perhaps a little better: he was rich, and increased in goods, and had need of nothing. True, he had some faults, but he considered them to be outweighed by his excellences, and if he fell sometimes into error and sin, he had most ingenious excuses with which to shift the blame-either some companions beguiled him, or else his circumstances necessitated the fault. He was a sinner, he admitted that, but he put his own meaning upon the title, so that he did not feel degraded by it. He was no vagrant or pauper in the universe of God, but rather a fellow-citizen with the worthy, and of the household of self-satisfaction. He was at least as good as the average of men, and possibly better than, under present circumstances, men may generally be expected to be, and if he did not actually claim anything of God by way of merit, it was because he deferred to the crotchets of the Protestant religion, but in his inmost soul he really thought he could have maintained a decent position on the score of good works, and have shown up a very presentable righteousness had it been asked for. He never did in his heart see anything amiss in the Pharisee’s prayer, “God I thank thee that I am not as other men are.” He himself reflected with a very great deal of comfort upon the fact that he had never been a drunkard, that no profane word had dropped from his mouth, that he had been upright in his business, and that to all intents and purposes he was a reputable and respectable man, worthy of the divine regard. This, however, is all changed. The man has come down from an emperor to a penniless beggar. His outward character may not have changed, but his own estimate of himself is as different as light from darkness; for now he sees the hollowness of an outward morality which does not proceed from a renewed heart; now he knows that the sins which he has committed were exceeding sinful, and that the religious professions he has made, being nothing better than mere pretences, the heart not going with them, were a mockery of God and an insult to the Most High. See him, then, you rich men; here was one of yourselves, richer than the most, and far superior to the majority, but now he is as poor as the unfeathered bird which cruelty has flung from its nest; he has no good work that he dares bring before his God, but he owns to ten thousand thousand sins, every one of which accuses him before the Most High, and demands punishment at the hands of justice. He feels this, and shivers in his wretched rags. Do you inquire, Where is he? Is he not here at this moment? Can I not see his tears, and hear his groans? “God be merciful to me, a sinner,” is his cry. He is so far from claiming anything like merit that he loathes the very thought of self-righteousness, feeling himself to be guilty, undeserving, ill-deserving, and hell-deserving, meriting only to be banished from the presence of God for ever.

There is a kind of destitution which is bearable. A man may be quite penniless, but he may be so accustomed to it that he does not care; he may even be more happy in rags and filth than in any other condition. Persons of this order are well known to the guardians of our workhouses. Have you ever seen the lazzaroni of Naples? Notwithstanding all their attempts to move your compassion, they generally fail after you have once seen them lying on their backs in the sun, amusing themselves the livelong day. You feel sure that beggary is their natural element; they are perfectly satisfied to be mendicants like their fathers, and to bring up their sons to the profession. The ease of poverty suits their constitutions. But the spiritual pauper is not a member of this free and easy lazzaroni club by any manner of means, he is destitute of content. The poverty which is upon him is one which he cannot endure, or for a moment rest under; it is a heavy yoke to him, he sighs and cries under it. His is hungering and thirsting after righteousness. He knows there is something better than the state into which he has fallen, and he pines for it; he knows that if he does not escape from his present condition, he will fall into woes infinitely worse, and he trembles at the grim prospect of it, and therefore he sighs and cries before God in bitterness of spirit. “Have mercy upon thy poor destitute creature! Have mercy upon thine undeserving servant.” He has no contentment in his poverty, his penury is irksome to the last degree, and he cannot complacently endure it.

A man, however, if he be without money, is still not utterly destitute if he has strength, a stout pair of limbs, and can work, and earn wages. Such a man will soon get out of his destitution; only give him a chance, and those rags will be exchanged for decent attire. Skin and bone he will be no longer, he will improve into good condition, only give him employment and fair pay. But this is not the case with the spiritual pauper. He has no merit, and he cannot earn any. His strength is gone. Once he was so strong that he used to think if heaven were to be merited by good works he could do it; or, if not, if eternal life were to be had by conversion, and by believing in Christ, he could be converted at any time, and believe in Jesus just whenever he liked. Religion appeared to him to be a very easy matter. “Only believe, and you shall be saved,”-could not that be managed in the twinkling of an eye? If ever he heard a sermon about “Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, and few there be that find it,” he disliked the doctrine and the preacher; he could not away with such narrow-minded views. He felt that he had all requisite spiritual power within himself, and he did not believe either in natural depravity or spiritual inability. He had done well in business, and was a self-made man; he had forced himself up from the lowest ranks into an honourable position, and surely he could do the same in the matters of his soul as in the affairs of the world. That gentleman is not one of the destitute, you clearly see; and I have nothing to say to him except that I pray God to take away his fancied power from him, and make him feel himself to be weak as water. The spiritual pauper feels that he can do nothing aright, and that he cannot even think a good thought without the help of divine grace. As to believing in Jesus, simple as that matter is, he has come to this pass:

“I would but can’t believe,

Then all would easy be;

I would but cannot; Lord, relieve,

My help must come from thee.”

He is so staggered with doubts and fears, and so bemisted and beclouded with dark remembrances of his past sins, that he does not seem able to fix his eye upon the atoning sacrifice, and to find comfort there. He is destitute in the very worst sense, because he is “without strength.”

Still a man may be very poor at present, and he may have no power to earn his bread, but he may not be utterly destitute, for he may have an estate in reversion; when his long-lived uncle dies he may come into a fortune. It may be that in some years’ time, if the steed can live till then, the grass will be up to its knees. Many a man pressingly needs present help, though by and by he will have enough and to spare. The spiritual pauper has nothing to look forward to which can at all alleviate his soul’s distress; his future is even gloomier than his present. Well do I remember when I looked out upon eternity and saw nothing but a fearful looking for of judgment and of fiery indignation for me. I peered into the future, and I could not expect to live a better life, for I had so often tried and failed, that I feared I might be left to a callous conscience, and so go from bad to worse; in fact I knew I should, unless Christ would interpose and save me. And as for my hope in another world, alas, alas! I saw nothing but the great white throne, an angry Judge, and everlasting fire in hell. Hopes I had none, but fears numberless. Such is the outlook of every man whom God really convinces of sin. He is stripped of hope itself, and the man who has lost hope has lost all, and is destitute with a vengeance; for him there remaineth neither in heaven nor in earth any hope whatever, unless he can obtain one as the gift of grace. He has indeed reason to cry unto his God.

A man who is spiritually destitute is destitute of all friends who can help him; for those who love him best can only pray for him, they cannot save him. We who would help him if we could can only point him to the Saviour; but then he has a blind eye, and how shall he see while he is in the dark?

He is also destitute of all plans for doing better. Schemers sometimes manage to live by their wits when they can no longer subsist by their hands, but the poor soul who is really destitute before God has not even a plan by which to help himself. All his schemes have turned into mere wind bags, and his hopes from his own wisdom have altogether failed him. He has, in fact, nothing left, nothing whatever; he is as naked as Adam and Eve beneath the trees of the garden when God their offended Maker met them, and they sought to cover themselves with fig-leaves. He has come to the very lowest degree of spiritual penury; it is only necessary for death to put an end to his present misery for him to be in the ruin that will never end. Such is the case of the spiritually destitute.

I do not know whether I have managed to photograph in any way the state of any really distressed conscience here; I have tried to do so, but if I have failed, suffer me to add another sentence or two. If any in this place feel that they are sinful, feel that they deserve the wrath of God, feel that they cannot help themselves, that unless infinite mercy shall interpose they must for ever be lost, if, moreover, they cannot discover any reason why they should be saved, cannot find any argument which could move the heart of justice to have pity on them, they are just the very persons intended by my description and by the text, and I pray them not to put away from them the comfort which the text contains, but listen to it as we read it again: “He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.”

So much, then, for the spiritual pauper.

Secondly, here is his suitable occupation,-he has taken to begging, and it is a very fitting occupation for him, indeed there is nothing else he can do. When a man is shut up to one course, it is useless to raise objections to his following it, for necessity has no law, and hunger will break through stone walls. The man can do nothing else but beg, and so, since we cannot let him perish, and he will not himself perish through lethargy, he turns to do the only thing he can do, namely, to begging and praying. Blessed is that soul which is shut up to prayer. It thinks itself accursed, but indeed now the blessing is come upon it. If you feel you cannot do anything but pray, but equally feel that pray you must, I have hopes of you. If now you dare not appeal to justice, but simply cry “Mercy, Lord! mercy, mercy! I have no merits, but, oh, forgive me for thy mercy’s sake!” I am right glad of it. Why, dear man, you are shut up in the very same place where David was shut up when he could only say, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” You are shut up where every soul has been shut up that ever was saved, for unless you are driven to own that nothing can save you but undeserved mercy, pity, and free grace, you have not come to the place where God can meet with you in pardon; but when you stand as a condemned criminal at the bar, and plead “Guilty, guilty, guilty,” then you stand where God can look upon you with an eye of pity, and can save you.

The trade of begging is one which is most suitable for a spiritual pauper, because, if he cannot do anything else, I warrant you he can do this right well. They say in London that many of our beggars are mere actors, they mimic distress; if so they do it uncommonly well, and are splendid imitations. But I will venture to say this, that nobody will ask help so well as the man whose distress is real; he needs no one to teach him, starvation is his tutor. Take away his diffidence, and give him courage enough, and his distress will make him eloquent. You may by chance have been accosted by a man who sought alms with awful eagerness, hunger looking out of his eyes, and speaking from his pinched countenance. He has held on to you with terrible vehemence, and at last has said, “I have not eaten anything myself for many hours. You can see by his very looks that it is true; and he adds, “I could bear to famish myself, but I have seven little children at home, and unless I take them bread they will be crying about me, and therefore I do entreat you to help me.” Now, if all this be true, and you look into the case and find it so, the man’s case speaks for itself, and he is the man to move your heart. He does not need to go to a boarding-school to learn elocution; want schools his tongue, the words drop into their right places of themselves; and, as to his gestures and postures, they are all apt and telling, though no teacher of rhetoric ever gave him a lesson. He will be sure to plead rightly, the suit lies heavy on his heart. Nobody prays before God like a man who feels his sins. He cries, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” and says it as it ought to be said. Ah, brethren, some of us have to pray often in public, but we never pray so well as when we feel your needs, and the needs of the times, and of the country pressing urgently upon our hearts. You yourselves also pray best when your own sense of sin and need most burden your souls. You are the men to pray, I say, you destitute people. You make the best of beggars, for you are most in need; you pray best who feel that you must have mercy or die.

There is this to be said about the spiritual beggar, that he is begging where he is permitted to beg. I remember being in Paris on a certain day in the year, I forget the name of the fête, and I was astonished at the immense number of the beggars, and at their pertinacity and daring. I had not observed them before in such swarms and such force, but I found that on one special day licence was given to the poor, the lame, the halt, and the blind, to persecute everybody for alms. I warrant you they made good use of the permission, and needed no pressing or inviting. Ho, spiritual paupers, this day, even this day, is a day of grace; a warrant has come from the King’s court that you may ask and it shall be given you, you may seek and you shall find, you may knock and it shall be opened unto you. Yea, every day is a free-grace day, a festival for prayer; long as you live and are in necessity, you have the King’s permit to open your mouth wide and he will fill it; you have his royal authority that you may come to his mercy-seat and ask in every time of need right boldly for whatsoever you want. Well may the spiritual pauper take to a trade which is permitted by the King of Heaven. He is mendicant by appointment to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty.

Yea, more, spiritual begging is commanded by supreme authority. “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint.” It is the privilege of a sinner to be allowed to ask for grace; it is also the duty of the sinner to seek mercy at the Saviour’s hand. “Acquaint now thyself with him and be at peace.” “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him turn unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” These are promises, but they are also precepts, precepts with the weight of commands. Oh, who that is poor will be slow to beg when the Lord of love himself commands him to ask? At the back of this, there is an implied certainty, there is a sacred promise that he who asks shall surely receive, for God would not tantalise us by commanding us to pray if he had not at the same time intended to give.

Let me further remind every spiritually destitute man here that he may pray with confidence, because begging has been the source of all the riches of the saints. Some of them are rolling in heavenly wealth, for all things are theirs. Their mouths are satisfied with good things, and their hearts are filled with gladness. You may see their riches, for the joy of their countenances, and the bliss of their daily work are visible to all. Do you not envy them, for they feed on Christ every day, and have the bread of heaven always on their tables, and the water of life always flowing at their feet? Do you know how they became so rich? I will whisper it in your ear. They gained all they have by begging. “Not very creditable to them,” say you. No, but wonderfully creditable to Him who gave them all they have, and they are accustomed to give all the honour and the glory to that dear, and blessed, and generous Saviour, who has never denied them their requests. If the richest saint on earth were to take you into his spiritual mansion, he would say to you “Do you see this treasure, and that covenant blassing, and yonder priceless boon? I obtained all these by begging. I asked and I received; all that I have came to me in that way.” The Lord has said, “For this will I be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.” Now, since all the saints on earth have grown rich by beggary, I recommend you poor destitute souls to take to the business, and you will find it the most remunerative one that ever you undertook. You cannot dig, do not be ashamed to beg. Your digging will dig your own grave, that is all you will do by your self-righteous efforts, but you will obtain grace for the asking for, pardon for the asking for, and heaven for the asking for. Who would not be a spiritual beggar when he may be thus enriched?

One thing more I will say, and leave this point: you may begin begging directly. You, who are poor in spirit, may begin begging directly. I could not start in some trades to-morrow morning; I should want the capital, and should need to go to the wholesale traders and get what I needed to stock me in trade; but a beggar wants neither stock nor capital to begin with, all his capital lies in his want of capital. He never makes a good beggar till he has nothing left, and then, when his clothes are rags, and his shoes are old and clouted, and he himself looks sick and wan, then he is the man for his business. And you, sinner, you want no preparations in order to ask for mercy; nothing need be done in you, or for you, in order to prepare you for the mercy of Christ; you may come to him just as you are. Tarry not to mend, or wash, or cleanse; come in your foulness, come in your rags, come in your loathsomeness, come just as you are; the worse you feel yourself to be, the more room for the display of the wonders of divine grace.

“Cast thy guilty soul on him,

Find him mighty to redeem;

At his feet thy burden lay,

Look thy doubts and cares away;

Now by faith the Son embrace,

Plead his promise, trust his grace.”

Still, perhaps, there will be some here who say, “I do not feel in a fit state to ask for mercy.” My dear friends, it is your unfitness that is your fitness. Your poverty fits you for alms, your sickness fits you for the physician, your being nothing fits you to have Christ made all in all to you; your emptiness is all he wants, that he may fill it with all the fulness of his grace. Take to begging, brother; that is the way to be rich towards God.

But now, thirdly, here is the mendicant’s very natural fear. He is afraid that the great King will despise his prayer, or will not regard it, and he is afraid of this, first, from the greatness and holiness of that God to whom he addresses himself. He is thrice holy; can he regard the cry of one who has been a drunkard, or a harlot? He is infinitely great and fills immensity; can he listen to the prayer of a poor little boy, or of a grey-headed old rebel, whose only inheritance is a place in the workhouse? Can he look on such an insignificant ephemera as I am, the creature of a day, whose non-existence would make no flaw in the universe, whose damnation would be no loss to him? Can he look on worthless me? Infinite, and yet listen to my sigh; eternal and yet catch my tears! Can it be? Beloved, many are a long while in distress of soul, because they do not remember that there is a Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus. God is thus glorious, but he is not far from any of us; for there is one who is God, and at the same time a man like ourselves, even Jesus, who has compassion on the ignorant, and on those that are out of the way. Cease ye then to fear, for the gulf is bridged. You may approach the Lord, for Jesus has paved the way.

The same fear takes another shape. Trembling souls are afraid that God can never look upon them in love, because their prayer itself is so unworthy of notice. “I should not wonder if God despised my prayer,” says one, “for my fellow-men despise it. I should not like them to hear it, it is such a broken, disconnected affair, I could not expect my own parents to have patience with it, and when I get up from my knees I despise my own prayer, and hardly dare think I have prayed. I feel I have tried and failed. I have only groaned becaus I could not groan, and mourned because I could not mourn.” Ah, yes; but the Lord looketh at the heart, and he does not regard the eloquence nor the style of prayer after the manner of man. The Pharisee’s was a very fine prayer I dare say, and very well delivered; the poor publican’s prayer was a very poor affair by the side of it, and rather undelivered than delivered, for he would not so much as lift his eyes towards heaven, but the Lord heard it and had mercy upon him. Go and groan before God, that is praying. Go and weep before him, that is praying. You need not get the book down and turn up a collect. I do not know of one that would quite suit a sinner in utter destitution. Men seldom use book prayers when they come before God in real earnest. Forms will suffice for playing at praying, but when you come to real earnest work with God, you have to put your books away, and to plead with the Lord with the first words that fly forth from your soul like sparks from a piece of hot iron beaten with the hammer. When the heart boils and swells with grief, then prayers roll down from the soul like lava from Vesuvius, because it cannot help running over, and burning its way. That is the way to pray. May God help us to pray out of our very souls, and then it matters not what form the prayer takes, it is beautiful before the Most High.

“Yes,” says one, “but I am afraid my prayer may be disregarded, because my wants are so great. If a mendicant in the street asks for a copper, he may get it; if he were even to venture to ask for silver, he might gain it; but if he asked for thousand pound notes he might stand a long time in the street corner before he would find one who would supply him. Now, sir, my prayer is for great things-I want the Saviour’s blood upon my conscience, I want the Holy Ghost himself to renew my nature, I want the whole Godhead to come and bless me, I want heaven itself, nothing short of that will satisfy me; and how can I hope that such a great prayer as mine will be answered.” Ah, dear soul, you are dealing with a great God, and a great Saviour, and great promises; do not be afraid to ask great things, rather be afraid of limiting the Holy One of Israel. Open your mouth wide and he will fill it.

Ah, and I think I hear one exclaim, “He may well despise my prayer, for my faith is so weak. If I had more faith, I think then he would listen to me.” Well, but the Lord has never said anywhere that he despises little faith. Can you find a passage of Scripture in which he says, “I will trample on the bruised reed, and I will quench the smoking flax”? If you have ever read a passage of Scripture like that, I never have; the whole run of the Bible goes the other way. “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.” It seems that the poor and the weak are the chief objects of his care, and are not, therefore, rejected. Suppose he bruised and crushed the mustard seed, where would be the tree that is to grow out of it? Suppose he despised the day of small things, where would the day of great things be? “Behold thy King cometh, meek and lowly, riding upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass;” and as he comes, the little children gather round him, and they say, “Hosanna.” See, he does not rebuke them; rather does he say, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies.” Now, your faith is like a little child; God will grant you full manhood yet, but even now he does not despise your feebleness; he looks upon it with favour, and he hears your prayer.

Now, somewhere in this place there is a young man in the same condition as that in which I was found some twenty-three years ago. He has learned to weep in secret before God, and pray for mercy, but he has not found it yet, and he is tempted to give it all up. Hearken, dear brother, to this word: “He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.” Cry on, and look away to Jesus, and you shall find all your destitute soul wants, and one of these days you who have learned to pray shall learn to praise and bless the prayer-answering God who did not suffer the soul of the destitute to perish. The Lord visit you at this moment and give you peace!

Our last head is to be this, our text affords to the destitute beggar a most comfortable assurance. “He will regard the prayer of the destitute.” Now, beloved, whatever is in Scripture we accept as infallible truth. We dare not doubt when God speaks; if he says it is so, it is so. Others may doubt the inspiration of Scripture, but we have not gone that length yet. Now, poor destitute sinner, if you believe the Scripture to be inspired, believe this passage-“He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and will not despise their prayer.” Now, there is something about this text I want you to notice, namely, that God, in order that destitute sinners should never doubt his willingness to hear their prayers, has left this on record, with a very special note appended to it. I will read you the note, which is in the eighteenth verse. “This shall be written for the generation to come, and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord.” You see the Lord not only said that he would regard the prayer of the destitute, but he added, “This shall be written,” because, when a poor soul is in doubt and fear, there is nothing like having it in black and white. God has said it, but, says he, they shall not merely go by their ears, they shall see with their eyes. “This shall be written.” Look at it, there it stands before you, written by the pen of inspiration, no doubt about it. “This shall be written for the generation to come,” that is, for you. It was not merely true in David’s time, or in Hezekiah’s time, but this shall be written for the generation to come; written for you and for your children, that God will hear the prayer of the destitute; blessed be his name for that. I recommend you, when next you kneel down to pray, to put your finger on this verse and say, “Lord, I have thy word for it, nay more, I have thy writing for it. Behold I put it to thee,-thou hast said, ‘This shall be written.’ O fulfil this written pledge to me.” When a man brings my own hand-writing to me and says, “You promised me, and there is the writing,” I cannot get away from it; and how shall the Lord draw back from what he has said, “This shall be written for the generation to come?” Oh, it must stand true. Be of good courage, poor seeking sinner, God will hear you.

Remember, too, that when the Lord Jesus Christ was on earth, he used to choose for his associates the destitute. “This man receiveth sinners,” said they, “and eateth with them.” “Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.” He would sometimes sit in the house of the Pharisee, but while he was there his heart was after the poor woman that came behind him and washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head, for his heart always was with needy sinners. Upon the self-righteous he looked with an eye of indignation. “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees,” said he, but to poor guilty sinners he always looked with eyes of tenderness; he was ready and glad to receive them; in fact, it was his life’s work to seek and to save that which was lost. Do not be afraid to come then. Jesus has made a feast, and has not called in his rich friends nor acquaintances; but he has brought in the poor and lame, and halt and blind, for they cannot recompense him, but will for ever love him; and such are you. Come, and welcome; come, and welcome! Jesus cast out none when he was here; he will cast out none that come to him now.

Remember, in the matter of praying, that God loves to hear sinners pray. We may be quite sure of that, because he teaches them how to pray. There are passages in Scripture where God even puts the words into sinners’ mouths. He says, “Take with you words, and say unto him, ‘Receive us graciously, and love us freely, so will we render the calves of our lips.’ ” God must be very fond of prayer, when he teaches us how to pray. Do not be afraid, therefore, to pour out those broken sentences which God the Holy Spirit has taught you.

He has never despised a sinner’s prayer yet. Search and look down the chronicles of his word, and see what sinner he rejected. Look round among your kinsfolk and acquaintance, and find out one who ever fled to him for mercy and was repulsed. I appeal to those who are saved on earth, and they will tell you that it was infinite love and mercy that accepted them. If I could appeal to the white-robed hosts in heaven, they would all tell you that, like yourselves, they were destitute; they had to come in formâ pauperis before the Lord, and he did not despise them, nor disregard their prayers.

I wish I could take a poor trembler by the hand and say, “Dear brother, come with me.” Fain would I do it; I have a hope of heaven this morning, and I will tell you what it is. I am as destitute this day of all righteousness of my own as any one here can be. My eye is fixed upon the Lord Jesus on the accursed tree. There was he, my substitute, and I trust in him, and in him alone. Now, if you are enabled by the Spirit of God to look right away from yourself and your misery to Christ Jesus, the sinner’s Saviour, you shall have this very morning the peace of God which passeth all understanding to keep your heart and mind, and you shall know that you are saved.

I am going to close with a remark upon another subject. You will have noticed, I dare say, that the whole of this verse is connected with the building up of Zion. Hence there must be some connection between the two, and it is just this: the church of God must never expect to see great revivals, nor to see the world converted to Christ, till she comes before the Lord as destitute. I am afraid that when we plead most with God, we still feel we are a very respectable community of Christians, with a large number of ministers, and a number of wealthy laymen, a large amount of chapel property, and a good deal of power and influence. Thou sayest, “I am rich and increased in goods.” It may be that all this is the ensign of your poverty, and we may be naked, and poor, and miserable. But when we get right down, and feel we are nothing and nobody, and we could not save a soul if our lives depended upon it; that we are weak as water, and must come to God as utterly impotent apart from the power of the Spirit of God, then will the Lord appear in his glory, and his destitute church shall become rich in his riches, strong in his strength, and victorious in his might. We must be brought down. I see among the various denominations too much emulation as to their position; we stand in this position, and we in the other, and the voluntaries are doing such wonders. But, brethren, we are just a lot of poor unworthy sinners, who owe everything we have to the sovereign grace of God, and what we are to do for God must be accomplished, not by might nor by power, but by his Spirit. When we feel this, the building of Zion will come, and not till then. The Lord send it!

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Psalm 102

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-146, 554, 544.

Mr. Spurgeon affectionately reminds his readers that the Orphanage under his care costs about £10 per day, and that the funds in hand are very small. For this Orphanage there is no voting, and the expenses of management are extremely small. The smallest amounts ‘will be gratefully received by C. H. Spurgeon, Nightingale Lane, Clapham.

FREE PARDON

A Sermon

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sing.”-Isaiah 43:25.

This extraordinary passage is rendered the more remarkable from its connection, for it follows a description of the sins of God’s people, a description which mentions their sins of omission in that they had neglected the service of the Most High, and their sins of commission in that they had gone so far in breaking God’s law that they had even made him to serve with their sins, and had wearied him with their iniquities. There is the charge, a thousand facts prove it, and nothing can be urged by way of extenuation. We might expect that the next utterance would be the sentence, and the next motion of the divine hand would be the execution; but, instead of that, O wonder of wonders-(who is a pardoning God like unto thee, O Jehovah?)-there comes a full remission, a complete absolution: “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions.” The verse is succeeded, moreover, by other sentences, which go on still further to convict the people of great sins. The Lord asks them to come and plead with him, if they can. If they have anything to say in extenuation of their faults, he gives them an opportunity of speaking for themselves; and then he tells them that they had sinned as a nation from their very beginning, and had continued still to sin. Though the Lord knew that he would add those words of expostulation, he made a break and a pause in the very middle of his righteous accusation, and ere he had concluded his charge against them, he had already forgiven them, and said, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake.” The remarkable point is not merely that the absolution contained in the text is preceded and succeeded by verses of accusation, but that it breaks in upon the connection, and cleaves the sense right in the middle. The king’s messenger of mercy rides through the ranks of the men-at-arms in hot haste, sounding his silver bugle as he clears his way; he cannot linger, his message is too precious to be made to tarry. Sooner may sun and moon stand still than mercy be hindered. Such breaks as those, of which the text is a specimen, are very dear to me, because they show the intense love of God to deeds of grace, and his eagerness to perform them. I love these soft showers of grace and mercy all the more because they so abruptly interpose between the tremendous thunder-peals of well-deserved wrath.

It will be our wisdom not only to weigh the text, but to notice the practical lesson of its connection, namely, that since God is sure to reveal his mercy when it will be most valued, we may conclude that men know and prize divine mercy most when they most feel the weight of their sins. Until a man is consciously condemned, and pleads guilty, he will not ask for mercy; and if mercy were to come to him, he would treat it with disdain. He would look upon the offer of forgiveness as an insult, for what better would it be than an insult to pardon an innocent man? As well send medicine to a man who was never sick, or alms to a millionaire. We must be proven guilty, and confess it, before we can be forgiven. We must know that we are sick, and we must distinctly recognise that our sickness is a mortal disease, or else we shall never value the divine medicine which Jesus came to bring. A sense of sin, although it be exceedingly painful, is a most blessed thing, and I pray God, if you have never felt how guilty you are, that you may be made to feel it at once. If you have never been broken down before the awful majesty of divine justice, may the Holy Spirit break you down now; for Jesus will never clothe those who are not stripped, he will never wash those who are not foul, nor will he attempt to heal those who are not wounded. Others may spend their strength in flattering human goodness, the Lord Jesus has come on another errand, and deals only with our sin and misery. If you are not poverty-stricken, you will have no dealings with the blessed soul-enriching Saviour.

Having thus considered the connection, let us notice two points besides. The first is the nature of the pardon which is here so graciously proclaimed; and the second is the effect which this pardon produces upon the minds of those who are enabled to receive it.

First, dear friends, let us carefully notice the nature of the pardon which is here so graciously announced. “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.”

Note, first, it is a pardon from God himself, whereupon we further observe that it is a pardon from him who is offended. Sin is mainly an attack upon God; it is an offence against his own most excellent person, it is treason against his most glorious sovereignty. God therefore feels more, sees more, and is more thoroughly affected by the evil of sin, than any one else; and the connection of the text shows that he does not treat sin as a trifle as some do-that he does not regard it as a thing which can be readily passed over, but takes solemn note of the sinful omissions and commissions of his people, and in due time calls them to account, mentioning their sins in a way which shows that he is sorely displeased. Sin is in Jehovah’s eyes exceeding sinful, an abominable thing which his soul hates. And yet, notwithstanding this, it is the very same God who has such a hatred of sin who, nevertheless, says, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions.” We have offended God, and the same offended God forgives us. We have violated his law, and yet the lawgiver himself pardons us. We have insulted his majesty, and yet the King himself deigns to say, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions.”

This is the more delightful, because we know that only he could forgive. What is the use of forgiveness from one who has not been offended? How can I forgive you for a transgression which you have committed against another person? He alone whose law has been broken, and who is both the fountain of justice and the executive of the law, is able to forgive offences committed. Power to forgive resides nowhere but in the great Supreme; but then, if you obtain pardon from him, it is pardon, beyond all question. If some man, like yourself, who takes upon himself to say that he has received a commission from heaven, shall absolve you, it is not worth the breath he spends in uttering the mimic absolution, or the time you waste in listening to it: but if the Lord himself, out of his excellent glory, saith, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions,” then, indeed, the pardon is divinely precious, and effectual. There is reality in divine forgiveness, it is no dream or fiction of the imagination. Whom God forgives who can condemn? This led the apostle Paul to say, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?” Deep is the peace which the Lord’s own absolution brings to the soul. If he has said to the greatest offender, “I forgive thee,” what more is wanted? What is the use of adding ceremonies and rituals, and the like, if the Lord himself has spoken? One word from the lips of Jehovah, the great forgiving God, is worth millions of masses, and billions of indulgences from the Pope himself. Our conscience demands no more than pardon from the Lord, but it will never rest satisfied with anything less. O Lord, against whom we have erred, thine own sure word of grace contents us, but without that word, spoken home to us by thy Spirit, our heart continues to condemn us, and we pine away in our sins.

Brethren, there is something about the character of God which is not always dwelt upon as it should be, which tends to make his forgiveness more full of consolation to the soul. There are many idolaters in the world besides those who worship blocks of wood and stone. There are men who would scorn to be called idolaters, who, nevertheless, are not worshippers of the true God, but votaries of a deity of their own making. They have not made him with wood, or clay, or gold, or silver, but they have fashioned him out of their own conceptions. They believe in a god such as they think God ought to be; and according to the general rule and fashion now-a-days, the god whom men invent for themselves is a being entirely devoid of justice. They say that the God of the Bible (who is the real, living, and true God, and made the heavens and the earth) is vindictive, because he severely punishes rebellion against his law; because, being at the head of all moral government, he will not suffer his law to be trampled on with impunity, and will by no means spare the guilty. The God who executes vengeance, and terribly rewards the proud doer, is not the God for men of the modern school; they want an easier deity, a far less stringent governor, a god of as easy virtue as themselves. The Lord God of Elijah will never suit the fair-spoken Ahabs of this age, who cry, “Peace, peace, where there is no peace.” He never was beloved by proud and carnally-minded men; they set up an effeminate deity of their own, who is like themselves, who cares nothing about the evil of sin, and will wink at it, and will suffer sinners to go unpunished-a god who does their bidding, for he quenches the fire of hell, or renders it only a transient punishment for a few years-a god who gives them licence to think as they like, and treat his word as a roll of cloth for them to cut according to their own fashion. The god of modern thought is not the God of the Bible, neither is he any more the true God than Baal or Ashtaroth, Jupiter or Apollo. The true God is the God who is revealed in the Scriptures, and manifested in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is known only to those to whom he reveals himself, and the rest, by their own carnal wisdom, are blinded, so that they have not seen him, neither known him. Now, I say it here, that if there were a God whose nature was nothing else but gentleness, and who, therefore, winked at sin, his pardon would never have satisfied my conscience; for when my conscience was aroused to know the evil of sin, I felt that if God did not punish me he ought. There was about my heart this feeling, that my sin ought not to go unpunished. In fact, I punished myself for my sin by the deep convictions, and fears, and tremblings of my soul; and if any one had said God blots out the sin and thinks no more of it, the assurance would have given me no peace. I should have felt that there was an injustice involved in my being pardoned, my sin would still have cried for vengeance, and therefore my conscience would have had no peace. But when I came to understand that the God of the Bible would not pass by sin without first vindicating the honour of his moral government, that he would not permit sin to be trifled with and to go unpunished, and that therefore he himself, in the person of his own Son, had suffered the penalty for my sin, then I said, this is the kind of pardon which I want, a pardon which satisfies God’s justice, and, therefore, satisfies my own instincts of right. The bearing of my sins by the Lord Jesus in his own body on the tree makes me feel perfectly content, for now God himself can bring no charge against me, since he cannot punish me for that which he laid upon his own Son. Shall he demand payment twice for one debt, or punish twice for one offence? If my sins were laid upon his Son, then is his justice abundantly satisfied, and my soul accepts the free pardon which he gives, without a fear that the strictest justice will ever pronounce my pardon null and void. Now, when God, even Jehovah, the Jehovah of this book, says, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions; I who thundered from the top of Sinai, I who drowned Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, I who smote Sennacherib with all his armies, I, the just and terrible God, who revengeth and is furious, and whose anger burns like fire against sin, I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions,” this is a glorious word indeed. “A just God and a Saviour.” “Just and yet the justifier of him that believeth.” Oh, here is a solid foundation for the heart, the conscience, the entire man to rest upon! This is pardon which weighs well in the scales of judgment, and is not mere wind; pardon which acts as balm to the wounds of conscience, and breathes life into hearts dying of despair.

So, you see, there is much in the fact that the pardon comes from God: but I have not brought it all out yet; for remember, beloved, that inasmuch as it comes from God, he alone it is who knows the full extent of sin; and there can be no pardon given for a sin which has not been recognised somewhere or other. It might be that pardon would only reach to a part of the offence, through the ignorance of the person offended, supposing him to be a fallible, finite being; and though he forgave the wrong done, as far as he knew it, yet he might soon after wake up to a fuller sense of the offence committed against him, and feel new anger at the transgressor. A king can only forgive a rebel for those acts of which he knows him to be guilty. Now the Lord knows all our sins. There is not a sin that has ever escaped his eye. Those committed in the secret chamber, in the darkness of the night, those which never struggled into action-sins of the heart and imagination, those which have never been whispered into any human ear, God has known. What doth he not see? And this is a blessed thing for us, because it causes the pardon to cover fully the whole extent of the sin. A priest once said that if we did not recollect all our sins, and confess them, they would never be forgiven. Well, then, certainly they never will be forgiven, for no man can ever recollect one thousandth part of his transgressions; but blessed be God, the pardon does not rest with our knowledge of the sin, but with God’s knowledge of the sin; and, therefore, that pardon is complete which comes from the all-seeing God. “I, even I, am he,”-the Omniscient who am everywhere present, who saw thee in the darkness, and heard thy heart in all its evil speeches against the Most High-I, the all-knowing one, “I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions.”

Oh, this unrivalled pardon, how full of consolation it is! Every attribute of God adds to its splendour; every beam of the divine glory heightens its grandeur. When we think it is our Father himself, our Father whom we have offended, who now kisses us with the kisses of his lips, and presses his penitent children to his bosom, and says, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions,” the pardon is rendered inestimably precious by the person from whom it comes.

2. Notice, next, the reason why it is given, the grounds upon which it is based, for they are profoundly comforting. “For mine own sake.” The entire motive of God for forgiving sin lies within himself: “For mine own sake.” No man has his sins forgiven because they are little, for the smallest sin will ruin the soul, and every sin is great, however little it may seem to us. Each sin has the essence of rebellion in it, and rebellion is a great evil before God. No man, therefore, will have God say to him, “I have blotted out thy sins because of the littleness of them.” Never.

Again; no man’s sin is forgiven on the ground that his repentance is meritorious. There is nothing in Scripture to warrant such an idea. Repentance precedes a sense of forgiveness in some measure, but it follows forgiveness in a larger measure, and it is not the cause, though it is the attendant, of remission. God’s motive for pardoning a sinner is not because that sinner repents, for repentance of itself is no recompense to God. There is a repentance, I think I had better call it remorse, which the lost feel in hell, but it changes not their doom; and had it not been for a Saviour we might have known the repentance which Esau felt when he went out and wept, but, nevertheless, lost the blessing-lost it irretrievably. Neither does our text tell us that God forgives men’s sins because he trusts that after they are forgiven they will do better. By his grace, forgiven men are made to do better; but it is not the foresight of any betterness on their part which leads God to the forgiveness. That cannot be a motive, for if they do better, their improvement is his work in them. Left to themselves they would do even worse after they were pardoned than they had done before, and from the mercy of God they would argue immunity to sin, as, alas! too many who hold the truth in unrighteousness have already done. No, the only motive which God has for pardoning sinners, according to the text, is one which lies within himself: “for mine own sake.”

And what, I pray you, is that motive? Brethren, the Lord knows all his motive, and it is not for us to measure it; but is it not, first, that he may indulge his mercy? Mercy is the last exercised, but the most pleasing to himself, of all his attributes; therefore, because he is full of mercy he blots out sin. He has this motive, too, which is within himself, that he may glorify his Son, who is one with himself. His Son has made an atonement, has offered and presented it, and now, in order that he may have his full reward, the Lord delights to blot out the sin of those who come to him. It is within himself that the motive lies. And what a comfort this is; for if, when looking into my soul, I cannot see any reason why God should save me, I need not look there, since the motive lies yonder, in his own gracious bosom. According to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses will he blot out my transgressions. I may look to all my past life and not discover a solitary action out of which I could make a plea for mercy; I may look to my present condition and perceive not even a glimpse of improvement, or even a ray of hope that I shall be better in the future, but rather a dreadful fear that I shall grow worse and worse; and when I have seen these discouraging facts, I have only seen what is the truth, for in itself my case is deplorable indeed; but this is my comfort-I may look right away from myself to God, yea, it is my duty to do so. O man, if God is to save you, it will not be because of anything you are or ever will be: he must do it for his own sake. And, oh, how splendidly this sets the door of mercy open! It does not stand now upon the latch, that those may enter who are little sinners; but the great gate of grace stands wide open-what if I say nailed back to the wall? For what sinner is there whom God cannot pardon, if he pardons for his own sake and not for the sinner’s sake? What if the man were black with lusts which we dare not mention? What if he were red with murder? What if every crime in the catalogue of guilt had been committed by him? Yet if God pardons, not because of anything he sees in the man, but because of what he finds in himself, it remains a possibility for God to pardon the vilest of the vile, and the truth revealed in the Bible makes it certain that God will forgive such if they turn unto him, confess their transgressions, believe in his dear Son, and so pass from death unto life. How blessed, then, it is to look not only at the God who gives the pardon, but at the reason why he gives it-for his own sake!

3. And now, thirdly, it is noteworthy in this glorious text how complete and universal the pardon is. He does not say, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out some of thy transgressions, and will not remember a certain number of thy sins.” No, the Lord makes a clean sweep of the whole dreadful heap of our sins. They are all driven away at once by one stroke of almighty mercy. The text includes all the sins which the Lord had mentioned before-their buying him no sweet cane with money-their refusing to attend to his sacrifices. Our sins of omission are all gone. Beloved friends, can any of us number our sins of omission? Those are the sins which ruin men. At the last great day the Judge will say, “I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; sick, and ye visited me not.” Those on the left hand were not condemned for what they did do, but for what they did not do; and the things which we have not done-the things which we have left undone which we ought to have done-these are the majority of our sins. Who shall count them? They outnumber the sands of the ocean. Yet the divine pardon cleanses us from them all. Nor spot nor wrinkle remains.

And then he mentions actual sins. He says, “Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins;” but he declares that he blots them out, transgressions and sins, both forms of evil. They are both gone, all gone, wholly gone.

Now, I know not what particular sins may have been committed by the members of this congregation. Suppose we were to begin at yonder aisle, and each one had to stand up and acknowledge his sins; well, it would take much time, and we should have sinned a great deal more before we had come to the end of the confession. What a pile of sin there would be on this threshing-floor, if every man were compelled to bring his own mass of sin, and pour it out upon the common heap. Yet the Lord does not set bound or measure, but saith, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions, and will not remember thy sins.” All the believer’s sins are gone: and all are gone at once.

And this is the very joy and glory of gospel absolution. The believer knows that his sins are not in the process of being pardoned, but are actually pardoned at this moment. No remnant of our sins remains to be dealt with in the future, the whole mass is put away. However black the guilt, however aggravated the criminality, however repeated the crime, however heinous because committed against light, however enormous because perpetuated despite the Holy Spirit-they are all for ever made an end of, annihilated, and for ever gone, when we believe in Jesus. Sins against God’s law and word and day, sins against Christ’s blood, sins against his love, sins against his person, sins against his crown, sins against himself in all his characters-an infinite variety of sins-they all vanish before that gracious declaration, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions.”

Once more upon this point. The pardon is noteworthy on account of its being most effectual. It is described as blotting out. Now, blotting out is a very thorough way of settling a thing. If an account has been standing in the ledger a long time, and the pen is drawn through it, it remains no longer. Whether it is a large account or a small one, the same stroke of the pen will do it. If you owed a creditor a thousand pounds, and another owed him only ten, the word “paid” takes as many strokes of the pen to write for the one account as for the other, and it is just as easily done if the creditor be satisfied. Whatever sin there may have been in God’s people, when they come before him he writes “Acquitted” at the bottom of the handwriting which was against them, and its condemning power is gone. What a joy it is to see the long catalogue of my sins blotted by the bleeding hand of Jesus, so that it cannot be read in the court of heavenly justice! What bliss to see it nailed to the cross of the dying Saviour! Heavy as my soul’s debts were, I doubt no longer, now that I see the grim reckoning fastened to the bloody tree.

And then mark the wonderful expression, “I will not remember thy sins.” Can God forget? Forgetting with God cannot be an infirmity as it is with us. We forget because our memory fails, but God forgets in the blessed sense that he remembers rather the merit of his Son than our sins. Indeed, God forgets sin in the sense of remembering that it is forgiven. I think it was Augustine who had been once a great sinner, and after he was converted he was met in the street by one with whom he had often fallen into sin, and when she spoke to him and said, “Augustine, it is I,” he said, “Ah, but it is not I, I am dead, and made alive again.” Now, when God’s justice meets a man who believes in Jesus, that man is no longer the I that sinned, for that I is dead in Christ. “Know ye not that we were crucified with him?” The believer was buried with Christ, so that, as he that is dead is free from the law which condemned him-for how shall the law arrest a dead man?-so we, being dead in Christ and risen again in him, are new creatures, and do not come under the divine sentence, and God knows us not as sinners, but only now knows us as new creatures in Christ Jesus. He knows and recognises in us the new life, having “begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” That is one of the instructive features of the ordinance of baptism. The believer there sets forth the doctrine of salvation by death and burial. That was Noah’s salvation. He went into the ark as one dead to the world, he was buried in the ark, and then he floated out from the old world into the new. “The like figure,” saith Peter, “whereunto baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” That is to say, baptism is a like figure of salvation, for it sets forth in a figure, and only in a figure, our death with Christ, our burial with Christ, our resurrection with Christ. Therefore where there is true faith, and the soul has communion with Christ, we are buried with him in baptism unto death, “that like as Jesus rose from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also may rise to newness of life.” Death has passed upon us, “for we thus judge,” says the apostle, “that if one died for all, then all died”-(for such is the literal Greek); “and that he died for all, that they which live should not live henceforth unto themselves, but unto him that died for them and rose again.” Well, then, beloved, if we are dead, I do not wonder that God says he does not remember our sins, for we are new creatures; we have passed from death to life. We have come into a new life, and God looks upon us from a new point of view, and regards us under a new aspect as members not of the first Adam condemned and dead, but of the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, the living and the quickening Spirit. Well may he say to men who are new creatures, “I will not remember your sins.”

Every word of the text is delightful, and I cannot attempt to go into the fulness of it. May the Lord lead each one of you into it, and especially you young people. As for those who are not converted,-oh, that they would long for the precious things here set forth! May God speak to some who came in here black sinners, and say to them, “For mine own sake I forgive you.” Oh, how you will leap for joy! What a thrill will go through your heart! You will not doubt the existence of God any more, I will warrant you. You will have no more questions and cavils. The Spirit of God will speak to your heart, and that will convince you though nothing else will, and you will go away to glorify the grace you once despised.

Now I come to the consideration of the second point very briefly-the effect of this pardon wherever it comes with power to the soul.

Timid persons have thought that the free pardon of sin would lead men to indulge in it. No doubt some are base enough to pervert it to that use, but there was never a soul that did really receive pardon from God who could find in that pardon any excuse for sin or any licence to continue longer in it; for all God’s people argue thus:-“Shall we sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?” And again, the apostle says, “Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? God forbid!” He utters a most solemn disclaimer against the idea that the amazing mercy of God can lead the regenerate into sin.

The first effect of pardon upon the man who receives it is surprise. The man has been lying at the foot of the cross looking for mercy, on a sudden he glances his eye at the bleeding Saviour, and he is forgiven, and he feels something like Peter when he was brought out of prison. “He wist not that it was true that was done unto him by the angel, but thought he saw a vision.”

“When God revealed his gracious name,

And changed our mournful state,

Our rapture seemed a pleasing dream;

The grace appeared too great.”

I recollect how overjoyed I was when I received pardon. I did not know how to contain myself for delight; but after a while this thought assailed me-such great mercy is too good to be true. My surprise at it staggered me. How could it be that I was actually forgiven, and through the blood of Jesus made clean in the sight of God? The goodness of God astounded me. It reminds me of an illustration I have used before, but it is a good one. If you have a dog at the table, and you throw him a scrap of meat, he swallows it directly; but if you were to set the whole joint down on the floor before him, he would turn away. He would feel that you could not mean to give a fine joint of meat to a dog. He would not think of touching it: at least, few dogs would. And it seemed to me as if the Lord could not have meant all the wonders of his love for such a dog as I was. I was ready to turn away from it through the greatness of it. But then I recollected that it would not do for God to be giving little mercy. He was too great a God to spend all his power in pardoning little sinners and granting little favours; and I came back to this-that if his grace was not too big for him to give, I would not be such a fool as to refuse it because of its greatness. You remember how Alexander told a soldier that he might have whatever he asked; the man went to the royal treasury and demanded such a vast sum, that the officer refused to let him have it, and said to him, “How can you be such an unconscionable fellow as to ask for so much?” When Alexander heard of it he said, “It is much for him to receive, but it is not too much for Alexander to give: he has a high opinion of my greatness. Let him have what he has asked for. I will not fall short of his expectations.” God is a great God, and to forgive great sins is just like him. We cannot forgive at this rate, but God can; to forgive great sin, tremendous sin, unspeakably black sin, adds to his glory and makes men say, “Who is a God like unto thee, passing by iniquity, transgression, and sin?”

At first, then, mercy fills us with surprise, the next thing it does is to fill us with holy regret. We feel, “What, and is this the God I have been standing out against so long? Is this the God whom I have despised or neglected, whose gospel I put away from me, saying that there was time enough for me to attend to it when I grew old, and had seen a little of life? Is this the God whom I have been slighting, who has loved me at this rate, and given his dear Son from his own right hand to bleed and suffer in my stead?” It has been said-I think by Aristotle-that a person cannot know that he is loved without feeling some degree of love in return. I am quite certain that you cannot know in your soul, by the experience of pardon, that God loves you, without feeling at once, “I am ashamed that I did not love my gracious God. I am disgusted with myself that I could have acted in such a disgraceful way towards him. Did he love me before the world began? Did he write my name in the roll of his electing love? Did he ordain me to a crown of life and to a harp of gold? Did he predestinate me to be conformed to the image of his Son, and when the Saviour bled, did he think of me as he was dying, and did he specially lay down life for me; and am I one whom he hath betrothed unto himself for ever in faithfulness and love and mercy; and yet have I been foolish enough to live all this while a stranger and an enemy to him?” When a sense of dying love comes mightily into the heart, we feel that we cannot be enough revenged upon our cruel hearts for having treated so ill such a generous, such a forgiving God.

As this sense of pardon first breeds surprise, and then intense regret, it next creates in us fervent love. “We love him because he first loved us,” and we love him best of all for having pardoned us. No one loves God so much as the man or woman who has had much forgiven. Scripture tells us this in the case of the woman who was a sinner: she alone washed the Saviour’s feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Commonplace Christians have never experienced any deep sense of sin, and consequently Christ is a very commonplace Saviour to them. Ah, but when a man feels that he is a black sinner, and that he should have been in hell, and in the hottest part of it, if it had not been for sovereign grace, I tell you, sir, if the Lord lifts that man up out of the pit, and gives him a place amongst his servants, that is the man who will feel the water in his eyes when he talks about the Saviour’s grace. That man cannot speak about redeeming grace and dying love without feeling that there is charming music in those precious words, and the best of all music in their precious sense. The viler the sinner the more love has he to the Lord when he is forgiven. As he feels his sin, so he loves his Redeemer. “The burnt child dreads the fire,” but I will tell you the child that dreads the fire most: if there could be a child which had burnt itself in the fire, and then all its sores and blisters were taken off it and laid upon its mother, and that child saw its mother’s face all scarred and marred with the burning, and saw her body in pain on her dear one’s account, I am sure the child would hate all idea of playing with fire as long as it lived. Many suffer for sin in their own persons, but do not hate it. They will go back to the very sin which injured them, as moths fly again to the candle. But to see another suffering for my fault-such a one as Emmanuel, God with us-to see his hands fastened to the wood, and his feet pierced, and his heart gashed, and all his life flowing out in blood, and himself bearing agonies unutterable for my sins, it makes me feel that the very name of sin is accursed, and I abhor it utterly. We would, if we could, be perfect. We long, and sigh, and cry to be delivered from everything that has one murderous spot of the Saviour’s blood upon it. If yonder knife had killed your friend, would you hoard it up and think a great deal of the deadly instrument? You hurl it out of your sight as an accursed thing. Yet sin slew Jesus! Sin slew Jesus! Away with it, then! Away with it! Away with it! My precious Christ was murdered by sin! Henceforth I am dead to sin! This is the spirit which free grace breeds in every Christian; and the more sure he is of his pardon, the more intensely he hates his sin. Hence our gospel is a reforming gospel, a sanctifying gospel. It is a gospel that delivers men from the power of sin, and brings them through the power of love into the blessed liberty of the children of God.

In closing, I would say to every unconverted person, here is your state before God in this picture. Many years ago in Russia a regiment of troops mutinied. They were at some distance from the capital, and were so furious that they murdered their officers, and resolved never to submit to discipline; but the emperor, who was an exceedingly wise and sagacious man, no sooner heard of it than, all alone and unattended, he went into the barracks when the men were drawn up, and, addressing them sternly, he said to them, “Soldiers, you have committed such offences against the law that every one of you deserves to be put to death. There is no hope of any mercy for one of you unless you lay down your arms immediately, and surrender at discretion to me, your emperor.” And they did it there and then, though the heads of their officers were lying at their feet. They threw down their arms and surrendered, and he said at once, “Men, I pardon you; you will be the bravest troops I ever had.” And they were, too. That is just what God says to the sinner: “Now, sinner, you have done that which deserves my wrath. Down with your weapons of rebellion! Ground arms at once. I will not talk with you until you submit at discretion to my sovereign authority.” And then he says, “Believe in my Son; trust him; accept him as your Saviour. This done, you are forgiven, and henceforth you will be the most loving creatures that my hands have made. You will love me better than the angels, for, though they never sinned, they never had a God to become incarnate, and to bleed and die for them: you know what sin is, and will hate it; and you know what goodness is, for you have seen it in my Son, and henceforth you will strive to be like him, and amongst the sweetest notes that shall come up to my throne will be your grateful songs.”

“Blessings for ever on the Lamb,

Who bore the curse for wretched men!

Let angels sound his sacred name,

And every creature say ‘Amen!’ ”

None will more loudly sing the praises of God than those who have been washed in the precious blood, and have had their transgressions blotted out.

The Lord bless you, and give every one of you to know and taste all this, and that, too, at this very hour, if it be his will, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

Portion of Scripture Read before Sermon-Is. 43:22-28, 44:1-22.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-600, 598, 566.

Mr. Spurgeon’s two Penny Almanacks are both now ready. The usual Illustrated Text Almanack should be largely circulated. The other, “John Ploughman’s Almanack,” is a sheet for cottage walls. Order of Passmore and Alabaster, 4, Paternoster Buildings.