Assuredly Isaiah was one of the most eloquent of preachers, and yet he could not win the ears and hearts of those to whom he spoke, for it is written, “they would not hear.” Beyond all question he was thoroughly evangelical; for, as Dr. Watts truly says, he spoke more of Jesus Christ than all the rest of the prophets, and yet the message of love was treated as though it were an idle tale. His doctrine was clear as the daylight, and yet men would not see it, so that he had to ask with sorrow, “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” It was not the fault of the preacher that Israel rejected his warnings: all the fault lay with that disobedient and gainsaying nation. The people to whom he spoke so earnestly were drunken in a double sense. They were overcome with wine, and so general was this vice that Isaiah says, “But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.” What can be conceived of more potent to blunt the point of gospel truth than intoxication or excess? When a man is given to wine how can the Spirit of God dwell in him? How is it likely that the truth shall enter an ear which has been rendered deaf by this degrading vice? How is the word of God likely to operate upon a conscience that has been drenched and drowned by strong drink? I charge you, if any of you are given to drunkenness, flee from this destroyer before your bands are made strong and you are hopelessly fettered by the habit. It is small wonder that the preacher is defeated if his ardent zeal has to compete with ardent spirits. When Bacchus rolls the wine-cask against the door it is hard to force an entrance, even though we demand it in the name of King Jesus. Men are in an ill state for hearing when the barrel and the bottle are their idols. It is not at all marvellous that the gospel should be neglected by men who have put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their brains.

The people to whom Isaiah spoke were also drunken in another sense, namely, intoxicated with pride. Their country was fruitful, and its chief city, Samaria, stood on the hill top, like a diadem of beauty crowning the land, and they delighted in the glorious beauty which is on the head of the fat valley. They themselves were brave, and among them were many champions whose strength sufficed to turn the battle to the gate, therefore they hoped to resist every invader, and so their hearts were lifted up. Moreover, they said-“We are an intelligent people; we want no teaching, or if indeed we endure instruction it must be of a high class; we are men of cultured intellect, instructed scribes, and we do not need persons like Isaiah to weary us with their ding-dong of ‘precept upon precept, line upon line,’ as if we were mere children at school. Besides, we are good enough. Do we not worship our God under the form of the golden calves of Belial? Do we not respect the sacrifices and the holy days?” So spoke the more religious of them, while the rest gloried in their shame. Being intoxicated with pride it was not likely that they would hear the message of the prophet, who bade them turn from their evil ways. Even so he that is righteous in his own esteem is never likely to accept the righteousness of Christ. He who boasts that he can see will never ask to have his eyes opened. He who claims that he was born free, and was never in bondage unto any man, is not likely to accept the liberty of Christ. Pride is the devil’s drag-net in which he taketh more fishes than in any other, except procrastination. The destruction of those who are proud is certain; for who can help the man that refuses to be helped, and where is the likelihood that there shall be either repentance of his sin or faith in Christ in the man who does not know that he has sinned, and who believes that if he has done so he can easily wipe out the stain?

The two forms of drunkenness are equally destructive, and I beg to call your attention to this fact. Whether body or soul be intoxicated mischief will surely come of it. Many are pleased if I speak against drunkenness of the body, and I feel bound to speak as earnestly as I possibly can, for it is a monster evil; but I beseech you who are sober, and perhaps total abstainers, to dread the other intoxication; for if any one of us should be intoxicated with pride on account of our own sobriety it will be ruinous to our souls. What if we are temperate and self-denying, there is nothing in this whereof to glory; we ought to be greatly ashamed of ourselves if we were not so. Let us not get drunk with pride because we are not drunkards; for if we are so vain and foolish, we shall as certainly perish by pride as we should have done by drink. I am indeed rejoiced when a man gives up his cups; but I am far more happy when at the same time he renounces his self-confidence; for, if not, he may still remain so besotted as to refuse the gospel and perish by his own wilful rejection of mercy. May the Holy Spirit deliver us all from such a sad condition. I confess I feel encouraged this morning by Isaiah’s want of success. When he says, “They would not hear,” I comfort myself concerning those who pay no heed to my exhortations; perhaps it is no more my fault than it was Isaiah’s. At any rate, if Isaiah still went on speaking even when he cried, “Who hath believed our report?” much more may I, who am so much inferior to him, be willing to persevere in telling out my Master’s message as long as my tongue will move. Peradventure God may grant repentance to the obstinate, and ears may yet be unstopped, and hearts may yet be softened; therefore, let us try again, and once more publish the glad tidings of peace. If the blessed Spirit be with us we shall not give the gospel call in vain, but men will fly to Jesus as doves to their windows.

First, I wish to speak this morning upon the excellence of the gospel; secondly, upon the objections taken to it; and thirdly, upon the Divine requital of these objections.

Let us consider the excellence of the gospel as it is set forth in the passage before us. This Scripture does not allude to the gospel primarily, but to the message which Isaiah had to deliver, which was in part the command of the law and in part the promise of grace: but the same rule holds good of all the words of the Lord; and indeed any excellence which was found in the prophet’s message is found yet more abundantly in the fuller testimony of the gospel in Christ Jesus.

Using the passage for ourselves, and referring it to the gospel ministry in this day, the excellence of that gospel lies, first, in its object; it is excellent in its design, for it is a revelation of rest. We, as Christ’s ambassadors, are sent to proclaim to you that which shall give you ease, peace, quiet, rest. It is true we have to begin with certain truths that disturb and distress; but our object is to dig out the foundation into which may be laid the stones of restfulness. The message of the gospel which fell from the mouth of its own author is this-“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Over Bethlehem the angels sang “Peace on earth, good will toward men.” The object of the gospel is not to make men anxious, but to calm their anxieties; not to fill them with endless controversy, but to lead them into all truth. The gospel gives rest of conscience by the complete forgiveness of sin through the atoning blood of Christ; rest of heart by supplying an object for the affections worthy of their love; and rest of intellect by teaching it certainties which can be accepted without question. Our message does not consist of things guessed at by wit, nor evolved out of man’s inner consciousness by study, nor developed by argument through human reason; but it treats of revealed certainties, absolutely and infallibly true, upon which the understanding may rest itself as thoroughly as a building rests upon a foundation of rock. The word of the Lord comes to give believing men rest about the present by telling them that God ordereth all things for their good; and as for the future it brightens all coming time and eternity with promises. It rolls away the stone from the door of the sepulchre, annihilates destruction, and reveals resurrection, immortality, and eternal life through Jesus Christ, the Saviour. The man who will hear the gospel message, and receive it into his soul, shall know the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, which shall keep his heart and mind by Jesus Christ. The believer of this gospel shall not make haste by reason of affright; he shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end. It is true that after being a believer he may at times be disturbed in mind; yet this shall not be the result of the gospel, but of that in him which the gospel promises to remove. He shall have rest in Christ, even “quietness and assurance for ever.” It is written “for this man shall be the peace.” “Being justified by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This message, which Isaiah had to deliver, saying, “This is the rest and this is the refreshing,” is the glad tidings which we are taught to deliver in still plainer words, saying to you that in Christ Jesus, in the atoning sacrifice, in the great plan of grace through the Mediator, there is rest for the weary, sweet rest for burdened souls, rest for you if you come and cast yourself at the feet of the blessed Saviour. Our authorized message from the Lord God is a revelation of rest. The Lord hath promised to obedient minds that they shall dwell in quiet resting-places.

More than that, it is the cause of rest-“This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest.” The gospel of our salvation is not only a command to rest, but it brings the gift of rest within itself. Our Lord saith, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Let the gospel be admitted into the heart and it will create a profound calm, hushing all the tumult and strife of conscience, removing all apprehensions of divine wrath, stilling all rebellion against the supreme will, and so working in the spirit by the energy of the Holy Ghost a deep and blessed peace. Oh that we may know and possess this peace of God. The gospel, then, is a message which speaks of peace, and also creates peace. He who sends it is “the Lord and giver of peace,” and his effectual power goes with the message where it is faithfully delivered and honestly accepted, creating peace within the secret chambers of the soul.

This rest is especially meant for the weary. “This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest.” If you have been trying to find peace for years and cannot meet with it, here is the goodly pearl you have been seeking after; if you have been labouring and toiling to keep the law and have failed, here is more than the righteousness that your conscience has been craving. In Jesus crucified you will find all things, for “he is made of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption!” Oh ye that are weary with the round of worldly pleasure, satiated, nauseated with the vanities and delusions of the carnal mind, come hither and find true joy. O ye that are worn with ambition, fretted with disappointment, embittered by the faithlessness of those you trusted in, come and confide in Jesus and be at rest. Weary, weary, weary ones, here is the rest, here is the refreshing. Jesus expressly puts it, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” If your backs are breaking, if your hearts are breaking, if your eyes are failing through weary watching and waiting, come to the Saviour just as you are, for he will be your rest. Despondent and despairing, condemned, and in your own conscience cast out to the gates of hell, yet look to Jesus and rest shall be yours. You cannot be too far gone for the Mighty Redeemer; you cannot be too lost for the Saviour to find; too black for his blood to cleanse; too dead for the Spirit to quicken. This is the rest wherewith he maketh the weary to rest. Oh, it is a blessed, blessed message that God has sent to the sons of men. How is it that they refuse it?

In addition to bringing us rest, the message of mercy points us to a refreshing: “This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing.” If the rested one should grow weary again, the good Shepherd will give him refreshing; if he wanders, the Lord will restore him; if he grows faint, he will revive him; yea, he has begun his gracious work of renewing, and he will continue it by renewing the heart from day to day, blending the will with his own, and making the whole man more and more to rejoice in him. I know there are some of God’s people here who are faint and thirsty. You are specially invited, as well as those who never came before, for if this is the rest for the weary this also is the refreshing for the fainting; and if the sinner may come and find peace in Christ, much more may you, who though you have wandered from him like lost sheep, have not forgotten his commandments. Come, ye desponding ones, come back to Jesus, for this is the rest and this is the refreshing.

Now note with peculiar joy that Isaiah did not come to these people to talk about rest in dubious terms, and say, “There is no doubt a rest to be found somewhere in that goodness of God of which it is reasonable to conjecture.” No; he puts his finger right down on the truth, and he says, “This is the rest, and this is the refreshing.” Even so we at this day, when we come to you with a message from God, come with definite teaching, laying our hand upon the slaughtered Lamb of God we cry, “This is the rest and this is the refreshing.” We speak of substitution, of Christ’s dying in the sinner’s stead, of vicarious sacrifice, of Christ’s being numbered with the transgressors, and of our sin laid upon our Surety and borne by him, and put away from us by him, so as never to be mentioned against us any more for ever; and we proclaim in the name of God that whosoever believeth in Christ Jesus hath everlasting life: this is the rest, and this is the refreshing. It was said of a certain preacher of the modern school that he taught that our Lord Jesus Christ did something or other which in some way or other was connected with the pardon of sin: this is the preaching of a great number of our intellectual divines; but we have not so learned Christ, neither is this the doctrine by which we have obtained rest to our souls. God has revealed fixed and positive truth, and it is ours to state it clearly and without hesitation. Our cry is, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”: this is the rest and this is the refreshing. Something definite, something positive Isaiah had to preach to the people, and yet they would not hear; perhaps if he had prophesied conjectures and dreams they would have listened.

Nor did he preach a rest of a selfish character. They say we teach men to get peace and rest for themselves, and make themselves comfortable, whatever becomes of others. How these men lie in their throats: they know better, and they forge these falsehoods because their heart is false. Are we not always bidding men look out from themselves, and love others even as Christ has loved them? Our words and acts for the good of others prove that we do not delight in selfishness. We abhor the idea that personal safety is the consummation of a religious man’s desires, for we believe that the life of grace is the death of selfishness. This is one of the glories of the gospel, that “this is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest.” Get rest yourself and you will soon cause other weary minds to rest. As soon as you have learned the divine secret it will become in your hands a blessed charm with which you, too, by God’s grace may become givers of rest. With this lamp you may enlighten all that are in the dark as God shall help you. That secret something which your own heart possesses shall enable you to communicate good cheer to many a weary heart, and hope to many a desponding mind. “This is the rest wherewith ye shall cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing.” But this is true of the gospel, and of that only. If you get away from Jesus Christ, and his atonement, and God’s great plan of grace, you can cause no rest to others, yea, there is none for yourselves. This, then, is the excellency of the gospel, that it propounds to men a blessed rest.

The other excellency of the gospel, of which I shall speak at this time, lies in its manner.

First, I count it a great excellency of the gospel that it comes with authority. Read the ninth verse. Even the cavillers acknowledged its authority, for they called the prophet’s message “knowledge” and “doctrine.” The gospel does not pretend to be a speculative scheme or a theory of philosophy which will suit the nineteenth century but will be exploded in the twentieth. No; we speak what we do know, not what we dream nor imagine, but what we know. If, my brethren, the gospel of Jesus Christ be not a fact I dare not ask you to believe it, but if it be a fact it is not my “opinion,” not “my views,” as men are always saying; it is the great fact of time and of eternity which is and must be true for ever. Christ stood in the stead of men, and has become God’s salvation for the sons of men; this is the witness of God. We do not make guesses, we utter knowledge. The word, which is in this place translated “doctrine,” is in the Hebrew “message,” and it is the same which is used in the passage, “Who hath believed our report?” which should better run, “Who hath believed our message?” The gospel comes to men as a message from God, and he that speaks it aright does not speak it as a thinker uttering his own thoughts; but he utters what he has learned, and acts as God’s tongue, repeating what he finds in God’s word by the power of God’s Spirit. The gospel that I have thought out may not be half as good as one which you have thought out, and your cogitation and mine, and all the rest of the produce of thinkers put together, may only be fit to make a fire and a smoke in the garden with the rest of the weeds. But if we receive and accept a message direct from God, then this is its main excellence. I pray you delight in the gospel because it comes from God to us, and tells us unmixed truth with absolute certainty. If we believe it we shall be saved, and he that believeth not well deserves the damnation which is pronounced against him. There is no hope nor help for it: this is the inevitable alternative-believe the gospel and live, refuse it and be destroyed.

Another excellence of the gospel as to its manner was that it was delivered with great simplicity. Isaiah came with it “Precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.” It is the glory of the gospel that it is so plain. If it were so mysterious that nobody could understand it but doctors of divinity,-I do not know how many there may be here this morning, I do not suppose above a dozen or so,-what a sorry case the rest of us would be in. If it was so profound that we must take a degree at a university before we could comprehend it, what a miserable gospel it would be for mocking the world with; but it is divinely sublime in its simplicity, and hence the common people hear it gladly. As the verse seems to imply, it is fitted for those who are weaned from the breast, those who are little more than babes may yet drink in this unadulterated milk of the word. Many a little child has comprehended the salvation of Jesus Christ sufficiently to rejoice in it, and there are those in heaven not much above two or three years of age, who, ere they went there, bore good witness for Christ to those who loved them and marvelled at their words. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has God ordained strength. Christianity has been called the religion of children, and its founder said that none could receive it except as a little child. I bless God for a simple gospel, for it suits me, and thousands of others whose minds cannot boast of greatness or genius. It equally suits men of intellect, and it is only quarrelled with by pretenders. The man who lacks breadth of mind and depth of thought, is the man to cavil at the wisdom of God. An affected creature who is little above an idiot will brush his hair backwards, put on his spectacles, wrinkle his brows, and amend the infallible Word; but a man who really has a capacious mind is usually childlike, and, like Sir Isaac Newton, is glad to sit at Jesus’ feet. Great minds love the simple gospel of God, for they find rest in it from all the worry and the weariness of questions and of doubts.

It is an excellent thing that the gospel is taught us by degrees. It is not forced home upon men’s minds all at once, but it comes thus, “Precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.” God does not flash the everlasting daylight on weak eyes in one blaze of glory, but there is at first a dim dawn, and the soft incoming of a tender light for tender eyes, and so by degrees we see.

The gospel is repeated: if we do not see it at once it comes again to us, for it is “precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.” From morning to morning, from Sunday to Sunday, by book after book, by text after text, by spiritual impression after spiritual impression, the divine gentleness makes us wise unto salvation. This is a grand excellence of the gospel method.

It is brought down to us and brought home to us in ways suitable to our capacity. It is told to us, as it were, with stammering lips (see verse 11), just as mothers teach their little children in a language all their own. I should not like to speak from the pulpit as mothers talk to their babes; yet they use the best language for the baby, the very words for a little child to understand. Even so in much of the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, we see how God condescends to lay aside his own speech and talk the language of men. I know not with what language the Father converses with his Son, but to us he speaks after our own fashion. “As the heavens are high above the earth, so are his thoughts above our thoughts”; but he bows to us and tells us his mind in types and ordinances, which are a sort of child language fitted for our capacity. In the gospel of John,-what child language, what depth! what love! If you, my hearer, do not understand the word of God it is not because he does not put the word plainly, but because of the blindness of your hearts and the besotted condition of your spirit. Take heed that you are not drunken with the wine of pride, but be willing to learn, for God himself hath not darkened counsel by mysterious words, but he has put his mind before you as plainly as the sun in the heavens. “Precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.”

Alas, my time is nearly gone, and I need much more space in which to do justice to my subject. I have now, in the second place, to notice the objections which are taken to the gospel.

First, let me say that they are most wanton. For men to object to the gospel is a piece of wanton foolishness, because they object to that which promises them rest. Above all the things in the world this is what our troubled spirits need: rest is our heart’s craving: and the gospel comes and says, “I will give you rest.” And do men reject that blessing? This is lamentable indeed! What, were you ill and did you insult the only physician that could cure you? Why were you so foolish? What, were you in debt, and did you actually refuse help from a generous friend who would have given you all you wanted? “No,” say you, “we are not so foolish.” But oh, the intense folly, the desperate insanity of men, that when the gospel sets rest before them they will not hear it, but turn upon their heel. There is no system of doctrine under heaven that can give quiet to the conscience of men, quiet that is worth having, except the gospel; and there are thousands of us who bear witness that we live in the daily enjoyment of peace through believing in Jesus, and yet our honest report is not believed, nay, they will not hear the truth. Now, if God came demanding something of you I could understand your refusing. I have heard of a poor woman who locked her door, and when she heard a rap did not answer it, behaving as though she was not at home. Her minister saw her a day or two after he had called, and he said, “I called to see you the other day; I wanted to give you help, for I knew that you were very poor; but no one answered to my knocking.” “Oh,” she said, “I am very sorry, but I thought it was the landlord calling for the rent.” She shut out her benefactor through mistaking him for her creditor. The Lord is not calling in the gospel for that which is due to him, nor asking anything of you, but he approaches you with perfect rest in his hand, the very thing you want, and yet you shut the door of your heart against him. O do not so. Be wise, and play not the fool any longer. May God help you to be wise for your own eternal good. Admit your God with all his heavenly gifts.

Next, objections against the gospel are wilful, even as it is here said, “This is the refreshing, yet they would not hear.” When men say that they cannot believe the gospel, ask them whether they will patiently hear it in all its simplicity. No, they say, they do not want to hear it. The gospel is so difficult to believe, so they say. Will they come and hear it preached in its fulness? Will they read the gospels for themselves carefully? Oh, no, they cannot take the trouble. Just so. But a man who does not want to be convinced, must not blame anybody if he remains in error. He that will not hear what the gospel has to say need not wonder that objections swarm in his mind. The gospel asks of men a fair hearing; the Lord says, “Incline your ear and come unto me; hear and your soul shall live,” for “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God;” how sad that they will not even hear God’s message of love. It is a wilful objection to the gospel, then, when men refuse even to hear what the gospel has to say, or if they hear it with the outward ear, but will not give hearty attention to its truths.

Such objections are wicked, because they are rebellion against God, and an insult to his truth and mercy. If this gospel be of God, I am bound to receive it: I have no right to cavil at it, nor raise questions, philosophical or otherwise. It is mine just to say, “Does God say this and that? Then it is true, and I yield to it.” Does the Lord thus set before me a way of salvation? I will run in it with delight.

But these people raised objections that were the outgrowth of their pride. They objected to the simplicity of Isaiah’s preaching. They said, “Who is he? You should not go to hear him: he talks to us as if we were children. Go to hear the learned Rabbi over the way, who is so refined and cultured. As for this man, he is not fit to teach any but those who are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts; for with him it is ‘precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.’ He is so very homely that his sermons may suit for servant girls and old women, and so on, but they are not to be endured by intellectual people. Besides, it is the same thing over and over again. You may go when you like, he is always harping on the same string.” They say this very savagely, too, for as old Trapp says, “The duller the brains the sharper the teeth with which to rend the preacher.” Have you not heard folks say in these days concerning a true gospel preacher that he is always preaching about sovereign grace or the blood of Christ, or crying out, “Believe, believe and you shall be saved”? They sneer and say, “It is the old ditty over and over again.” I am not a Hebrew scholar, but those who are so tell us that the passage translated “precept upon precept, line upon line,” was uttered in ridicule, and sounded like a ding dong rhyme with which they mocked Isaiah. You would smile if I read you the Hebrew according to the sound with which, in all probability, it was pronounced. They said, “This is the way Isaiah preaches; ‘Tzav latzav, tzav latzav; kav lakav, kav lakav: zeeir sham, zeeir sham.’ ” The words were intended to caricature the preacher, though they do not suggest the idea when translated,-“precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line,” they do suggest it readily enough in the Hebrew. There are people now living who, when the gospel is plainly and simply preached, exclaim “We want progressive thought, we want”-they do not quite know what they do want. They are something like the congregation who, when a certain Bishop of London was preaching to them, were utterly inattentive, whereupon the good man took up his Hebrew Bible and read them five or six verses in the Hebrew tongue, and at once they were all awake. Then he rebuked them by saying, “Verily, I perceive that when I preach you good doctrine you do not care about it, but when I read to you in a tongue which you do not comprehend, straightway you open your ears.” An affectation of special refinement is supported by listening to talk which is incomprehensible. Too many wish for a map to heaven so mysteriously drawn that they may be excused from following it. Multitudes delight in prayers in the Latin tongue, and others prefer them in no tongue at all, but intoned through the nose. Music and milinery, processions and pomposities are preferred by thousands because they prefer sensuous enjoyment to spiritual instruction. We know those who prefer the gospel shrouded in a mist; they love to see the wisdom of man shut out the wisdom of God. This was the style of objection current in Isaiah’s day, and it is fashionable still. Did I hear anyone remark-“Why you, yourself, preach nothing but faith, atonement, free grace, and so on. We want novelties, and will go elsewhere for them”? So you may if you like; I shall not change my note while God preserves me.

The third point will be a warning to those who have no relish for the truth of God: let us consider the divine requital of these objectors. The Lord threatens them, first, with the loss of that which they despised. He has sent them a message of rest and they will not have it, and therefore, in the twentieth verse, he warns them that they shall have no rest henceforth: “For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.” All those who wilfully reject the gospel, and take up with philosophies and speculations, will be rewarded with inward discontent. Ask them, “Have you found rest?” “Oh, no,” say they, “we are further off than ever.” “But you hoped that if you listened to this philosophical doctrine you would then be happy.” They reply, “Oh, no, we are seeking still.” Ask the preachers of that kind of doctrine whether they themselves have found an anchorage, and as a rule they will answer, “No, no, we are in pursuit of truth; we are hunting after it, but we have not reached it yet.” They are never likely to reach it, for they are on the wrong track. The gospel was made to rest conscience, soul, heart, will, memory, hope, fear, yea, the entire man, but when men laugh at all fixity of belief how can they be rested? Dear friend, if you have not found rest you have not yet grasped the entire gospel; and you have need to go back to the fundamental principle of faith in Jesus, for this is the rest, and this is the refreshing. This is the condemnation of the unbeliever, that he shall never find a settlement, but like the wandering Jew shall roam for ever. Leave the cross and you have left the hinge of all things and neglected the one sure corner stone and fixed foundation, and henceforth you shall be as a rolling thing before the whirlwind. “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked:” “The wicked is like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.”

Furthermore the Lord threatens them that they shall be punished by a gradual hardening of heart. Read the thirteenth verse. They said that Isaiah’s message was “precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little,” and justice answers them, “Even so it shall be to you, a thing despised and ridiculed, so that you will go further away from it; you will fall backward and be broken, and snared and taken.” See verse thirteen. A fall backward is the worst kind of fall. If a man falls forward he may somewhat save himself and rise again, but if he falls backward he falls with all his weight, and is helpless. Those who stumble at Christ, the sure foundation stone, shall be broken. When opposers hope to retrieve their position they find themselves snared by their habits, entangled in the net of the great fowler, and taken by the destroyer. This downward course is followed full often by those who begin cavilling at a simple gospel: they cavil more and more, and become its open enemies to their eternal ruin. If men will not have the gospel of rest as the Lord has appointed it, he will not alter it to their tastes, but permit it to exercise its inevitable influence upon opposers by its being a savour of death unto death. If they dislike it to-day they shall dislike it more to-morrow; if they refuse to feel its energy to-day, they shall refuse yet more obstinately as time rolls on, and its power shall not go forth to enlighten or impress or comfort their hearts.

This is a terrible thing; and what is still worse, if worse can be, this is to be followed by a growing inability to understand: “For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.” Since they would not hear plain speech, God will make simplicity itself to seem like stammering to them. Men that cannot endure simple language shall at last become unable to understand it. You know, my brethren, how large a body of mankind are at this day unable to understand the Saviour. The Saviour said, “This is my body”: and straightway they conclude that a piece of bread is transformed into the flesh of Christ. The Saviour commands believers to be baptized into his death, and straightway they proclaim that the water of baptism regenerates children. They will not understand it, what is clear as the sun. They take our Lord’s illustrations literally, and when he speaks literally they dream that he is using metaphor. If men will not understand they shall not understand. A man may shut his eyes so long that he cannot open them. In India many devotees have held up their arms so long that they can never take them down again. Beware lest an utter imbecility of heart come upon those of you who refuse the gospel. If you charge God’s word with being childish you shall grow childish yourselves, as many great philosophers of our day have done; if you say that it is simple, and refuse it because of its plainness, you will become simpletons yourselves; if you say it is beneath you it will turn out that you will be beneath it, and it will grind you to powder.

Lastly, this warning is given to those who object to the gospel, that whatever refuge they choose for themselves shall utterly fail them. Thus saith the Lord,-“Judgment will I also lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.” Down come the great hailstones dashing everything to shivers-the threatenings of God’s word breaking to pieces all the false and flattering hopes of the ungodly. Then comes the active wrath of God like an overwhelming flood to sweep away everything on which the sinner stood, and he, in his obstinate unbelief, is carried away as with a flood into that utter destruction, that everlasting misery, which God has declared shall be the lot of all those who refuse the living Jesus Christ. Beware, ye despisers! Beware in time!

I have earnestly tried at this time, in simple language, to set before you the wickedness of refusing the gospel of rest. May the Spirit of God grant that any here who have hitherto neglected it may at once accept it. Try it, weary heart; try it, despondent spirit; try what faith in Jesus can do. Come and trust in Jesus, and see if it does not bring peace to your soul. If Jesus fails you let me know it, for I will never extol again if he breaks his promises. He can never cast off or cast away a believing heart. Oh, if there be sweet peace, and calm, and joyful hope, and gladness, and strength, and life, to be had by childlike faith in God’s testimony concerning his dear Son, I pray God that you may obtain it at once. If you feel an objection to the preacher who now addresses you pray God that he may preach better; and if you have done so, and he is still distasteful to you, go and hear somebody who will not be personally objectionable, for it would be a grief of heart to me to stand in the way of even one anxious heart. I fear that you yourself stand in your own light. O man, act like a man and hear the gospel candidly. O self! wilt thou destroy thyself? O pride! lower thy crest. O drunkenness! quit thy cups. O hardened sinner! God help thee to leave thy sin. Come and trust Jesus this day. May God enable you so to do by his Holy Spirit, for Christ’s sake. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Isaiah 28.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-907, 495, 146 (Vers. I.)

THE CANDLE

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, April 24th, 1881, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”-Matthew 5:15, 16.

Our Saviour was speaking of the influence of his disciples upon their fellows, and he first of all mentioned that secret but powerful influence which he describes under the figure of salt: “Ye are the salt of the earth.” No sooner is a man born unto God than he begins to affect his fellow-men with an influence which is rather felt than seen. The very existence of a believer operates upon unbelievers. He is like a handful of salt cast upon flesh; he has a savour in himself, and this begins to penetrate those who are in contact with him. The unobserved, and almost unconscious influence of a holy life is most effectual to the conserving of society and the prevention of moral putrefaction. May there be salt in every one of us, for “salt is good.” Have salt in yourselves, and then you will become a blessing to all around you.

But there is about every true Christian a manifest and visible influence which he is bound to exercise, and this our Lord sets forth under the figure of light: “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.” In any case the genuine Christian will exercise the silent and unseen salting influence upon those who come into immediate contact with him; but let him also labour to possess the second, or illuminating influence, which covers a far larger area, and deals more with real life; for salt is for dead flesh, and light for living men. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Saltness and light are the power of a Christian. I do not believe that any man will give forth light if he has not first received salt; and yet some have a measure of salt who are none too liberal with their light. May God grant us grace to balance the inward and the outward. May we have the conserving salt and the diffusive light. Our thoughts will now run towards light-giving, and I pray that I may be helped to move the more retiring and less active among us to exert their influence upon others to a greater extent; to crown the silent testimonies of their humble faith by an out-spoken witness-bearing for their Lord and Saviour. All who have salt will now be urged to show their light.

The figure which our Saviour uses is a homely one, borrowed from the eastern tent and house. He speaks of a candle, or, more accurately, of a lamp. We should read the passage-“Neither do men light a lamp and put it under the bushel, but on the lampstand, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.” I shall use the figure both in its eastern and in its western dress, and sometimes we will make a lamp of it and sometimes a candle. Perhaps we shall see all the better with both a lamp and a candle; and, though we may confuse the metaphor, we shall not confuse anybody’s mind upon the important truth which it sets forth.

Three things are in the text. The first is the lighting, the second is the placing, and the third is the shining. The first two are both intended to produce the third. May he who alone can create light illuminate our minds while dwelling on his word.

First let us consider the lighting. “Neither do men light a candle.” What is this lighting up of the souls of men? They are without light by nature, “having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them.” What, then, is this lighting?

It is, first of all, a divine work. God began his creating work of old by saying, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And as in the old creation so in the new, the first thing that God worketh in the heart of man is light: “the entrance of thy word giveth light.” Well said David, “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” The Holy Spirit enlightens the understanding, so that the man perceives the desperateness of his own condition, and his inability to win salvation by his own works. The Lord pours light into the soul, so that Christ is seen by faith, and at the sight of him the heart catches fire, and light takes hold upon the inner man, so that he not only sees light but has light. The light not only shines upon the heart but from the heart. “Ye were sometime darkness,”-not only in the dark, but darkness,-“but now are ye light in the Lord”: not only have ye light from the Lord, but ye are light, your souls having caught the flame. The Holy Spirit alone can accomplish this work. No human being will ever have light within himself till God who spoke the fiat at creation shall by the selfsame word create light in the soul. The apostle Paul says of all the saints, “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

This lighting is a separating work. When this light comes it separates a man from those around him who are as the darkness. It does not take him away from his surroundings, it does not shut him up in a monastery, but the separation is complete; for to set a division between a candle and the darkness all that is wanted is to light it. The tiniest spark will by its very existence be distinguished from the darkness. There is no need to label light to prevent its being confounded with the darkness, and there is no need for it to sound a trumpet before itself, saying, “Here am I.” What fellowship hath light with darkness? No sooner cometh the light into a man’s heart than he is separate from those who are round about him, called by the grace of God by a vocation which at once sets a difference between the called ones and the rest of the sons of men. The darkness could not have created the light, for it does not even comprehend it, “the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” Those that are round about the Christian man cannot make him out, for his life is hid with Christ in God. At his conversion they perceive that a strange alteration had come over him; and, as Dr. Watts says, they “gaze and admire, and hate the change”; but they know no more about it than owls do of the sun. At first they set the change down to melancholy, until the man’s experience flashes into delight, and then they call it fanaticism or a kind of madness, a sort of twist of the mind. Oh, blessed twist! Would God that those who know it not could be twisted after the same fashion! It is the kindling of the candle, so that where all was darkness before there may now be the heavenly light.

The darkness, though it does not understand or love the light, is nevertheless compelled to yield to it; for the battle between light and darkness is short and decisive. Up to the measure of the light is the measure of its conquest. Though only a few beams should irradiate the eastern sky, yet so far the arrows of the sun have pierced the heart of the night; and as that light shall glow into high noon all trace of darkness must fly before it. Beloved, if God has given light to us, he has put within us a principle that shall go forth conquering and to conquer. Let the darkness be as dense as that which plagued the Egyptians, yet must it yield to light. A conflict is to be expected, but a conquest is guaranteed. We must not dream that the darkness will put forth its black arms to embrace our light; nor may we imagine that it will come cowering at the foot of our candlestick and ask to make a league with us. Light cannot dwell side by side with the darkness, making covenant therewith, for it is written, “God divided the light from the darkness, and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night,” thus giving to each its own distinguishing name, that none might confound them. No man shall ever be able to mingle the two: they are and must be for ever distinct. To the end of time there shall be two seeds, the heirs of light and the children of darkness, and these two cannot be one. The light shall war with the darkness till the eternal light hath fully risen and reached its zenith, and then the earth shall be filled with the light of the glory of God. Till then, ye children of light, see to it that ye have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. This lighting up of the candle takes place at regeneration, and you perceive it in enlightenment, conviction, conversion. The question is, have you ever been lit, dear friend? Have you ever received that divine light? Have you ever felt the touch of the heavenly torch of the word by which light has come to you, and now dwells within you, so that you yourself have become a light, and are shining to the glory of God?

Furthermore, this light giving is a personal work to every man who is the subject of it. The text says, “Let your light so shine before men.” When a man lights a candle the light does not belong to the candle originally; but when once the candle has accepted the flame the light becomes the candle’s own light, and the candle begins to shine by its own light. So, beloved, the grace of God, the light from heaven, must come to each one of us individually from the divine hand, and we must personally receive it. Light is not inherent in any one of us, and therefore it must be bestowed. Its bestowal necessitates a personal acceptance. It is not bestowed upon us as part of a nation or family. In its enlightening operations grace does not deal with men in the gross, but with each man by himself. Sin is personal, and so must grace be. We are individually in the darkness, and must be individually kindled into light. One by one each man must accept the light, permitting it, as it were, to kindle upon him, so that the very wick of his being, that innermost life which goes through the very centre of his nature, shall embrace the flame and begin to burn with it. There must be an individual appropriation of the light, so that to each one of you it becomes your own. “Let your light so shine before men.” Do not deceive yourselves with the notion of national Christianity or hereditary Christianity; the only true religion is personal godliness. We cannot light these candles by the pound at a time, nor heap up lamps in a pile and light them in a mass. We have nowadays wonderful lights, which can be all lit in an instant by a single touch of electricity; but even then each one of the lights has to receive a flame for itself, which becomes all its own. There is no way by which individuality can be destroyed and men saved en masse.

In each man the light is peculiar and distinct. The light that burns in one true minister of Christ is the same which shines forth from another, and yet one star differeth from another star in glory: Peter is not John, Paul is not James, Whitefield is not Wesley. You shall examine the whole range of God’s lamps and candlesticks and you shall not find two exactly alike. Many artists exhaust themselves and then repeat themselves; but God is inexhaustibly original; no two touches of his pencil are the same. Light is one, and its glory is one, and yet there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars. There is a difference in the lights of various oils and gases, and so there is in your light, my brother, and my light. It is very possible that you would like to put my candle in order; you may do so if you can, but do not snuff me out. Your own light is, however, your main concern, and you had better ask for special grace that it may not fail. Your light is distinct from mine, as distinct as your life is from mine, though in another sense it is true that your spiritual light is one with all the light that ever shone in this world. There is in the lighting a personal appropriation of the divine flame, and afterwards a personal and distinct sending forth of the sacred light in the individual’s own way. Look ye well to this, lest ye be mistaken, and suppose yourselves to be lighted from heaven when you are the mere will-o’-the-wisps of delusion.

I like our translators reading the word candle-“Neither do men light a candle,” for nowadays a candle is the smallest of all lights. We almost despise a candle in these days of the electric light; yet small lights are useful, and tiny lamps have their sphere. God has many small lights; in his great house he has candles as well as stars, and he would not have even a small light wasted. Even the most twinkling ray of light is of God’s kindling: think of that, you who cannot do more than talk to a child or give away a tract for love of his dear name.

You are a little light, but if the Lord has given you even a spark of the sacred fire he means that you should shine. In this world there are many lights, but none too many. We could not spare the sun, and it would be a calamity if the smallest star were quenched. We cannot spare those modern inventions which so cheer us by turning our city’s night into day; but I wot we should miss even the glowworm from its dewy haunt in the quiet lane. We cannot afford to lose a ray of light in this misty, foggy, all-beclouded sky of ours. The church and the world need all the light that has been vouchsafed, and much more. I, therefore, would press upon all my brethren and sisters here who may happen to have but one talent the necessity of their putting it out to interest. Your light, my friend, may be but a farthing rushlight, but you must not hide it, for all lights are of God, and are sent with a kind and gracious purpose by the great Father of lights.

Note further, that lighting is a work which needs sustaining. Whilst lighting is a process performed in a moment, it is also, as a matter of fact, prolonged; for the lamp needs to be trimmed, and it would be ill to light a lamp and leave it to itself. The lamp must have fresh oil from time to time, since by shining it consumes its fuel. Do not any of you, therefore, think if you can fix upon a certain time and say, “I was converted then,” that you may live as you like afterwards. God forbid! The saints prove their conversion by their perseverance, and that perseverance comes from a continual supply of divine grace to their souls. Judge ye, then, yourselves by this, not so much whether on a certain special occasion you were turned from darkness to light, but are you still “light in the Lord”? Have you oil in your vessels with your lamps? Are you looking unto Jesus? It was well that you looked; but are you looking? for that is the great thing. Remember, it is a present business-looking. It is well that you came to Jesus, but that is merely the beginning; it is “to whom coming,” coming continually, as unto a living stone. Our lungs must have, as we all know, fresh supplies of air. It will avail me nothing that I breathed yesterday; I am dead, unless I breathe to-day. We must have constant food: you ate yesterday; but could you without hunger and weakness go without to-day? We continually need to be built up as to our bodies, and it is just the same with our souls, and if we neglect this, if we fancy that something done twenty years ago is all that is wanted, we shall make a great mistake. There must be the frequent trimming of the lamp, which is, in effect, a continnation of the lighting.

Once again, let me say that this work of lighting is a work which when it is done upon a man consecrates him entirely to the service of light giving. A candle once lit, if it continues alight will be all consumed in giving light. It is what it was made for, not to be laid by in a glass case and looked at, but to be burned away. Blessed is the man who can say, “My zeal hath consumed me.” You will say that in the case of the lamp the lamp itself is not consumed. No, but it is consecrated to the one purpose of lighting the house, and it contains the supply of oil by which the flame is fed. The whole of the lamp, whether it be of gold or silver or clay, or whatever it may be, is dedicated to the one purpose of giving light: and if God ever comes and lights you, my dear brother, you are henceforth separated from all other purposes, and appointed to the one calling. You may be a great many other things according to your human calling, but these must be subordinate. I wish that some men kept earthly things much more subordinate than they do. The first thing in a Christian is his Christianity. The chief business of one whom God has called is that he should live as the elect of God. Look at Christ Jesus, he was a carpenter, but I confess I seldom think of him as such: it is as the Saviour of men, and the servant of God that he comes before my mind. Even thus a Christian man ought so to live if he be a carpenter that the Christian swallows up the carpenter; and if he be a business man, or a man of letters, or an orator, he ought so to live that the most conspicuous fact about him is that he is a Christian. He is a lamp, and his one business is to shine. You may use a candle for many purposes; I saw a man grease a saw with one the other day, and another made his boots fit for walking in the snow in like manner; but still these are not the objects for which a candle is designed: it has missed the object of its existence if it does not give light. I suppose on occasions you might use a lamp for a weight, or for some other purposes; but it would not be the fit instrument for any purpose except that of giving light. Every thing is best when fulfilling its proper purpose. Have you ever seen a swan out of water? How ungainly is his walk! What an unwieldly bird he seems! But see him on the water. What a fine model for a ship! What grace! What beauty! So is it with the Christian, his beauty is best seen in his proper element; give him any other aim and he is awkward and uncomely. When seeking to instruct and save his fellow man, he is where God would have him, and then all the lines of creating wisdom, and all the beauties of divine grace are manifested in him. Let us take care then about this lighting, that it be lighting from above, that it be a lighting such as makes the light our own, and that it be a lighting which takes possession of us, and consecrates us entirely, and is perpetually sustained by the visitation of the Spirit of God. So much on that first point.

We will now, in the second place, consider the placing. “No man lighteth a candle and putteth it under a bushel.” It is a great point this placing of a man-it may hide his light or send it further afield. The chief matter is the lighting him, and getting him to have light to give; but the next most important thing is where to put him when he is alight. For some men when they first find Christ are in the wrong place altogether. How can a lamp shine if it be dropped into a river? After the conversion of certain persons their removal becomes necessary. It is significant that when God called Abraham he did not let him stop in Ur of the Chaldees: the place for Abraham to shine was not even in Haran; but he must get in to the chosen country and wander as a shepherd prince, for only there and in that character could Abraham shine to the glory of God. Most men will be wise to stay where they are and shine; but others must undergo a great change of position before they will be able to scatter their light to the extent which the Lord intends for them. That may account, my friend, for your having more trouble since you were converted than you ever had before. You have been left to lie still till now, but you are wanted, and so you are fetched out from your hiding. It did not matter where you were when you gave no light, you were just as well behind a box or in a closet as anywhere else: but now that you are lighted you must be put on a lamp-stand, and hence you are undergoing processes of providence that are somewhat painful to you. Our placing, whether it has necessitated removal or not, is largely done by the providence of God: one man is placed here and another there, and it is well for us to look at our position from this point of view. God puts us where we can best serve his cause and bless our age. If you had your choice, perhaps, if you had to be a street lamp, you would like to be a lamp in Hyde Park, to shine upon the nobles who pass that way. But the poor souls want lights far more down that blind alley, down that den of a court, where wild Irish are quarrelling, or drunkards murdering their wives. He that loves God, if he had his choice, might sooner choose to shine in the worse place than in the better. “Oh, that I lived in the midst of a warm-hearted church!” says one. If you are an earnest, thorough-going man, I am glad that you are placed in that dreary village where the people are pretty nearly starved for spiritual life. “What,” cries one, “glad that I have to suffer so much?” No, not for that, but because if you are a strong man, you will not suffer, but you will make other people suffer; that is to say, make it hard for the minister, and the deacons, and the church to remain in their wretched condition of lukewarmness. I hope you will be the means of arousing them, and bringing them nearer to Christ. How often a place which appears undesirable will become desirable if we regard it in this light. Providence puts us where we can give the most light, and if our lamp is set up in the midst of darkness, where else should it be? This Tabernacle reminds me of those frames on wheels, filled with lamps, which are used at our railway stations; here we have scores of lamps all burning together, and when first one and then another is dropped through the roof into a carriage and whisked away along the line, though it be to Australia, or America, or India, I am sorry to lose you, but I am glad that you are going where you will do more good than you will do here. Why should you not be scattered abroad like the first believers? Why should not the candles be carried where the darkness is? Why should we keep up an everlasting illumination upon this particular spot, just to gladden our own eyes, instead of lending light to all the world? It is ours to say to others, “There is a candle, let it shine in your houses”; or, “Here is a lamp, set it up in your tents, that God may bless you thereby.”

But though I have thus spoken of Providence, a good deal of our placing is in our own hands. There are ways of placing yourselves-for instance, that mentioned in the text, which may be as ruinous to our influence as if a candle were placed under a bushel; or you can put yourself in a place of advantage, as when a lamp is set upon a lamp-stand.

First, note the word in the negative-“Neither do men place it under a bushel.” A bushel is a good and useful article. In almost every eastern house there was a corn-measure, here called a bushel, though it did not generally measure much more than a peck; this measure was commonly in every house, because they ground their own corn, and so were generally dealing with the neighbours. That useful corn-measure to me represents the pursuits of ordinary life-the proper and natural avoeations of the household. Many men and women hide the candle that God has lit under the bushel of business and domestic cares. But you ask, Is not a housewife to be a housewife? Certainly; but not so a housewife as to conceal her godliness. Is not the labouring man to work with his hands? Certainly, but not so to work for the bread that perisheth as to miss life eternal. Is not the man of business to give his best attention thereto? Of course he is, but he must see to it that he do not lose his own soul, or injure the souls of others. Keep your bushel; nobody asks you to burn it; but do keep it in its place. Subordinate all worldly things to the glory of God. Suffer not your possessions or your desires, your pleasures or your cares to act as a bushel hiding his light. This happens with a great many. I must ask conscience to be so kind as to preach for me for a minute or two. Will you look at home, dear friends, and see where you place your business and your religion? Which is uppermost? Which is foremost? Is religion your business, or is business your religion? Does your candle shine upon the bushel, or does the bushel hide the candle? I will not dwell upon the question, because it will be well for you to answer it in quiet, each man for himself. I know how a minister can put his light under a bushel-he can be a mere official and perform service, being nothing more than a performer. The worst thing to do with the gospel is to parsonificate it. As soon as we preach as mere officials we have lost all power: we must speak as men to men. A brother minister one day said to me, “The moment I shut the pulpit door I shut out my natural self.” This will never do: a man must be all there when he is serving God, and if ever he is himself it must be in preaching. We can also cover the candle by using hard words, words which are not hard to educated people, but to the bulk of our hearers. We can also use technical creed words, such as we might use in the class room or in the discussion hall, and these may conceal our meaning from the people. I know some Christians who put their light under a bushel by being excessively bashful, and shamefaced. They are not so dreadfully retiring when five-pound notes are to be made; but if anything is to be said for Christ then they blush and stammer. Oh that they could overcome this hindrance. Others puttheir light under a bushel by inconsistency: they do not act as Christians should act, and when people see their bad works they do not glorify God. God forbid that in the house our darkness should be more conspicuous than our light. Some, I fear, cover their light under the bushel of indifference: they do not seem to care how things go with the cause and kingdom of Christ. They look well to the state of their flocks and herds, but for the house of the Lord they have small concern. I pray you, dear friends, do not hide your light in any way. Let not your lawful callings, your relationships, your sicknesses, your literary pursuits, or your personal sorrows become so exaggerated as to conceal the divine light within your soul.

The text is, however, positive. Put yourself on a candlestick or on a lampstand. What must that be? A candlestick is an appropriate exhibitor of the light; and each man should make an appropriate confession of his faith. The best way is prescribed in God’s word. It is written, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Take care that when you have faith you declare it in the ordained manner; for he that with his heart believeth and with his mouth maketh confession of him shall be saved. O lamp, do not say, “I will shine, but I will lie upon the floor and do it.” No, your place is on the stand which is provided. Dear Christian friend, join the church that you may be placed where you will be in order with the arrangements of the divine household. A lamp-stand should also be something which makes the lamp sufficiently visible. If you do not come out and diffuse your light willingly and cheerfully it is very likely the master of the house will fetch you out. Providence will arrange that the light shall not be hidden. See what the Lord did for his church years ago; he allowed her to be persecuted into publicity. What a lamp-stand was found for Christianity in the martyrdoms of the Colosseum, in the public burnings by pagans and papists, and in all the other modes by which believers in Christ were forced into fame. When there was no printing-press, when there were scanty opportunities of making the gospel public compared with those of to-day, the Lord caused his witnesses to stand before rulers and kings, and there publish in the most public places the word of his salvation. Persecution built the lighthouse, and the divine love set up aloft the burning and shining light of sacred truth. You may find that God will make such a candlestick for you. You shall be forced into testimony in your family by the opposition of those about you, unless you take other and happier methods. We ought to be valiant for the truth, and speak of it with all prudence, but without stint.

I long for the day when the precepts of the Christian religion shall be the rule among all classes of men, in all transactions. I often hear it said “Do not bring religion into politics.” This is precisely where it ought to be brought, and set there in the face of all men as on a candle stick. I would have the Cabinet and the Members of Parliament do the work of the nation as before the Lord, and I would have the nation, either in making war or peace, consider the matter by the light of righteousness. We are to deal with other nations about this or that upon the principles of the New Testament. I thank God that I have lived to see the attempt made in one or two instances, and I pray that the principle may become dominant and permanent. We have had enough of clever men without conscience, let us now see what honest, God-fearing men will do. But we are told that we must study “British interests,” as if it were not always to a nation’s truest interest to do righteousness. “But we must follow out our policy.” I say, No! Let the policies which are founded on wrong be cast like idols to the moles and to the bats. Stand to that most admirable of policies,-“As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” Whether we are kings, or queens, or prime ministers, or members of parliament, or crossing sweepers, this is our rule if we are Christians.

Yes, and bring religion into your business, and let the light shine in the factory and in the counting-house. Then we shall not have quite so much china clay in the calicoes wherewith to cheat the foreigner, nor shall we see cheap and nasty articles described as of best quality, nor any other of the dodges in trade that everybody seems to practise now-a-days. You tradespeople and manufacturers are very much one like the other in this: there are tricks in all trades, and one sees it everywhere. I believe everybody to be honest in all England, Scotland, and Ireland until he is found out; but whether there are any so incorruptible that they will never be found wanting this deponent sayeth not, for I am not a judge.

Do not put your candle under a bushel, but let it shine, for it was intended that it should be seen. Religion ought to be as much seen at our own table as at the Lord’s table. Godliness should as much influence the House of Commons as the Assembly of Divines. God grant that the day may come when the mischievous division between secular and religious things shall no more be heard of, for in all things Christians are to glorify God, according to the precept, “Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

Our time has gone, but I must detain you a little while I speak upon the shining: “Let your light so shine before men.”

When a candle shines it is because it cannot help it. Shining is the natural result of possessing light, and I want you, dear brethren, to exert a holy influence upon others, because the grace of God is really in you. Some men made desperate attempts to appear good; they would be far more successful if they would seek to be good. Grace must be in a man as a living fountain, and then rivers of living water will flow from him. The natural result of a renewed heart is a renewed life, and the natural result of a renewed life is that men see it and glorify God.

Shining, however, is not altogether a thing of necessity so as to forbid our attention to it, for the text demands care of us. “Let your light so shine.” I must ask the printer to put the two letters-s, o,-in very large capitals. “Let your light SO shine-let it so shine that men may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” You will not shine in the best manner though you may have grace in your heart unless you abound in prayerful, watchful, earnest care. You must guard heart and lip and hand, or your light will not so shine before men as could be desired. Your light will need trimming. Neglect it not.

The shining which comes from the Christian is here described as “good works.” Good talk is very well, but it takes a great deal of talk to light a room. Good works are the splendour of the light of God. What works are good works? I would answer-upright actions, honest dealings, sincere behaviour. When a man is scrupulously true, and sternly faithful, all right-minded persons admit that his works are good works. Good works are works of love, unselfish works, works done for the benefit of others and the glory of God. Deeds of charity, kindness, and brotherly love are good works. As also careful attendance to duty, and all service honestly done, together with all courses which promote the moral and spiritual good of our fellow-men. Works of devotion in which you prove that you love God and his Christ, that you love the gospel, that you desire to spread the kingdom of Christ,-these may not be so highly valued by ordinary people, but are eminently good works. Let these good and true things abound in you, and shine out from you; do them not out of ostentation, but still without shame.

Good works, like the shining of a candle, have good effects. A candle cheers the gloom. What a comfort it is when you have long been wandering in the dark to spy out a twinkling candle in a cottage window! A candle directs and guides men, and by its illumination it instructs them. In its light they see, discern, and discover. He who acts teaches.

The man who lives Christianity preaches it. He is the truest evangelist whose life brings glory to God and goodwill to men.

But note, it is said “it giveth light to all that are in the house”; so that when we are lit from on high we are first to shine at home. It is not abroad alone that we should make our Christianity known, but chiefly at the fireside, to those who are in the house. Some have a very little house, they live in a couple of rooms with a small family; let them take care that they have grace enough to make a few thoroughly happy, which is not always the easiest thing in the world. Others have a large family; may they have grace enough to influence the whole. A few have large workshops, and employ many hands, and these ought to exercise a holy influence over all their workfolks. Some of us are preachers of the gospel, and have a large house in which to shine: we shall need more of the oil of grace than others, that we may give light to the whole of our house; and that grace is to be had. The whole world is a house in which the church is the candle; and, therefore, the members of the church should so shine, each one in his place, that the whole world shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God.

The text says that the candle gives light to all that are in the house. Some professors give light only to a part of the house. I have known women very good to all but their husbands, and these they nag from morning to night, so that they give no light to them. I have known husbands so often out at meetings that they neglect home, and thus their wives miss the light. I have known masters who are utterly indifferent about their servants; and mistresses who quite forget to seek the good of their maids. If our light be in good order it will illuminate the parlour and the kitchen, the drawing room and the scullery, shining upon all that are in the house. Candles do not shed all their light either that way or this, but they shine in all directions. A Christian should be an all round man, blessing all, both great and small, who come in contact with him.

The object of our shining is not that men may see how good we are, nor even see us at all, but that they may see grace in us and God in us, and cry, “What a Father these people must have.” Is not this the first time in the New Testament that God is called our Father? Is it not singular that the first time it peeps out should be when men are seeing the good works of his children? The Fatherhood of God is best seen in the holiness of saints. When men see that light is good they bless the source of that light, and seeing that it cometh from the Father of lights, they glorify his name.

I have had to hasten over all this, but I pray God to make it none the less effectual for the stirring up of every Christian here to use all the light he has. It is a dark world, and it seems to get darker, for the emissaries of Satan are going about thirsting to quench every light. Look ye well to your lamps-look ye well to your lamps, ye virgin souls. Trim well the flame, and go you forth even into the black night to meet the Bridegroom. Lift high your torches into the very face of darkness, and make men see that God the Father is still in the midst of his people.

The venerable Bede, when he was interpreting this text, said that Christ Jesus brought the light of Deity into the poor lantern of our humanity, and then set it upon the candlestick of his church that the whole house of the world might be lit up thereby. So indeed it is. The reason why there is light in the church is that those who are in the dark may see. Churches do not exist for themselves, but for the world at large. Have ye thought of this, ye professors? Ye are blessed that ye may be a blessing. Take heed that ye behave aright. You go to Christ’s wedding feast, and you are glad to hear that he turneth water into wine, and you are ready to bless him that he has kept the best wine until now. But oh, ye servants of God, remember what is said, “Draw out now and bear.” These are your orders. There is the God-made wine-“Draw out now, and bear.” Receive from Christ’s fulness, and distribute to others. Neglect not your duty as servitors at your Lord’s great feast. Your Master has taken the bread, and has blessed and broken it, and then he has given it to you. Is that the end of the process? Do you stand there and munch your own personal morsel with a miserable self-satisfaction? Nay, if you be indeed disciples of Christ you will remember that the next words are, “and the disciples to the multitude, and they did eat.” Break then your bread among the hungry that surround you. Take the whole loaf of Christ, and rightly divide and distribute it, and you shall have as much left as at the first; yea, more, you shall gather of the fragments many baskets full. Only see ye to it that ye freely give what ye have freely received, lest hoarded manna breed corruption, lest a canker come upon your hoarded gold and silver, and lest your very souls grow mouldy even to reeking rottenness before God, because you have not drawn out your souls unto the hungry, nor sought to teach those who are perishing for lack of knowledge.

The Baptist Missionary Society will enable you to teach the heathen. Take a share in it. There, make the collection! Do your best!

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Luke 8.