This text speaks concerning the material ark. I should like to append to that another, which speaks of the ark spiritually, and tells us where its antitype is to be found.

“And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament (or covenant).”-Revelation 11:19.

When inward piety is low the externals of religion are frequently cried up. Those who know nothing of God are the very people to exclaim concerning themselves and their brethren, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these.” The Pharisees, who were furthest from God, were the most bitter advocates of ritualism and formalism; they would not even have a man healed on the Sabbath day, or allow the hungry to rub a few ears of corn out of the husks. It is not always so; but yet too often, “The nearer the church the further from God.” The more gown, the less grace. The more phylactery, the less sanctity. The more of ecclesiasticism, the less of true godliness. On the other hand, whenever the Spirit of God is largely poured out, although the ordinances of God are carefully attended to, yet as external things they are sure to be put into their proper place, and that proper place is a secondary one. The spiritual is put foremost and the ritualistic is placed hindmost when grace is largely given. It was so with David in the fifty-first Psalm: when he had made a hearty confession of his sin, and cried to God for mercy, he uttered those memorable words, “Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offerings.” He puts aside the symbol because he has a clear view of the substance. That is exactly the case with the people mentioned in my text: they had been sadly sinful; but God in his mercy promised to turn to them, and to bless them, and bring them back into their own land again, and he says-“And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more.” The visible golden ark, which was so much their glory, should be quite forgotten, because of the gracious visitation of God. That shall be our subject this morning.

First, I shall invite your attention to the symbol reverenced; secondly, we shall see that reverence obliterated; and, thirdly, we shall dwell upon that reverence transferred; for though we no longer revere the ancient ark of shittim wood overlaid with pure gold, we do honour to that forever-enduring ark of which we read in our second text-“The temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his covenant.”

First, then, let us think upon the symbol reverenced.

The ark of the covenant was a small coffer not exceeding four feet and a-half in length by about two feet eight inches in breadth. It was made of an enduring kind of wood, and was covered with pure gold both within and without. Upon the upper part of it was a golden crown, into which fitted a solid slab of gold, which formed the lid of the ark. That golden lid was called the propitiatory or mercy-seat; in the Hebrew, Kapporeth, or a place of covering. Upon the two ends of this mercy-seat, and part and parcel of the same solid metal, were two cherubs, with outstretched wings. The Lord said of them, “And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be.” Between those wings, when God was favourable to his people, the bright light, called the Shekinah, was wont to shine forth: and when, once in the year, the high priest went into the innermost place, bearing with him a cloud of incense and sprinkling the blood, he saw the glory of that light.

This ark was the object of great reverence, and very fitly so, because it symbolized God’s presence, the presence of Jehovah, the living God, in the midst of his people. They saw no similitude, for what likeness can there be of him that filleth all in all? But they knew that God’s excellent glory shone above the mercy-seat, and they thought of the ark in connection with the Lord, as David did, when he said, “Thou and the ark of thy strength.” It was, therefore, a thing greatly to be reverenced, for God was there. To no other people had God given such a token of his presence. He walked in the midst of no other camp; but of Israel he had said, “My Spirit shall go with thee.” It was the first article of the tabernacle concerning which Moses received instructions, for, indeed, it was the first in honour. Read the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus, and see how speedily the Lord who gave the law provided a chest for its honourable preservation. Although Solomon made most of the furniture of the holy place anew he retained the same ark, which was too much esteemed to be changed. When it was carried abroad in the marchings of the Israelites it always went in front, and it was distinguished from all the other furniture by being covered externally with blue, as if to signify its heavenly character. Lifted high on men’s shoulders, upon golden staves, the blue coloured wrapping of the ark was seen in the van of the Lord’s host occupying the place of honour. We do not wonder, therefore, that it was much spoken of and esteemed by the tribes of Israel.

That presence of God meant blessing; for God was with his people in love to them. The Lord abides not with his enemies, but with his chosen. So long as he gave the token of his presence it was a sign that he had not cast them off as hopeless. He still heard their prayers and granted them his favours; for he still remained in residence among them while his mercy-seat was in the holy place. When the ark went into the house of Obed-Edom for a time the Lord blessed the house of Obed-Edom for the sake of the ark of the Lord. Therefore David was encouraged to bring up the ark into his own city, and he did so with gladness, which he expressed by dancing before the Lord with all his might. Well, then, might the people speak of it, and think of it, and visit it, and magnify it, because it brought blessing to them.

The ark was held in reverence by the Israelites because it was their leader. When the time came to march through the wilderness the ark went in the forefront. How often did Moses cry, “Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered,” and on they went across the pathless desert rightly led by this ark of the covenant. When they came to the brink of Jordan, as soon as the feet of the priests that bare the ark touched the waters, the river was parted, and they went through dry shod. It was so trusted in that they bore the ark on one occasion into the battlefield, when God was not with them, and the golden coffer was carried into captivity to vindicate its own honour among the Philistines, by smiting its captors with sore diseases, and breaking in pieces Dagon, their god. A wonderful ark it was when God was with it. It was such a symbol of power that we wonder not that when David brought it up to Mount Zion all the people shouted, and with sound of trumpet celebrated its triumphal march. It was also so much a symbol of holiness that Solomon removed Pharaoh’s daughter out of the city of David, for he said, “My wife shall not dwell in the house of David, king of Israel, because the places are holy, whereunto the ark of the Lord hath come.”

In Solomon’s day the ark was finally installed in the temple, and the king placed over it two greater cherubim, ten cubits high, with outspread wings. These were made of olive wood overlaid with gold, and probably covered the entire structure of the coffer and the smaller cherubim, which were component parts of it. Then they drew out the staves of the ark, signifying that there the ark was to stay; but they left the ends of the staves visible, to show that God might yet depart from them if they sinned against him. In the temple the ark rested until the time of the captivity, and from that time it was no more heard of, and possibly never appeared again in the temple that was built by Zerubbabel or in that which was enlarged and beautified by Herod.

The ark was to the Israelites, after their wanderings were over, the fixed centre of their nationality, even as while they were in the wilderness it had always been placed in the centre of the camp. In the desert it had been the central kernel of the whole army. Outside the ark was the tabernacle or holy place, and outside of that, in various rows and orders, were the tents of the tribes; but the core of it all was this honoured ark. To-day we have a centre to which we rally, a fixed centre which faith perceives in heaven, whither the true ark of the covenant has gone up.

Marvel not that the men of Judah paid great reverence to this ark when in so many ways it was a token for good to them. What they did to this ark is mentioned in the text. First, they recognised it as the ark of the covenant of the Lord. They were wont to say, “The ark of the convenant of the Lord.” They spoke much of it, and prided themselves upon the possession of it. Nay, they not only spoke of it, but they loved it; for we read, “Neither shall it come to mind,” or as the margin has it, “Neither shall it come upon the heart.” The ark of the covenant was upon the hearts of God’s people; they had a deep affection for it. When it was carried away captive we read of a godly woman who was seized with sudden travail at the news, while the aged Eli fell backward with horror at the tidings. It was very dear to the people of God, and if it was taken away they reckoned that the glory was departed from them.

Hence, in the next place, they remembered it, as the text plainly informs us. If they were captives they prayed in the direction in which the ark was situated; wherever they wandered they thought of God and of the coffer which represented his presence.

Next, they visited it. On certain holy days they came from Dan and from Beersheba, even from the utmost ends of their land, in joyful companies, singing from stage to stage, and making joyful holiday as they went up to the place where God did dwell between the cherubim. When they came back they rejoiced because they had worshipped before the ark of the covenant, even before the presence of the Most High God.

Visiting it, they were accustomed also to speak highly of it; for in the margin of your Bibles you will find, “Neither shall they magnify it any more.” They used to tell to one another what the ark had done; the glory that shone forth from it, the acceptance of the offering whose blood was sprinkled upon it on the Day of Atonement, and the testimony which was heard from between the cherubic wings. They would tell how the ark divided the Jordan, how it laid the walls of Jericho level with the ground, how it slew the prying men of Bethshemesh and Uzzah, who laid presumptuous hands upon it, and how the glory of the Lord came upon it and filled the temple so that the priests could not stand to minister. Of their God and the ark of his strength they would not cease to sing; for the ark of the covenant was honoured in Israel.

Secondly, I would have you observe that reverence obliterated. They were to say no more, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord.” Yet that fact was to be a blessing. Observe that the words are not spoken as a threatening, but as a gracious promise. Now, this cannot merely mean that they would be without the ark; for they would certainly understand that to be a sign of divine anger. Neither would the mere absence of the ark fulfil the prophet’s words; for if the ark were gone they would remember it still, and their hearts would hanker after it. If they could not visit it, yet it would come to their minds, and they would speak of it. It was somehow to be a boon to them that they should speak no more of the ark of the covenant, for the text was delivered in the form of a promise. The fact is they were to have done with the symbol because the substance would come. They were no more to speak of the ark itself, because they would have that which the ark was intended to foreshadow. Bear with me with great patience this morning while I try to interest you in the points in which our blessed Lord Jesus Christ is the ark of the covenant now in the temple of God for us.

Our Lord Jesus by his coming has put out of his people’s thoughts the material ark of the covenant, because its meaning is fulfilled in him; and this, first, in the sense of preservation. The ark was intended to be a sacred treasury in which God laid up the two tables of stone upon which the law was written, that they might be kept there as priceless things, not to be commonly handled or even seen, but shut up there as the most precious gifts of heaven. We know not where the tablets are now, and we know not what has become of the golden chest; but where is the law now? Once it lay broken at your feet and mine, even as the tables were shattered at the feet of Moses. When Moses takes the tables of the law into his hand he soon grows angry with the sinful people, and he breaks them to pieces at the foot of the mount. But where is the law now? In Christ, for “he is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.” “How I love thy law,” says David. David knew where the law was, and where it could become an object of love, even in the hand of a mediator. The law apart from Christ is a terror to our guilty souls, because it is a law broken, and therefore condemning; but the law in Christ Jesus, honoured and fulfilled by him, is a delightful sight to true worshippers. In him the law is more honoured than by any merely human obedience, and it smiles upon us as if we had perfectly obeyed it. The law fulfilled is our confidence as much as the law violated was our dread. We think nothing of the ark now, and we think nothing of the tablets of stone; but we do think everything of Christ Jesus, “who is made of God unto us righteousness”; for he has completely kept the law; for he said, “Thy law is within my heart.” It was not within his heart alone, but within all his life; his whole thoughts, words, and acts went to make up a golden chest in which the precious treasure of the perfect law of God should be contained. O come, let us magnify his blessed name!

Next, the ark signified propitiation; for over the top of the sacred box which held the two tables of the law was the slab of gold called the mercy-seat, which covered all. We will not talk of that golden covering now, but we will speak of Jesus, our blessed Lord, who covers all. When God looks down upon his law, he does not see it nakedly, but he beholds it in the person of his Son. He sees it there perfectly preserved without taint or flaw of any kind, and he rejoices therein. You and I magnify the Lord that instead of having a naked law to look at, which would flash devouring flame upon us, we see the law in Christ covered with mercy, fulfilled by love on our behalf. We often speak of the mercy-seat; but do we, so often as we should, remember that Jesus Christ himself is that mercy-seat? There is no mercy-seat to which we can draw nigh in prayer except the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who is the propitiation for our sins, and through whom our supplications are accepted. “Ah,” said the Jew, “we have a mercy-seat that covers all.” “Ah,” say we, “but we have one who does not do that typically, and in outward pattern alone, but he is the real covering upon which we lay our prayers and thanksgivings, and find ourselves accepted.” We come not to God on the footing of the law, but the interposing propitiation covers all, and comes between, and upon that mercy-seat we offer our petitions and praises. That is a second blessed reason why we will say no more, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord,” neither shall it come to mind, for Jesus is the propitiatory for us.

The next word is a very blessed one, and that is covenant. The ark was called “the ark of the covenant.” It represented a covenant of works, as it was a part of a visible sanctuary; and, ah, how soon was that covenant broken! There is no wonder that in the breaking of that covenant the golden pot of manna was lost, and that Aaron’s rod that budded was no more seen; for we are told in the Chronicles that when they opened the ark, in the days of Solomon, there was nothing found in it “save the two tables which Moses put therein at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of Egypt.” Paul tells us that they were there originally, and so it is probable that they were taken away by the Philistines. Ah, how soon we should lose the sweet things of God if we were under the covenant of works, and how soon we should miss the gentle sovereignty of his shepherd rod! I thank and bless God that in Christ Jesus we have a covenant of grace which can never fail, and never can be broken, and in him we have all that our souls desire: pot of manna and rod of Aaron, covenant provision and covenant rule we find in him. Dear hearer, have you ever seen Christ as your covenant? It is not every believer that has seen him in that light. When we first come to Christ we look to him as our Saviour, and we are lightened, and a very blessed look it is. It may not be till years after that we come to understand that God has entered into covenant with us in Christ, that he will bless us, and sanctify us, and keep us to the end. But, mark you, while a knowledge of Christ as a Saviour gives you the bread of life, yet the “wines on the lees well refined” and the “fat things full of marrow” are unknown to you till you can spell that word “covenant.” Oh, how I wish some of the people of God understood it, and realized that there is established between God and us in the person of Christ Jesus a covenant ordered in all things and sure. May the Holy Ghost teach you this. God has pledged his honour for the salvation of his people, and he has sealed the covenant with the precious blood of Jesus, and therefore he will not turn away from it, but will keep it for his Son’s sake. Oh, blessed Jesus, we want no ark of the covenant; for thou art the covenant itself to us, and in thee we rejoice.

Fourthly: because this ark was the ark of the covenant of God it was from it that he was accustomed to reveal himself, and so it is called the “ark of testimony.” Jehovah often spoke from off the mercy-seat to his waiting people. His priests and prophets heard a voice coming forth from the thick darkness of the secret chamber wherein God dwelt, a voice from off the mercy-seat giving them promises of succour in their times of need. It was a great thing to possess what they called “the oracle.” No other people had a true oracle except these chosen ones of God; but now that its voice is silent we need not regret it, for we have another oracle. “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” His Son is the testimony of the Father’s mind; “He that hath seen me,” saith he, “hath seen the Father.” In all the world of nature, in all the realm of providence, in all the books of revelation, God is seen; but nowhere as he is seen in the person of Jesus Christ-Jesus, the Word, is the plainest revelation of God. His sacrifice is the heart of God writ out in readable characters. Jesus Christ is “the testimony.” Come, then, beloved, let us rejoice in the faithful and true Witness. Some will say that they know God by study, others declare that they have found out God by reflection, and certain dream that they perceive him by imagination; but all their knowledge put together cannot equal their blessed testimony of God which he hath given us concerning himself in the manifestation of his incarnate, holy, obedient, suffering, dying, risen Son. We say no more, “the ark of the testimony,” but we rejoice that God was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, and saw the Father in the Son.

We have only reached the middle of the subject now: this ark also signified enthronement; for the top of the ark was, so to speak, the throne of God. It was “the throne of the heavenly grace.” There God reigned and dwelt; that is, typically. It was a throne to which petitioners came with their pleas to obtain favours at the hand of the great King. Where now is the visible throne of God? Ah, sirs, his holy place has been broken down, and he dwelleth not in temples made with hands, that is to say of this building. There is no visible throne of God upon the face of the earth now. Whereunto shall ye liken the throne of the Most High? We have heard of thrones of mighty kings adorned with gold, and ivory, and pearls, and gems, till they have shone like rainbows; but what would these trifles be to the God of the whole earth? If you would see the throne of God, behold the person of the Christ; for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. The Lord reigneth from the tree, from the cross: here is the kingdom of God set up in the person of Christ Jesus among the sons of men. Oh what a blessing to have such a throne to come to-to Jesus himself who is the throne of the invisible God! We talk no longer of the ark, and of its gold, and of its crown, and of its golden lid, and of the winged cherubs; for the Lord Jesus is infinitely better than these. Oh, our beloved Lord and Master, thou dost chase away these shadows from our minds, for the very throne of God art thou!

Out of this grows the next idea, that as it was the place of God’s enthronement, so it was the door of man’s approach. Men never came nearer to God on earth typically than when they stood in the holy place close by the ark. Israel was nearest to God symbolically on that day when the atonement had been made and accepted, and her priest stood before the ark awe-stricken in the presence of God. You and I need not speak of the ark of the covenant; for we have a blessed way of approach. We do not come to Christ once in the year only, but every day in the year, and every hour of the day. He who came but once in the year came tremblingly. The Jews have a tradition that they put a cord about the foot of the High Priest, so that if he should die before the ark they might draw out his corpse; such was their servile fear of God. The tradition shows what was the trembling nature of that entrance within the veil: how different from the apostle’s words, “Let us come boldly unto the throne of the heavenly grace.” We are not afraid of being stricken with death there: we are full of reverence, but we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear. There is no approaching God except in Christ; but in Christ our approach to God may be as near as possible. Come nearer, nearer still: it is your fault that you do not come near enough. There is nothing to tremble at here,-come right up to God and speak with him as a man speaketh with his friend. I would leave others to worship as they find they can; but to me the prayers of our national church are very beautiful, but, oh, how cold! What a long way off is God in the Liturgy! What word is there in it of childlike delight in God? Hence certain brethren who have been accustomed to that style of praying chide us for our boldness and familiarity in prayer. They think we are presumptuous in drawing so near to God. Brethren, we do not marvel at your judgment, nor complain of it. We would not condemn you for your distant prayers; but we cannot yield to your censure of our bolder approach, for we have in our bosoms a sense of acceptance and a spirit of adoption which will not let us speak with God otherwise than as his favoured children. We come boldly because we come through Jesus. Who is afraid of Jesus? Who shudders when drawing near to him? And if he be the mercy-seat to which we come, and the place where the Father meets us, we feel that he permits the holy familiarity, the humble freedom which is suggested to our hearts by the spirit of adoption.

I must go a step further-the ark was the place of gracious power. On the top of the mercy-seat stood cherubic figures, and, notwithstanding all that learned men may have said, I do not think that any idea is nearer the mark than that these cherubim were types of angelic power, and of all the powers of providence which God is pleased to use in the behalf of his people. Notice how frequently the Word associates angels with our Lord; for instance, when Jacob saw the ladder which reached to heaven, and God at the top of it, there were angels ascending and descending upon it. Cherubim were on all the curtains of the most holy place which enclosed the ark, and the ministry of angels is interwoven into the great covenant plan of salvation. “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” Consider, then, that the angels on the mercy-seat typify the power of God by which he will defend his people. Right well did he defend them, for who could harm them when he was in the midst of them? Yet we will not speak of the ark, neither will we remember it, neither will we visit it; for we see in Christ Jesus that all the power of God is on our side: he is “God with us,” and if God be with us, who can be against us? Every angel is the servant of our covenant Head, and so the guardian of every member of Christ. As he might have summoned twelve legions of angels by one uplifted glance to heaven, so will he fill the mountain with horses of fire and chariots of fire whenever his people need such succour. The stars in their courses fight for the Saviour and for the saved ones: nothing shall by any means harm them. In heaven, and earth, and hell the warrant of the great King stands in full force, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm;” and this protection comes to us because we are preserved in Christ Jesus.

An eighth explanation, however, I must close with, so far as this second head is concerned. The ark was much reverenced by the Jews, because it was the centre of their nationality. Around the ark in the wilderness gathered all the tribes. The pillar of fire and cloud above the ark of the covenant was God’s flaming standard marking the pavilion where the Lord of hosts abode. After they were settled in Canaan, it was the centre of the nation; thither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of our God. To-day we have no such sacred ark or chest, we have no palladium or central standard. There is a church which has a man they call infallible, who is her centre; and there are others who in their cravings after uniformity in the churches would, I have no doubt, soon create a second hierarchy, and bring forth by prodigious birth a second pope; but it is not so among us. God will not have it so; he will have no human centre; and our very divisions are overruled to prevent such a thing. But there is one centre to which all God’s people gather; there is one name above every name, “of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” Find me a dozen spiritual men, and, to describe their different modes of thought, one of them may be called a Baptist, another an Episcopalian, a third a Presbyterian, a fourth a Methodist, and so forth; but let them sit together and begin to talk of the things of God, and of the covenant of grace, and of the work of the Spirit in the soul, and of the preciousness of the blood of Jesus, and you will see that they are one. Though they talk with various brogues, their language is one. Even as men from Somersetshire, or Essex, or Yorkshire, all differ and yet all are Englishmen; so are Christians of various denominations one in the common language of the cross of Christ. They say that Christians ought to be one, and so we ought; but I go further, and assert that all who are in Christ are already one. When our Lord prayed, “That they all may be one,” was he unheard? Was his prayer unavailing? I believe it was answered, and that to this day there is a vital union among all the people of God in every place, and though they sometimes try to conceal that unity, yet the love of Christ will out and will fuse them into one. Put two mere theologians together, and they will fight like Kilkenny cats; but bring two spiritual men together at the cross, and they will lie down like two lambs: they cannot help it, they must love each other in Christ. There is, there must be, an essential unity among those who are quickened by the Spirit: and I rejoice and glory that the name, the person, and the work of Jesus are at this hour the centre of Christendom. Talk not of the ark, neither visit it, neither let it come to mind; for the King himself is in the midst of us, “the standard-bearer among ten thousand.”

Thirdly, let us see this reverence transferred. Let us render to Jesus the honour which aforetime was offered to the ark. First: let us say that Jesus is our covenant. We are told, “They shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord.” People must talk, it is natural to them, they must say something-what else are their tongues for? Let us, then, say concerning Christ that he is the ark of the covenant of the Lord. Come, let us each one say it for himself-“Lord Jesus, I am in covenant with God through thee. Jesus, thou art my propitiation, by thee I approach unto the Father.” Recognize this truth for yourself, my brother, and it will be a grand day for you. When you have said it to yourself, say it to those about you. Say it to strangers, but especially say it to your own brethren. “They that feared the Lord spake often one to another,” and what better subject could they have than to say one to another, “Brother, what fellowship we have with God in Christ! What a covenant there is between us and him! Oh how sweetly doth Christ cover our sins! How blessedly doth he fulfil the law! How sweetly doth he bring us into fellowship with angels, and how doth he enable God to shine forth upon us!” Say this, say it often, nobody will rebuke you; it is a subject upon which you may be as fluent as you please. When you have said all you know, say it over again, and when you have said it again, say it a third time. This is a kind of note of which the human ear, when once it is cleansed, never grows weary.

The text takes you a step further; for it says of the original ark, “neither shall it come to mind,” or (I give the margin), “neither shall it come upon your heart.” Brethren, let Christ come upon your heart, and dwell there. Beloved, let us not have Christ in the head, but Christ in the heart. Know all you can about him; but love him on account of everything you know; for everything we learn about Christ ought to be another argument for affection to him. How I loved him when I only knew myself a sinner and Christ a Saviour; but oh, I love him more as I begin to see my greater need and his greater fulness; as I see my greater sinfulness and his greater graciousness! Oh for a great Christ! Oh to see him grow upon us. Oh to get more knowledge, and then to have our hearts enlarged that we may love him more and more! Carry Christ in your heart, even as the Israelite bore the ark in his affections. Oh love the Lord, all ye his saints! You can love other things too much; but not your Lord. Embrace him; cry in the language of the Song, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.” Outsiders do not understand the Song: they say it is a mere love ditty. They never will understand it till the Lord Jesus is laid on their hearts; but when he is once there-their joy, their all-they will need just such golden speech as Solomon’s Song, and every word of it will be dear to their souls. Let us, then, love our Lord with all our hearts.

And, next, if we should ever grow dull or cold at any time, let us take the third step in the text, and let us remember the Lord.

“What peaceful hours I once enjoyed,

How sweet their memory still.”

If I have not this enjoyment now, I will remember it, and struggle till I find my Lord again. O my Lord, I will remember thee. If I forget thee, let my heart forget to beat.

“Gethsemane, can I forget?

Or there Thy conflict see,

Thine agony and bloody sweat,

And not remember Thee!

“When to the cross I turn mine eyes,

And rest on Calvary,

O Lamb of God! my sacrifice!

I must remember Thee.

“Remember thee, and all thy pains,

And all thy love to me;

Yea, while a breath, a pulse remains,

Will I remember thee.”

O memory, leave no other name than that of Jesus recorded upon thy tablets. Let us sometimes set apart a little space for the exercise of our memory. It is good for children at school to have their memories trained. Should not we sometimes, especially we who speak so much, get quite alone and sanctify our memory by going over all the blessings of the covenant which come to us by Christ, all the glory of his person, and all the wonders of his work. Oh, yes, we must remember it!

The next thing is, let us visit him. We cannot set out on journeys now to go to Jerusalem on foot,-little bands of us together; yet let us visit Jesus. Let us continually come to the mercy-seat alone. Who that knows the worth of prayer but wishes to be often there? Next, let us come up by twos and threes. You that live at home and seldom get out, could you not every now and then during the day say to your maid, if she is a Christian, or to your sister who lives with you, “Come, let us have a five minutes’ visit to the ark of the covenant; let us go to the Lord and speak with him; may be he will speak with us. Perhaps we have not been agreeing as we should together, let us go and hear what God the Lord will speak, for he may speak peace to us, in more senses than one. Perhaps we have had a trouble to-day, and we do not see our way-let us go up to the ark of the covenant and hear what the oracle will tell us. Peradventure the Lord will say, ‘This is the way, walk ye in it,’ and we shall know what to do.” Frequently in twos and threes visit Christ your ark, and take care also to join the great caravans of church prayer. One starts in this place every Sunday at seven o’clock in the morning, and another at the hour of ten. Join those bands of pilgrims. A still larger company goes up to the oracle on Monday nights at seven o’clock. Some twelve or fifteen hundred of us are usually to be found in happy fellowship going up to the mercy-seat on Mondays. A very blessed little company meet on Thursday nights before I begin my sermon, and they say, “Come and let us go and enquire of the Lord, and ask his blessing upon his servant.” Besides these, there are meetings for prayer in this place at so many hours that I cannot now mention them all. If you live where they are giving up prayer-meetings, carry home a live coal and drop it into your minister’s bosom. “Ah,” say you, “he might not like it.” That is very likely, but he certainly needs setting on fire if he lets the prayer-meeting go out. Churches without prayer-meetings! Pull them down, their day is over! Stop the preacher’s mouth if he does not pray, and let his church be scattered to the winds; for the church that forgets to assemble for prayer has “Ichabod” written on its walls. No prayer, no power. The ark of the covenant is gone when the people no longer come together to cry unto the Lord in their companies. Let us visit the ark, then, constantly together; let us go up to the Holy Place that we may speak with the Most High!

The last thing is, “Neither shall that be done any more”; but the margin has it, “Neither shall that be magnified any more.” Transfer your reverence, then, and as you cannot magnify the literal mercy-seat, come and magnify Christ, who is the real mercy-seat. Oh, that I knew how to speak words worthy to lie under the soles of my Master’s feet! Oh, that I could speak a sentence that was fit to be laid in the road like the palm branches, with which the disciples strewed his way, not worthy to be touched by his feet, but by the feet of the beast that he rode upon! I am not worthy to unloose his shoe latchet. He is so glorious that archangels fall on their faces to adore him. Heaven is splendid, but the splendour of heaven is the presence of my Lord and Master. His throne is a glorious high throne, but it owes its glory and its height to him that sits upon it. Hallelujah unto thee, O Christ. Hallelujah for ever and ever! for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us unto God by thy blood! If the Jew was ever permitted to look upon the golden chest of the ark, he saw but little compared with what I see in thee, thou man, thou God! The wood that could not rot, covered over with precious gold, was a poor representation of his perfect manhood and glorious Godhead. The ark was crowned, but we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels, and crowned King of kings and Lord of lords. Again my heart cries hallelujah! The Jew could but see a slab of gold that was called the throne of God, but we see the spotless, perfect life, and infinitely precious atonement of Christ, which are better than the much fine gold. I see God, not as a light for the eyes, but as shining upon the soul in Jesus my Lord. Oh, the glory, the glory of that light! I am reconciled! I am a child of God! I am brought near! Jehovah speaks to me! I speak to him! Hallelujah! All praise to him through whom such fellowship is rendered possible, so that a man can see God and live! Glory, glory be unto him who is now in the temple above. The veil is rent, and faith can see Jesus, to whom we come this day. God bless you, beloved. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Hebrews 8, 9:1-5.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-132, 373, 181.

MONGREL RELIGION

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, October 2nd, 1881, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“So these nations feared the Lord, and served their graven images, both their children, and their children’s children: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day.”-2 Kings 17:41.

“So do they unto this day,” said the writer of the Book of Kings, who has long since passed away unto his fathers. Were he alive now he might say concerning the spiritual descendants of these Samaritans, “So do they unto this day.” This base union of fearing God and serving other gods is by no means obsolete. Alas, it is too common everywhere, and to be met with where you might least expect it. From generation to generation there have been mongrel religionists, who have tried to please both God and the devil, and have been on both sides, or on either side, as their interest led them. Some of these wretched blenders are always hovering around every congregation, and my hope is that I may convince the consciences of some here present that they themselves are guilty, and that of them it might be said, as of these Assyrian immigrants, “They feared the Lord, and served their own gods.” My sermon will by no means be an essay upon an extinct race, but it may be placed among “the present-day papers,” for “so do they unto this day.” He that hath ears to hear, let him hear, and to whomsoever the word shall apply let its rebuke be taken home, and through the teaching of the Holy Spirit may it produce decisive results.

I shall first call your attention to the nature of this mongrel religion. It had its good and bad points, for it wore a double face. These people were not infidels. Far from it: “they feared the Lord.” They did not deny the existence, or the power, or the rights of the great God of Israel, whose name is Jehovah. They had not the pride of Pharaoh who said, “Who is Jehovah that I should obey his voice?” They were not like those whom David calls “fools,” who said in their hearts, “There is no God.” They had faith, though only enough to produce fear. They knew that there was a God; they feared his wrath, and they tried to appease it. So far they were hopeful persons, and under the influence of a feeling which has often led up to better things. It was better to dread God than to despise him; better slavishly to fear than stupidly to forget. We would not have men so foolish as to doubt the existence of God, nor so profane as to defy him. There was something commendable about men of whom it could be said that they feared Jehovah, even though that fear was a selfish and servile one, and was by no means so efficacious upon them as it ought to have been, for it did not cause them to put away their idols.

Another good point about these mixed religionists was that they were willing to be taught. As soon as they found that they were not acting rightly towards the God of the land, they sent a petition to their supreme ruler, the king of Assyria, setting forth their spiritual destitution. Church and State were fused in those days, and therefore they applied to their king that he would help them in their religious distress, and he acted to the best of his light; for he sent them one of the priests of the old religion of the land. This man was a Bethelite, one who worshipped God under the symbol of an ox, which the Scripture calls a calf. He was a very slight improvement upon a heathen; but we must be glad even of small progress. They were quite willing to be taught the manner of the God of the land, and so they installed this priest at Bethel, and gathered about him to know what they should do. We have people around us unto this day who are glad to hear the gospel, and sit with pleasure under our ministry, and if the word be faithfully preached they commend the preacher and give a gratified attention to the things that proceed out of his mouth; and yet they are living in known sin. Albeit they do not practically turn from sin and renounce the service of Satan, yet are they willing to bow with the righteous, to sing their psalms and assent to their prayers, and to accept their confession of faith. They are a teachable sort of people, so far as mere hearing goes; but there they stop.

Though these strangers feared Jehovah, and were willing to learn the way of his worship, yet they stuck to their old gods. “Ah,” said the Babylonian, “I listen respectfully to what you have to say of this God of the land; but Succoth-benoth for me; when I go home I shall offer sacrifice to him.” The men of Cuthah said, “Verily this is good doctrine concerning the God of Israel; but the god of our fathers was Nergal, and to him will we cleave”; and the Sepharvites, though they wished to hear of the pure and holy Jehovah, and therefore learned from his law the command, “Thou shalt not kill,” yet still they passed their children through the fire to Moloch, and did not cease from that most cruel of all religious rites. Thus you see that this mingle-mangle religion left the people practically where they were: whatever their fear might be, their customs and practices remained the same. Have you never met with persons of the same mongrel kind? If you have never done so, your class of acquaintances must be superior to mine. At this moment I shall not speak at random, but aim at individual cases; for I know of persons who come to this place of worship with great regularity, and yet they serve their sins, and obey their own vicious passions. They take delight in the services of this house, and yet they are much at home with the god of this world. Some worship a deity quite as horrible as Moloch, whose name in the olden time was Bacchus-the god of the wine-cup and the beer-barrel. They pay their eager devotions at his shrine, and yet they would be numbered with the people of God. They were drunk last night, and yet they are here this morning: possibly they will keep sober to-day; but they will not let many days pass before they will once more stagger before their abominable idol. In all places of worship there are people of this kind. Do not look round to see if there is a person present dressed like a working man, for I have not the poor in my eye at this time. Alas, this vice is to be met with in one rank as well as another, and the person I mean looks quite respectable, and wears broadcloth. Many worshippers of Bacchus do not drink so as to be found drunk and incapable in the street. O no; they go upstairs to their beds in their own houses, so that their condition is not observed; but still they must know that they are verging upon intoxication, if not actually gone. Woe unto such, who, while they pretend to be worshippers of Jehovah, are also worshippers of the beastly god of drunkenness. Is that too harsh a word? I beg the beasts’ pardon for thus slandering them. Alas, there are others who adore the goddess Venus, the queen of lust and uncleanness. I say no more. It is a shame even to speak of things which are done of them in secret. Too often the god is Mammon, who is as degraded a deity as any of them. Such turn religion into a means of gain, and would sell Jesus himself for silver. The sin of Judas is one of which we may say, “So do they unto this day.” Judas is an apostle, he listens to the Master’s words, he preaches at the Master’s command, and he works miracles in the Master’s name; he also keeps the bag and manages the finance for Christ’s little company, and he does it so carefully and economically that what he filches for himself is not missed, and he remains in good repute. Judas professes to serve Jesus, but all the while he is really serving himself, for secretly he abstracts from the treasury somewhat for his own pocket. “He had the bag and kept that which was put therein.” There are such still in the churches of God: they do not actually steal, but they follow Jesus for what they can make or get out of him and his disciples. The symbols of their worship are the loaf and the fish. Now, this is as degrading a form of worship as the adoration of graven images. Gain is the god of many in all congregations: they seek Jesus, not because they care for his words, but because they eat of the loaves. They fear the Lord, but they serve other gods.

Are there not to be found in the world men whose very calling is contrary to the spirit of true godliness? I did know, and may I never know again such an one, a man apparently most devout and gracious, who was a deacon of a church, and passed round the communion cup; and yet over the worst drinking dens in the town where he lived, where the lowest harlots congregated, you would see the man’s name, for he was the brewer to whom the houses belonged-houses which had been purposely adapted at his expense for purposes of vice and drunkenness. He took the profits of a filthy traffic, and then served at the Lord’s table. I would judge no man, but some cases speak for themselves. God save the man that can pander to the devil, and then bow down before the Most High. Persons are to be found, without a lantern and candle, who earn their money by ministering at the altars of Belial, and then offer a part of it to the Lord of hosts. Can they come from the place of revelling to the chamber of communion? Will they bring the wages of sin to the altar of God? He who makes money over the devil’s back is a hypocrite if he lays his cankered coin at the apostles’ feet. “Thy money perish with thee.” How some men can rest in their impious pretensions it is not for me to guess; but methinks if their consciences were quickened, it would strike them as being a horrible thing in the land that they should be fearing the Lord, and serving other gods. I knew one who was always at the place of worship, prayer-meetings, and all, and yet he had forsaken the wife of his youth, and was the companion of gamblers, and drunkards, and the unclean. I know another of a much milder type: he is a regular hearer, but he has no sense of true religion. He is a steady, hard-working man; but he lives to hoard money, and neither the poor nor the church of God ever get a penny from him: bowels of compassion he has none. He is a stranger to private prayer, and his Bible is never read; but he never misses a sermon. He never lifts his thoughts above the bench at which he works, or the shop in which he serves, his whole conversation is of the world, and the gain thereof, and yet he has occupied a seat in the meeting-house from his youth up, and has never thought of leaving it except at quarter-days, when he is half a mind to give it up and save the few shillings which it costs him. Oh, sad, sad, sad! I can understand the man who honestly says, “I am living for the world and have no time for religion.” I can understand the man who cries, “I love the world and mean to have my fill of it.” I can understand the man who says, “I shall not pretend to pray or sing psalms, for I do not care about God or his ways”; but how can I comprehend those who are faithful to the outward part of religion, and profess to receive the truth, and yet have no heart for the love of Jesus, no care for the service of God? Oh, unhappy men, to come so near salvation in appearance, and to be so far off in reality! How can I explain their conduct? Truly, I must leave them among the mysteries of the moral world; for “they fear the Lord and serve their graven images unto this day.” So far have we spoken upon the nature of this patched-up religion, this linsey-woolsey piety. May we have none of it.

Let us now consider the manner of its growth. However came such a monstrous compound into this world?

Here is the history of it. These people came to live where the people of God had lived. The Israelites were most unworthy worshippers of Jehovah; but, still, they were known to others as his people, and their land was Jehovah’s land. If the Sepharvites had stopped at Sepharvaim they would never have thought of fearing Jehovah; if the men of Babylon had continued to live in Babylon they would have been perfectly satisfied with Bel, or Succoth-benoth, or whatever the name of their precious god might be: but when they were fetched out from their old haunts, and brought into Canaan, they came under a different influence, and a new order of things. God would not allow them to go the whole length of idolatry in his land: though he had cast out his people, yet still it was his land, and he would make these heathens know it, and show some little decency in their new abode. Now, it sometimes happens to utter worldlings that they are dropped into the midst of Christian people, and they naturally feel that they must not be different from everybody about them. A kind of fashion is set by the professors among whom they dwell, and they fall into it. If they do not become gracious people themselves they try to look a little like them. Everybody in the village attends a place of worship, and the new comers do the same, though they have no heart to it. They have not the courage of their want of conviction, so they just drift with the current, and as it happens to run in a religious direction they are as religious as the rest. Or it may be they have a godly mother, and their father is a believer, and so they adopt the traditions of the family. They would like to be free to forsake the ways of piety, but they cannot be quite so unkind to those whom they love, and so they yield to the influences which surround them, and become in a measure fearers of God, out of respect to their neighbours or their families. This is a poor reason for being religious.

Something else happened to these Assyrian immigrants which had a stronger influence still. At first they did not fear God, but the Lord sent lions among them. Matthew Henry says, “God can serve his own purposes by which he pleaseth, little or big, lice or lions.” By the smaller means he plagued the Egyptians, and by the greater these invaders of his land. There is no creature so small or so great but God can employ it in his service and defeat his enemies thereby. When these lions had torn one and another, then the people trembled at the name of the God of the land, and desired to know the manner in which he would be worshipped. Affliction is a wild beast by which God teaches men who act like beasts. This is the growth of mongrelists. First, they are among godly people, and they must, therefore, go a little that way; and next, they are afflicted, and they must now go further still. The man has been ill, he has seen the brink of the grave; he has promised and vowed to attend to good things, in the hope that God would relent and permit him to live. Besides that, the man’s extravagance has brought him into difficulties and straits; he cannot go so far or so fast as he formerly did, and hence he inclines to more staid and sober ways. He dares not follow his bent, for he finds vice too expensive, too disreputable, too dangerous. Many a man is driven by fear where he could not be drawn by love. He does not love the Lamb, but he does fear the lions. The rough voices of pain, poverty, shame, and death work a kind of law-work upon certain consciences which are insensible to spiritual arguments. They are forced, like the devils, to believe and tremble. Apprehension does not in their case lead to conversion, but it compels an outward respect for divine things. They argue that if the ills they feel do not reform them they may expect worse. If God begins with lions, what will come next? Therefore, they outwardly humble themselves, and yield homage to the God they dread.

But notice, that the root of this religion is fear. There is no love on the right side; that affection is in the opposite scale. Their hearts go after their idols, but to Jehovah they yield nothing but dread. How many there are whose religion consists in a fear of hell, a dread of the consequences of their sin. If there were no hell they would drink up sin as the ox, standing knee-deep in the stream, sucks in the water. If sin were not followed with inconvenient consequences, they would live in it as their element, as fishes swim in the sea. They are only kept under by the hangman’s whip or the jailer’s keys. They dread God, and this is but a gentler form of hating him. Ah, this is a poor religion, a religion of bondage and terror. Thank God, dear friends, if you have been delivered from it; but it is sure to be the characteristic of a fusion of fearing God and serving other gods.

One reason why they dropped into this self-contradictory religion was that they had a trimming teacher. The king of Assyria sent them a priest: he could not have sent them a prophet, but that was what they really wanted. He sent them a Bethelite, not a genuine servant of Jehovah, but one who worshipped God by means of symbols; and this the Lord had expressly forbidden. If this priest did not break the first commandment by setting up other gods, yet he broke the second by making an image to represent the true God. What saith the Lord? “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.” This priest taught them the calf worship, but he winked at their false deities. When he saw them each one bowing before his own idol, he called it a natural mistake, and by no means spake indignantly to them. If one of them worshipped Succoth-benoth, so long as he also brought an offering to Jehovah, he was not so uncharitable as to condemn him. He cried, “Peace, peace,” for he was a large-hearted man, and belonged to the Broad Church who believe in the good intentions of all men, and manufacture excuses for all the religions of the age. I know of no surer way of a people’s perishing than by being led by one who does not speak out straight, and honestly denounce evil. If the minister halts between two opinions, do you wonder that the congregation is undecided? If the preacher trims and twists to please all parties, can you expect his people to be honest? If I wink at your inconsistencies will you not soon be hardened in them? Like priest, like people. A cowardly preacher suits hardened sinners. Those who are afraid to rebuke sin, or to probe the conscience, will have much to answer for. May God save you from being led into the ditch by a blind guide.

And yet is not a mingle-mangle of Christ and Belial the common religion of the day? Is not worldly piety, or pious worldliness, the current religion of England? They live among godly people, and God chastens them, and they therefore fear him, but not enough to give their hearts to him. They seek out a trimming teacher who is not too precise and plain-spoken, and they settle down comfortably to a mongrel faith, half truth, half error, and a mongrel worship half dead form, and half orthodoxy. God have mercy upon men, and bring them out from the world; for he will not have a compound of world and grace. “Come ye out from among them,” saith he, “be ye separate: touch not the unclean thing.” “If God be God, serve him: if Baal be God, serve him.” There can be no alliance between the two. Jehovah and Baal can never be friends. “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” “No man can serve two masters.” All attempts at compromise or comprehensiveness in matters of truth and purity are founded on falsehood, and falsehood is all that can come of them. May God save us from such hateful double-mindedness.

Thus have I described the nature and the growth of this cross-bred religion.

Thirdly, let us estimate the value of this religion. What is it worth? First, it must evidently be feeble on both sides, because the man who serves Succoth-benoth cannot do it thoroughly if all the while he fears Jehovah; and he who fears Jehovah cannot be sincere if he is worshipping Moloch. The one sucks out the life of the other. Either one or the other alone might breed an intense worshipper; but when there are two deities, it is written, “Their heart is divided, now shall they be found wanting.” A man of the world who is out and out in his conduct can make the best of his worldliness: what joy there is in it he gets, what profit there is to be made out of it he obtains; but if he tries to mix godliness with it he is pouring water on the fire, and hindering himself. On the other hand, if a man goes in for godliness, he will assuredly make something of it, by the blessing of God: if there be any joy, if there be any holiness, if there be any power, the man who is thorough-going wins it; but suppose he is pulled back by his love of sin, then he may possess enough religion to make him miserable, and enough of sin to prevent his salvation; but the two are opposed, and between them he finds no rest. The man is lame on both feet, impotent in both directions. He is like the salt which has lost its savour, neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill, but to be trodden under foot of men.

At first I should think that the mixture of the true with the false at Samaria looked like an improvement. I should not wonder but what the priests of Judah were rather glad to hear that the lions had come among the strangers, and that the people wanted to know something about Jehovah. It had a look in the right direction, and consequently the Scripture says that they feared God; but yet this fear of God was so hollow that, if you turn to the thirty-fourth verse, you will read, “They fear not the Lord.” Sometimes a verbal contradiction most accurately states the truth. They feared the Lord only in a certain sense; but, inasmuch as they also served other gods, it came to this when summed up, that they did not fear God at all. The man who is religious and also immoral, to put it in short, is irreligious. He who makes a great fuss about godliness and yet acts in an ungodly way, when all comes to all, is an ungodly man. The value of this mixture is less than nothing. It is sin with a little varnish upon it. It is enmity to God with a brilliant colouring of formality: it is standing out against the Most High, and yet with a Judas kiss pretending to pay him homage.

These Samaritans in after years became the bitterest foes of God’s people. Read the Book of Nehemiah, and you will see that the most bitter opponents of that godly man were those mongrels. Their fear of God was such that they wanted to join with the Jews in building the Temple, and when they found that the Jews would not have them, they became their fiercest foes. No people do so much hurt as those who are like Jack-o’-both-sides. The mixed multitude that came out of Egypt with the Israelites, fell a-lusting. The mischief does not begin with the people of God, but with those who are with them, but not of them. The tares which you cannot root out grow with the wheat, and draw away from it that which should have nourished it. As the clinging ivy will eat out the life of a tree around which it climbs, so will these impostors devour the church if they be left to their own devices. This patchwork religion is of more value to the devil than to anyone else; it is his favourite livery, and I pray you hate it, for it is a garment spotted by the flesh. I believe, dear friends, that those people who have a dread of God, which makes them appear religious, and who yet all the while live in their sins, are most in danger of any people in the world; for there is no getting at them to save them. You preach to sinners, and they say, “He does not mean us, for we are saints.” You bring the thunders of the law to bear on the congregation, and they, being inside the church, are not afraid of the tempest. They hide behind their false profession. There is more likelihood of the salvation of a downright outsider than of these pretenders. They hold with the hare and run with the hounds, they fear the Lord and serve other gods, and they will perish in their folly. Their ruin will be all the more terrible because they sin in the light. They have so much conscience that they know what is right and what is wrong, and they deliberately choose to abide with the evil, even though at the same time they do despite to their better selves. Surely they will be banished to the deepest hell who seemed inclined to go towards heaven, but who, nevertheless, presumptuously wrenched off bolts and bars to force their way to destruction. O you religious worldings, for you there is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

How provoking this adulterated religion must be to God! It is even provoking to God’s minister to be pestered with men whose hypocrisies weaken the force of his testimony. Here is a man who is known to be one of my hearers, and yet at the same time he drinks, and speaks lewdly, and acts wickedly. What have I to do with him? His tongue is never still, and he tells everybody that he is a friend of mine, and my great admirer, and then men lay his conduct at my door, and wonder what my doctrine must be. I could almost say, “Sir, be my enemy, for this will harm me less than your friendship.” If this grieves his ministers, how provoking must it be to God himself: these people are seen to worship him, and when strangers come into the assembly they spy out these hypocrites, and straightway charge the holy Jesus with all their faults. “See,” say they, “there is old So-and-so. He is a great man among them, and yet I saw him come out of the gin-palace more than three sheets in the wind.” Thus the holy God is dishonoured by these unholy hypocrites. True religion suffers for their falsehood. One may fancy the Lord Jesus saying, “Come now, if you must needs serve the devil, do it; but do not loiter around my gates and boast of being my servants.” The holy God must often feel his indignation burn against unholy men and women who intrude into his courts and dare to pass themselves off under his name. I put this very plainly. Some of you do not know how necessary it is to speak plainly in these days. If any of you perish through hypocrisy it shall not be because I did not speak boldly about it. May God the Holy Spirit of his great mercy apply the words where they need to be applied, that those who are fearing God and serving other gods may grieve over their inconsistency, and repent and turn in very deed and truth to the Most High.

I pass briefly to another important point, which is this.-The continuance of this evil: for the text says, “As did their fathers, so do they, unto this day.” I believe in the final perseverance of the saints: I am almost obliged to believe in the final perseverance of hypocrites; for, really, when a man once screws himself up to play the double, and both to fear God and serve other gods, he is very apt to stick there. It takes a great deal of effort to bring yourself to that degree of wickedness; you must use a great deal of damping of conscience and quenching of the Spirit before you can reach that shameless point, and having once gained that position you are apt to keep it all your life long. “So do they unto this day.”

Look, friends. It seems unlikely that a man would willingly continue in such a ridiculous position even for an hour. I call it ridiculous, for it is unreasonable and outrageous to be serving God and Satan at the same time. It is inconsistent and self-contradictory, and yet, though it be so, it is a sad fact that it is a deep pit and the abhorred of the Lord fall therein, seldom to be lifted out of it. Often by the grace of God we see the confirmed sinner plucked like a brand from the burning; but, oh, how seldom do we see the hollow-hearted Pharisee brought out of his delusions. On the anvil of a false profession Satan hammers out the most hardened of hard hearts.

One reason why it can be said of most men-“so do they unto this day,” is because it yields them a sort of comfort; at any rate it keeps off the lions. “Why,” say they, “it must be the right thing to do, for now we are quiet.” While they lived in sin without a pretence of religion, when the minister preached the word powerfully, they went home trembling; now they do not care what he preaches about: the lions roar no longer, not so much as a cub shows itself. Though they do drink a little, though they do use strong language now and then, though they are really unconverted, yet since they have taken a pew at the church, or the chapel, they feel wonderfully easy in their minds. This peace they think to be worth a Jew’s eye. It is so soothing and pacifying to the conscience to feel that you mix up with the best of the saints, and are highly esteemed by them. So they wrap it up, and go down to hell with a lie in their right hand.

The worst of it is that not only men themselves do this, but their children and their children’s children do the same: “As their fathers did, so do they unto this day.” In an out-and-out godly family it is a great joy to see the children springing up to fear God; but these double people, these borderers, see no such desirable succession. Frequently there is an open decline from apparent religion: the sons do not care to go where the old man went at all; nor need we wonder, since it did him so little good. He made all unhappy at home, and none are eager to imitate him. In other cases, where there was kindness at home, the children are apt to try the same plan as their fathers, and mingle a little religion with a great deal of worldliness. They are just as keen and sharp as their worldly sire, and they see on which side their bread is buttered, and therefore they keep up the reputation of religion. A little gilt and paint go a long way, and so they lay it on. They fly the flag of Christ, at any rate, even though the vessel does not belong to his dominion, and is not bound for the port of glory. As vessels sometimes run a blockade under a false flag, so do they reap many advantages from sailing under Christian colours. This detestable iniquity will not die out: it multiplies itself, scattering its own seed on all sides, and so from generation to generation it lives on; whole nations fear the Lord and serve other gods.

The greatest curse, perhaps, that ever visited the world came upon it in this way. Certain vain-glorious preachers desired to convert the world at a stroke, and to make converts without the work of the Spirit. They saw the people worshipping their gods, and they thought that if they could call these by the names of saints and martyrs the people would not mind the change, and so they would be converted. The idea was to Christianize heathenism. They virtually said to idolaters, “Now, good people, you may keep on with your worship, and yet you can be Christians at the same time. This image of the Queen of heaven at your door need not be moved. Light the lamp still; only call the image ‘our Lady,’ and ‘the Blessed Virgin.’ Here is another image; don’t pull it down, but change its name from Jupiter to Peter.” Thus with a mere change of names they perpetuated idolatry: they set up their altars in the groves, and upon every high hill, and the people were converted without knowing it-converted to a baser heathenism than their own. They wanted priests, and, lo, there they were, robed like those who served at the altars of Jove. The people saw the same altars and sniffed the same incense, kept the same holy days and observed the same carnivals as aforetime, and called everything by Christian names. Hence came what is now called the Roman Catholic religion, which is simply fearing God and serving other gods. Every village has its own peculiar saint, and often its own particular black or white image of the Virgin, with miracles and wonders to sanctify the shrine. This evil wrought so universally that Christianity seemed in danger of extinction from the prevalence of idolatry, and it would have utterly expired had it not been of God, and had he not therefore once more put forth his hand and raised up reformers, who cried out, “There is but one God, and one Mediator between God and man.” Brave voices called the church back to her allegiance and to the purity of her faith. As for any of you who are trying to link good and evil, truth and falsehood together, beware of the monstrous birth which will come of such an alliance: it will bring on you a curse from the Most High.

I shall now close by saying a few words by way of cure of this dreadful evil of mongrelism; this fearing the Lord, and serving other gods. Suppose men were thus full of duplicity in politics, what would be thought of them? If a war should rage between two nations, what would be thought of the man who professed to serve the Queen, and all the while was playing his cards to win favour with the Queen’s enemies. What would he be? A liberal-minded person? A gentleman of broad sympathies? Perhaps so. But also he would be a traitor, and when he was found out he would be shot. He who in any way tries to serve God and his enemies, is a traitor to God: that is what it comes to. In ordinary politics, if there be two parties, and a man comes forward and says, “I am on your side,” and all the while he is doing his best to help the opposition, everybody says that he is a mean fellow. And what meanness it is to say, “I am for Christ,” and yet practically to be for his enemies; to cry up holiness, and yet to live in sin; to preach up faith in Christ, and yet to trust in your own merits. This wretched shuffling indicates a meanness of soul from which may God in infinite mercy deliver us. Suppose a man in business said, “Oh, yes, I will be an honest man, but I will at the same time practise a trick or two; I will be as straight as a line, but yet I will be crooked too.” Why, he would very soon be known by only one name, and that name a dishonourable one. A merchant cannot be honest and dishonest, a woman cannot be both chaste and unchaste, pure and impure, at the same time; and a man cannot be truly with God and yet with the world; the amalgamation is impossible. Everybody sees through such sham godliness.

Ah, my dear friends, suppose that God were to treat us after the like double fashion; suppose he smiled to-day and cursed to-morrow; suppose he said, “You fear me, and so I will give you comfort to-day; but inasmuch as you worship other gods, when it comes to the last I will send you to your own gods; you shall go down to hell.” You want one course of conduct from God,-mercy, tenderness, gentleness, forgiveness; but if you play fast and loose with him, what is this but mocking him? Shall a man mock God? O thou great Father of our spirits, if we poor prodigals return to thee, shall we come driving all the swine in front of us, and bringing all the harlots and citizens of the far country at our heels, and introduce ourselves to thee by saying, “Father, we have sinned, and have come home to be forgiven and to go on sinning”? It were infernal,-I can say no less. Yet some attempt it. Shall any of us come to the blessed Christ upon the cross, and look up to his dear wounds, and say to him, “Redeemer, we come to thee; thou shalt be our Saviour, thou shalt deliver us from the wrath to come; but, behold, when we have washed our robes we will defile them again in the filth of the world. Wash us, and we will go back, like the sow, to wallow in the mire. Forgive us, and we will use the immunity which thy mercy grants us, as a further incentive to rebellion”? I can imagine such language as that being used by Satan; but methinks few of you have descended so low as to talk thus. Yet is not that exactly what the man says who professes to be a Christian, and yet wilfully lives in sin?

Lastly, what shall I say of the Holy Spirit? If he does not dwell in our hearts we are lost; there is no hope for us unless he rules within us. And shall we dare to say-

“Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,

With all thy quickening powers,”

meanwhile I will live in filthiness and selfishness. Come, Holy Spirit, come and dwell with me, and I will hate my brother, I will boil with angry temper, and will be black with malice, so as to make my home miserable. Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove, come dwell within my soul, and I will carry thee to the theatre, and the ball-room, and the house of evil name.

I hate to utter such language even for the sake of exposing it; but what must God think of men who do not say so, but who act so; who, like Balaam, live in sin and yet cry, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.” I dare not preach from that very popular text, for it is the mean, selfish wish of a man who even at the last would save his own skin. The old sneak! He wanted to live and serve the devil, and then cry off at the last. Surely he might have said, “I have been a prophet of Satan, and have sold my soul to him; let me die as I have lived.” I would wish to live in such a way as I would wish to die. If I would not like to die as I am, then I ought not to live as I am. If I am in a condition in which I dare not meet my God, may God in mercy fetch me out of the condition at once. Let me be right, and let there be no mistake about it; but do not let me try to be both right and wrong, washed and filthy, white and black, a child of God and a child of Satan. God has separated heaven and hell by a gulf that never can be passed, and he has divided the two characters which shall people those two places by an equally wide gulf. This division can be passed by his grace, but none can inhabit the intermediate space. None can hang between spiritual death and spiritual life, so as to be partly in one and partly in the other. Decide, then, decide. Be one thing or the other. “How long halt ye between two opinions?” Again I say with Elias, upon Carmel, “If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him.” But do not mix the worship of the two, for thus you will provoke God, and cause his anger to burn like fire against you. May God bless this word, for his name’s sake. Amen.

Portions of Scripture read before Sermon-2 Kings 17:24-41; Psalm 62.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-63, 655, 809.

WHOLE-HEARTED RELIGION

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, October 9th, 1881, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them.”-Jeremiah 32:39.

Those of you who were present last Lord’s-day morning will remember my sermon upon “Mongrel Religion,” in which I dealt with those who feared the Lord and served other gods. Their heart was divided, therefore they were found faulty. They had, as the Hebrew puts it, a heart and a heart,-a heart that went this way and a heart that went the other way, and so as a matter of fact they became, as the prophet saith, as “a silly dove that hath no heart.” The discourse of this morning is intended to exhibit whole-hearted religion, which is the opposite of the sad mixture which we have so lately denounced. We wish to look upon persons of Caleb’s stamp, who followed the Lord fully, in whom by the grace of God the divided heart has become united, so that with their whole heart they serve the Lord their God.

Our text is an extract from Jeremiah’s copy of the covenant of grace. The Lord promises to Israel, “They shall be my people, and I will be their God.” And in the fortieth verse he says, “And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.” This, then, is the covenant of grace which God has made with his people, and it is highly suggestive that the first blessing of it relates to the heart; for God when he begins with men does not begin with the outward way, but with the inward spirit. He puts it, “I will give them one heart and one way”: the way is second, the heart comes first. Understand, then, that in all true godliness we must begin with heart-work. It is no use hoping to polish the outside until by degrees you enlighten the interior; nay, but the light must first be placed within, and then, as it shines through, spots on the exterior will be discovered, and will all the more readily be cleansed away. God works not to the centre, but in the centre, and then from the centre into the outer life.

In reference to the heart, one of the earliest works of divine grace is to unite it in one. Strange to say, I should be equally truthful if I said that one of the first works of grace is to break the heart; but so paradoxical is man that when his heart is unbroken it is divided, and when his heart is broken, then, for the first time, it is united; for a broken heart in every fragment of it mourns over sin, and cries out for mercy. Every shattered particle of a contrite spirit is united in one desire to be reconciled to God. There is no union of the heart with itself till it is broken for sin and from sin. Early in the morning of grace the man comes to himself, and so is restored to the unity of his manhood. The effect of this inner reunion is very salutary. We read of the prodigal, that “when he came to himself,” he said, “I will arise and go to my father.” The heart is united in itself when it is united to the Lord; even as the Lord has said by the mouth of the prophet, “I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.”

It is of this unitedness of heart that I shall speak first, and then I shall go on to those other covenant blessings which come after it, according to the text. These are placed after it in order to show its great value, since it is the first step to exceedingly precious blessings.

First, then, we will consider unitedness of heart:-“I will give them one heart”; secondly, the blessing which immediately arises out of it, consistency of walk,-“I will give them one way.” From these two come the third blessing, “steadfastness of principle,-“that they may fear me for ever”; and consequent upon all this comes personal blessedness,-“for the good of them”: and attendant upon that favour, relative benediction,-“and for the good of their children after them.” Our programme is very extensive, may the Spirit of God help us to fill it up.

We begin, then, at the beginning, with unitedness of the heart.

Our first statement under this head shall be that it is naturally divided. Sin is confusion, and at its entrance it created a Babel, or a confusion, within the heart of man. Until man sinned his nature was one and undivided; but the fall broke him, and destroyed his unity. Within him now there are many voices, many imaginations, and many devices. Within him there is strife and contention, wars and fightings, which come of his lusts, which struggle with each other, and with his understanding. Observe the contest which is constantly visible between his conscience and his affections. His affections choose that which is evil, while his conscience approves that which is right. The desires go after that which appears to be pleasant, but the judgment warns the mind of its folly; hence a controversy between the two powers of the soul. The lusts crave for that which the intellect condemns; the passions demand that which the reason would deny; the will persists in that which the judgment would forego. The ship of our manhood will not obey the helm; there is a mutiny on board, and those powers which should be underlings strive for the mastery. Man is dragged to and fro by contending forces: conscience draws this way, and the affections drag in the opposite direction. Our propensities and faculties are by nature like the crowd in the Ephesian theatre of whom we read, “Some therefore cried one thing, and some another; for the assembly was confused.” We sin not without some measure of compunction, and we do not quit our sin thoroughly even when we yield to conscience; for the heart still hankers after that which the conscience disallows. To many a man it is given to admire things that are excellent, and still to delight in things which are abominable. His conscience bids him rise to a pure and noble life, but his baser passions hold him down to that which is earthly and sensual.

Frequently, too, there is a very great division between a man’s inward knowledge and his outward conduct. Men are often wise in the head and foolish in the hand: they know the right and do the wrong. The law of God is read in their hearing and written upon their memories, and yet it is forgotten in their lives. They are men of great discernment in theory, and yet in their actions they put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter; darkness for light and light for darkness. They sin against the light: “they love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.” Often and often the man is as right as justice herself in his opinions, and clear as the day in his information; and yet he gropes as the blind, and stumbles at noonday as in the night. His knowledge goes one way, and his will another; he knows the consequences of sin, and therefore fears; he perceives the pleasureableness or profit of sin, and therefore presumes. He is sure that he will never be so base as to fall into a certain fault; by-and-by he rushes into it, and defends himself for so doing, till he changes his fickle mind, and then he denounces that which just now he allowed. How can he be right with God when he is not even right with himself?

All through the carnal man, if you look at him, there is confusion and mischief. We should call that creature a monster which had its head towards the earth and its feet towards heaven, and yet the carnal man lives in that position; he ought to tread the world beneath his feet, but he places it above; while the heaven to which he should aspire he daily spurns! He lets his animal passions, which should be treated as the dogs of his flock, become his lords and masters. He reverses the order of nature, and bids the beast within him have dominion over the spirit. Appetites which in their way are good if they are kept in with bit and bridle are permitted to become evil, because they have unlimited indulgence and are allowed to be the tyrants of the soul. The Ishmael of the flesh mocks at the Isaac of the conscience, and is unreproved. Solomon said, “I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth,” and the same may be seen in the little world within, where appetites rule and grander capacities are placed in servitude. Man is a puzzle, and none can put him together but he that made him at the first. He is a self-contradiction, a house divided against itself, a mystery of iniquity, a maze of folly, a mass of perversity, obstinacy, and contention. Sin has made the heart to be so inwardly divided as to be like the troubled sea which cannot rest; or like a cage of unclean birds, every one fighting its fellow; or like a den of wild beasts which cease not to rend each other. When man cast off the yoke of the One God he fell under bondage to gods many, and lords many, who struggle for supremacy and make the one kingdom into many rival principalities: since sin became natural to man, it became natural that man’s heart should be divided.

But it must be united-there is the point; and hence the covenant promise, “I will give them one heart.” For, dear friends, in the matters of godliness if our heart be not whole and entire in following after God we cannot meet with acceptance. God never did and never will receive the homage of a divided heart. Alexander, when Darius proposed that the two great monarchs should divide the world, replied that there was only room for one sun in the heavens. What his ambition affirmed that God declareth from the necessity of the case. Since one God fills all things there is no room for another. It is not possible for a heart to be given up to falsehoood and yet to be under the power of truth. It is idle to attempt to serve two such masters as holiness and iniquity. God cannot smile upon an unhallowed compromise, and allow men to bow in the house of Rimmon and yet worship in his holy temple. God will have all or nothing: he will have us only, wholly, altogether, and always his or else he will have nothing to do with us. False gods can bear a divided empire, but the true God cannot have it. You may assemble a parliament of idols, but Jehovah saith, “I am God alone.” It was once proposed to the Roman senate to set up the image of Christ in the Pantheon among the gods, but when they were informed that he would not agree that any worship should be mingled with his own the senate straightway refused him a shrine. In this they acted in a manner consistent with itself; but those are altogether inexcusable “who swear by the Lord and swear by Malcham.” We provoke the Lord to jealousy when we offer him a corner in our souls and allow our vain thoughts to lodge within us. Errors can lie down like sheep in a field, but no error can lie side by side with the lordly lion of the truth. There is no god but God. Jehovah, he is the God! There is one Mediator between God and man-the man Christ Jesus. Whatsoever a man setteth up in his heart as the object of his affections in opposition to God is a vain, a vile, a vicious thing, and that man cannot be accepted of the Lord. Wouldst thou, then, serve God, O man? Him only must thou serve. Wouldst thou bring unto him an offering? Thou must first give him thine heart-thine undivided heart. He cries, “My son, give me thine heart,” and he saith not, “Give me a share of it.” He will not call that house his temple where other things are worshipped as well as himself. Abhorrence, not acceptance, shall fall to the lot of that man who is half-hearted with God. And is not this as it should be? Does not the love of Jesus deserve our whole-hearted love in return? His love, which made him become man, deserves man’s entire homage. His love which led him to the cross deserves that we be crucified to the world for his sake. His love to death demands that we be dead to sin for his sake. His love which now rules all heaven for our sakes deserves our soul, our life, our all. He gave himself for us, his whole self, and we must give our whole hearts to him. In the chapter before us the Lord says, “Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul.” Shall we give half a heart to our whole-hearted God? Shall we be double-minded when he is so intense in blessing us? Shall we love the world and hope to have the love of the Father in us at the same time? God will not have it, and we do not wish it. The heart must be united.

We have seen that it must be united for acceptance, we now note that it must be united for sincerity: a divided heart is a false heart.

Where there is no unity of heart there is no truth in the spirit. Tell me that thou lovest the world, and I will tell thee that the love of the world is enmity to God. Declare that thou wilt serve Belial ever so little, and I know that thy service of Christ is but Judas’ service-mercenary, temporary, traitorous. Sincerity does not open the front door to Christ and the back gate to the devil.

Our heart must be united, next, for intensity of life. True religion needs the soul to be ever at a fervent heat. “The kingdom of heaven,” saith our Lord, “suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” None climb the hill whereon the New Jerusalem is built except such as go on hands and knees, and laying aside every weight give themselves wholly to the divine ascent. The pilgrim who hopes to reach the better land and makes a pleasure trip of it is under a mistake: it is hard travelling, and requires ardour and perseverance. It is so in every good word and work. A lazy prayer requests a denial, and shall have it. Half-hearted praise is an insult to God, and everything in religion that is not done with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, is a sin, however much it may look like a virtue. When we are most intense we do not come up to the zeal which these important things deserve: how can we then imagine that we can please God with less than our best? Know ye not that our Lord hath said, “Because thou art lukewarm, I will spue thee out of my mouth”? No stronger expression of disgust can possibly be used, and this disgust is not for the bold and hardened rebel, but for the moderate disciple who served God without fail, but without zeal. God loves a whole heart, but half a heart is his abhorrence. Only those who run with all their might will win the race; and, as the man of divided heart is lame on both his feet, he can have no hope of the prize. Lord, make my heart one, that I may give it all to thee, and spend and be spent in thy one service, since thou only art the One in whom my soul delighteth.

The heart must be united to be consecrated. Will God be served with broken cups and cracked flagons, and shall his altars be polluted with torn and mangled sacrifices? All the things in heaven and earth which the Lord acknowledges as consecrated things are dedicated to him and to him alone. Can you imagine that within the Holy Place there would be an altar part of which was used for sacrifices offered to Jehovah, and another portion for victims presented to Moloch? The idea cannot be endured. The Lord said of old to Ezekiel, “Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and my holy name, shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they, nor their kings. In their setting of their threshold by my thresholds, and their post by my posts.” God will not account that to be consecrated to himself which is used by another. Brethren, we must be wholly consecrated unto the Lord, or we cannot be consecrated to him at all. We are unconsecrated, we are polluted, we are as things accursed if we are divided in heart.

Once more, we must have our heart united, or else none of the blessings which are to follow in covenant order can possibly reach us. For, look, “I will give them one heart,” and then it follows, “one way”;-no man will have a consistent, uniform way while he has a divided heart. Read next, “That they shall fear me for ever”; but no man will fear God for ever unless fear has taken possession of his whole heart. The convert may profess to follow the Lord for awhile, but he will soon turn aside; he who does not begin with his whole heart will soon tire of the race. “For ever” is a long day, and requires our whole soul to hold on and to hold out. The Lord also promises that this shall be “for the good of them, and of their children after them”; but those who give God a part of their heart, neither win a blessing for themselves nor for their posterity; they are not among the seed that God has blessed, neither can they be. Oh men and women, if your hearts run hither and thither, and your aims and desires are scattered like a flock of sheep, running abroad according to their own wilfulness, the Good Shepherd will not feed you. When he comes to visit you he will gather all your desires and aspirations into one fold, and then will he lead you into green pastures, and make you to lie down therein. As under the old law men might not sow with mingled seed, nor wear garments of linen and woollen mixed, so neither can those of divided way and heart come into the favour of God.

So I leave the first head when I have noticed that according to the text God will give his chosen this unified heart: “I will give them one heart.” Ah, we shall never obtain this blessing otherwise than as a free gift of God’s grace. Teachers may put holy thoughts into our heads, but they cannot alter our hearts. We may unite our thoughts in some system of divinity, but we can never unite our desires upon the Divinity himself except we experience a work of grace upon our souls. The one Lord must make our heart one. He who once made the heart must make it anew to make it one. “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” But none of these seven ones would ever be ours unless it were added, “But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ,” and that grace must make our heart one. This the Lord does in part by enlightenment through the light of his Holy Spirit. He shows us the worthlessness and deceptiveness of everything that would attract our hearts away from Jesus and from our God; and when we see the evil of the rival, we give our heart entirely to him whom we worship. The Lord works this also by a process more thorough still; for he weans us from all idolatrous loves. He makes our carnal delights to become bitter to us, so that we turn aside from them with disgust, even as the Egyptians loathed to drink of the waters of the river which they formerly idolized, for the Lord had turned it into blood. He puts gall upon the breasts of the world, and then we look elsewhere for comfort. It takes much to make us cry with David, “My soul is even as a weaned child.” Disease and death are summoned to shoot their fatal arrows at our dearest ones before we will give God the whole of our hearts. It is hard to love the creature much and yet not too much; it is a great thing to love our beloved ones in Christ and in subordination to Christ. Many a mother has had to lose child after child because she had stirred the jealousy of the best Beloved one by dividing her heart between him and her little ones. Many a man in business has fallen from wealth and prosperity because God saw that his heart went astray after his possessions. Doubtless many have had eloquence, talent, and gifts of various kinds, and they doted upon these things until it has been needful to remove them to unite their hearts upon God, and so they have been laid aside by sickness, or the mind has lost its vigour, or the voice has failed, and the gift has become a plague rather than a comfort, and thus their heart has lost its idol, and has turned unto the Lord. If Christ is married to us he will have us chaste unto himself. What think we of a man who is engaged to a woman and is found spending his love upon another as well! We say he is false and treacherous, and we utterly despise him. He ought to give his heart to her whom he has espoused, and to love her with constancy, or he cannot be esteemed a pure minded man. Even so in our dealings with the Lord Jesus we must be watchful lest a single desire or affection should prove false to him. Such a glorious object of affection must fill the whole horizon of the soul, even as the sun fills all the heavens with his light, and the stars are quite forgotten. All the rivers run into the sea, and so must all our loves run to Jesus. Oh men and brethren, shut the gates of your hearts lest any steal away by night from the Lord. The heart must be whole and wholly his. Recollect that you may have a great gash in your head, and yet you may live; but if but a pin’s point should divide your heart you will die. Ask grace to say with the psalmist, “O God my heart is fixed”; then, indeed, will you sing and give praise. This is not only important, it is essential. See ye, my hearers, whether you have received this choice blessing of the covenant of grace each one for himself,-this holy, uniting work of the Spirit of God.

If we have this we may now advance to the second blessing of the covenant here mentioned, which is consistency of walk: “I will give them one way.” When the heart is united the man lives for a single object, and that alone. Running in one direction, striving for one purpose, he keeps to the one way which leads to heaven. As Christ is our one life, so is he our one way.

Without this unity there can be no truth in a man’s life. If he spins by day, and unravels at night, he is acting out a falsehood. If he runs to the right while men look at him, but trudges back again to the old post as soon as men’s eyes are taken from him, his life is an equivocation, which is but a fine word for a lie. It is a dreadful thing for a man’s word to be a lie, but for a man’s whole life to be a lie is still more horrible. We may have much more of the liar about us than we dream of: let us see to it, and pray God that like Nathanael we may have no guile in us. We may patch up our life with bits of religion, and remnants of profession, till it becomes like the beggar’s coat of which no man knows the original: such a garment may be fit for a beggar, but shall we wear it? The seamless garment of truth, woven from the top throughout adorns a Christian, but motley raiment proves a man a fool. Unless we follow the Lord with one heart, and one way, we shall be found to be liars after all; and if all liars have their portion in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death, what will be his lot whose life was false to itself and false to God? Inconsistency of behaviour shows that truth is little set by in the heart.

We must, dear friends, have one walk, or else our life will make no progress. He who travels in two opposite directions will find himself no forwarder. How is it that some professors are at much the same place as they occupied twenty years ago? Years have made them more grey, but not more gracious. At night they fastened up their boat in a little creek of the river, and when the tide ran out they waited and waited until close to the end of its running, and then they went down a little way with the tide; very soon the stream ceased to turn, and so they drifted back with the flood, and hitched up near the same muddy shore as before. Like a pendulum they travel far but get no farther. Growth, progress, advancement-none of these can they know, for they are double-minded, and so run to and fro in the earth and wear themselves out with vanity. Multitudes of people are doing this. They make such progress one Sunday that they resolve henceforth to live unto God. They begin at a steam engine rate, they plough the sea of life in their eagerness; they are like a vessel which has had new boilers put into her; but by to-morrow where are they? They have burst their boilers, or they have allowed the fires to go out, and henceforth they are without spiritual life or motion, and lie like logs upon the stream. This will not do; we must have one way of uniform vitality. I do not say that we can always make apparent progress at the same rate, for powerful under-currents affect our life, and a man may be doing much who is successfully overcoming adverse influences. When a fierce wind is blowing a captain may know that he will be driven on shore if he does not steam right into the teeth of the hurricane: if he does this is he not making the surest real progress if he manages to keep where he is and avoid the fatal danger? I say, then, that if we do not seem to advance we may, nevertheless, in the judgment of God be making true progress if we resist the mighty impulses which would otherwise hurry us on to destruction: but if we have two ways, and steer this way and that way and every way by turns, with the view of pleasing men and making things easy all round, we cannot speed towards the desired haven.

We must choose and keep to one way, or we cannot attain to usefulness. What influence has a double-minded man? If a man speak for God to-day, and so lives to-morrow that he virtually speaks for the devil, what power has he over those around him? How can he lead who has no way of his own? If your actions play fast and loose with truth; if your life is a chequer-work of black and white; if you are everything by turns and nothing long, what force for good can you possibly exert? Consistency and unity of life are necessary to usefulness.

And I am sure it is necessary for anything like assurance. The best of believers may through holy anxiety question their own state; but the man who has two ways may well sing:-

“’Tis a point I long to know,

Oft it causes anxious thought,

Do I love the Lord or no?

Am I his or am I not?”

O you who are inconsistent in life I must make bold to tell you that many of your friends are even more in doubt about you than you are about yourself. ′Tis a point we also long to know; for we cannot tell whether you love the Lord or no, whether you are his or not. Sometimes we see happy signs about you, and our charity hopeth all things; but when we see you again falling into evil ways, we are distressed, and even our charity weeps over you. How can we be assured of your change of heart when we see so little change of life? What a pity to lead such a life that it puzzles those who love you best to form any judgment as to your condition. If you were to die as you are we should not know which way you would go, for your present path is dubious and intricate. Would you go to heaven or hell? Common judgment would depend upon whether you died in one of your good fits or in one of your bad ones. Is this a pleasant way of putting it? O ye who blow hot and cold, ye are strange beings, you seem to the common observer to be too good for hell, and not good enough for heaven. You cannot be divided at last, and therefore you may rest assured that the powers of evil will seize you as their own.

No person can come to any true personal assurance while his life is of a double character. But if I know that I have one heart, and that my heart belongs to my Lord, and that I have one way, a way of obedience to him, then may I be assured that I am his. If I cannot make such progress as I would, yet if I follow my Lord and keep my face steadfastly set towards Jerusalem, then I know where I am, and what I am, and whither I am going. Holiness of life proves our faith, and faith ensures our salvation, and salvation begets joy, and peace, and confidence. “Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his commandments.” A plain way will make our condition plain. This unity of way is a covenant blessing: it comes not of man neither by man, but God gives it to his own elect as one of the choice favours of his grace,-“I will give them one heart and one way.”

Briefly we notice, in the third place, the next covenant blessing, steadfastness of principle-“That they may fear me for ever.” Get the heart and the way right, and then the spiritual force of the fear of God will abide in us in all days to come.

Notice the basis of true religion,-it is the fear of God: it is not said that they shall join a church and make a profession, and speak holy words for ever; but that “They may fear me for ever.” Oh brothers and sisters, our religion must have the Lord in the very heart of it. We must be in constant contact with God, and possess in our souls the true fear of God; for as this is the beginning of wisdom so is it the only security of perseverance. When God has given us a true spiritual fear of him it will abide all tests. Outward religion depends upon the excitement which created it; but the fear of the Lord lives on when all around it is frost-bitten. What happens to many converts? The revivalists have gone, and they have gone too. But if God has given us one heart to love and obey him, and his fear is in us, we do not depend upon the mental thermometer. Like salamanders, we can live in the fire; but like seals we can live in Arctic ice. We are not dependent upon special services, and warm-hearted exhortations; for we have a springing well within. We live upon the Master, and not upon the servants: the Spirit of God does not leave us because certain good men have gone elsewhere. No, God has given us to fear him for ever.

Persecution comes, Christians are ridiculed in the workshop, they are pointed out in the street, and an opprobrious name is hooted at them; now we shall know who are God’s elect and who are not. Persecution acts as a winnowing fan, and those who are light as chaff are driven away by its blast; but those who are true corn remain and are purified. Careless of man’s esteem, the truly God-fearing man with one heart holds on his one way and fears the Lord for ever.

Then, perhaps, comes a more serious test, the trial of prosperity. A man grows rich, he rises into another class of society. If he is not a real Christian he will forsake the Lord, but if he be a true-born heir of the kingdom he will fear the Lord for ever, and consecrate his substance to him. A heart wholly given to God will stand the wear and tear of life in all conditions, whether in honour or in contempt. Poverty is a severe test to many, and I have known numbers of professors forsake the house of God because, as they said, their clothes were not fit to come in; but that is a poor excuse; I fear their hearts were not fit to come in. The fear of God would make the godly man swallow his pride and follow Christ in rags: he will bear a famine of bread and a famine of water, but he cannot endure a famine of the word of God. His soul must be fed, and so he must and will be found where the Lord’s table is spread with the bread of heaven. When God stripped Job of all his riches, it was then that his integrity was seen and proved.

With some of you old age is creeping on; but I rejoice to know that your grace is not decaying. You are becoming deaf, eyesight is failing you, and your limbs are trembling; but you can still hear the voice of the Lord, and behold the beauties of his word, and run in the ways of his statutes If God has given the young man one heart and one way, he will fear God for ever, and will not forsake the Lord when infirmities multiply upon him. He will bring forth fruit in old age, to show that the Lord is upright. If our soul is wholly Christ’s, we can never go back unto perdition: “Who shall separate us from the love of God?” The Lord has cast such cords of love about us that he holds us fast. We can lose father and mother, yea, and our own lives also, but we cannot forsake the Lord whose blood has bought us from the lowest hell. We are bound for the kingdom; who shall keep us out of it? We have been shot like arrows from the bow of God, and we must speed onward till we rest in the target of eternal bliss. Oh what a mercy it is to have within us a fear of God, which is not to last for a period of years, but for ever!

Very hurriedly I mention the next thing, which is personal blessedness, “for the good of them.” Where God gives us one heart and one way, and steadfast principle, it must be for our good in the highest sense. Tell me who are the happiest Christians. They will be found to be whole-hearted Christians. When heart and life are divided happiness leaks through the crack. We must be steady in the pursuit of righteousness if we would abide in the enjoyment of peace. Brothers, if you want to know the sweetness of religion you must know the depth of it. The foam upon the top of the sacred cup is often bitter, but at the bottom lies the essence of sweetness. I will not say, drink deep or drink not at all, but I will say this, that those who are content with superficial godliness have no idea of the delights which dwell in the deep places of communion with God. Plunge into the river of life; let body, soul, and spirit be immersed into its floods, and you shall swim in joy unspeakable. Lose sight of the shores of worldliness and you shall see God’s wonders in the deeps. In intense devotion to the Lord you will find the rare jewel satisfaction. “O Naphtali, satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the Lord!” Sweet content never dwells with half-heartedness.

This shall be for your good every way-for your guidance in business, for your direction in devotion, for the good of your mind here, for the good of your spirit hereafter. To be endowed by grace with one heart and one way is to be rendered fit to live and fit to die. I am sure if you read the biographies of men, if they are fairly written, you will find that the good, the true, the great, the noble, were single-minded. Those who have the clearest sight of God are the pure in heart and the undivided in heart; and those who enjoy a heaven below are those whose hearts and lives are engrossed with heavenly things. The blessed life is that of fervent love and thorough consecration. Do these things abound among you, brethren? I believe that in this assembly there are more whole-hearted Christian men than I am likely to meet with in any other gathering: and yet, for all that, I cannot help fearing that even here there are professing Christians who never knew what it was to give their hearts perfectly to God’s work, or to the love of Jesus. When these people come to the hour of trouble they are dispirited and rebellious; would it be so if they were perfectly resigned to God’s will? These people are often short of spiritual comforts; would they be short of them if they had made a clean and clear surrender to their God? I believe they would not. Men who will not eat are starved and weak, and many a disease finds soil within them through the weakness of their constitution; but those who feed on Christ, the Bread of Heaven, are nourished and strong, and are preserved from a thousand ills by that very fact. O God the Holy Spirit, I cannot talk to Christ’s servants as I wish to do, but thou canst move them now to aspire after a complete giving up of themselves to thee, for this shall be for their good!

The last is a relative blessing: “And for their children after them.” Whole-hearted Christians are usually blessed with a posterity of a like kind. Consecrated men and women live to see their children following in their steps. When sons and daughters forsake the ways of godliness do you wonder when you spy out the home life of their parents? If religion is a sham, do you expect frank young men to respect it? If the father was hollow-hearted in his profession, will not the children despise it? The genuine, thoroughbred Christian is often hated, but he is never the object of contempt. Men may ridicule him, and say that he is a fool, but they cannot help admitting that he is happy, and the wiser sort among them wish that they were such fools themselves. Be thorough and true, and your family will respect your faith. The almost inevitable consequence of respect in a child towards his parent is a desire to imitate him. It is not always so, but as a rule it is so: if the parents live unto God in a thorough-hearted way, their sons and daughters aspire to the same thing. They see the beauty of religion at home around the fireside, and their conscience being quickened they are led to pray to God that they may have the like piety, so that when they themselves commence a household they may enjoy the like happiness. Certainly if any of you are the children of eminently godly parents, and are living in sin, your parents’ lives condemn you. Are they in heaven? Dare you go to their grave, and sit upon the grassy hillock, and think of how you are living? It will force tears to your eyes to contrast yourself with them. You may well tremble to think that you neglect your mother’s Saviour, that you forget your father’s God. It will go hard with those who leap into hell-fire over a father’s prayers and a mother’s entreaties; yet some seem desperately resolved on such suicide. I hope these are comparatively few, and that still it is true, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Blessings temporal and spiritual come, upon households where the heads of the family are completely consecrated to God. Try it! try it! I will be bound that you will find it profitable. If at the last great day you shall find that consecration to Christ is an error, I will be willing to bear the blame for ever. I am not afraid that any one among you will ever censure me for having excited you into a zeal too fervent, or a life too devoted. Brothers, I am afraid of those of you who go ancle deep into religion and never venture further; I am afraid lest you should by-and-by return to the shore; but as for you who plunge into the centre of the stream, and find waters to swim in, I have no fears; you shall be borne onward by a current ever increasing in strength till in the ocean of eternal love you lose yourselves in heaven above. I can wish you no greater blessing than that the Holy Spirit may make you whole-hearted, consistent, persistent, ardent, established, and persevering in the things of God. On you and on your household my heart pronounces this benediction,-the Lord give you one heart and one way that you may fear him for ever. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Psalm 86.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn book”-45 (Vers. I.), 116 (Song II.), 654.

WELCOME! WELCOME!

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, October 16th, 1881, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“And the people, when they knew it, followed him: and he received them, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing.”-Luke 9:11.

My subject has been suggested to me by the rendering of this passage given in the Revised Version, where we read: “But the multitudes perceiving it, followed him; and he welcomed them.” The difference lies, you see, between the words “he received them” and “he welcomed them.” The new version is an instructive improvement, of which we will at once make evangelical use.

The multitude perceived that Jesus was departing, and began to value his presence all the more, because they feared the loss of it. They could not tell where he might go, nor for how long, and they could not afford to part with him: therefore no sooner did they see the boat leave with him, than, watching the direction in which it was steered, they hastened along the shore to overtake him at his landing. They were not content to walk, but they ran afoot, and as they darted through the first village the people enquired the reason of this rush: they were informed that the great prophet was crossing the sea to the other shore; they joined in the pursuit, and the running company was increased. When they reached the next town there was quite a stir, as the citizens heard the crowd tramping through the gate and along the streets; and again the enquiry was heard, “What means this eager, anxious throng?” Again the crowd increased, and on they went hurrying as hard as they could go, till they actually reached the shore before the vessel which carried Jesus. As for the Master, though he had taken ship on purpose to be quiet and alone, he exhibited no signs of anger at their intrusion: he did not rebuke them as though they were rude and troublesome; but we are told that “he welcomed them.” Had he been like ourselves, he would have regarded them as most unwelcome; but in the graciousness of his heart he did not think them so; but honestly and heartily welcomed them. Now, if our Lord welcomed people at that inconvenient time, we might safely infer that he will welcome them at all times; but we are not left to draw inferences; for we find all through his life that he always received sinners, and never rejected any one. Our Lord kept open house as long as he was here. It might always have been said of him, “This man receiveth and welcometh sinners.” His motto was, “Whosoever will, let him come.” If any desired to come nearer than being mere hearers, and would join the band of disciples, he was always ready to receive them. If many did not enter into the closest intimacy of his heart it was because they were themselves unable to come, and not because he shut them out. Publicans and sinners drew near unto him; the very look of him was an invitation, his finger beckoned, his eye persuaded, his outstretched arms entreated, his whole self attracted all men unto him. At the door of his love there lay no growling dog of morose suspicion, neither had he placed there the porter of stern rebuke, but the door was set wide open, and over the portal was written the words, “Come and welcome.” That is the subject of this morning’s discourse, my earnest desire being that some who have been afraid to approach him may be induced to come at once by learning how freely he welcomes all comers.

First, we shall dwell upon the fact that Jesus welcomes all who come to him; secondly, we shall use it as an encouragement to all seeking souls; and, thirdly, we shall employ it as a lesson, teaching those of us who are his disciples how to treat those who desire to see Jesus.

First, may the Holy Spirit help us while we dwell upon the fact that Jesus welcomed those who sought him.

We observe, first, that our Lord received all comers at all times. The time mentioned in our text was the most inconvenient possible. He was seeking rest for his disciples, who had gone through the various towns and villages preaching and working miracles; they were a good deal elated at their success, and it was needful that they should have a little quiet retirement to think matters over, and to come down into a calm state of mind. Moreover, they were weary: for they were so thronged by the people that they had not time even for needful refreshment, and rest was, therefore, absolutely requisite, lest these few men, who were in fact the hope of the church and of the world, should die of exhaustion. The Master put them into a ship that they might sail away and find retirement in a desert place. Rest was absolutely needful to the overwrought workers. A great sorrow was on them also, for John had been beheaded, and it was meet that they should solace their grief by a short retirement. At this time, too, our blessed Lord desired obscurity; for Herod was enquiring for him; and even when that delightful king was in his best mood he was not one whose near acquaintance anyone would wish to cultivate. He might, perhaps, have listened to Jesus as he listened to John; but he would have sought his life as soon as he had gratified his curiosity, or another Herodias would have goaded him on to murder the faithful preacher who made the palace too hot for the wanton. Our Lord’s time was not yet come, either to be exhibited in a royal court, or to be slain as a royal victim; and therefore he sought a desert place for a little while. It was most inconvenient, therefore, to be followed by so great a crowd. Were the workers to have no rest? Could there be no retirement afforded, especially at a time when it was so necessary? Is it not wonderful that under such circumstances our blessed Lord should welcome the insatiable throng?

I think, too, that the Master desired just then to hold a conference with his apostles as to the work they had done, and the future which was opening up before them. Peradventure he willed to set apart a season for special prayer with them. Before any great effort, we read that he retired to pray, and so, depend upon it, after any great enterprise he would again seek private prayer. It would naturally occur to him to rake in the good seed which the twelve had so successfully scattered. But peace and rest he must not have, for the multitudes are on the beach before he can set foot thereon. The apostolic conference was broken in upon, and turned into a great camp-meeting. The Master and his disciples are not allowed to get alone even to hold high and solemn discourse upon the affairs of his kingdom; but here come the crowds, pell-mell, crushing one upon another, and the Master and his little band find themselves the centre of a great mass of people. Rest, or quiet, or holy discourse are out of the question; preaching, healing, and feeding must fill up every moment till the day is far spent. Our Lord welcomed the throng with a gracious air; full of tenderness, he smiled upon them as a captain smiles upon his soldiers at the muster. He did not lose his patience with them, nor chide them for their ill-manners; but just as if he had asked them to come, and had sent forth his heralds to summon them, he stood ready to receive them. It is wonderful that he did not say, “Go your way for this time: when I have a more convenient season I will send for you.” I have heard those words somewhere, but they were not used by our Lord: they were used by one at the door of whose conscience the gracious Lord had been knocking. If there are any put-offs, they are not on Christ’s side, but on ours. Oh sad, that ever men should ask for delay when Jesus even at the most inconvenient season is ready to welcome them.

Let me put the truth before some of you here who as yet are unsaved. Come to Jesus when you will, it shall always be at the right time. Times consecrated to other purposes shall yet afford you welcome. The saints of God gather at the communion table, and the spreading of that table is not intended to be a means of grace to the unconverted: on the contrary, it is fenced and guarded, and reserved for believers only, and none have any right there but those who are in Christ. The object of the Lord’s supper is not conversion, but edification: it is intended that as many as are alive unto God should there be fed, that those emblems should remind them of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, which are the food of their spiritual life. Yet if any of you should be looking on-ay, and even if you should have intruded there without a right to come, yet if you seek the Saviour he will not be so occupied with the fellowship of saints as to refuse a sinner. His heart will not be so taken up with the near, and dear, and choice love of his own favoured ones as to shut his ear to the cry of the humble and contrite. If thou seek him, even when thou art intruding, he will be found of thee.

Peradventure, also, I address some who have outlived revivals. You remember precious seasons when the power of God was present to heal men, and many were to your knowledge healed. You sat side by side with some who sought and found salvation in Christ: you did not seek, and you did not find; or if, perhaps, you exhibited some emotion, yet your search after Christ was very faint and dilatory, and consequently you did not meet with him to the joy and peace of your spirit. Now that the revival is over, and the flood-tide of grace seems to have ebbed out, you have come, like the dying year, to a time when the harvest is past and the summer is ended, and you are not saved. Around you blow the fallen leaves, and you yourself do fade as a leaf, but you are not saved. Opportunities of blessing have been plentiful with you, but you are not saved. You are now at the close of the day, and your sun is going down, but you are not saved. Even yet there is hope, for our Lord’s welcome is a long and lasting one. If you be drawn by invisible cords to seek the Saviour, yield to those gentle drawings, for Jesus receives men even down to the shutting of the gate. It may be late, but it is not too late. You may go to Christ at midnight as well as at mid-day, and never will he answer that the door is now shut, so that he cannot rise and give you. Even though the special means of grace may have ended, and the men whom God has blessed have gone elsewhere, yet still come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ; for there never was an hour discovered yet in which Jesus would refuse a sinner that longed for him. Have you never read that text, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out”? There is no reserve as to the dead hours of night, or the raw hours of the morning. If a soul will but come to Christ, the Lord will never say him nay.

It may be, dear friend, that you think the present would be a very improper time to come to Christ, because you have so lately been plunging into a fearful sin. You say, “Would you have me go black-handed to Christ, black-hearted to Christ?” Yes, I would have you fly to him at once, even as the manslayer darted off to the city of refuge, with the blood of the slain still warm upon his hand. Do you put it to me as a question suggested by a sort of moral decency-Must I not let an interval pass over me in which I may in a measure wash out the recollection of my present sin? No! I tell thee, no. I rather dread than desire such a false washing as the mere lapse of time can give. Time cannot alter wrong, or make sin less heinous; and if it pacifies the conscience it is an evil peace, a false peace, a peace to be abhorred. Come to Jesus while yet the wounds of thy conscience are bleeding. Come while they are at their worst, neither washed, bound, nor mollified with ointment. When thou art foul is the fittest time for washing; and when thou art altogether undone, and conscious of it, then is the season to hasten away to the great Saviour. When Saul of Tarsus was about to hunt the saints of God, he saw Damascus lying in the plain below, and he himself was ready like a fierce tiger to spring upon it; but there and then Jesus appeared to him, Might he not have said in answer to the voice from heaven, “My Lord, let me go back to Jerusalem and endure a quarantine: let me hide away for months, and then come to thee”? No; but then and there was he converted, though smitten down in the act of persecution. Nothing could seem to be more inconvenient than for Christ to receive him there and then, with the writs upon him for the arrest of the saints; yet the Lord welcomed the persecutor, and he will welcome others in like case. My hearer, I will not try to describe your sin of last night, nor will I make a guess at what you propose to do in sin before to-morrow’s sun has risen; but I will beseech you, as you are, to arise and seek the Saviour. Poor prodigal brother, quit the husks and the swine-trough; quit them now, and without so much as tarrying to wash your hands, go home to your Father, who will wash you and make you white as snow. Tarry for nothing. Delay is your greatest danger. This very moment is the fittest for repentance and faith. Come now; for the Lord waiteth to be gracious. I do not find that when the prodigal reached his father’s house he came there at an unseemly hour. I never knew whether it was the middle of the night, the early morning, or the middle of the day, for the parable does not give us a hint. At any rate, it was at such an hour that the fatted calf was waiting to be killed, a ring and the best robe were ready to be brought forth, and all in the house were ready to keep holiday over him that was lost and found. Sinner, hie away, hie away to Jesus, be the hour whatsoever it may. Our gracious Lord cannot repel you, for even those were welcomed who came at the most inconvenient hour which can be imagined, and since then he has refused none.

The same truth will now be set in another light by a second remark. Our Lord received all sorts of comers. They were a motley throng, and I fear that few, if any, of them were actuated by any high or exalted motive. No doubt some came to hear, and others came to see, but many came for what they could get. They followed after Jesus because they were sick, and he could heal them. “Ah me!” I have heard it said by awakened ones, “I am afraid, if I came to Christ, I should come from a selfish motive.” Dismiss that fear, which at bottom is self-righteous: what should a beggar come to your house for but to seek an alms? To gain something is the only motive with which a poor sinner can come to Christ. Our fear of hell, or dread of sin, or hope of pardon, must drive or draw us to Christ; in any case, our motive must be to receive at his hands. I confess that I at first came to Christ only and solely for what I could get out of him. It was an apostle who said, “We love him because he first loved us.” I have heard of a love of Jesus which is purely disinterested, and I believe it is possible, and that it may grow up in after Christian life; but at the first we must come to Jesus with an eye to what we shall obtain at his hands; we must come because we cannot do without him. There is no other way of coming. “It is a low motive,” says one. So it may be, but it is a powerful motive for all that. At any rate, Christ exhorts us to come unto him for rest and for salvation, and I do not remember a single exhortation to this ideal, disinterested love. The Lord Jesus welcomed the multitudes though they came from low motives, and so will he welcome us if we do but come to him. If what we come for is something for ourselves, if we come to him that sin may be forgiven, and that we may be made the children of God, our motives will not be disgusting to Christ; but he will welcome us.

Among those who came to Christ there must have been all sorts of people; but the bulk of them had hurried to him hastily and unprepared. They came afoot, it is said, running. They had not had time to prepare themselves with any kind of decent apparel. As they ran scampering through the villages, each one gathered others at his heels, and they came helter-skelter, a most promiscuous throng. They were not dressed for solemn worship; but there they were, and the Saviour welcomed them. I wonder how long a man would need to spend in preparing himself for coming to Christ. When he had done it all, what would it be worth? Preparation for coming to Christ is simply this:-If you are empty you are prepared to be filled; if you are sick you are prepared to be healed; if you are sinful you are prepared to be forgiven; but all other preparation is quite out of the question. We must not supersede the gospel by the law, and we should be doing so if we told the sinner to make himself fit for mercy. O weary, heavy laden souls, you may come just as you are: hot from the fleshpots of Egypt, grimy from Pharaoh’s iron furnace you may come and sit down and eat the paschal lamb, and though every rag about you be defiled, yet just as you are you may come to the fountain filled by Jesus Christ himself, and wash and be clean. They were a most unprepared lot of people; but Jesus welcomed them.

Most of them might have been objected to by our Lord if he had chosen to do so, for various reasons,-the most of them on account of their poverty. They had not even a crust among them. They had come away in such a hurry that they had not brought a day’s food with them, and if they came to Christ they must be fed by him within a few hours, or else drop from sheer starvation. They were a ragged regiment, a hungry herd-what some fine folks call the mob, the canaille; but Jesus welcomed them, and never said a syllable about their bare backs and empty pockets. How squeamish some of his servants are; but their Master had no such proud ways about him. I heard one say the other day that he could not attend a place of worship because he had not clothes that were fit to come in. I wonder what sort of garments the Lord Jesus would object to in a coming sinner! I am afraid if he were to see some of you he would hardly think that you are dressed fit for public worship, for you are too smart by half; but I do not believe that he ever rejected a man or woman because of their patched or unfashionable garments. What cared he for court dress, and full dress, and all that nonsense? Our Lord was no flatterer of wealthy lords and handsome ladies. No robe or mantle ever charmed his eye. I never read in Scripture that Jesus said, “Come not between the wind and my nobility, ye unwashed crowds.” Never did he turn away because they were beneath him in condition, and too poor for his notice. Nothing of the sort. It was the jewel of his ministry that “the poor had the gospel preached unto them.” He delighted to see the needy gather about him to be taught and comforted. So, then, none of you can plead poverty. If you have not a penny to bless yourselves with, Christ will bless you without money and without price.

Many of the multitude might have been rejected on account of disease, for into the crowd the lepers came-disagreeable neighbours anywhere. They certainly had no right to mingle with healthy people, but they did so, for they had hopes of being healed. Men and women were there who laboured under defiling disorders, for which, according to the Jewish law, they ought to have been shut up in a separate house; yet when the crowd came to Christ these poor souls came in among the rest, and there is no instance of the Lord’s ever sorting them out and saying to any one, “I cannot receive you, for you are a leper.” What a melancholy sight the Master must have seen when he went out into the streets and they there laid the sick in their beds. He always walked in the midst of a great hospital, among the most horrible diseases, yet never once did he turn any case away. O poor souls, sick souls, come to Jesus at once, for my blessed Master will welcome you all, whoever you may be.

Neither did our Lord ever reject one person on account of youth. His disciples thought that such a preacher as he was ought never to be listened to except by persons of intellect, or at least of ripe years, who could appreciate what he would say; and when the mothers brought the children the disciples were much displeased with them; but our Master welcomed the young, saying, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Dear boys and girls, Jesus will not put you by to wait till you are older, but he will welcome you just as you are. Ah, how sweetly Jesus is doing this to my knowledge with many little folks. I heard last week of a poor boy who lived near my house. A meeting is held by some of our friends in a cottage, and this boy came one night and said, “Please, sir, may I come in?” The good man of the house answered, “You may if you will wash your face and hands.” “That I will do, sir,” he said; and he soon returned and took his seat. He was an attentive hearer and a devout worshipper. Though only twelve years old he loved the prayer-meeting, and was always there. One evening he said to the leader of the meeting, “Please, sir, may I pray?” and this poor child then poured out his heart before God with such sweetness that he impressed all who-listened to him. One night as he went out of the room he shook hands with the good man of the house and said, “Good-bye, sir, perhaps we may not meet again till me meet in heaven.” His words seem prophetic now, for before the next meeting a brewer’s dray passed over him, and his sweet young spirit ascended to Jesus whom he loved so well. What a joy to know that this poor child is now beholding the face of our Father who is in heaven. I am right glad to say that we are continually receiving boys and girls into the church. Child-piety is no rarity among us; we find it no cause of difficulty, but a well-spring of delight. Dear children, do not be afraid to come because you are so little, for Jesus has told the big people that except they receive him as little children they shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. He said also, “They that seek me early shall find me.” Come to him at once.

There were some in the throng, too, whom Jesus might have rejected because they were too old. Here they come! They can scarcely see their way; they limp, they use crutches, they are deaf, and their limbs are very feeble. Surely, when these poor old souls come to Jesus, he might say to them, “What am I to do with you worn-out old creatures? Go and spend the rest of your days where you spent the first part of them! How dare you think of coming to me when you are baldheaded, feeble, lame, and blind? How can you be soldiers of the cross?” Glory be to his name, our great Captain enlists old men, makes friends with old women, and delights to magnify the greatness of his grace in the salvation of the most infirm. Father William, though it be the eleventh hour with you, our Lord still calls you into his vineyard. Come, and fear not.

“Well,” say you, “I can understand his receiving both young and old; but surely sin must have led him to refuse a comer.” It was not so. Those who came to Christ were often very sinful; but he received sinners. Did you ever notice that the last person he spoke to before he died was the thief on the cross, and the first person he spoke to when he rose again was Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils? My Lord delights to draw near to the guiltiest of the guilty, to blot out their iniquities, and to receive them into his heart of love; so that I come back to what I said before: our Lord receives all sorts of comers.

Once more: our Lord receives all with a hearty welcome. He did not merely allow the people to come near, tolerating their presence; but “he welcomed them.” When he saw that they were like sheep without a shepherd his heart was stirred within him, and he at once laid himself out to do them good. The sight of their need aroused his compassion: the deep fountains of his infinite love were broken up at once, and flooded his whole nature, so that “he was moved with compassion.” He proved that he welcomed them by the deeds that he wrought for them. He taught them concerning the kingdom; he healed those that had need of healing; and he fed the whole five thousand. There was not one single exception to this rule, he welcomed every one of them-taught, healed, fed, and smiled on all. He did not single out one, and say, “You, sir, may go your way, I will have nothing to do with you”; but each one felt that he was welcome. It is just so now. My blessed Master is glad to receive sinners, his bowels yearn over men; he longs for their salvation; he rejoices when they come to him; he proves his willingness to receive them by the bounty of his grace towards them; he multiplies his benedictions towards those that trust him; he heaps on his favours; he does all that they want, and grants them exceeding abundantly above all that they ask or even think, and this without a single exception on any ground, or for any reason whatever; for, “Him that cometh to me,” saith he, “I will in no wise cast out.” This is the blessed fact.

Now I come to use this as an encouragement. If Jesus Christ when he was here on earth welcomed all that came at all hours, then he will welcome you, my friend, if you come to him now; for the circumstances are just the same. You are the same sort of person as those whom Jesus used to welcome. They were good-for-nothing bodies; they were persons that were full of need, and could not possibly bring a price with which to purchase his favour. Are you not just like them? Are you a very special sinner? I am sure I could find another special sinner like you whom Jesus has received. I will not go into detail; but I will venture to ask you-Are you a thief?

The dying thief rejoiced to see

In Christ salvation full and free.

Have you been unchaste? David was an adulterer and was pardoned; and Jesus forgave a woman that was a sinner, who therefore loved him much. The untruthful, the unclean, the ungodly are the sort of people that Jesus came to seek and save.

And then there is the same Saviour. Jesus Christ is the same gracious Pardoner as he was in the days of his flesh. “Why,” say you, “he is in heaven.” Yes, but I never knew anybody lose anything by going to heaven: it is all the other way. Jesus has not lost his tenderness nor his compassion, nor his delight in blessing the sons of men. He is the same Saviour in glory that he was in his humiliation. I invite you to come, dear friend, though you are suffering from the same unfitness as these people were. Come just as you are, and come with the same expectation as they did; for they expected him to work wonders for them, and he did so. Jesus is in the same mind as when he would not condemn the guilty woman, and when he prayed for his his murderers: he is still bent upon the one errand of saving men: he still welcomes sinners. Since, then, you are under the same conditions, come, and expect the same result from your coming.

The welcome that you will receive from Christ, my dear friend, will be as hearty as that which they received. When is it that a man does not make all comers welcome? It may be a person calls for whom he has no liking, and he does not invite him to a meal because he does not want him; he would sooner have his room than his company; but that is not true of our Lord; for he loves his enemies, and seeks his foes. He has abundant love to guilty men, and hears their cry for mercy. So glad is our Lord to see the marriage feast of his love furnished with guests, that he sends out his servants to fetch in highwaymen and vagrants. Sometimes people are not welcome because they come when you have not enough to feed them with. The good housewife murmurs, “I wish they had come some other day.” It is never so with our Master. He has abundant provision; yet there is room, ay, and yet there is food. There is enough in Christ Jesus for all that ever will come to him for salvation. All that the Father giveth him shall come, and there is not one that shall come whom he will send away because there is not due provision, made for him. That reason cannot possibly exist when Jesus himself in all his fulness is the covenant provision. Sometimes a host may not welcome an applicant because it would be dangerous to his reputation to entertain him. We should none of us be eager to entertain a thief or a burglar or a murderer in hiding from justice, nor would vagabonds and tramps be our chosen guests, for it would lower our esteem among men. As for our Lord Jesus, his reputation is gone long ago: “He made himself of no reputation,” that he might welcome the disreputable to his house and heart. They sneeringly spread it about the streets, “This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.” Yes, his reputation was gone among the Pharisees; but he has a new reputation now, and his great glory is that he cleanses the chief of sinners, and makes them heirs of God. O my trembling hearer, you need not be afraid.

Sometimes a man who has been hospitable has been known to grow weary of it; for he says, “These people come and eat and drink, and then abuse me.” Jesus has never been hardened by this; his house is open, and his table is furnished still. He foreknew our ill manners, and he has not been surprised by the conduct of any of his guests. He knew they were unworthy; he did not entertain one of them because they deserved it; he did it all because he is infinitely gracious, and delights to do good to the unthankful and to the evil. This is why he keeps his house open still, that those who are ready to perish may come, that the worthless and undeserving may come and participate in the bounties of his grace. Jesus Christ will make you welcome, though society will not own you. Is there any man here that doubts it? My friend, come and try the Lord. There is not on earth a man that dares to say, “I went to Christ, and he cast me away.” You may perambulate hell itself, and never find one who can truthfully say, “I believed in Jesus, and he would not save me.” Come, friend, if he rejects you, you will be the first of his castaways. We will have you up in the Tabernacle and exhibit you as the man that Jesus Christ would not save, and then I will shut up shop, and hold my tongue for ever. I will never dare to preach the gospel again if one comer to Jesus be rejected by him. It never has happened, and never shall. Come and welcome. Jesus welcomed the crowd, and he will welcome you, and he will prove that you are welcome by doing for you what he did for them. He will teach you, teach you concerning the kingdom, teach you repentance, teach you faith; he will teach you so effectually that you shall learn truly, and your heart beneath his teaching shall be changed and sanctified, and you shall become a new creature. More than that, he will heal you. Whatever the disease of your soul may be, only come to my Master and he will banish every plague of doubt, or palsy of fear, or leprosy of sin, or fever of lust. There is no balm in Gilead; but Jesus Christ is the never-failing Physician, and he can make you whole at once. Nor is this all, for he will feed you with the bread of heaven; with better than angels’ meat will he sustain you, and satisfy your heart and mind with all that you can desire.

Thus I have laboured to encourage you. O that the Spirit of God may give effect to my words.

Thirdly, we use our text as a lesson. Dear friends, if Jesus Christ welcomes all that come to him, let all of us who are his followers imitate his example, and give a warm welcome to those who seek the Lord. Whatever their motive is, whenever we see people coming to the worship of God, and especially when we see them a little impressed, let us welcome them heartily. It is a grievous sin when strangers come in and find themselves stared at as if they were wild beasts; nobody offers them a seat: they may stand till they drop, but nobody cares an atom about them, and they may come again, and go in and out for the month together, and never a word is spoken to them. I pray you, do not so; but, on the contrary, look out personally for individuals, and try to win them for Jesus. There has been a great wind lately, and it has shaken down much fruit; but windfall fruit is seldom good for much. Billy Bray used to say, “The best fruit is hand-picked,” and I believe the best converts in the world are those for whom loving hearts wait, and pray, and plead. Sometimes after a great sermon, or when there has been a mighty shaking under a revival, many come down who are only windfalls and of very small account; but those whom you win one by one, by caring about them, minding their estate, and watching their growth-these are the best of fruit and well worth storing. Mind, then, this rule: when you go gathering fruit go with a smile. Men are brought to Jesus by cheerfulness far sooner than by gloom. Jesus welcomed men; his looks said, “I am glad to see you.” He seemed to say to the people who flocked after him into his retirement, “I did not invite you at this time, for I desired to be alone; but as you are so earnest and eager after me, I am prepared to do what you desire. You are welcome to all that I can do for you.” In winning souls use an abundance of smiles. Have you not seen in one of our magazines an account of seven people saved by a smile? It is a pretty story. A clergyman passes by a window on his way to church. A baby was being dandled there, and he smiled at the baby, and the baby at him. Another time he passed; the baby was there again, and once more he smiled. Soon baby was taken to the window at the hour when he usually passed. They did not know who the gentleman was; but one day two of the older children followed to see where he went on a Sunday. They followed him to church, and as he preached in a winning way, they told their father and mother, who felt interest enough in their baby’s friend to wish to go. Thus in a short time a godless family that had previously neglected the worship of God was brought to the Saviour because the minister smiled at the baby. I never heard of anybody getting to heaven through frowning at the baby, or at anyone else. Certain wonderfully good persons go through the world as if they were commissioned to impress everybody with the awful solemnity of religion: they resemble a winter’s night without a moon; nobody seems attracted, nor even impressed, by them except in the direction of dislike. I saw a life-buoy the other day covered with luminous paint. How bright it seemed, how suitable to be cast upon the dark sea to help a drowning man! An ordinary lifebuoy he would never see, but this is so bright and luminous that a man must see it. Give me a soul-winner bright with holy joy, for he will be seen by the sorrowing soul, and his help will be accepted. Cover your lives with the luminous paint of cheerfulness, compounded of joy and peace through believing. Smile Christ into mourners’ hearts by God’s grace. It can be done if the Holy Spirit will only give you a lesson.

Jesus welcomed them, let us warmly welcome all comers. Do not seem to say to them, “You want to be saved, do you?” “Yes.” “You had better mind what you are about: you know there are a great many hypocrites. I am not sure of your sincerity. Do you really want to be saved?” If the seeker cries, “O sir, what must I do to be saved?” do not answer with icy words, “Do not be so excited. Be calm, and let me lay the gospel before you in a clear, didactic manner, for fear you should be deceived. I hope it is all right with you, and that these desires are not mere natural excitement, but are the fruit of the Spirit. Still it is my duty to be faithful and put you to the test.” Why, my dear friend, if you had been in a right state of heart you would have led that man into the kingdom of heaven before you had got half through those cautious remarks. Give him a loving, hearty welcome, and not a cold, suspicious searching. Say, “Do you want to be saved?” “Yes.” “Then come and welcome: believe in the Lord Jesus and he is yours. You want Jesus Christ, do you?” “Yes.” “Come along: he waits to be gracious; he is here present; and all you have to do is to trust in him.

I put this in a very simple way; but there is very much in it. Jesus, the Master, welcomed sinners; let all his servants wear the livery of love, and set wide open every door for sinners to enter. “But perhaps there is very little good in these who say they are seeking.” The remark is no doubt correct, perhaps there is no good at all in them. What then? Let us welcome them all the same. Did not our Lord receive you when there was no good about you? Should not you also receive such, and set the gospel before them, that God the Holy Spirit may bless them?

“But some are so poor that if they are received into the Church they will be of no service to it: they will rather be dependent upon its charity than helpful to its funds.” Yes, but these are the sort of people that our Lord used to welcome, and why should not we? It will be an evil day for any church when it despises any class of men. There will come a curse upon a church that looks to men’s garments and purses, and values them according to the guinea stamp. This will never do. Is he a man? Then he has an immortal soul about him. Does he seek the Saviour? Christ bids us encourage him. Is he a sinner? Christ can cleanse him. Is he troubled about his sin? Jesus can give him rest. Let us help him, however loathsome his past life may have been, and however little he may be able to do in return.

If anyone here wishes to find mercy and cannot find it, I would during the last minute of my discourse try to welcome him. Friend, thou sayest, “How can I be saved!” Have you ever heard the gospel, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved”? “Yes”, say you, “but I do not think I believe aright.” Listen. Here is a verse for you. Get out your New Testament. Look out John 5:24. Turn it down. Turn it down, and read it when you get home. I beg all of you who have not found the Saviour to mark that passage: read it carefully, and keep on reading it over and over again for an hour. Read it over ten thousand times, if need be, for I want you to find salvation through it. I know this text will save any man living, God blessing it to him. Here it is:

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”

What a grand verse! Is there anything in it about believing aright? Not a syllable. Only let a man truly believe and he “hath” (it is not said “shall have”)-he has now “everlasting life.” Mark that,-not a life that will die out in a quarter of a year if he does not mind,-no, but “hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” Suck at that text, poor soul: salvation lies in it. Believe in Jesus and you are saved. May God help you to believe it by his blessed Spirit, and you shall live unto him henceforth and for ever. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Mark 6:7-44.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-414, 490, 509.

WITHOUT CHRIST-NOTHING

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, October 23rd, 1881, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“Without me ye can do nothing.”-John 15:5.

This is not the language of a man of ordinary mould. No saint, no prophet, no apostle would ever have addressed a company of faithful men, and have said to them, “Without me ye can do nothing.” Had Jesus Christ been, as some say, a good man, and nothing more, such language as this would have been unseemly and inconsistent. Among the virtues of a perfect man we must certainly reckon modesty, but this from a mere man would have been shamelessly immodest. It is impossible to conceive that Jesus of Nazareth, had he not been more than man, could ever have uttered the sentence, “Without me ye can do nothing.” My brethren, I hear in this sentence the voice of that Divine Person without whom was not anything made that was made. The majesty of the words reveals the Godhead of him that uttered them. The “I am” comes out in the personal word “me,” and the claim of all power unveils the Omnipotent. These words mean Godhead or nothing. The spirit in which we listen to this language is that of adoration. Let us bow our heads in solemn worship, and so unite with the multitude before the throne who ascribe power and dominion and might to him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb.

In this adoring state of mind we shall be the better prepared to enter into the innermost soul of the text. I am not going to preach upon the moral inability of the unregenerate, although in that doctrine I most firmly believe; for that truth did not come in our Lord’s way when he uttered these words, neither did he allude to it. It is quite true that unregenerate men, being without Christ, can do no spiritual action whatever, and can do nothing which is acceptable in the sight of God; but our Lord was not speaking to unregenerate men at all, nor speaking about them. He was surrounded by his apostles, the eleven out of whom Judas had been weeded, and it is to them as branches of the true vine that he says, “Without me ye can do nothing.” The statement refers to such as are in the vine, and even to such as have been pruned, and have for a while been found abiding in the stem, which is Christ; even in such there is an utter incapacity for holy produce if separated from Christ.

We are not called upon just now to speak upon all forms of doing, as beyond us, but of that form of it which is intended in the text. There are certain forms of doing in which men excel who know little or nothing of Christ; but the text must be viewed in its own connection, and the truth is clear. Believers are here described under the figure of branches in the vine, and the doing alluded to must therefore be the bearing of fruit. I might render it, “Apart from me ye can produce nothing-make nothing, create nothing, bring forth nothing.” The reference, therefore, is to that doing which may be set forth by the fruit of the vine branch, and therefore to those good works and graces of the Spirit which are expected from men who are spiritually united to Christ: it is of these that he says, “Without me ye can do nothing.” Our text is only another form of the fourth verse: “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye except ye abide in me.” I am therefore going to address myself to you who profess to know and love the Lord, and are anxious to glorify his name, and I have to remind you that union to Christ is essential; for only as you are one with him, and continue to be so, can you bring forth the fruits which prove you to be truly his.

Reading again this solemn sentence, “Without me ye can do nothing,” it first of all excites in me an aspiration of hope. There is something to be done, our religion is to have a grand practical outcome. I have been thinking of Christ as the vine, and of the myriads of branches in him, and my heart has hoped for great things. From such a root what a vintage must come! Being branches in him, what fruit we must produce! There can be nothing scanty or poverty-stricken in the fruitage of a vine so full of sap. Fruit of the best quality, fruit in the utmost abundance, fruit unrivalled, must be borne by such a vine. That word “do” has music in it. Yes, brethren, Jesus went about about doing good, and, being in him, we shall do good. Everything about him is efficient, practical,-in a word, fruit-bearing; and being joined to him much will yet be done by us. We have been saved by the almighty grace of God apart from all doings of our own, and now that we are saved we long to do something in return: we feel a high ambition to be of some use and service to our great Lord and Master. The text, even though there be a negative in it, yet raises in our soul the hope that ere we go hence and be no more we may even here on earth do something for Christ.

Beloved, there is the ambition and hope before us of doing something in the way of glorifying God by bringing forth the fruits of holiness, peace, and love. We would adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by love unfeigned, by every good and holy work we would show forth the praises of our God. Apart from the Lord Jesus we know we cannot be holy; but joined unto him we overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, and walk with garments unspotted from the world. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, and all manner of holy conversation. For none of these things are we equal in and of ourselves, and yet by faith we say with Paul, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” We may be adorned with plentiful clusters, we may cause the Saviour to have joy in us that our joy may be full: great possibilities are before us.

We aspire not only to produce fruit in ourselves, but to bear much fruit in the conversion of others, even as Paul desired concerning the Romans, that he might have fruit among them. In this matter we can do nothing whatever alone; but being united unto Christ we bring forth increase unto the Lord. Our Lord Jesus said, “The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do, because I go unto the Father.” Brethren, a hope springs up in our bosom that we may each one of us bring many souls to Jesus. Not because we have any power in ourselves, but because we are united to Jesus we joyfully hope to bring forth fruit in the way of leading others to the knowledge of the gospel.

My soul takes fire of hope, and I say to myself, If it be so, all these branches, and all alive, how much fruit of further blessing will ripen for this poor world. Men shall be blessed in us because we are blessed in Christ. What must be the influence of ten thousand godly examples! What must be the influence upon our country of thousands of Christian men and women practically advancing love, peace, justice, virtue, holiness! And if each one is seeking to bring others to Christ what numerous conversions there must be, and how largely must the church of God be increased. Do you not know that if there were only ten thousand real Christians in the world, yet if each one of these brought one other to Christ every year it would not need twenty years to accomplish the conversion of the entire population of the globe? This is a simple sum in arithmetic which any schoolboy can work out. Certainly it looks a small thing that each one should bring another to the Lord; and surely if we are one with him we may hope to see it done. So I sit me down and dream right comfortably, according to the promise, “Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” See these thousands of branches, proceeding from such a stem as Christ Jesus, and with such sap as the Holy Ghost flowing through them; why, surely, this vine must soon clothe the mountains with its verdure, and there shall not remain a single barren rock unadorned with the blessed foliage! Then shall the mountains drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. Not because of any natural fertility in the branches, but because of their glorious root, and stem, and sap, each one shall bear full clusters, and each fruitful bough shall run over the wall. Beloved friends in Christ, have you not strong desires to see some such consummation? Do you not long to take a share in the high enterprise of winning the world to Christ? Oh, ye that are young and full of spirits, do you not long to press to the front of this great crusade? Our souls pine to see the knowledge of the Lord covering the earth as the waters cover the sea. It is glad tidings to us that, joined unto Christ, we can do something in this great business, something upon which the Lord will smile, something which shall redound to the glory of his name. We are not condemned to inaction; we are not denied the joy of service, the superior blessedness of giving and of doing: the Lord hath chosen us and ordained us to go and bring forth fruit, fruit that shall remain. This is the aspiration which rises in our soul; the Lord grant that we may see it take actual form in our lives.

But now, in the second place, there passes through my heart a shudder,-a shudder of fear. Albeit I glow and burn with strong desire, and rise upon the wing of a mighty ambition to do something great for Christ, yet I read the text, and a sudden trembling takes hold upon me. “Without me”:-it is possible, then, that I may be without Christ, and so may be utterly incapacitated for all good. Come, friends, I want you to feel, even though it cast a cold chill over you, that you may possibly be “without Christ.” I would have you feel it in the very marrow of your bones, yea, in the centre of your hearts. You profess to be in Christ; but are you so? The large majority of those to whom I speak this morning are visible members of the visible church of Christ; but what if you should not be so in him as to bring forth fruit? Evidently there are branches which in a certain sense are in the vine, and yet bring forth no fruit! It is written, “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away.” Yes, you are a member, perhaps an elder, perhaps a deacon, possibly a minister, and so you are in the vine; but are you bringing forth the fruits of holiness? Are you consecrated? Are you endeavouring to bring others to Jesus Christ? Or is your profession a thing apart from a holy life, and devoid of all influence upon others? Does it give you a name among the people of God and nothing more? Say, is it a mere natural association with the church, or is it a living, supernatural union with Christ? Let the thought go through you and prostrate you before him who looks down from heaven upon you, and lifts his pierced hand, and cries, “Without me ye can do nothing.” My friend, if you are without Christ, what is the use of carrying on that Bible-class; for you can do nothing? What is the use of my coming to this pulpit if I am without Christ? What is the use of your going down into the Sunday-school this afternoon if, after all, you are without Christ? Unless we have the Lord Jesus ourselves we cannot take him to others. Unless within us we have the living water springing up unto eternal life, we cannot overflow so that out of our midst shall flow rivers of living water.

I will put the thought another way,-What if you should be in Christ, and not so in him as to abide in him? It appears from our Lord’s words that some branches in him are cast forth and are withered. “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered.” Some who are called by his name, and reckoned among his disciples, whose names are heard whenever the muster-roll of the church is read, yet do not continue in him. My hearer, what if it should happen that you are only in Christ on a Sunday, but in the world all the week! What if you are only in Christ at the communion table, or at the prayer-meeting, or at certain periods of devotion? What if you are off and on with Christ! What if you play fast and loose with the Lord! What if you are an outside saint and an inside devil! Ah me, what will come of such conduct as this? And yet some persist in attempting to hold an intermittent communion with Christ; in Christ to-day because it is the Sabbath; out of Christ to-morrow because it is the market, and obedience to Christ might be inconvenient when they buy and sell. This will not do. We must be so in Christ as to be always in him, or else we are not living branches of the living vine, and we cannot produce fruit. If there were such a thing as a vine branch that was only occasionally joined to the stem, would you expect it to yield a cluster to the husbandman? So neither can you if you are off and on with Christ. You can do nothing if there be not constant union.

One year when I was travelling towards my usual winter resting-place I halted at Marseilles, and there was overtaken by great pain. In my room in the hotel I found it cold, and so I asked for a fire. I was sitting in a very desponding mood, when suddenly the tears came to my eyes, as if smitten with a great sorrow. I shall never forget the thoughts which stirred my heart. The porter came in to light the fire. He had in his hand a bundle of twigs. I called to him to let me look at it. He was about to push it into the stove as fuel with which to kindle the fire. As I took the bundle into my hand, I found it was made of vine branches-branches that had been cut off now that the pruning time was come. Ah me, I thought, will this be my portion? Here I am, away from home, unable to bear fruit, as I love to do. Shall I end with this as my portion? Shall I be gathered for the fire? Those vine shoots were parts of a good vine, no doubt-branches that once looked fair and green; but now they were fuel for the flame. They had been cut off and cast off as useless things, and then men gathered them and tied them in bundles, and they were ignobly thrust into the fire. What a picture! There goes a bundle of ministers into the fire! There is a bundle of elders! There’s another bundle of deacons, a bundle of church members, a bundle of Sunday-school teachers! “Men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” Dear brothers and sisters, shall this be the lot of any of us who have named the name of Christ? Well did I say a shudder may go through us as we listen to those words, “without me.” Our end without Christ will be terrible indeed. First, no fruit; then no life; and at last no place among the saints, no existence in the church of God. Without Christ we do nothing, we are nothing, we are worse than nothing. This is the condition of the heathen now, and it was our own condition once; God forbid that we should find it to be our condition now-“without Christ, having no hope!” Here is grave cause for heart-searching, and I leave the matter with you to that end.

Having come so far in our second head, under the third I behold a vision of total failure. “Without me,” says the text, “ye can do nothing”-ye can produce nothing. The visible church of Christ has tried this experiment a great many times already, and always with the same result. Separated from Christ, his church can do nothing which she was formed to do. She is sent into the world upon a high enterprise, with noble aims before her, and grand forces at her disposal; but if she could cease from communion with Christ she would become wholly incapable.

Now what are the outward signs of any community being apart from Christ? Answer, first, It may be seen in a ministry without Christ in its doctrine. This we have seen ourselves. Woe worth the day that it is so! History tells us that not only in the Romish church and the Anglican church, but among the Nonconformist churches, Christ has been at times forgotten. Not only among Unitarians, but among Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, all round, Jesus has been dishonoured, Attempts have been made to do something without Christ as the truth to be preached. Ah me, what folly it is! They preach up intellectualism, and hope that this will be the great power of God; but it is not. “Surely,” say they, “novelties of thought and refinements of speech will attract and win! The preachers aspire to be leaders of thought; will they not command the multitude and charm the intelligent? Add music and architecture, and what is to hinder success?” Many a young minister has given up his whole mind to this-to try and be exceedingly refined and intellectual; and what has he done with these showy means? The sum total is expressed in the text-“Nothing”: “Without me ye can do nothing.” What emptiness this folly has created: when the pulpit is without Christ the pews are soon without people. I knew a chapel where an eminent divine was to be heard for years. A converted Jew coming to London to visit a friend, set out on Sunday morning to find a place of Christian worship, and he chanced to enter the chapel of this eminent divine. When he came back he said that he feared he had made a mistake; he had turned into a building which he hoped was a Christian place of assembly; but as he had not heard the name of Jesus all the morning, he thought perhaps he had fallen in with some other religionists. I fear that many modern sermons might just as fairly have been delivered in a Mahometan mosque as in a Christian church. We have too many preachers of whom we might complain, “they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.” Christianity without Christ is a strange thing indeed. And what comes of it where it is held up to the people? Why, by-and-by there are not enough people to support the ministry; empty benches are plentiful, and the thing gets pretty nearly wound up. Blessed be God for it! I am heartily glad that without Christ these pretended ministers cannot prosper. Leave Christ out of the preaching and you shall do nothing. Only advertize it all over London, Mr. Baker, that you are making bread without flour; put it in every paper, “Bread without flour;” and you may soon shut up your shop, for your customers will hurry off to other tradesmen. Somehow there is a strange prejudice in people’s minds in favour of bread made of flour, and there is also an unaccountable prejudice in the human mind which makes men think that if there be a gospel it must have Christ in it. A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution. However grand the language it will be merely much-ado-about-nothing if Christ be not there. Ay, and I mean by Christ not merely his example and the ethical precepts of his teaching, but his atoning blood, his wondrous satisfaction made for human sin, and the grand doctrine of “believe and live.” If “Life for a look at the Crucified One” be obscured, all is dark; if justification by faith be not set in the very forefront in the full blaze of light, nothing can be accomplished. Without Christ in the doctrine ye shall do nothing.

Further, without acknowledging always the absolute supremacy of Christ we shall do nothing. Jesus is much complimented nowadays; but he is not submitted to as absolute Lord. I hear many pretty things about Christ from men who reject his gospel. “Lives of Christ” we have in any quantity. Oh for one which would set him forth in his glory as God, as Head of the church and Lord of all. I should greatly like to see a “Life of Christ” written by one who knew him by communion with him and by reverently sitting at his feet. Most of the pretty things about Jesus which I read nowadays seem to have been written by persons who have seen him through a telescope at a great distance, and know him “according to Matthew,” but not according to personal fellowship. Oh for a “Life of Christ” by Samuel Rutherford or George Herbert, or by some other sweet spirit to whom the ever-blessed One is as a familiar friend. Certain modern praises of Jesus are written upon the theory that, on the whole, the Saviour has given us a religion that is tolerably suited to the enlightenment of the nineteenth century, and may be allowed to last a little longer. Jesus is commended by these critics, and somewhat admired as preferable to most teachers; but he is by no means to be blindly followed. It is fortunate for Jesus that he commends himself to the “best thought” and ripest culture of the period; for, if he had not done so, these wise gentlemen would have exposed him as being behind the times. Of course they have every now and then to rectify certain of his dogmas, especially such as justification by faith, or atonement, or the doctrine of election-these are old-fashioned things, which belong to an older and less enlightened period, and therefore they adapt them by tearing out their real meaning. The doctrines of grace, according to the infallible critics of the period, are out of date-nobody believes them now, and so they settle off old-fashioned believers as non-existent. Christ is rectified and squared, and his garment without seam is taken off, and he is dressed out in proper style, as by a West-End clothier; then he is introduced to us as a remarkable teacher, and we are advised to accept him as far as he goes. For the present the wise ones tolerate Jesus; but there is no telling what is to come: the progress of this age is so astonishing that it is just possible we shall before long leave Christ and Christianity behind. Now, what will come of this foolish wisdom? Nothing but delusions, mischief, infidelity, anarchy, and all manner of imaginable and unimaginable ills. The fact is, if you do not acknowledge Christ to be all, you have virtually left him out, and are without him. We must preach the gospel, because Christ has revealed it. “Thus saith the Lord,” is to be our logic. We must preach the gospel as ambassadors delivering their message; that is to say, in the King’s name, by an authority not their own. We preach our doctrines, not because we consider that they are convenient and profitable, but because Christ has commanded us to proclaim them. We believe the doctrines of grace, not because the enlightenment of the age sets its wonderful imprimatur upon them, but because they are true and are the voice of God. Age or no age has nothing to do with us. The world hates Christ and must hate him: if it would boldly denounce Christ it would be to us a more hopeful sign than its deceitful Judas kiss. We keep simply to this,-the Lord hath said it, and we care not who approves or disapproves. Jesus is God and Head of the church, and we must do what he bids us, and say what he tells us: if we fail in this, nothing of good will come of it. If the church gets back to her loyalty she shall see what her Lord will do; but without Christ as absolute Lord, infallible Teacher, and honoured King, all must be failure even to the end.

Go a little further: you may have sound doctrine, and yet do nothing unless you have Christ in your spirit. I have known all the doctrines of grace to be unmistakably preached, and yet there have been no conversions; for this reason, that they were not expected and scarcely desired. In former years many orthodox preachers thought it to be their sole duty to comfort and confirm the godly few who by dint of great perseverance found out the holes and corners in which they prophesied. These brethren spoke of sinners as of people whom God might possibly gather in if he thought fit to do so; but they did not care much whether he did so or not. As to weeping over sinners as Christ wept over Jerusalem; as to venturing to invite them to Christ as the Lord did when he stretched out his hands all the day long; as to lamenting with Jeremiah over a perishing people, they had no sympathy with such emotions, and feared that they savoured of Arminianism. Both preacher and congregation were cased in a hard shell, and lived as if their own salvation was the sole design of their existence. If anybody did grow zealous and seek conversions, straightway they said he was indiscreet, or conceited. When a church falls into this condition it is, as to its spirit, “without Christ.” What comes of it? Some of you know by your own observation what does come of it. The comfortable corporation exists and grows for a little while, but it comes to nothing in the long ran; and so it must: there can be no fruit-bearing where there is not the spirit of Christ as well as the doctrine of Christ. Except the spirit of the Lord rests upon you, causing you to agonize for the salvation of men even as Jesus did, ye can do nothing.

But above all things we must have Christ with us in the power of his actual presence. Do we always think of this-“Without me ye can do nothing”? We are going out this afternoon to teach the young; shall we be quite sure to take Christ with us? or on the road shall we suddenly stop and say, “I am without my Master, and I must not dare to go another step”? The abiding consciousness of the love of Christ in our soul is the essential element of our strength. We can no more convert a sinner without Christ than we could light up new stars in the sky. Power to change the human will, power to enlighten the intellect as to the things of God, and to influence the mind as to repentance and faith, must come entirely from the Most High. Do we feel that? or do we put our thoughts together for an address, and say, “Now, that is a strong point, and that will produce effect”; and do we rest there? If so, we can do nothing at all. The power lies with the Master, not with the servant; the might is in the hand, not in the weapon. We must have Christ in these pews and in these aisles, and in this pulpit, and Christ down in our Sunday-school, and Christ at the street corner when we stand up there to talk of him, and we must feel that he is with us even to the end of the world, or we shall do nothing.

We have, then, before us a vision of total failure if we attempt in any way to do without Christ. He says, “Without me ye can do nothing:” it is in the doing that the failure is most conspicuous. You may talk a good deal without him; you may hold congresses, and conferences, and conventions; but doing is another matter. Without Jesus you can talk any quantity; but without him you can do nothing. The most eloquent discourse without him will be all a bottle of smoke. You shall lay your plans, and arrange your machinery, and start your schemes; but without the Lord you will do nothing. Immeasurable cloudland of proposals and not a spot of solid doing large enough for a dove’s foot to rest on-such shall be the end of all! You may have all the money that generosity can lavish, all the learning that your universities can supply, and all the oratory that the most gifted can lay at your feet; but “without me,” saith Christ, “ye can do nothing.” Fuss, flare, fireworks, and failure; that is the end of it. “Without me ye can do nothing.” Let me repeat those words again, “Do nothing.” “Do nothing,” and the world dying around us! Africa in darkness! China perishing! Hindostan sunk in superstition, and a church which can do nothing! No bread to be handed out to the hungry, and the multitude fainting and dying! The rock to be smitten and the water of life to leap out for the thirsty, but not a drop forthcoming, because Jesus is not there. Ministers, evangelists, churches, salvation armies, the world dies for want of you, and yet “ye can do nothing” if your Lord is away. The age shall advance in discovery, and men of science shall do their little best, but you shall do “nothing” without Christ, absolutely nothing! You shall not proceed a single inch upon your toilsome way, though you row till the oars snap with the strain; you shall be drifted back by winds and currents unless you take Jesus into the ship. Remember that all the while the great Husbandman is watching you, for his eye is on every vine-branch. He sees that you are producing no grapes, and he is coming round with that sharp knife of his, cutting here and there! What must become of you who produce nothing? It makes one’s very soul to curdle within him to think that we should live to do nothing. Yet I fear that thousands of Christians get no further than this; they are not immoral, dishonest, or profane; but they do nothing. They think of what they would like to do, and they plan and they propose; but they do nothing. There are buds in plenty, but not a single grape is produced and all because they do not get into that vital, overflowing, effectual communion with Christ which would fill them with life, and constrain them to bring forth fruit unto the glory of God. There is a vision, then, of the failure all along the line if we try to do without Christ.

But now, fourthly, I hear a voice of wisdom, a still small voice which speaks out of the text, and says to us who are in Christ, let us acknowledge this. Down on your knees, bow your mouths in the dust and say, “Lord, it is true: without thee we can do nothing, nothing whatever that is good and acceptable in the sight of God. We have not ability of ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our ability is of God.” Now, do not speak thus, as if you paid a compliment which orthodoxy requires you to make; but from the deeps of your soul, smitten with an absolute self-despair, own the truth unto God. “To will is present with me, but how to perform that which I would I find not.” Lord, I am a good-for-nothing do-nothing, a fruitless, barren, dry, rotten branch without thee, and this I feel in my inmost soul. Be not far from me, but quicken me by thy presence.

Next, let us pray. If without Christ we can do nothing, let us cry to him that we may never be without him. Let us with strong crying and tears entreat his abiding presence. He comes to those who seek him: let us never cease seeking. In conscious fellowship with him, let us plead that the fellowship should be unbroken evermore. Let us pray that we may be so knit and joined to Jesus that we may be one spirit with him, never to be separated from him again. Master and Lord, let the life floods of thy grace never cease to flow into us, for we know that we must be thus supplied or we can produce nothing. Brethren, let us have much more prayer than has been usual among us. Prayer is appointed to convey the blessings God ordains to give; let us constantly use the appointed means, and may the result be ever increasing from day to day.

Next, let us personally cleave to Jesus. Let us not attempt a life of separation; for that were to seek the living among the dead. Do not let us depart from him for a single minute. Would you like to be caught at any one second of your life in a condition in which you could do nothing? I must confess I should not like to be in that state-incapable of defence against my enemies, or of service for my Lord. If an awakened one should come before you under distress of mind, and you should feel quite incapable of doing any good to him, what a sad perplexity. Or if you did not feel incapable, and yet should really be so, and what if you should therefore talk on in a religious way, but know no power in it; would it not be a sad thing? May you never be in such a state that you would be a do-nothing, with opportunities afforded and yet without strength to utilize them! If you are divided from Christ you are divided from the possibility of doing good; cling, therefore, to the Saviour with your whole might, and let nothing take you off from him; no, not for an hour.

Heartily submit yourselves, also, dear friends, to the Lord’s headship and leadership, and ask to do everything in his style and way. He will not be with you unless you accept him as your Master. There must be no quarrel about supremacy, but you must yield yourself up absolutely to him, to be, to do, or to suffer, according to his will. When it is wholly so he will be with you, and you shall do everything that is required of you. Wonderful things will the Lord perform through you when once he is your all in all. Will we not have it so?

Once more; joyfully believe in him. Though without him you can do nothing, yet with him all things are possible. Omnipotence is in that man who has Christ in him. Weakness itself you may be, but you shall learn to glory in that weakness because the power of Christ doth rest upon you if your union and communion with Christ are continually kept up. Oh for a grand confidence in Christ! We have not believed in him yet up to the measure of the hem of his garment; for even that faith made the sick woman whole. Oh to believe up to the measure of his infinite Deity! Oh for the splendour of the faith which measures itself by the Christ in whom it trusts! May God bring us there, then shall we bring forth much fruit to the glory of his name.

And now, lastly. While I was listening to my text as a child puts a shell to its ear and listens till it hears the deep sea rolling in its windings, I heard within my text a song of content. “Without me ye can do nothing.” My heart said, “Lord, what is there that I want to do without thee? There is no pain in this thought to me. If I can do without thee I am sorry to possess so dangerous a power. I am happy to be deprived of all strength except that which comes from thee. It charms, it exhilarates, and delights my soul to think that thou art my all. Thou hast made me penniless as to all wealth of my own, that I might dip my hand into thy treasury; thou hast taken all power away from every sinew and muscle of mine, that I may rest on thy bosom.” “Without me ye can do nothing.” Be it so. Brethren, are you not all agreed? Do you wish to have it altered, any of you that love his dear name? I am sure you do not; for suppose, dear friends, we could do something without Christ, then he would not have the glory of it. Who wishes that? There would be little crowns for our poor little heads, for we should have done something without him; but now there is one great crown for that dear head which once was girt with thorns; for all his saints put together cannot do anything without him. The goodly fellowship of the apostles, the noble army of martyrs, and the triumphant host of the redeemed by blood, all put together, can do nothing without Jesus. Let him be crowned with majesty who worketh in us both to will and to do of his own good pleasure. For our own sakes, for our Lord’s sake, we are glad that it is so. All things are more ours by being his; and if our fruit is his rather than our own, it is none the less but all the more ours. Is not this rare music for a holy ear?

I feel so glad that without Christ we can do nothing because I fear that if the church could do something without Christ she would try to live without him. If she could teach the school and bring the children to salvation without Christ, I am afraid Christ would never go into a Sunday-school again. If we could preach successfully without Jesus, I suspect that the Lord Jesus Christ would seldom stand on high among the people again. If our Christian literature could bless men without Christ, I am afraid we should set the printing-press going, and never think about the crucified One in the matter. If there could be work done by the church without Jesus, there would be rooms into which he would never be invited; and these would soon become a sort of Blue Beard’s chambers, full of horror. A something that we could do without Christ! Why the mass of the church would get to working that machinery tremendously, and all the rest would be neglected, and so it is a blessed thing for the whole church that she must have Christ everywhere.

“Without me ye can do nothing.” As I listened to the song within these words I began to laugh: I wonder if you will laugh too. It was to myself I laughed, like Abraham of old. I thought of those who are going to destroy the orthodox doctrine from off the face of the earth. How they boast of the decline and death of old-fashioned evangelism. I have read once or twice that I am the last of the Puritans, the race is all dying out. To this I demur: I am willing to be esteemed last in merit, but not last as ending the race. There are many others who are steadfast in the faith. They say our old theology is decaying, and that nobody believes it. It is all a lie; but wise men say so, and therefore we are bound to consider ourselves obsolete and extinct. We are, in their esteem, as much out of date as antediluvians would be could they walk down our streets. Yes, they are going to quench our coal and blot us out from Israel. Newspapers and reviews and the general intelligence of the age all join to dance upon our graves. Put on your night-caps, ye good people of the evangelical order, and go home to bed and sleep the sleep of the righteous, for the end of you is come. Thus say the Philistines, but the armies of the Lord think not so. The adversaries exult exceedingly; but Christ is not with them. They know very little about him, they do not work in his spirit, nor cry him up, nor extol the gospel of his precious blood, and so I believe that when they have done their little best it will come to nothing. “Without me ye can do nothing:” if this be true of apostles, much more of opposers! If his friends can do nothing without him, I am sure his foes can do nothing against him. If they that follow his steps and lie in his bosom can do nothing without him, I am sure his adversaries cannot, and so I laughed at their laughter and smiled at their confusion. I laughed, too, because I recollected a story of a New England service when the pastor one afternoon was preaching in his own solemn way, and the good people were listening or sleeping, as their minds inclined. It was a substantial edifice wherein they assembled, fit to outlive an earthquake. All went on peacefully in the meeting-house that afternoon till suddenly a lunatic started up, denounced the minister, and declared that he would at once pull down the meeting-house about their ears. Taking hold of one of the pillars of the gallery, this newly-announced Samson repeated his threatening. Everybody rose; the women were ready to faint; the men began to rush to the door, and there was danger that the people would be trodden on as they rushed down the aisles. There was about to be a great tumult; no one could see the end of it; when suddenly one cool brother sitting near the pulpit produced a calm by a single sentence. “Let him try!” was the stern sarcasm which hushed the tempest. Even so to-day the enemy is about to disprove the gospel and crush out the doctrines of grace. Are you distressed, alarmed, astounded? So far from that, my reply to the adversary’s boast that he will pull down the pillars of our Zion is this only,-Let him try! Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-John 15.