You will always understand a passage of Scripture better if you carefully attend to its connection. The habit of picking out portions from the Bible and separating them from their context may be carried a great deal too far, and in the process the reader may miss the mind of the Spirit, and force upon the words a meaning of his own. If we were to treat men’s books as we do God’s Book we should, probably, be judged to be insane. It is, indeed, a wonderful book to bear such mangling. Every sensible person will see that it must always be wise to study the context, for it is likely enough to cast a light upon the passage in hand. Job in the verse before us is answering Bildad the Shuhite. Now, this Bildad on two occasions had described Job as a hypocrite, and accounted for his dire distress by the fact that, though hypocrites may flourish for a time, they will ultimately be destroyed. In the two bitter speeches which he made he described the hypocrite under the figure of a tree which is torn up by the roots, or dies down even to the root. In his first address, in the eighth chapter and the sixteenth verse, he says of the hypocrite, “He is green before the sun, and his branch shooteth forth in his garden. His roots are wrapped about the heap, and seeth the place of stones. If he destroy him from his place, then it shall deny him, saying, I have not seen thee.” Even the very root of the hypocrite was to be pulled up, so that the garden in which he once flourished should not remember that he had ever been there. Being much pleased with his metaphor, Bildad in the eighteenth chapter uses it again. He says in the fourteenth verse of the chapter, “His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors. His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off.” This, then, was his mode of attacking Job: he set forth by the emblem of a tree the state and fate of the false hearted,-they might flourish for a time, but they would wither at last, even down to the very root, dried up and blasted by the justice of God. The inference he meant to draw was this: you, Job, are utterly dried up, for all your prosperity is gone, and therefore you must be a hypocrite. The assault was very cruel, but the sufferer successfully parried it. No, says Job, I am no hypocrite. I will prove it by your own words, for the root of the matter is still in me, and therefore I am no hypocrite. Though I admit that I have lost branch, and leaf, and fruit, and flower, yet I have not lost the root of the matter, for I hold the essential faith as firmly as ever; and, therefore, by your own argument, I am no hypocrite, and “Ye should say, why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?”

There is, then, dear friends, a something in true religion which is its essential root. It has fundamental matters which cannot be dispensed with under any circumstances. Some things pertain to godliness, are ornamental, useful, pleasant, and desirable, yet these may be absent and still there may be the truth of religion in the soul: but there is a something which cannot be absent in any case without its being certain that the man is not a true child of God; there is a something which is vital, without which there is no spiritual life. Of this essential thing we are going to speak this morning as we are enabled by the Holy Spirit.

Job derived comfort from the fact that the root of the matter was in him, whatever his accusers might say, and I trust that others will be encouraged as they, too, shall find that the root of the matter is in them. It will be pleasant to my heart to cheer the fainting, and equally so if I can lead my stronger brethren to deal tenderly with such.

Our first thought will be that this root of the matter may be clearly defined. We are not left in the dark as to what the essential point of true religion is: it can be laid down with absolute certainty. True, there has been considerable disputing over the phrase before us, and questions have been raised as to what Job meant by “the root of the matter,” but I conceive that if we read the verse in its own connection, apart from any extraneous suggestion, there will be no doubt about its meaning. Commence at the twenty-fifth verse, and read on as Job spoke, and he tells us plainly what is “the root of the matter.” Here it is: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.” This knowledge of the Redeemer is evidently the root of the matter. Come, then, let us look more closely into this choice confession of faith. I shall not attempt to expound this golden utterance, but I shall glance at it with the one object of showing what Job considered to be the essence of true religion.

And, first, it is clear that “the root of the matter” is firm faith in the Redeemer; it is to be able to say from the inmost heart, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” Not I think so, but “I know”; for saving faith is certain, and the true believer is a positivist. Faith abhors conjectures, it will not put its foot down upon fictions, but rests upon matters of fact. Faith never deals in the fancy goods of opinion, theory, speculation, and probability; she searches for the priceless pearl of certainty; she must needs know. Such was the faith of Job, and he expresses it in firm, decided, clear language, saying-“I know that my Redeemer liveth.”

This faith was an appropriating one, so that Job took to himself the Redeemer. “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” laying hold upon the Lord to be unto him all that he was meant to be, namely, a Redeemer who would set him at liberty from his misery. He embraced the Redeemer as his own, and believed that he would be raised by him from the pit of corruption. Come, brethren, have we such a faith as this? a faith which knows that there is a Saviour able to redeem and sure to accomplish the work? And do we take him for our own, saying-“my Redeemer”? This is the point-Do we accept him in his ordained office and cast our soul entirely upon him? Are we content to sink or swim with this God’s appointed Saviour? If saved it shall be by him; and at his cross foot are we content to lie and wait the issue? Whatever other redeemers there may be, is the Lord Jesus our Redeemer in whom we trust as able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him? This is the “root of the matter;” a recognition of the redeeming Lord, and a simple dependence upon him for sure salvation.

Look steadily at the passage, and especially gaze into its original meaning, and you will see that in this “root of the matter” there is a recognition of the blessed Christ of God in the peculiar relationship which he has taken up to man. It is, “I know that my goel, or kinsman, liveth.” You know what the next of kin was among the Jews: it was he who must redeem the inheritance if it had been alienated from the family: he was the guardian of those to whom he was next of kin. If there had been manslaughter committed, it was the goel, the near kinsman, who must take vengeance on behalf of the murdered man. The goel was the patron of the weak ones of the family, and the defender of the whole clan. Boaz was the redeemer of Ruth’s patrimony, because he was her next of kin, after one other had refused to fulfil the office. Beloved, this is a cardinal point of saving faith, that Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God is next of kin to us poor, guilty men. His name is Emmanuel, God with us: not only God from before all worlds, but God with us in our nature. The Word was made flesh: Jesus was born at Bethlehem, and there he was nursed at the breast of a woman. He lived among our race, bearing our infirmities, and tempted in all points like as we are, though without sin. It is most sweet for faith to say-he is nearest of kin to me; my goel, my redeemer; bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh-

“In ties of blood with sinners one.”

He is the Head, the second Adam of our race, a brother born for adversity, yea, and more than a brother. Because he has deigned to enter into the closest of all relationships with us by taking upon himself our nature, the Lord Jesus has now become our Redeemer, bound to restore to those who are in him the inheritance which was forfeited by the fall. Glory be to his name, he has restored that which he took not away; he has redeemed from the hand of the enemy that which sin and Satan snatched from us by our first parents’ fault. Nor is this all,-the goel was bound also to avenge the quarrel of his client. Our Lord is now our advocate with the Father, pleading our cause both by the word of his mouth and by the power of his arm. “Thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul,” O Jesus! Thou art my defender, my patron, my shield, and my exceeding great reward.

Brethren, this is the root of the matter, to believe in the incarnate God, to accept his headship, to claim his kinship, and to rely upon his redemption. This is the root of the matter, to call Jesus ours, our kinsman and Redeemer, and then to leave everything in his hands: to commit to him our cause, our hopes, our fears, our past, our present, and our future, and now and throughout life to fix our entire confidence upon him, because it is his office and prerogative to be the Redeemer of all that are akin to him. This is plain enough, and there is no mist about it. Say, is the Son of God all this to you?

Still look at the text further, and you perceive that the root of the matter is to believe that this kinsman, this Redeemer lives. We could never find comfort or salvation in one who had ceased to be. We have no lively hope unless we believe that our Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. Job knew that the Redeemer lived in that capacity before he died, and we know that he ever liveth, though he once died and was buried. If it were possible for us to believe in the merit of Christ’s death, and to deny his resurrection, our faith would have a fatal flaw in it. “He was delivered for our offences, but he was raised again for our justification”; and, therefore, we must believe in the resurrection or we are not justified. It is because he ever liveth to make intercession for us that he is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him.

In the Romish church her images are the image of her faith. What Christ is that which we see portrayed in places of worship of the papal order? We see there times without number Jesus as a child in his mother’s arms, feeble, dependent, insignificant; well setting forth how the worship of Christ is overshadowed by that of the Virgin, and how his blood and righteousness are forgotten amid the imaginary glories of Mary. How else do you see the Saviour in papal churches? Why, everywhere he is represented as dead, as nailed to a cross, or wrapt in winding-sheets. So far, so good, for we also believe in Christ who died, though we set not up his image or picture; but Jesus is not now dead, neither is he here among the tombs, for he has risen. It is testified of Jesus that he liveth; but in the church of Rome it is the priest that lives and acts, and does all things, while the Christ of God is virtually excluded, and made of no avail apart from sacraments and ceremonies. Our Saviour is still living and active in the midst of his people, and this is one of the vital points of our holy faith. We address ourselves at once to the living Redeemer, and his present power to save is the groundwork of our expectation of eternal life and resurrection. Oh, if it were not for this we might all despair: we should be the ministers of a dead Christ, and you would be believers in a lifeless Saviour: the cross would be a powerless doctrine, and the gospel a lifeless message, and under it men would still lie dead in their trespasses and sins. Our Redeemer liveth in fulness of power to bless us by his everlasting priesthood. Say, then, dear souls, do you believe in Jesus Christ, your kinsman? Do you believe that he hath redeemed both your persons and your inheritance? and do you believe that he liveth, having gone up into the glory to prepare a place for you? This is the “root of the matter”: a living faith in a living Redeemer, who by his death has ransomed his people.

Still there was more than this: Job believed in this next of kin of his who still lived, that he would surely save him, seeing he trusted in him. He expected that he would right all things, however wrong they might be, and clear the character of his servant. Job felt that though his accusers might condemn him, and his appeal to God might not win him a vindication, so that he might go down to his grave under a cloud of reproach, and lie there and rot with a dishonoured memory, yet he would be cleared one day. Though the worms might devour his body till no rag or relic of him remained, yet his living kinsman would never rest till he had cleared him, and enabled him to see God without fear. This is the grandeur of faith to feel that whatever God may do with me, if I am in Christ and behave myself as his faithful servant, he will preserve me from all harm. My cause may seem so utterly dead that it is only fit for worms’ meat, but the Christ of God will bring forth judgment unto victory. This is the work of faith to cast my soul on Christ my next of kin, whose business it is to redeem me, and though I cannot see the way by which I am to be saved, yet to be sure that I shall be. If my hopes perish and my soul sinks down into the dust of death, yet to the uttermost Christ can save me, and he will, and I am sure of it; and when at last the death frost strikes cold at my heart and I can help myself no more, and human helpers fail me, I will commit my spirit into the dear hands of him who is nearest and dearest, and I shall feel in that last fainting hour that his presence is my stay. Yea, and I shall see my God again, and even my poor failing body, full of aches and pains and weakness, after resting in the grave a little, shall rise again in beauty and power. The grave is a refining pot wherein the bodies of the saints are purified and made fit to dwell with the pure and holy God for ever. Faith has no question about the resurrection; she has not a mere hope, but a firmly assured belief, so that she cries, “I know that in my flesh, through Christ my Redeemer, I shall see my God without fear.” Every man in a certain sense will see God, for every eye shall behold the King upon the throne of judgment; but that expectation would not be a ground of comfort, and therefore more is here meant by seeing God. Job evidently expected to see God with acceptance and with delight, and this he felt quite sure about, though the corruption of his body looked like an effectual barrier to the realization of such a hope. All his friends may condemn him, and treat him as an alien and a stranger, but he so trusts himself with his Redeemer that he is quite sure of justification before God and men. Those who have a divine advocate must be cleared in the judgment. Now, soul, answer this question, dost thou commit thyself wholly and entirely to the Mediator, the Incarnate God, the Kinsman of humanity? Say, dost thou look alone to thy living Advocate, in life, in death, and in eternity? Is Christ thine all in all, thy sole and solid hope? Oh, then, rest thou assured that “the root of the matter is found in thee.”

It is clear that the essence of true religion can be clearly defined: Job has defined it, and there it is. Judge ye yourselves as to whether ye possess it or no.

Secondly, let us spend a few minutes in remarking that in our text this fundamental matter is most instructively described by the words which I have so constantly repeated-“the root of the matter.” What does this mean?

First, does it not mean that which is essential? “The root of the matter.” To a tree a root is absolutely essential; it is a mere pole or piece of timber if there be no root. It can be a tree of a certain sort without branches, and at certain seasons without leaves, but not without a root. Look at the trees in the winter. Their substance is in them when they lose their leaves; the foliage has all fallen, but the bare boughs and stem still make a tree, because a root is there. You may call it a tree even though only the trunk remains rooted to the soil. But it is not a tree if you have taken the root away and set it up in the hedge-it is mere dead timber for the scaffold or the fire. So, if a man hath faith in the Redeemer, though he may be destitute of a thousand other most needful things, yet the essential point is settled: he that believeth in Christ Jesus hath everlasting life. If he has faith he has the substance of things hoped for, and hope will turn to experience as he grows in grace; but if he has no faith in the Redeemer he may make a towering profession, he may possess vast knowledge, he may speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and he may outstrip all his companions in zeal, but he is not a plant of the Lord’s right hand planting, for he has no root in himself, and will ere long wither away.

The root, again, is not only that which is vital to the tree, it is from the root that the life-force proceeds by which the trunk and the branches are nourished and sustained. There is hope of a tree if it be cut down that it shall sprout again, at the scent of water it shall bud; so long as there is a root there is more or less of vitality and power to grow, and so faith in Christ is the vital point of religion; he that believeth liveth. If thou dost not know the living Redeemer thou dost not know life. Without trust in the work of Jesus a man may attempt to follow the moral teachings of Jesus, but he will miss salvation, since no morals which do not begin with faith in God can be acceptable to the Most High. The practical teaching of our holy religion is admirable, and we must obey it or be lost; but the root of holy living is faith in Christ, neither can it be produced otherwise. I would not say a word against the right exercise of the emotions, or the education of the understanding, or the regulation of the passions, for all these are good as branches of the tree; but the root, the living part of godliness, is our union to Christ by faith, our laying hold upon the incarnate Son of God as dying and rising again on our behalf.

Again, it is called the “root of the matter” because it comprehends all the rest; for everything is in the root. You walked your garden in the winter, and many plants were entirely invisible; there was not the slightest token of their presence in the soil: now they are above ground, they are flowering, they are proceeding to fruit. Where was the plant? It was all in the root. Leaf, branch, fruit, seed-all were there. Even so, all the elements of a perfect character lie hidden in faith in Christ. The holiness of heaven is packed away in the faith of a penitent sinner. Look at the crocus bulb; it is a poor, mean, unpromising sort of thing, and yet wrapped up within that brown package there lies a golden cup, which in the early spring will be filled with sunshine: you cannot see that wondrous chalice within the bulb; but he who put it there knows where he has concealed his treasure. The showers and the sun shall unwrap the enfoldings, and forth shall come that dainty cup to be set upon God’s great table of nature, as an intimation that the feast of summer is soon to come. The highest saintship on earth is hidden within the simplicity of a sinner’s faith, like a flower within a seed: yea, the perfect character of those that are without fault before the throne of God is all in embryo within that first look of faith which links the soul with the atoning merits of the great Redeemer. My brother, a young heaven sleeps within thy childlike confidence in Christ: it will only want the culture of the Holy Spirit to develop thy new life into the perfect image of Christ Jesus thy Lord. Faith is the essence, the vitality, the sum of true godliness, and hence it is called “the root of the matter.”

So I come, thirdly, to dwell upon a further remark:-this root of the matter may be personally discerned, as being in a man’s own possession. Job says to his teasing friends, “Ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?” Notice the curious change of pronouns. “Ye should say, why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in him?” that is how the words would naturally run. But Job is so earnest to clear himself from Bildad’s insinuation that he is a hypocrite that he will not speak of himself in the third person, but plainly declares, “The root of the matter is found in me.” Job seems to say, “The vital part of the matter may or may not be in you, but it is in me, I know. You may not believe me, but I know it is so, and I tell you to your faces that no argument of yours can rob me of this confidence; for as I know that my Redeemer liveth, I know that the root of the matter is found in me.” Many Christian people are afraid to speak in that fashion. They say, “I humbly hope it is so, and I trust it is so.” That sounds prettily; but is it right? Is that the way in which men speak about their houses and lands? Do you possess a little freehold? Did I hear you answer, “I humbly hope that my house and garden are my own”? What, then, are your title-deeds so questionable that you do not know? Is this the way in which you speak of your wages at the end of the week? “I sometimes have a hope that these shillings are mine.” Is that the way you talk about your wife? Is that the manner in which you speak of your own life? Are you afraid even to call your soul your own? No, no; we demand certainties in reference to things of value, and so it ought to be with regard to Christ and eternity; we cannot put up with mere hopes and surmises in reference to them. Believers should aim at certainty about eternal things, and learn to say, like Job, “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” and, “The root of the matter is found in me.”

Note well that sometimes this root needs to be searched for. Job says “the root of the matter is found in me,” as if he had looked for it, and made a discovery of what else had been hidden. Roots generally lie underground and out of sight, and so may our faith in the Redeemer. His interest in the Redeemer may have been a question for self-examination with Job when first his griefs came thick and heavy; it may be a matter of search with us, too.

“He that never doubted of his state,

He may-perhaps he may, too late.”

I can understand a Christian doubting whether he is saved or not, but I cannot understand his being happy while he continues to doubt about it, nor happy at all till he is sure of it. Job had made his personal condition the subject of investigation; he had digged beneath the surface, and had seen within his heart. You cannot always find roots in winter time, unless you use a spade and turn over the soil: there are winter times with us when we cannot tell whether we have real faith in Christ or not till we examine ourselves whether we be in the faith. After searching, Job found the treasure, and said, “the root of the matter is found in me.”

And note again, the root of the matter in Job was an inward thing. “The root of the matter is found in me.” He did not say, “I wear the outward garb of a religious man;” no, but, “the root of the matter is found in me.” If you, my hearers, are in the possession of the essence of true Christianity, it does not lie in your outward profession, your baptism, your church-membership, or your reception of the Lord’s Supper; but it lies within your heart and mind. Faith, which is the evidence of the inner life, is altogether spiritual and inward; its abode is within the vitals of the spiritual being, in the very core of the renewed heart. True godliness is not separable from the godly man; it is woven into him just as a thread enters into the essence and substance of the fabric.

When grace is found in us, and we do really believe in our Redeemer, we ought to avow it; for Job says, “The root of the matter is found in me. I know that my Redeemer liveth.” Are there not some among you who have never said as much as that? Some of you who are believers have never yet owned your Lord. What did I call some of you the other day? I think I compared cowardly believers to rats behind the wainscot that come out of a night to eat a crumb or two, and then run in again. The rat is a poor creature to be compared with: it is a domestic animal, I suppose, for it lives in the house; but it is not a beautiful object to be likened to, and so I will not compare you to it, although there might be more untruthful comparisons. I pray you try and alter before I am driven to the simile, and never be ashamed of Christ, or if you ever are so, be more ashamed of yourselves. There ought to be an open declaration of our faith whenever it is needful, for it is written, “Be ye always ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.”

The fact of our having the root of the matter in us will be a great comfort to us. “Alas,” saith Job, “my servant will not come when I call him, my wife is strange to me, my kinsfolk fail me, but I know that my Redeemer liveth. Bildad and Zophar, and others of them, all condemn me, but my conscience acquits me, for I know that the root of the matter is in me.” It is a blessed thing to be able to hear the harsh speeches of men as though we heard them not. What matters it after all what others judge of me if I know what I do know, and am sure in my own soul that I am right with God? What if men find fault with our eyes does it signify if we can say, “One thing I know, whereas I was once blind now I see.” Critics may find fault with our experience, and they may call our earnest utterances rant, but this will not affect the truth of our conversion, or the acceptableness of our testimony for Jesus. If the little bird within our bosom sings sweetly it is of small consequence if all the owls in the world hoot at us.

There is more real comfort in the possession of simple faith than in the fond persuasion that you are in a high state of grace. When we proudly think, “Oh, I need not look at the root of the matter, for my flowers and fruits are evidence more than sufficient,” we are getting dangerously elevated. That man is in a perilous plight who glories in himself, saying, “How useful I am! how gifted! how influential! How highly my brethren think of me!” All this will turn out to be unsubstantial comfort in the hour of trial, but the root of the matter yields the sweetest and surest consolation at all times. If your Redeemer lives you shall have a candle lighted for you in the darkest shades.

This fact also will be your defence against opposers. Thus may you answer them in Job’s fashion, “You ought not to condemn me; for, though I am not what I ought to be, or what I want to be, or what I shall be, yet still the root of the matter is found in me. Be kind to me, therefore.” Carefully observe this, my dear young friends. You have been lately converted, and if you fall in with those who are very stern and censorious you must not be surprised. Some venerable professors have not so much grown ripe as sour, and they show their sourness by censuring their younger brethren. It does not occur to them to say, “Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is in him? “But you may defend yourself against their hard speeches by declaring that you believe in the Saviour even as they do. Say to them, “I do not know as much about the Lord Jesus as you do, but I most heartily trust him. He is as much my Redeemer as he is yours. Do not, therefore, drive me from your company, but deal gently with me, as with a lamb of the flock.” I hope that you who are now young and timid will become strong in the Lord ere long, and be no longer in danger from severe judgments, and when that comes about I hope that you will have learned by experience to be very gentle with those who are weak in the faith. If our friends are sincere in their attachment to the Redeemer let us treat them as our brethren in Christ.

Thus much on our third point.

Now we come to the fourth subject of discourse, which is a practical lesson from the text for those believers in Christ who have passed beyond the root stage into a further development.

Notice, then, that this root of the matter is to be tenderly respected by all who see it. “Ye should say, why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?”

What a rebuke this is to the persecutions which have been carried on by nominal Christians against each other, sect against sect! Romanists have fiercely persecuted Protestants, and Protestants have persecuted one another. If they had but listened to their gracious Lord and Saviour they would have heard him whisper, “Ye should say, wherefore persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?” How can those who trust in the same Saviour rend and devour each other? In many of the islands of the South Seas our missionaries have been the means of converting the people to the faith. In one of these the shaven crowns of Rome began to put in their appearance, with the view of turning away the people from the faith to the errors of Rome. Among their cunning instruments of conversion was a picture representing the tree of the church. Certain twigs were represented as rotten; they were cut off, and were falling into the fire: these were such persons as Luther, Calvin, and other famous teachers of the gospel. The Protestant missionaries, too, were dead twigs, and were all to be removed from the tree. The natives were not quite sure about this, and made more enquiries. Certain other branches were green and vigorous; these were the priests of the Catholic church, and the larger boughs were bishops and cardinals of the same community: the natives were not quite clear about that, and passed on to examine the trunk. This of course consisted of an array of popes, of whom the islanders had never heard. They passed on, hoping to come to something presently; and so they did, for at the bottom was the name of our Lord Jesus. The enquiring islanders said, “And what is this at the bottom, marked with the name of Jesus?” “That is the root,” said the priest. “Well, then,” shouted the natives, “we have the root! The new teachers say we have the root, and so we are all right; our missionaries have told us the truth.” There was philosophy in that. Let us see to it that “we have the root.” Friend, dost thou believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God? If so, thou hast the root. I shall be very sorry if you belong to the Church of Rome, for she teaches much error; but if you rest wholly in Christ Jesus you will be saved. Do you believe in the once crucified but now living Christ? Well, my brother, I am sorry you should be a high-churchman, or anything else which is not according to Scripture, but your faith has saved you. I pray you think the same of me, if I too am a believer in the one Redeemer. If I believe, and rest my soul on the one salvation which God has provided in Christ Jesus, have charity towards me, for this rock will bear both thee and me. This should end all religious persecutions.

But next it ought to be the end of all ungenerous denunciations. If I know that a man is really believing in Jesus Christ, I may not treat him as an enemy. If I perceive that he holds a great many wrong notions, I am to be grieved at his mistakes, and to labour for his instruction, but I ought not to feel rancour towards him. It is my duty, especially if I am a public instructor, to expose and refute his errors; but as for the man himself, if he trusts in the atoning blood, I am not to treat him as a reprobate. Does he believe in Jesus Christ alone? Does he hold vital, fundamental truth, then I am not to make him an offender for a word, and twist his language into a meaning what he never intended by it. I am too near akin to every believer in Jesus to take down bell, book, and candle and excommunicate him for not being so well-instructed as he might be. If the Redeemer is next of kin to me and next of kin to him, why then we are near of kin to one another, and it is unseemly for us to strive together being brethren. For the faith and against all errors we are bound to contend, but anything like personal animosity must be far from us. O for more Christian love! If the root of the matter is in any man, do not let us persecute him, but encourage him. “Well, but I could not enter into any Christian work with him, nor enjoy fellowship with him, for he does not see with me.” Is it indeed so? The Lord have pity upon you. I should not wonder but what you are the worse man of the two: he may be wrong in head, but you are certainly wrong in heart. Very frequently it happens that the man who has most of the spirit of love is also the man who is nearest to the truth, and I generally assume that he who is the least sour is the most sound. The party who most needs to be questioned as to whether the root of the matter is in him is the brother who has no love. He whose spirit is perfumed with love to others, not only has the root but something of branch too, for love is the fair outgrowth of faith. Death to error, death to sin, but salvation to the sinner and life to the believer, notwithstanding all his mistakes. Let denunciations and exclusiveness be ended for ever, and let us own our kinship with all who are in Christ.

Further than this, the question is, “Why persecute we him?” We can do that by a cold mistrust. I have seen chill suspicion exercised by good solid substantial Christians, who have had a chronic fear and trembling lest new converts should not be true converts. The young man seems to be very earnest; he is evidently much impressed; he forsakes his sin, and there is a great change in him; he boldly declares his faith in Jesus Christ; but the jealous guardian of the purity of the church objects, for the young man was converted in an irregular way; he did not go among the Presbyterians or Baptists, or Congregationalists, or Evangelical Church people and get saved in a respectable manner, but he went out in the street and he heard a mere ranter, or a salvation army captain, and therefore it is feared that it cannot be a genuine work of grace. The cautious brother does not say much, but he draws himself into himself and retires from the person whom he suspects, just as a snail draws in his horns and hides himself in his shell. The elder brother is angry and will not go in; and in that way he persecutes the returning prodigal. Why, some of these icy critics will cause the very marrow of a poor fellow’s bones to freeze while he looks at him. Do not let us stand off in holy isolation from any who have the root of the matter in them. Wherefore should we persecute such? Let us encourage them, and give them information upon the points in which they are deficient. Some people appear to think that every convert ought to be born a fully developed man in Christ Jesus, even as, according to mythology, Minerva sprang from the brain of Jove, a full length woman, fully armed, shield and spear and all. I do not see people born again in this fashion. I believe that some of God’s men who are to be leaders are born with beards, and very early exhibit a knowledge far beyond their years, which sets them in the front from the first; but for the most part God’s children are little when they are born, even as ours are. When my sons first came to my house they were by no means the young men they are now. I should think it likely that the same may be said of your children; what wonder, then, that it is so in God’s house! Little children cannot run alone, and cannot even speak plain. Besides, they make strange noises, and by their cries they become a nuisance to those who have no sympathy with babes; and so it is with new-born Christians, they cannot run as we could wish them to, and they cannot tell out the doctrines of grace as we could desire, or pray as we should like them to pray. Well, but they are little children. They are alive, however. Do not let us bury them, but let us nurse them. It is one of the duties of mature Christian life to take this child and nurse it for God, for he will give us our wages.

Dear brothers and sisters, I beg you to be on the look out in this congregation for those who have just received the root of the matter, those that have just had the seed dropped into the soul. It has hardly begun to sprout yet, but you can see it is there. They can just say-

“We are poor sinners, and nothing at all,

But Jesus Christ is our all in all.”

Do not frighten them, do not distress them, do not chill them like a sharp frost. Cheer and encourage them, and say, “I, too, was once as you are. Ay, and I, too, often am as you are. Ay, and I, too, sometimes wish I were as you are, for I would still keep on my knees, keep humbly dependent upon Christ. Come, if elder brethren will not receive you, I will, and I will cheer you and encourage you for Jesus’ sake.”

Well, try and do that this morning, if you can, before you leave the Tabernacle. There may be somebody sitting next to you who just wants a word. Try it. I know some will be quite frightened at your venturing to speak to them. Very well, frighten them a little, it will not hurt them. Try the power of courteous personal appeal. It may be if you frighten one or two you will be the means of blessing so many more that if those who are frightened do not forgive you they will not break your heart. God himself will not, because there will be nothing to forgive. He will commend you for what you have done, and I pray you, therefore, do it for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

Portions of Scripture read before Sermon-Job 19, Psalm 92.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-104, 326, 550.

EVERYDAY RELIGION

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, May 22nd, 1881, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.”-Galatians 2:20.

I am not about to preach from this whole verse, for I have done that before: this single sentence will suffice me. I shall not attempt to enter into the fulness of the spiritual meaning of this very deep and fruitful passage; I am merely going to bring out one thought from it, and to try to work that out, I trust, to practical ends. It has sometimes been objected to the preaching of the gospel, that we exhort men to live for another sphere, and do not teach them to live well in the present life. Nothing can be more untrue than this: I venture to say that more practical moral teaching is given by ministers of the gospel than by all the philosophers, lecturers, and moralists put together. While we count ourselves to be ordained to speak of something higher than mere morals, we nevertheless, nay, and for that very reason, inculcate the purest code of duty, and lay down the soundest rules of conduct. It would be a great pity, dear brethren, if in the process of being qualified for the next life we became disqualified for this; but it is not so. It would be a very strange thing if, in order to be fit for the company of angels, we should grow unfit to associate with men; but it is not so. It would be a singular circumstance if those who speak of heaven had nothing to say concerning the way thither; but it is not so. The calumny is almost too stale to need a new denial. My brethren, true religion has as much to do with this world as with the world to come; it is always urging us onward to the higher and better life; but it does so by processes and precepts which fit us worthily to spend our days while here below. Godliness prepares us for the life which follows the laying down of this mortal flesh; but as Paul tells us in the text, it moulds the life which we now live in the flesh. Faith is a principle for present use; see how it has triumphed in ordinary life according to the record of the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Godliness with contentment is great gain: it hath the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come. The sphere of faith is earth and heaven, time and eternity; the sweep of its circle takes in the whole of our being-spirit soul, and body; it comprehends the past and the future, and it certainly does not omit the present. With the things that now are the faith of Christians has to do; and it is concerning the life that we now live in the flesh that I shall now speak, trying, by the help of God’s Spirit, to show the influence which faith has upon it.

There are seven points in which faith in him who loved us and gave himself for us will have a distinct influence upon the life which we now live in the flesh.

To begin. Faith inclines a man to an industrious life. It suggests activity. I will venture to say of any lazy man that he has little or no faith in God; for faith always worketh,-“worketh by love.” I lay it down as a thesis which shall be proved by observation that a believing man becomes an active man, or else it is because he cannot act, and, therefore, what would have been activity runs into the channel of patience, and he endures with resignation the will of the Most High. He who does nothing believes nothing-that is to say, in reality and in truth. Faith is but an empty show if it produces no result upon the life. If a professor manifests no energy, no industry, no zeal, no perseverance, no endeavour to serve God, there is cause gravely to question whether he is a believer at all. It is a mark of faith that, whenever it comes into the soul, even in its lowest degree, it suggests activity. Look at the prodigal, and note his early desires. The life of grace begins to gleam into his spirit, and its first effect is the confession of sin. He cries, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.” But what is the second effect? He desires to be doing something. “Make me as one of thy hired servants.” Having nothing to do had helped to make him the prodigal he was. He had wasted his substance in riotous idleness, seeking enjoyment without employment. He had plunged into the foulest vices because he was master of money but not master of himself. It was not an ill thing for him when he was sent into the fields to feed swine: the company which he met with at the swine trough was better than that which he had kept at his banquets. One of the signs of the return of his soul’s sanity was his willingness to work, although it might be only as a menial servant in his father’s house. In actual history observe how Saul of Tarsus, even before he had found peaceful faith in Christ, cried, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Faith arouses the soul to action. It is the first question of believing anxiety, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Hence faith is such a useful thing to men in the labour and travail of this mortal life, because it puts them into motion and supplies them with a motive for work. Faith does not permit men to lie upon the bed of the sluggard, listless, frivolous, idle; but it it makes life to appear real and earnest, and so girds the loins for the race.

Everyone should follow an honourable vocation. It was a rule of the old church, and it ought to be one of the present-“If any man will not work neither let him eat.” It is good for us all to have something to do, and plenty of it. When man was perfect God placed him in a paradise, but not in a dormitory. He set him in the garden to “dress it and to keep it.” It would not have been a happy place for Adam if he had had nothing to do but to smell the roses and gaze at the flowers: work was as essential to the perfect man as it is to us, though it was not of the kind which brings sweat to the face or weariness to the limbs. In the garden of grace faith is set to a happy service, and never wishes to be otherwise than occupied for her Lord.

The text says, “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.” Does faith in the Son of God, who loved him and gave himself for him, suggest to the redeemed man that he should be industrious and active? Assuredly it does; for it sets the divine Saviour before him as an example, and where was there ever one who worked as Jesus did? In his early youth he said, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” He was no loitering heir of a gentleman, but the toiling son of a carpenter. In after life it was his meat and his drink to do the will of him that sent him. He says, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” His was stern labour and sore travail: the zeal of God’s house did eat him up, and the intensity of love consumed him. He worked on until he could say, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” Now, it is no small thing for a man to be roused by such an example, and to be made a partaker of such a spirit.

True faith in him who loved us, and gave himself for us, also seeks direction of the Lord as to the sphere of its action, and waits upon him to be guided by him in the choice of a calling. This part of our discourse may be useful to young persons who have not settled upon what they are to do in life. Faith is a great service to us here. Much depends upon the choice of our pursuits. Very grievous mistakes have been made here-as grievous mistakes as if a bird in the air should have undertaken the pursuits of a fish, or a labouring ox should have entered into competition with a race-horse. Some people are trying to do what they were never made for, ambitious beyond their line. This is a grievous evil. There should, therefore, be a seeking unto God for guidance and direction; and faith leads us to such seeking. This prayer may be used in many senses: “Show me what thou wouldest have me to do.” In the choice of a calling faith helps a Christian to refuse that which is the most lucrative if it be attended with a questionable morality. If the Christian could have huge purses of that gold which is coined out of the drunkenness, the lust, or the ungodliness of men, he would scorn to put them among his stores. Trades which are injurious to men’s minds and hearts are not lawful callings before God. Dishonest gain is awful loss. Gold gained by deceit or oppression shall burn into the soul of its owner as the fire of hell. “Make money,” said the worldling to his son; “make it honestly if you can, but, anyhow, make money.” Faith abhors this precept of Mammon, and having God’s providence for its inheritance, it scorns the devil’s bribe. Choose no calling over which you cannot ask God’s blessing, or you will be acting contrary to the law of faith. If you cannot conceive of the Lord Jesus wishing you success in a certain line of trdae, do not touch it. If it is not possible to think of your Lord as smiling upon you in your daily calling, then your calling is not fit for a Christian to follow.

Callings should be deliberately chosen with a view to our own suitableness for them. Faith watches the design of God, and desires to act according to his intent. It had been ill for David to have lived in retirement, or for the prophet Nathan to have aspired to the throne. The law of the kingdom is-“Every man in his own order”; or in other words, “Every man according to his several ability.” If the Lord has given us one talent let us use it in its own market; or if two, or five, let us trade with them where they can be most profitably employed, so that we may be found faithful servants in the day of the Master’s coming.

We should also by faith desire such a calling as Providence evidently has arranged and intended for us. Some persons have never had a free choice of what vocation they would follow; for from their birth, position, surroundings, and connections they are set in a certain line of things, like carriages on the tram lines, and they must follow on the appointed track, or stand still. Faith expects to hear the voice behind it saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” Trusting to our own judgment often means following our own whims; but faith seeks direction from infallible wisdom, and so it is led in a right way. God knows your capacity better than you do; entreat him to choose your inheritance for you. If the flowers were to revolt against the gardener, and each one should select its own soil, most of them would pine and die through their unsuitable position; but he who has studied their nature knows that this flower needs shade and damp; and another needs sunlight and a light soil; and so he puts his plants where they are most likely to flourish. God doeth the same with us. He hath made some to be kings, though few of those plants flourish much. He has made many to be poor, and the soil of poverty, though damp and cold, has produced many a glorious harvest for the great Reaper. The Lord has set some in places of peril, places from which they would gladly escape, but they are there preserved by his hand; he has planted many others in the quiet shade of obscurity, and they blossom to the praise of the great Husbandman.

So, then, you see, faith has much to do with the force and direction of our life in the flesh. It provides impetus by giving a man something to live for; it shows him the far-reaching influences of the thoughts and deeds of to-day, and how they issue in eternal results; and faith also takes the helm and steers the vessel along a safe channel towards the haven of holy rest. Happy are they who in the early days of their youth believe in him who loved them and gave himself for them, and so begin their life-walk with Jesus. Blessed be God for converting some of us while we were yet boys and girls. O happy young people, who begin life with the early dew of grace upon them! No prince of eastern empires was ever so richly bejewelled! You will not in after-days have to lament a score years spent in error, or half a life wasted in sin, or a whole seventy years frittered away in idleness. O that you, who are yet young, who have the world before you, may now be led by the Spirit to follow Christ, who pleased not himself but did the will of his Father, so shall the life that you live in the flesh be lived by the faith of the Son of God who loved you and gave himself for you.

Secondly, faith leads a man to look to god for help in his ordinary avocation. Here, again, it has a great influence over him. A believer may seek of God the qualifications for his particular calling. “What,” say you, “may we pray about such things?” Yes. The labourer may appeal to God for strength; the artisan may ask God for skill; the student may seek God for help to quicken his intelligence. David was a great warrior, and he attributed his valour to God who taught his hands to war and his fingers to fight. We read of Bezaleel, and of the women that were wise-hearted, that God had taught them, so that they made all manner of embroidery and metal work for the house of the Lord. In those days they used to reckon skill and invention to be the gifts of God; this wretched century has grown too wise to honour any God but its own idolized self. If you pray over your work I am persuaded you will be helped in it. If for your calling you are as yet but slenderly qualified, you may every morning pray God to help you that you may be careful and observant as an apprentice or a beginner; for has he not promised that as your day your strength shall be? A mind which is trusting in the Lord is in the best condition for acquiring knowledge, and getting understanding.

As to your behaviour also in your work, there is room for faith and prayer. For, O brethren, whether qualified or not for any particular offices of this life, our conduct is the most important matter. It is well to be clever, but it is essential to be pure. I would have you masters of your trades, but I am even more earnest that you should be honest, truthful, and holy. About this we may confidently go to God and ask him to lead us in a plain path, and to hold up our goings that we slip not. He can and will help us to behave ourselves wisely. “Lead us not into temptation” is one sentence of our daily prayer, and we may further ask that when we are in the temptation we may be delivered from the evil. We need prudence, and faith remembers that if any lack wisdom he may ask of God. Godliness teaches the young men prudence, the babes knowledge and discretion. See how Joseph prospered in Egypt because the Lord was with him. He was placed in very difficult positions, on one occasion in a position of the most terrible danger, but he escaped by saying, “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” A sense of God’s presence preserved him then and at all other times. He was set over all the house of Potiphar because God was with him. And so, dear friends, engaged in service or in business, you may go to your heavenly Father and ask him to guide you with his counsel, and you may rest assured that he will order all your way, so that your daily calling shall not hinder your heavenly calling, nor your conduct belie your profession.

Faith bids you seek help from God as to the success of your daily calling. Know ye not what David says, “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.” It is a most pleasant thing to be able by faith to consult the holy oracle about everything, whether it arises in trade, or in the family, or in the church. We may say with Abraham’s servant, “O Lord, I pray thee send me good speed this day.” You may expect success if you thus seek it: and peradventure some of you would have prospered more if you had more believingly sought the Lord. I say “peradventure,” because God does not always prosper even his own people in outward things, since it is sometimes better for their souls that they should be in adversity, and then the highest prosperity is a want of prosperity. Faith quiets the heart in this matter by enabling us to leave results in the hand of God.

Faith acts also in reference to our surroundings. We are all very much influenced by those about us. God can raise us up friends who will be eminently helpful to us, and we may pray him to do so: he can put us into a circle of society in which we shall find much assistance in this life’s affairs, and also in our progress towards heaven; and concerning this we know that “The steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord.” Faith will keep you clear of evil company, and constrain you to seek the society of the excellent of this earth, and thus it will colour your whole life. If there be no friends to help him, the believer’s dependence is so fixed upon God, that he goes forward in cheerful confidence knowing that the Lord alone is sufficient for him; yet, if he be encouraged and assisted by friends, he looks upon it as God’s doing, as much as when David was strengthened by those who came to him in the cave.

Do you say, We see the connection of this with faith, but how with faith upon the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us? I answer,-Our Saviour as the object of our faith is also the object of our imitation, and you know, brethren, how in all things he rested upon God. Whenever he undertook a great enterprise you find him spending a night in prayer. If anybody could have dispensed with prayer it was our Lord Jesus; if any man that ever lived could have found his own way without heavenly guidance it was Christ the Son of God. If then he was much in prayer and exercised faith in the great Father, much more should you and I bring everything before God. We should live in the flesh expecting that the Lord Jesus will be with us even to the end, and that we shall be upheld and comforted by his sympathetic love and tenderness. Faith enables us to follow Jesus as the great Shepherd of the sheep, and to expect to be led in a right way, and daily upheld and sustained until the Redeemer shall come to receive us unto himself.

Thirdly, faith exercises a power over a man’s life of a remarkable kind because it leads him to serve god in his daily calling. Never is life more ennobled than when we do all things as unto God. This makes drudgery sublime, and links the poorest menial with the brightest angel. Seraphs serve God in heaven, and you and I may serve him in the pulpit or in the kitchen, and be as accepted as they are. Brethren, Christian men are helped by faith to serve God in their calling by obedience to God’s commands, by endeavouring to order everything according to the rules of love to God and love to men. In such a case integrity and uprightness preserve the man, and his business becomes true worship. Though there be no straining after eccentric unworldliness and superstitious singularity, yet in doing that which is right and just, the common tradesman is separated unto the service of the Lord. Jesus says, “If any man serve me let him follow me,” as much as to say that obedience to the divine command is the true mode of showing love to Jesus. If thou wishest to do something great for God, be greatly careful to obey his commands: for “to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”

Godly men exercise faith in God in their callings by trying to manifest a Christian spirit in all that they do. The spirit which actuates us may seem to be a small matter so long as we are outwardly right; but it is in reality the essence of the whole thing. Take away the flavour from the fruit, or the fragrance from the flower, and what is left? such is correct living without the savour of grace. The same thing can be done in several ways: you can do a right thing in so wrong a way as to make it wrong. Even in giving to the poor, a churl will trample upon their feelings in the very act of his charity; while I have known others who have been unable to give who, nevertheless, have expressed their inability in so kindly a form that they have comforted the disappointed applicant. Oh, to act in your trade and your calling as Christ would have acted had he been in your place. Hang that question up in your houses, “What would Jesus do?” and then think of another, “How would Jesus do it?” for what he would do, and how he would do it, may always stand as the best guide to us. Thus faith puts a man upon serving God by leading him to exhibit the spirit of Christ in what he ordinarily does, showing all courtesy, gentleness, forbearance, charity, and grace.

Furthermore, in all that we do, we should be aiming at God’s glory. We should do everything as unto God, and not unto men. There would be no eye-service if we left off being men pleasers and began to please God. Neither would there be impatience under injustice; for if men do not accept our service when we have done it with all our hearts, we shall comfort ourselves with the reflection that our Master in heaven knows how little we deserve the unrighteous censure. To live as kings and priests unto God is the cream of living. Then will you be the Lord’s free men. Serve God in serving men, and serve men by serving God: there is a way of working out those two sentences even to the full, and thus rendering life sublime. May God the Holy Spirit teach us to do this. If we really live to serve God we shall live intensely day by day, allowing no time to waste. Sophia Cook sought Mr. Wesley’s counsel as to what she should do in life, and he answered, “Live to-day”: a very short direction, but one that is full of wisdom. “Live to-day,” and tomorrow you may do the same. Plans for the whole term of life many of you may not be able to construct, but mind that you work while it is called to-day. “Son, go work to-day in my vineyard” is the great Father’s word. How would a man live if he felt that he was specially to live for God this day? Suppose that to-day there was a vow upon you, or some other bond, by which you felt that this whole day was solemnly consecrated to the Lord; how would you behave yourself? So ought you to behave this day, and every day; for you belong wholly to him who loved you, and gave himself for you. Let the love of Christ constrain us in this matter: let us put on the yoke of Christ, and feel at once that we are his blood-bought possession, and his servants for ever, because by faith he has become ours and we are his. We ought to live as Christ’s men in every little as well as in every great matter; whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we should do all to the glory of God, giving thanks unto God and the Father by Christ Jesus. Thus, you see, faith in him who gave himself for us leads us to spend our energies in his service, and to do our ordinary work with an eye to his glory, and so our life is coloured and savoured by our faith in the Son of God.

Fourthly, faith has a very beneficial influence upon the life that we live in the flesh, for it reconciles a man to the discomforts of his calling. It is not every calling that is easy or lucrative, or honoured among men. It is a happy circumstance when a man has espoused a business which is so congenial with his taste that he would not change it for another if he could: but some find their trades irksome to them. This is an evil under the sun. Some employments are despised by the thoughtless, and involve much self-denial, and hence those who follow them need much faith to enable them to live above the trials of their position. Faith teaches the humble worker to see Jesus in all his lowliness, condescending to take upon himself the form of a servant for our sakes. Faith reads, “Jesus, knowing that he came forth from God and went to God, took a towel, and girded himself, and washed his disciples’ feet.” That was one of the most menial of employments, and if our Lord and Master did not disdain it why should we be ashamed of the humblest form of service? From henceforth let no man trouble you, but rejoice because the poor man’s Saviour was a servant even as you are, and he too was “despised and rejected of men.”

Your faith ought to help you by arousing your gratitude for deliverance from a far worse drudgery. You did for Satan things of which you are now ashamed. Any work for the devil, and for his black cause, would be dishonourable: to rule an empire for Satan would disgrace us; to wear the crown put on our heads by sinning would be a horrible curse, but to wash feet for Christ is glorious service. There is no degradation in anything that is done for God. Faith in God sanctifies the man, and his calling, too, and makes it pleasant to him to carry the cross of Christ in his daily labour. There are some who hold their heads high, who, nevertheless, do things that are disgraceful to humanity, but surely you and I ought never to think anything a hardship which falls to our lot by the appointment of divine providence.

Faith is a great teacher of humility; for it bids us think little of ourselves, and rest alone in God; and because it fosters humility it renders a man’s task pleasant when else it would be irksome. Pride makes a man stiff in the back: there are some works which he cannot do though he would be happy enough in doing them if he had not such foolish ideas of his own importance. Hard work is no disgrace to any man; it is far more degrading to be leading the life of a fashionable do-nothing. When the Lord makes us feel that we are poor, undeserving creatures, we do not mind taking the lowest room, or doing the meanest work, for we feel that as long as we are out of hell and have a hope of heaven, the meanest service is an honour to us. We are glad enough to be where God would have us be, seeing Christ has loved us and given himself for us.

Faith also removes discomforts by reminding us that they will not last long. Faith says of trial, “Bear it! The time is short. Soon the Saviour cometh, and the poorest of his followers shall then reign with him.” Toil on, O weary one, for the morning light will put an end to thy labour, which lasts only through the hours of darkness. The glory breaks; the night is wearing away, and the dawn appeareth. Therefore patiently wait and quietly hope, for thou shalt see the salvation of God. Thus faith takes the thorns from our pillow, and makes us learn in whatsoever state we are therewith to be content. Call you this nothing? Has not Jesus done much for us when by faith in him we have learned to endure the ills of life with sweet content?

Fifthly, faith has this further influence upon ordinary life-that it casts all the burden of it upon the Lord. Faith is the great remover of yokes, and it does this in part by making us submissive to God’s will. When we have learned to submit we cease to repine. Faith teaches us so to believe in God, infallible wisdom and perfect love, that we consent unto the Lord’s will and rejoice in it. Faith teaches us to look to the end of every present trial, and to know that it works together for good; thus again reconciling us to the passing grief which it causes. Faith teaches us to depend upon the power of God to help us in the trial, and through the trial, and in this way we are no longer stumbled by afflictions, but rise above them as on eagles’ wings. Brethren, if any of you are anxious, careworn, and worried, stop not in such a state of mind; it cannot do you any good; and it reflects no honour upon your great Father. Pray for more faith, that you may have no back-breaking load to carry, but may transfer it to the great Burden-bearer. Pray to your great Lord so to strengthen and ease your heart that your only care may be to please him, and that you may be released from all other care. By this means will you be greatly helped, for if the burden be lightened, it comes to much the same thing as if the strength were multiplied. Content with the divine will is better than increase of riches, or removal of affliction, for with wealth no peace may come; and out of prosperity no joy in the Lord may arise, but contentment is peace itself.

Whatever burden faith finds in her daily avocation she casts it upon God by prayer. We begin with God in the morning, seeking help to do our work, and to do it well. At his hands we seek guidance and prosperity from hour to hour. We pray him to prevent our doing any wrong to others, or suffering any wrong from them; and we ask him to keep our temper and to preserve our spirit while we are with worldly men. We beg that we may not be infected by the evil example of others, and that our example may be such as may be safely followed. These are our great concerns in business; we tremble lest in anything we should dishonour God, and we trust in him to keep us. A believer goes to God with the matters of each day, and looks for the morning dew to fall upon him; he looks up through the day expecting the Lord to be his constant shield, and at night ere he goes to rest he empties out the gathered troubles of the day, and so falls to a happy sleep. Then doth a man live sweetly when he lives by the day, trusting his Lord with everything, and finding God to be ever near.

To all this the example of the Saviour leads us, and his love within our hearts draws us. “He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him,” and “was heard in that he feared.”

Sixthly, faith hath a happy influence upon the present life, for it moderates a man’s feelings as to the result of his work. Sometimes the result of our work is prosperity, and here the grace of God prevents a surfeit of worldly things. There is a keen test of character in prosperity. Everybody longs for it, but it is not every man that can bear it when it comes. True faith forbids our setting great store by worldly goods and pleasures and enjoyments, for it teaches us that our treasure is in heaven. If we begin to idolize the things that are seen, we shall soon degenerate and turn aside from God. How easily we may spoil a blessing! Two friends gathered each a rose: the one was continually smelling at it, touching its leaves and handling it as if he could not hold it too fast; you do not wonder that it was soon withered. The other took his rose, enjoyed its perfume moderately, carried it in his hand for a while, and then placed it on the table in water, and hours after it was almost as fresh as when it was plucked from the bough. We may dote on our worldly gear until God becomes jealous of it, and sends a blight upon it; and, on the other hand, we may with holy moderateness use these things as not abusing them, and get from them the utmost good which they are capable of conveying to us. Many pursue wealth or fame as some eager boy hunts the painted butterfly: at last, after a long and weary run, he dashes it down with his cap, and with the stroke he spoils its beauty. Many a man hath reached the summit of a life-long ambition and found it to be mere vanity. In gaining all he has lost all; wealth has come, but the power to enjoy it has gone; life has been worn out in the pursuit, and no strength is left with which to enjoy the gain. It shall not be so with the man who lives by faith, for his chief joys are above, and his comfort lies within. To him God is joy so rich that other joy is comparatively flavourless.

But perchance the result of all our work may be adversity. Some men row very hard, and yet their boat makes no headway. When an opportunity presents itself the tide of trade suddenly turns against them. When they have corn in the mill the wind does not blow. Perhaps they lose all but their character, and then it is that faith comes in to cheer them under the disaster. I am deeply grieved when I hear of persons committing suicide because they were in difficulties: it is a dreadful thing thus to rush before one’s Creator unbidden. Faith sustains the heart and puts aside all thought of such desperate attempts to fly from present griefs by plunging into far more awful woes. We shall bear up and come through our trials triumphantly if we have faith in God. If our heavenly Father has appointed a bitter cup for us shall we not drink it? If the fields which we have tilled yield no harvests, and the beasts that we have foddered die in the stall, shall we not bow the head and say, “The Lord hath done it”? Must it not be right if the Lord ordains it? let us bless him still. If not, it will be our unbelief which hinders. How many have been happy in poverty, happier than they were in wealth! How often have the saints rejoiced more during sickness than in their health. Payson declared that during illness he felt happier than he had ever been, far happier than he had ever expected to be. Though bereavement has come into the family, and sickness unto the household, yet faith has learned to sing in all weathers because her God is still the same.

O brothers and sisters, faith is a precious preparative for anything and everything that comes; mind that you have it always ready for action. Do not leave it at home in time of storm as the foolish seaman left his anchor. It is not a grace to be shut up in a closet, or fastened to a communion table, or boxed up in a pew, but it is an everyday grace which is to be our companion in the shop and in the market, in the parlour and in the kitchen, in the workroom and in the field; ay, it may go into the workhouse with the poor, as well as into the mansion with the rich; it may either cheer the dreary hours of the infirmary, or sanctify the sunny weeks of holiday. Faith is for every place in which a good man may lawfully be found. “Should fate command you to the utmost verge of the green earth, to rivers unknown to song,” yet shall a childlike faith in God find you a home in every clime, under every sky. Oh, to feel the power of it, as to all that comes of our labour, that the life which we live in the flesh may be lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us.

Seventhly, faith has this sweet influence upon our present life, that it enables a man cheerfully to leave his occupation when the time comes. A Christian may have to quit a favourite vocation on account of circumstances over which he has no control; he may have to emigrate to a distant land, or altogether to change his mode of living, and this may involve many a wrench to his feelings. It is not always easy to leave the old house, and all its surroundings, and to take a long journey; nor is it pleasant to change one’s settled habits and begin life anew; yet true faith sets loose by worldly things, and is ready to haul up the anchor and make sail at the divine bidding. The believer says, “Command my journey, and I go.” I am but a tent dweller, and must expect to be on the move. Like Israel in the desert, we must follow the cloud, and journey or rest as the cloud ordains, for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. Faith has the same gracious influence upon those who enjoy unbroken prosperity; it keeps them from taking root in the soil of earth, and this is a miracle of grace.

Sometimes our vocations have to be given up through weakness or old age. It is a hard pinch to many a busy man when he feels that he has no more strength for business, when he perceives that other and more vigorous minds must be allowed to step into the long occupied position. The workman cannot bear to feel that his hand has lost its cunning: it is a sharp experience. Faith is of essential service here. It helps a man to say, “My Master, I am one of the vessels of thy house; if thou wilt use me I will be glad; but if thou wilt put me on the shelf, I will be glad too. It must be best for me to be as thou wouldst have me.” If faith resigns herself to the supreme wisdom and love and goodness of Christ, and says, “Do with me even as thou wilt: use me, or set me aside,” then retirement will be a release from care and no source of distress. The evening of advanced age may be spent as joyfully as the noontide of manhood if the mind be stayed on God. “They shall bring forth fruit in old age” is a promise full often realized by believers, for all around me are venerable brethren who are more useful and more happy than ever, though the infirmities of years are growing upon them.

And then comes at last the leaving of your vocation by death, which will arrive in due time to us all. Then faith displays its utmost energy of blessing. Brethren, may we meet death as Moses did, who when God bade him climb the mountain, for there he must die, uttered no word of sorrow, but like a child obeyed his father, went upstairs to bed, looked wistfully out at the window upon the promised land, and then fell asleep. How sweet to look upon the goodly land and Lebanon, and then to be kissed to sleep by his Father’s own mouth, and to be buried man knoweth not where. His work was done, and his rest was come. Beautiful are the departing words of Samuel when, laying down his office, he can challenge all men to bear witness to his character. Happy man, to depart amid universal blessing. O that each one of us may be ready to render in his account before the judgment-seat of Christ-let the last day come when it may.

Our Master, by whose love we have been endowed with faith, has taught us how to die as well as how to live. He could say, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do,” and he would have us say it. Thrice happy man who, in laying down the shepherd’s crook or the carpenter’s plane, in putting aside the ledger or the class-book, never to open them again, can exclaim, “I have fought a good fight; I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of life which fadeth not away.” Good old Mede, the Puritan, when he was very old, and leaning on his staff, was asked how he was, and he answered, “Why, going home as fast as I can; as every honest man ought to do when his day’s work is done: and I bless God I have a good home to go to.” Dear aged saints, so near home, does not faith transform death from an enemy into a friend, as it brings the glory so near to you? You will soon be in the Father’s house and leave me behind; and yet I cannot tell: I remember that the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre, and so, perhaps, may I. You have the start of us in years, but we may be called home before you, for there are last that shall be first. Let death come when it may we shall not be afraid, for Jesus, who has loved us and given himself for us, is the resurrection and the life. Living this life in the flesh by faith upon the Son of God, we are waiting for the usher of the black rod to bring a message from the King to summon us to meet him in the upper house. Why should we be loth to go? What is there here that we should wait? What is there on this poor earth to detain a heaven-born and heaven-bound spirit? Nay, let us go, for he is gone in whom our treasure is, whose beauties have engrossed our love. He is not here, why should we desire to linger? He has risen, let us rise.

Thus, from the beginning to the end of the life that we live in the flesh, faith upon the Son of God answereth all things, and all its paths drop fatness.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Matthew 6.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-122, 121, 116 (Part III).