“For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.”-Ezekiel 18:32.

“As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?”-Ezekiel 33:11.

Sin having a thorough possession of the human heart, entrenches itself within the soul, as one who has taken a stronghold speedily attends to the repairing of the breaches, and the strengthening of the walls, lest haply he should be dislodged. Among the most subtle devices of sin to keep the soul under its power, and prevent the man’s turning to God, is the slandering of the Most High by misrepresenting his character. As dust blinds the eye, so does sin prevent the sinner from seeing God aright. “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God”; but the wicked only see what they think to be God, and that, alas, is an image as unlike to God as possible! They say, for instance, that God is unmerciful, whereas he delighteth in mercy. The unfaithful servant in the parable was quite sure about it, and said most positively, “I knew that thou wast an austere man:” whereas the nature of God is as opposite to overbearing and exaction as light is from darkness.

When men once get this false idea of God into their minds they become hardened in heart: believing that it is useless to turn to God, they go on in their sins with greater determination. Either they conceive that God is implacable, or that he is indifferent to human prayers, or that if he should hear them yet he is not in the least likely to grant a favourable answer. Men darkly dream that God will not attend to the guilty and the miserable when they cry to him; that their prayers are not good enough for him: that he expects so much from his creatures that they cannot even pray so as to please him; that, in fact, he seeketh a quarrel against us, and is a taskmaster who will grind all he can out of us. Being themselves slow to forgive, they judge it to be highly unlikely that the Lord will pardon such sins as theirs. As they will not smile on the poor or the fallen, they conceive that the Lord will never receive unworthy ones into his favour. Thus they belie the Most High: they make him who is the best of Kings to be a tyrant; him who is the dearest of friends they regard as an enemy; and him whose very name is love they look upon as the embodiment of hate.

This is one of Satan’s most mischievous devices to prevent repentance. As in the old times of plague they fastened up the house-door, and marked a red cross upon it, and thus the inhabitants of that dwelling were sealed unto death, even so the devil writes upon the man’s door the words, “no hope,” and then the sick soul determines to die, and refuses admission to the Physician. No man sins more unreservedly than he who sins in desperation, believing that there is no pardon for him from God. An assault where the watchword is “No quarter” usually provokes a terrible defence. The pirate who is hopeless of pardon becomes reckless in his deeds of blood. Many a burglar in the old time actually went on to murder without remorse, because he thought he might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. When a, man believes that there is no hope for him in the right way, he determines that he will get what he can out of the wrong way; and if he cannot please God, he will, at least, please himself. If he must go to hell, he will be as merry as he can on the road, and, as he puts it, he will “die game.” All this comes of a mistaken view of God. Do you not see the likeness between sin and falsehood? They are twin brothers. Holiness is truth, but sin is a lie, and the mother of lies. Sin brings forth falsehood, and then falsehood nourishes sin. Especially in this fashion doth falsehood maintain sin, by calumniating the God of love. He is a God ready to pardon, and by no means hard to be moved to forgiveness; why do men stand off from confessing their wrong, and finding mercy? He is not a God who taketh pleasure in the miseries of men; why do they think so ill of him? His ear is not dull to the cry of sorrow, his heart is not slow to compassionate distress; on the contrary, he waiteth to be gracious, “his mercy endureth for ever,” he delighteth in mercy; why will men run from him? God is love immeasurable, love constant, boundless, endless.

“Who is a pardoning God like thee?

Or who hath grace so rich and free?”

Part of our business as ministers of Christ is to bear witness to the loving-kindness of the Lord against the falsehood with which sin dishonours his goodness. I desire to do so this morning, and to do it in right down earnest, in the hope that those of you who are convinced of sin may this day be able to rest in the mercy of God,-even that exceeding mercy which he has revealed in Jesus Christ, his Son.

I have been very much struck with several letters which I have this week received from deeply-wounded souls. God is at work among us with the sword of conviction. I have felt a great degree of joy in receiving these letters; painful as they are to their writers, they are very hopeful to me. I am sorry that any persons should be near despair, and should continue in that condition; but anything is better than indifference. I am not sorry to see souls shut up in the prison of the law, for I hope they will soon come out of the prison-house into the full liberty of faith in Christ. I must confess my preference for these old-fashioned forms of conviction: it is ray judgment that they produce better and more stable believers than the modern superficial methods. I am glad to see the Holy Spirit overturning, throwing down, digging out the foundations, and making you like cleared ground, that he may build upon you temples for his praise. How earnestly do I pray that the Lord may make of these convinced ones champions for the doctrines of free grace, comforters for his mourners, and consecrated servants of his kingdom! I look for large harvests from this deep subsoil ploughing. The Lord grant it, for his name’s sake!

I can see in several who have written to me that their main idea is erroneous; that they have fallen into a wrong notion about God: they do not conceive of him as the good and gracious God which he really is. This error I am eager to correct. Listen to me, ye mourners. I desire to tell you nothing but sober truth. God forbid that I should misrepresent God for your comfort! Job asked his friends, “Will ye talk deceitfully for God?” and my answer to that question is,-“Never.” I would not utter what I believed to be falsehood concerning the Lord, even though the evil one offered me the bait of saving all mankind thereby. I have noticed in certain Revival Meetings a wretched lowering of the truth upon many points in order to afford encouragement to men; but all such sophistry ends in utter failure. Comfort based upon the suppression of truth is worse than useless. Lasting consolation must come to sinners from the sure truth of God; or else in the day when they most want it their hopes will depart from them, as the giving up of the ghost. I will therefore speak to you the truth in its simplicity concerning the blessed God, whose servant I am. I beseech you no longer to persevere in your slander of his infinite love. Oh, you that feel your sin, and dare not put your trust in your forgiving God, I pray you to learn of him, and know him aright, for then shall that text be fulfilled in you,-“They that know thy name will put their trust in thee.” May the Holy Spirit come now in all his brightness, that you may see God in his own light! As for me, I feel my duty to be one in which nothing can avail me but that same Spirit. Chrysostom used to wonder that any minister could be saved, seeing our responsibilities are so great; I am entirely of his mind. Pray for me that I may be faithful to men’s souls.

Notice, that in each one of my texts the Lord declares that he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but in each following passage the statement is stronger. The Lord puts it first as a matter of question. As if he were surprised that such a thing should be laid to his door, he appeals to man’s own reason, and asks, “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?” Oh, souls, can you really think that God desires your damnation? Can you be so demented as soberly to believe such a calumny? Will such a theory hold water for a single minute? After all the goodness of God to multitudes of rebellious men, can you allow such a dark thought to linger near your mind, that God can have pleasure in men’s being sinners, and ultimately destroying themselves by their iniquities? Your own common-sense must teach you that the good God is grieved to see men sin, that he would be glad to see men of a better mind, and that it is sad work to him to punish the finally obstinate and impenitent. He cries most plaintively “Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate.” He puts it here as a question of wonderment, that men should so grossly malign him as to think that the God of love could have any pleasure in men’s perishing by their sins.

But then, in the next place, in our second text, God makes a positive assertion. Knowing the human heart, he foresaw that a question would not be enough to end this matter, for man would say, “He only asked the question, but he did not give a plain and positive statement to the contrary.” He gives us that clear assurance in our second text: “I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.” When the Lord speaks he is to be believed, for he is God that cannot lie. We know that this speech of his is authentic; it comes to us by an inspired prophet, concerning whose call by God we entertain no doubt whatever. Let us, then, believe it heartily. If I were to state this as my own opinion, you might do as you pleased about believing it; but since God saith this, then we claim of you all, as God’s creatures, that you believe your Creator, and that this statement be never questioned again. “Where the word of a king is, there is power,”-power, I trust, to silence all further debate upon the willingness of God to save.

But still, as if to end for ever the strange and ghastly supposition that God takes delight in human destruction, my third text seals the truth with the solemn oath of the Eternal. He lifts his hand to heaven, and swears; and because he can swear by no greater he swears by himself,-not by his temple, nor by his throne therein, nor by his angels, nor by anything outside of himself; but he sweareth by his own life. Jehovah that liveth for ever and ever saith, “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live.” The man who dares to doubt the oath of God will be guilty of an arrogant presumption which I would not like to impute to one of you. Shall God be perjured? I tremble at having even suggested such a thing; and yet if you do not believe the Lord’s own oath you will not only have made him a liar, but you will have denied the value of his oath when he swears by his own life. What he thus affirms must be true; let us bow before it, and never entertain a doubt about it. Most miserable of all men that breathe must they be who will dare to attack the veracity of God, when God to confirm their confidence doth put himself upon an oath. Let us hear the voice of the Lord in its majesty, like a peal of distant thunder,-“As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live.”

I invite your earnest consideration of this utterance thus given in the form of a question, an assertion, and a solemn oath.

And I notice, first, the assertion that God finds no pleasure in a sinner’s death. Really I feel ashamed to have to answer the cruel libel which is here suggested; yet it is the English of many a man’s doubts. He dares not come to God and trust him because he darkly dreams that God is a terrible Being who does not wish to save him, who is unwilling to forgive him, unwilling to receive him into his favour. He suspects that God finds some kind of terrible delight in a soul’s damnation. That cannot be. I need not disprove the falsehood. God swears to the contrary, and the falsehood vanishes like smoke. I will only bring forward certain evidence by which you who are still under the deadly influence of the falsehood may be delivered.

First, consider the great paucity of God’s judgments among the sons of men. There are people who are always talking of judgments, but they are in error. If a theatre is burnt down, or if a boat is upset on the Sabbath, they cry “Behold a judgment!” Yet churches and meetinghouses are burned, and missionaries are drowned when upon the Lord’s own business. It is wrong to set down everything that happens as a judgment, for in so doing you will fall into the error of Job’s friends, and condemn the innocent. The fact is there are but few acts of divine providence to individuals which can definitely be declared to be judgments. There are such things, but they are wonderfully rare in this life, considering the way in which the Lord is daily provoked by presumption and blasphemy. It was a judgment when Pharaoh’s hosts were drowned in the Red Sea; that was a judgment when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram went down alive into the pit. There were judgments later on in the church of God when Ananias and Sapphira fell dead for lying against the Holy Ghost, and when Elymas the sorcerer was blinded for opposing Paul. Still, these are few; and in later days the authentic instances are equally rare. Does not the Lord himself say that “judgment is his strange work”? Among his own people there is a constant judgment of fatherly discipline, but the outer world is left to the gentle régime of mercy. This is the age of patience and long-suffering. If God had taken any pleasure in the death of the wicked, some of you who are now present would long ago have gone down to hell; but he hath not dealt with you after your sins, nor rewarded you according to your iniquities. If God were constantly dealing out judgment for lying, how many who are now here would, by this time have received their portion in the burning lake! If judgments for Sabbath-breaking had been commonly dealt out, this city of London would have been destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah. But God reserveth his wrath till the day of wrath; for a while he winketh at man’s obstinacy, for this is not the place of judgment, but of forbearance and hope. The fewness of visible deeds of judgment upon ungodly men in this life proves that God takes no delight in them.

And then, secondly, the length of God’s long-suffering before the Day of Judgment itself comes proves how he wills not the death of men. The Lord spares many guilty men throughout three-score years and ten, bearing with their ill-manners in a way which ought to excite our loving gratitude. Youthful folly is succeeded by manhood’s deliberate fault, and that, by the persistence of mature years, and yet the Lord remains patient! Some of you have rejected Christ after having heard the gospel for many years; you have stifled your conscience when it has cried against you, and you have done despite to the Spirit of God. You have rebelled against the light, and have committed greater and yet greater sin, but God has not cut you down. If he had found pleasure in your death, would he have suffered you to live so long? You have cumbered the ground, not two or three years, as the barren fig-tree did, but two or three scores of years you have stood fruitless in the vineyard of God; and yet he spares you! Some have gone beyond all this, for they have provoked God by their open unbelief, and by their abominable speeches against himself, his Son, and his people. They have tried to thrust their finger into the eye of God; they have spit in the face of the Well-beloved, and persecuted him in the person of his people. Yet the Lord has not killed them out of hand, as he might justly have done. Have you not heard his sword stirring in its scabbard? It would have leaped forth from its sheath if mercy had not thrust it back, and pleaded, “O thou sword of the Lord, rest and be quiet!” It is only because his compassions fail not that you are favoured with the loving invitations of the gospel. Only because of his infinite patience doth grace still wrestle with human sin and unbelief. Let us each one cry-

“Lord, and am I yet alive,

Not in torments, not in hell!

Still doth thy good Spirit strive-

With the chief of sinners dwell?

Tell it unto sinners, tell,

I am, I am out of hell!”

Furthermore, remember the perfection of the character of God as the moral Ruler of the Universe. He is the Judge of all, and he must do right. Now, if a judge upon the bench were known to take delight in the punishment of offenders, he ought to be removed at once, for it would be clear that he was thoroughly unfit for his office. A man who would take pleasure in hanging, or imprisoning, would be of the foul breed of Judge Jeffreys, and other monsters, from whom I trust our bench is for ever purged. But if I heard it said that a judge never pronounced the sentence of death without tears, that when he came home from the court, and remembered that some had been banished for life by the sentences which he had been bound to deliver, he sat in a moody, unhappy state all the evening, I should say, “Yes, that is the kind of person to be a judge.” Aversion to punishment is necessary to justice in a judge. Such an one is God, who taketh no pleasure either in sin, or in the punishment which is the consequence of sin; he hates both sin and its consequence, and only comes at last to heavy blows with men when everything else has failed. When the sinner must be condemned, or else the foundations of society would be out of course, then he delivers the terrible sentence, but even then it is with unfeigned reluctance, and he cries, “How can I give thee up?” The Great Judge of all seems to descend from the glory of his judgment-seat, and show his more familiar face to you in the text, as in effect he cries, “I have judged, and I have condemned, and I have punished; but, as I live, I find no pleasure in all this, my pleasure comes when men turn unto me and live.”

If any further thoughts were necessary to correct your misbelief, I would mention the graciousness of his work in saving those who turn from their evil ways. The care which the Most High has taken to produce repentance, the alacrity with which he accepts it, and the abounding love manifested to returning prodigals, are all evidences indisputable that God finds no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but in their salvation. To prevent the death of the wicked the Lord devised a plan of salvation before all worlds; and those who accept that plan find that the Lord has provided for them a Substitute in the person of his own dear Son, who is indeed his own self; and that in his person God himself has borne the penalty due to sin, that thus the law might be solemnly honoured, and the divine justice vindicated. The Lord has gone up to the tree, and bled his life away thereon, that God might be just, and yet the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus: does not this prove his delight in salvation? The Holy Spirit comes on purpose to renew the heart, and take the stone away from it, that men may become tender and penitent-does not this show that God delights to save? The whole resources of the Godhead go forth with spontaneous delight for the salvation of those who turn from their sin; yea, they go forth before men turn, to turn them that they may be turned. God is even found of them that sought him not, and he sends his grace to those who cried not after it. As if God were indignant that such a charge should be laid against him that he delighteth in the death of any, he preferred to die himself upon the tree rather than let a world of sinners sink to hell. To prove the desire of God that men should live, his Son abode for thirty years and more on this poor earth as a man among men, and his Holy Spirit has dwelt in men for all these centuries, bearing all the provocations of an erring and ungrateful people. God has proved himself in multitudes of ways to be not the Destroyer, but the Preserver of men. “He that is our God is the God of salvation.” “Salvation belongeth unto the Lord.”

Thus would I try to vindicate the ways of God to men. When men are to be tried for their lives, if their friends are able to do so, they come to them in prison, and say, “It is a very hopeful thing for you that it is not Judge So-and-So, who is terribly severe; you are to be tried before the kindest man on the bench.” Many a prisoner has plucked up courage at such news; and oh, poor sinner, you who dare not trust God, let me chide you into hope by reminding you that Love sits embodied on the throne of judgment this day; and that he who must and will condemn you, if you turn not from your sins, nevertheless will find no pleasure in that condemnation, but will be loth to make bare the axe of execution. Will you not turn to him and live? Do not his compassions beckon you to make a full surrender, and find grace in his sight?

But now, secondly, God finds no alternative but that men must turn from their wicked ways, or die. “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live.” It is one or the other: turn or burn. God, with all his love to men, cannot discover any third course: men cannot keep their sins and yet be saved. The sin must die or the sinner must die.

Be it known to you, first, that when God proclaims mercy to men upon this condition, that they turn from their ways, this proclamation is issued out of pure grace. As a matter of bare right, repentance does not bring mercy with it. Does a murderer receive pardon because he regrets his deed? Does a thief escape from prison because at last he comes to be sorry that he was not honest? Repentance makes no available amends for the evil which is done; the evil still remains, and the punishment must be executed. It is of grace, then, that I am permitted to say, “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways.” It is because at the back of it there is a great sacrifice; it is through an all-sufficient atonement that repentance becomes acceptable. The Son of God has bled and died, and made expiation for sin; and now he is exalted on high, to give repentance and remission of sins. To-day the word of the Lord is, “Repent ye, and believe the gospel.” “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This is not according to the law, which gives no space for repentance, but it is a pure matter of grace. God saves you, not because of any merit in your turning, but because he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he has decreed to save all who turn from the paths of evil.

Note, next, that if there be no repentance men must be punished, for on any other theory there is an end of moral government. The worst thing that could happen to a world of men would be for God to say “I retract my law; I will neither reward virtue, nor punish iniquity; do as you like.” Then the earth would be a hell indeed. The greatest enemy to civil government among men is the man who preaches universal salvation,-salvation apart from a change of heart and life. Such teachers are a danger to national order, they remove the foundation of the commonwealth. They practically say, “Do just as you like; it may make a slight difference to you for a little while, but it will soon be over, and villains and saints will share an equal heaven.” Such talk is damnable! I can say no less. If there is to be a government at all, it is necessary that sin should not go unpunished; leniency to the dishonest is cruelty to those whom they injure. To save the murderer is to kill the innocent. It were an evil day for heaven and earth if it could once be proven that God would reward the depraved in the same way as the sanctified: then would the foundation be removed, and what would the righteous do? A God who was not just would be a poor Ruler of the universe.

Yes, my hearers, sin must be punished; you must turn from it or die, because sin is its own punishment. When we talk to you of the fire that never can be quenched, and the worm that dieth not, we are supposed to mean those literal things; but indeed these are figures, figures representing something more terrible than themselves: the fire is the burning of a furious rebellion in the soul, and the worm is the torture of a never-dying conscience. Sin is hell. Within the bowels of disobedience there lieth a world of misery. God has so constituted us, and rightly so, that we cannot long be evil and happy; we must, if we go wrong, ultimately become wretched; and the more wrong we are, and the longer we continue in that wrong, the more assuredly are we heaping up sorrow for ourselves throughout eternity. Holiness and right produce happiness, but iniquity and wrong must, by a necessity of nature which never can be changed, produce tribulation and anguish. It must be so. Even the omnipotence of God cannot make an impenitent sinner happy. You must turn from sin, or turn to misery; you must either renounce your sins, or else renounce all hope of a blissful eternity. You cannot be married to Christ and heaven until you are divorced from sin and self.

I believe that every man’s conscience bears witness to this if it be at all honest. There are consciences of a very curious kind about at this time-abortions, and not true consciences at all. I find men deliberately acting upon crooked policy, and yet they talk of truth and holiness. Yet every conscience that is not drunken with the mixed wine of pride and unbelief, will tell a man that when he does evil he cannot expect to be approved; that if he neglects to do good he cannot expect to have the same reward as if he had done the good,-that, in fact, there must be, in the nature of things, a penalty attached to crime. Conscience says as much as that, and now God himself, who taketh no pleasure in the death of the wicked, puts it to you,-you must repent or perish. If you go on in your evil ways, you must be lost. There must be a turning from sin, or the Most High God can never look upon you with favour. Do you hear this? Oh, that you would let it sink into your heart, and work repentance in you!

This leads me on to the third point, which is a joyful one: God finds pleasure in men’s turning from sin. Read the passage again:-“As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live.” Among the highest of the divine joys is the pleasure of seeing a sinner turn from evil. God delights in those first thoughts which men have towards himself, when being careless heretofore they on a sudden begin to reflect upon their ways, and consider their condition before God. He looks with pleasure upon you who have aforetime been wild and thoughtless, who at last meditate upon Eternity, and weigh the future of sin and judgment. When you listen to that inviting word, “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near,” God is pleased to observe your attention. When you begin to feel, “I am sorry for my sin; oh, that I had never committed it!” he hears your sigh. When your heart is sick of sin, when you loathe all evil, and feel that though you cannot get away from it, yet you would if you could, then he looks down on you with pitying eye. When there is a new will springing up in your heart, by his good grace,-a will to obey and believe, then also the Father smiles. When he hears within you a moaning and a sighing after the Father’s house and the Father’s bosom; you cannot see him, but he is behind the wall listening to you. His hand is secretly putting your tears into his bottle, and his heart is feeling compassion for you. “The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.” Mark that last character: the man has only a little hope, but the Lord taketh pleasure in him. When yet the good work is only in the twilight, God is as pleased with it as watchmen are pleased with the first beams of morning light, ay, he is more glad than they that watch for the morning. When at last you come to prayer, and begin to cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” God is well pleased; for here he sees clear signs that you are coming to yourself and to him. His Spirit saith, “Behold, he prayeth!” and he takes this as a token for good. When you unfeignedly forsake sin God sees you do it, and he is so glad that his holy angels spy out his joy.

I am sure that God watches the struggles of those who endeavour to escape from old habits and evil ways. When you try to conquer vile thoughts, when at the end of the day you sit down and cry over the day’s failures because you did not get as well through the day as you hoped to do, the Lord observes your desires and your lamentations. Just as a mother tenderly watches her child when it begins to walk, and smiles as she sees it toddling from chair to chair, and puts out her finger to help it, so doth God take pleasure in your early attempts after holiness, your longings to overcome sin, your sighings and cryings to be delivered from the bondage of corruption. God saith, “I taught Ephraim to go, taking them by their arms,” and in the same way he is teaching you.

I will tell you what pleases him most of all, and that is when you come to his dear Son, and say, “Lord, something tells me that there is no hope for me, but I do not believe that voice. I read in thy word that thou wilt cast out none that come unto thee, and lo, I come! I am the biggest sinner that ever did come, but Lord, I believe thy promise; I am as unworthy as the devil himself, but Lord, thou dost not ask for worthiness, but only for childlike confidence. Cast me not away-I rest in thee.” “Without faith it is impossible to please God,” but it gives God a divine pleasure to see the first grain of mustard seed of faith in a poor, turning sinner’s heart. Oh, I wish you would think of this, you that keep on condemning yourselves! When you write me those letters, full of self-condemnation, you please me; and if you please me, I am sure you much more please God, who is so much more tender than ever I can be, though I would fain try and humbly imitate him. How I wish I could bring you to trust my Lord this morning, and end those cruel doubts and fears!

“Artful doubts and reasonings be

Nailed with Jesus to the tree.”

God’s great convincing argument is his dying, bleeding Son. Oh, ye chief of sinners, turn to him, and God will have pleasure in your turning! Do you not know that all these thoughts towards him are breathed into you by his Spirit? All those regrets for sin, those desires after holiness, and specially those trustings in Christ, those hopings in his mercy, are all his work: they would never have been found in your soul if the Spirit had not put them there. If I saw a fair flower growing on a dunghill, I should conclude that a gardener had been there some day or other, and had cast seed upon the heap. And when I see your soul commencing to pray, and hope, and trust, I say to myself, “God is there. The Holy Spirit has been at work there, or else there would not have been even that feeble trusting, and that faint hoping.” Wherefore, be of good courage, you are drawing near to a gracious God.

During the rest of your life, when you go on fighting with sin, and when you consecrate yourself to Jesus, when you wash your Saviour’s feet with your tears, and wipe them with the hairs of your head with the Magdalen, or when you break your alabaster-box of myrrh, and pour it on the Master’s head with Mary, the Lord hath great pleasure in you for Jesus’ sake. He taketh no pleasure in the groans and cries of hell, but in the repentance of sinners he hath joy. The fires of Gehenna give him no delight, but penitents smiting on their breasts, and believers beholding Christ with tearful eyes, are a royal spectacle to him. It must be so, he swears it, and it must be true. Cease your quibbling, and believe unto eternal life.

Lastly, since he hath pleasure in men’s turning to him, God therefore exhorts to it, and adds an argument. “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” He perceives his poor creature standing with his back to him, looking to idols, looking to sinful pleasures, looking towards the city of destruction, and what does God say to him? He says, “Turn!” It is a very plain direction; is it not? “Turn,” or “Right about face!” That is all. “I thought,” saith one, “I was to feel so much anguish and so much agony.” I should not wonder if you do feel it, but all that God says is, “Turn.” You now face the wrong way; “Turn,” and face the right way. That turning is true repentance. A changed life is of the essence of repentance; and that must spring from a changed heart, from a changed desire, from a changed will. God saith, “Turn ye.” Oh, that you would hear and obey!

Notice how he puts it in the present tense-“Turn ye, turn ye,” not to-morrow, but now. Nobody will be saved to-morrow: all who are saved, are saved to-day. “Now is the accepted time.” “Turn ye.” Oh, by the infinite mercy of God, who will enable you to turn, I do pray you to turn from every evil, from every self-confidence, unto God. No turning but turning to God is worth having. If the Lord turn you, you will turn to himself, and to confidence alone in him, and to his service and his fear.

“Turn ye, turn ye.” See, the Lord puts it twice. He must mean your good by these repeated directions. Suppose my man-servant was crossing yonder river, and I saw that he would soon be out of his depth, and so in great danger; suppose I cried out to him, “Stop! stop! If you go another inch you will be drowned. Turn back! Turn back!” Will anybody dare to say, “Mr. Spurgeon would feel pleasure if that man were drowned”? It would be a cruel cut. What a liar the man must be who would hint such a thing when I am urging my servant to turn and save his life! Would God plead with us to escape unless he honestly desired that we should escape? I trow not. Every sinner may be sure that God takes no pleasure in his death when he pleads with him in these unrivalled words, “Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die?” There is what the old divines used to call an ingemination, an inward groaning, a reduplication of pleading in these words, “Turn ye, turn ye.” He pleads each time with more of emphasis. Will you not hear?

Then he finishes up with asking men to find a reason why they should die. There ought to be a weighty reason to induce a man to die. “Why will ye die?” This is an unanswerable question in reference to death eternal. Is there anything to be desired in eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power? Can there be any gain in losing your own soul? Can there be any profit in going away into everlasting punishment? Can there possibly be anything to be wished for and desired in being cast into hell, where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched. O souls, be not unreasonable! Do not neglect this great salvation. It must be the most awful thing in all the world to die in your sins; why do you choose it? Do you desire shipwreck? Why hug that rocky shore, and tempt destruction? Will you eat the poisoned dainties of sin because they are sugared with a little present pleasure? In the end, the gall of bitterness will fill your bowels. I am no flatterer: I dare not be, for I love you, and would persuade you to turn unto the Lord. There is a flower which always turns to the sun; oh, that you would in the same manner turn to God! Why turn away from him? “Why?” is a little word, but how much it takes to answer its demands! Why do you continue in sin? Why do you refuse to believe your Saviour? Why will you provoke God? Why will you die? Turn round and say, “Oh, God, I cannot bear to perish everlastingly, and therefore I cannot endure to live in sin. May thy rich grace help me!”

Oh, that you would trust in the Lord Jesus! Repose in him, and in his finished work, and all is well. Did I hear you say, “I will pray about it”? Better trust at once. Pray as much as you like after you have trusted, but what is the good of unbelieving prayers? “I will talk with a godly man after the service.” I charge you first trust in Jesus. Go home alone, trusting in Jesus. “I should like to go into the enquiry-room.” I dare say you would, but we are not willing to pander to popular superstition. We fear that in those rooms men are warmed into a fictitious confidence. Very few of the supposed converts of enquiry-rooms turn out well. Go to your God at once, even where you now are. Cast yourself on Christ, now, at once; ere you stir an inch! In God’s name I charge you, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, for “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Ezekiel 33.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-912, 558, 202.

CONCERNING SAINTS

A Sermon

Preached on a Thursday Evening in the summer of 1884, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord; and thy saints shall bless thee.”-Psalm 145:10.

Do not throw yourselves back in your seats, and say, “This will be a sermon for saints, and therefore we may be excused from attending to it.” Do you not see that the first clause gives you a fair word and a kindly hint? “All thy works shall praise thee, O Jehovah.” Through this you may enter, as by an open door, for if you are not Jehovah’s saints you are his works, and are bound to praise his name. In these days of harvest and full summer-tide, every created thing appears to praise God by its very existence. Insect and fern, pebble and rippling brook, star and cloud, wind and dew,-all reflect the wisdom and goodness of the Most High. Many a man’s works are no credit to him, and even in cases wherein men have wrought well, and produced much which is to their honour, yet certain of their works are not to their credit, but deserve to be plunged in darkness. It is never so with a single work of the Eternal; all his works are perfect. He puts no bad work into them, he uses no base material, he never makes up with paint and varnish for grievous deficiencies. Set all his works in the sunlight, ay, put them all under the strongest magnifier, and they tell no tale against him, but they all publish him as the best of workers, the grandest of thinkers, the most complete of designers. You may range high heaven, or descend into the depths of the sea, or dig into the darkest mines; but you will come upon nothing which can find fault with him. You may break God’s works in pieces, and examine them in minute detail; you may pass them through the fire again and again: but tested as they may be, they bear but one witness,-

“The hand that made us is divine,”

and that divine hand is excellent in knowledge and power.

All God’s works also praise him by a sort of intent, they make praise his glory as of set purpose. We are speaking of the inanimate creation-we say inanimate, but in this matter they seem to be all alive to the glory of the Lord. The worlds that roll through space, and the motes that dance in the sunshine, the firebolt that levels the tower, and the snow-flakes that dance in his wintry courts, the yeast of the foaming sea, the pollen of the ripening flower, and the cleavage of the crystal, all vie with one another in proclaiming the greatness of the wisdom and the goodness of the Lord. Not alone are the heavens telling the glory of God, and the firmament showing his handiwork, but the earth and the air, the sea and all deep places, the hill-side and the cottage garden, are all emulating each other in the blessed work of praising Jehovah. How often at sunset hath it seemed to us as if God held his court far away in the west, amid the bright and burning clouds, and there the seraphs bowed as visibly as before the throne above! Looking across the sea, when the sun has just been rising in the morning, we have seen the gates of heaven opened, and the skirts of the Lord’s robes have been as visible to us as once they were to Moses. At hash of midnight, when ten thousand stars are adoring, earth’s stillness proves her to be a profound worshipper. There are a thousand times when nature keeps her special Sabbaths, and in God’s temple doth every one speak of his glory.

Arouse thee, then, my friend! Thou art a creature, if not a new creature in Christ Jesus. Adore thy Benefactor if thou dost not know thy Saviour. The known may be a step to the unknown. In joining God’s works in his praise, thou mayest be led to join with himself. Thou hast never fully and properly attended to this first call; thou canst not, therefore, complain if thou findest thyself too feeble for the second. Hast thou nothing for which to praise the Lord? Is not thy body a specimen of his handiwork? Are not the organs of nutrition, and the supplies which are given to them, proofs of his goodness? Thy deliverance from fever, and a hundred other deaths, is something worthy of a song. All thy domestic hopes, and joys, and longings, though they reach not to eternal things, and are but draughts from the nether springs, yet do they come from the same hand as the higher boons; and they may lead thee home, for the prodigal, who came back to his father, was sweetly tempted thither by the remembrance of the bread in his father’s house, of which there was enough and to spare.

Yet I confess that there is in the text much that is special for a chosen people; it speaks to those who dwell within the inner circle, who by position, character, and privilege are elevated to the highest form of service. Praise is high as heaven, and lasting as eternity, and yet there is something that is better, for it is written-“thy saints shall bless thee.”

Everywhere throughout the word of God you see kept up a very clear and sharp distinction between those that fear God and those that fear him not,-between the two seeds, the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman,-between those that are living in sin, and those that have been delivered from it, and so are made saints unto God. Two peoples there are, and ever will be while the present dispensation lasts, and the difference between them is great and vital. For this reason it must be difficult, if not impossible, to compose forms of prayer which shall be suitable for two conditions of men so essentially opposite. There should be in our public prayers, as there is in the word of God, this distinction clearly made and manifested. There is a line which divides to-day between Israel and Egypt, even as there will be a line of fire, proceeding from the judgment-seat, which will effectually and finally sever between the heirs of God and the heirs of wrath. At the very beginning we shall have to remind you that the text suggests this. We are all God’s works. “It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves”; but we are not all “his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” We have not yet all been brought within the bonds of the covenant; we have not yet all been saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation, and hence we are not all his saints. Divide yourselves by a scriptural judgment. “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.” Rest in no neutrality. Dream not of communion between Christ and Belial. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” You are either with God or against him, and the sooner you know your true position the better. I shall never preach to you as if you were all alike, for I know you are not. Some of you are in Christ, and others of you are in the gall of bitterness, and in the bonds of iniquity. I shall not to-night forget that I have tares as well as wheat before me, and I shall try to make that distinction appear all through my sermon.

I shall want you carefully to notice three things. The first is, that God has a people whom he calls his saints: of these we read in the text. Secondly, these are placed in the first rank; for while it is said, “All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord,” the saints occupy a special position, and they are spoken of by themselves, and put before all others,-“and thy saints shall bless thee.” Thirdly, these people render a special homage. While they join in the praise which comes up from all God’s works, they stand in an inner circle, and fulfil a peculiar ministry, and therefore we read “thy saints shall bless thee.”

Come, then, to our work. May the Holy Ghost help us! First, God has a people whom he calls his saints. Who are they? Are they all dead? It is supposed so; for the usage of the Popery around us is to call men saints who have been long in their graves, but living men are not regarded in that light. I notice, even among those who call themselves Protestants, a great many relics of the old harlot of the seven hills, and among the rest this nonsense of dead saintship. Somebody wrote me the other day about his “sainted mother.” What did he mean? Had the Pope canonized her? Or did she become a saint by dying? Does death, which came in through sin, bring sainthood with it? Assuredly not. If men are not saints before death, they certainly cannot be made saints after death. Do the coffin and the grave bring you this canonization? Does corruption in the tomb create an odour of sanctity? I am sure that it is not so, for it is written, “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” Where death leaves us judgment will find us. You cannot make a sinner into a saint by killing him. He who does not live as a saint here, will never live as a saint hereafter. When the apostle Paul wrote letters to the churches, he called the members of them saints. They were living men and women of whom he thus spake. They were ordinary men and women like ourselves; poor in rank, greatly deficient in education, and often without house or home. In some respects they were even inferior to ourselves; for their former conversation had been so exceedingly lax that they ignorantly tolerated sins which in these days would not be endured for a moment. I believe that the church of God at this day, taken as a whole, is better than the church at Corinth was. For instance, there is no church that I know of, worthy to be called a church of Christ, that would tolerate in its membership one who had been guilty of incest. We should be quite sure to deal with such an open and crying crime as that. We have many faults to-day, and they had a great many faults then, for the apostle had to write to some churches twice over to warn them of certain very apparent evils; and yet, for all that, there were saints in those churches, and Paul was accustomed to address those who were joined together in any one place as those who were called to be saints.

Saints, then, are not people who are dead and buried, and are stuck up in niches for us to admire. There are saints, no doubt, before the throne of God; and we, too, are saints here below if we are what we should be, and if we have received that grace which brings with it deliverance from the reigning power of sin, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the heart.

These saints are to be met with in our own country. Many persons have a high esteem for ministers whom they have never seen, who labour in exceedingly remote districts. Of course these good men and their churches must be absolutely perfect: a race of saints. Distance lends enchantment to the view. For my part, I love to believe in the holiness of those who are round about me, in the sanctity of my fellow-labourers, and in the fervent devotion of those who hold up my hands, from day to day, in my work of faith and labour of love. There are as many saints in England as there are in America. I am not inclined to look to the Plymouth church, or the Romish church, or the Greek church, or any other church, for my saints: I find them in the Tabernacle.

“There my best friends, my kindred dwell,

There God my Saviour reigns.”

It is all very fine to believe in the saintship of the brethren in the Sunderbunds, or in Cathay, wherever those regions may be, but it argues a great lack of faith in the power of the Holy Ghost if we do not believe in his sanctifying influence upon the fellowship at home. I look for my saints among the Christian men and women who are busy all around me in Sunday-school teaching, street-preaching, and other soul-winning work. It is the pure in heart who see God, and I believe it is the pure in heart who see the saints of God. If we were more saintly ourselves, saints would not be half as scarce as they are.

What is it to be a saint? Some people do not want to know, for with them it is a term of contempt. They say, “Oh, he is one of your saints!” They lay the emphasis on the word “saints,” as if it were something very disgraceful; or, at least, despicable and hypocritical. Whenever I have that said to me-and it has happened more than once-I take my hat off out of respect to the title. I had rather be a saint than a Knight of the Garter. Sometimes I have said, “I wish you could prove your words”; for surely nobody need be ashamed of being called a saint unless he is afraid that he cannot maintain the name; but if you really are saintly, and men apply the title to you in scorn, wear it upon your sleeve as your honour, and make no attempt whatever to conceal the soft impeachment. I suppose that nobody would, as a general thing, be ashamed to be called a peer of the realm; but certainly to be a saint is a far more honourable thing than to be a Duke. The peerage the Queen can give; but saintship only God himself can give; and if you have that you need never be ashamed of it. I have sometimes heard of the “Latter Day Saints.” I do not know much about them, but I greatly prefer the “Every Day Saints.” Those people who are saints anywhere and everywhere are truly saints; and he that is not a saint everywhere is not a saint anywhere, for this is a thing that cannot be put off and on like our Sunday dress. Holiness must be a part of ourselves; it must be our nature to be saintly.

Who, then, are saints? Some will tell us that they are persons who are totally free from sin in thought, and word, and deed; but where will you find these marvellous beings? I have never met with such. I have seen a few have-brained enthusiasts who said that they were perfect, but you had only to watch them for a single day to discover their defects; but a man absolutely free from all tendency to sin I have never seen on earth, nor have you: I thought we were all sinners, and I have not altered the opinion. I should not think he was much of a saint who did not confess that he was somewhat of a sinner still. I should be afraid that he did not know himself, and that his standard of saintship was not as high as it ought to be. When a man is so good that he cannot be better, I perceive that in some respects he is so bad that he could hardly be worse; for instance, in the matter of pride, he has gone some few degrees beyond Lucifer himself. When a soul is thoroughly saturated with the belief that it can be no better, it will be no better. That holy restlessness which makes a man lament his imperfections, and pine after something more Christlike, is part of the force by which we move upward towards higher degrees of spirituality and grace. Self-satisfaction is the death of progress, and at the same time the discovery of falsehood. The very power to become sanctified has departed from the man who boasts that he is so. A certain great painter had been accustomed to perform great feats with his brush, but one day, having finished a picture, he laid down his palette, and said to his wife, “My power to paint is gone!” “Oh,” said she, “how is that?” “Well,” he answered, “up to this day I have always been dissatisfied with my productions; but the last picture I have painted perfectly satisfies me, and therefore I am certain that I shall never be able to paint anything worth looking at again.” As long as ever a man is dissatisfied with himself, he will be capable of great things; but when he feels that he has attained, and is perfectly satisfied, depend upon it nothing will come of him during the rest of his life. He has lost the very faculty of progress.

Oh, brothers, if we know ourselves and our God, every idea of our being absolutely perfect will make us sick to the death; we know we are nothing of the sort. Still, we also know that sin has not dominion over us, and that we are holiness unto the Lord; and in this we do and will rejoice, and bless the Lord our God.

Taking all that into consideration, we again ask the question, who are saints?

Saints, in the first place, are those whom God has set apart for himself. He chose them to be his own portion from before the foundations of the world. He gave them, as men whom he had set apart for himself, into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are the people whom Christ speaks of when he mentions “those whom thon hast given me.” These are the saints. These Christ has effectually and specially redeemed from among men, according to that text, “These were redeemed from among men,” and again, “Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it.” Whatever the general aspect of redemption-and it has a general one, wide as the race of men-yet it has also a special aspect towards those chosen ones whom God has taken to be his own from amongst all the inhabitants of the earth.

These people being thus God’s own, by his electing love, are in due time called effectually by his grace. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” Having been redeemed by blood, they are in due time redeemed by power. The power of the Holy Spirit brings them out of Egypt’s bondage into the glorious liberty of God’s dear Son. From that day these people become manifestly saints, a people that live in God, with God, for God, to God, by God-a people that do not belong to the rest of the world. “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” “The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.” They are a singular people, “a peculiar people.” I have heard it objected sometimes, “If I were religious, I should be so peculiar.” Of course you would be. Scripture says that you would be. “Oh, but I should be one by myself!” Of course you would be. “Know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself.” These are the saints, then: a people dedicated unto God, through his own rich grace, to live for him: for them to live is Christ. “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

But who are the saints, again? How shall we know them?

Well, they are known, next, by their holy life. They are not only dedicated to God, but they are made meet for God’s use by the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. Forget not all I have said about our imperfections; but, for all that, God’s people are a holy people. “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” A man is described in Scripture, not by his infirmities, but by the general run and current of his life. We say of a river that it runs to the south, although there may be eddies along the banks which run in an opposite direction to the main stream. Still, these are an inconsiderable matter. The main stream of the Thames is running constantly towards the sea, and we speak not amiss or untruthfully when we say that it is so. And the main stream and set of the current of the life of a child of God runs towards that which is right, true, and holy, both towards God and towards man. If it is not so with you, dear Mend, I make very short work of it: you do not know the Lord, You have need to be born again, and to be delivered from the power of sin. “His servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.” Depend upon it, that which governs you is your king; and if evil governs you, then you belong to the evil one. But where there is grace in the heart, grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life.

“Holiness is imputed,” says one. It cannot be imputed, say I. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to us; but holiness is quite another term, and you never find in the word of God mention made of an imputation of holiness. That cannot be. David says, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.” These are actual qualities, not imputations. God’s saints are not drunkards. God’s saints are not liars. God’s saints are not dishonest. God’s saints are not ungenerous and unloving. God’s saints are not a people that take delight in iniquity, and follow after the wages of evil, like Balaam of old. God’s people are a people that follow after holiness, and will never be satisfied till sin is exterminated from their hearts, root and branch. In fact, they will never get to heaven till they get that holiness, and when they get that they will be in heaven, for they will awake in the likeness of their Lord. These, then, are the distinguishing marks of the saints of God.

“Where shall we find these saints?” says one. Slander says, “Nowhere,” but truthfulness affirms that there are many of them to be found. They are the ornaments of our households, the pillars of our churches, the delights of our communion, and the glory of Christ. Oh, that we might be numbered among them!

Now I want to call your mind back to where we started. Our text speaks of saints; but they are said to be God’s saints. “All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord; and thy saints shall bless thee.” The devil has his saints, and Rome has her saints, and self-righteousness has its saints, and ceremonialism has its saints; but these are not God’s saints. God has his own saints, and they belong to him. They are peculiarly and especially his. They are as the signet upon his finger. Their names are engraven upon the palms of his hands. You remember how the Good Shepherd speaks of those who believe on him,-“My sheep”-do notice that word “my,”-“hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” They are so completely his that they shall be his for ever and ever, and they never can be taken away from him.

Well, now, secondly, I want you to notice that these are placed in the first rank, and the reason is of God’s grace and mercy, because he has done the most for them. “All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord,” but “thy saints shall bless thee,” because they are in a very peculiar and remarkable manner God’s works. God has created all things; but he has twice created his saints. He brought the world out of chaos, but he brought his people out of the land of darkness and of the shadow of death, from under the power and domination of every evil thing; yea, even from death, and from hell itself. For them he wrought a creation and a resurrection. You that are his people have been made new creatures in Christ Jesus. Of you he says, “Behold, I make all things new.” You are “begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” The new creation of saints infinitely surpasses the creation of the world. Saints are even placed higher than the angels who are around the throne of God; “for unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my son?” But he has said that unto you; so that in the scheme of creation you rank above all oncecreated beings, for you are the twice-born, the twice-made. As in the king’s army of old there was a body-guard that always stood about the king, whom they called the immortals, so in God’s great host there is a body-guard-his holy ones, his saints, the twice-born, the immortals, of whom Christ says, “Because I live, ye shall live also.”

But, again, God’s works of grace are not only created by his own power, but in great favour they stand, in a covenant relation with himself. Behold, he has made the covenant of day and night, which shall not be broken, and he has made the covenant with the earth that he will no more destroy it with a flood, and he has covenanted that while the earth endureth seed time and harvest, and summer and winter, shall not cease. After the same fashion has he made a covenant with his own redeemed, that he will not be wroth with them, nor rebuke them, world without end. The bow in the cloud is the token of the covenant of preservation which he made with all his works; but when you come to the spiritual covenant, that eternal settlement is made of God, in Christ Jesus, with his chosen, and with them only. None but his own believing people can be said to be interested in the covenant of grace, ordered in all things and sure; for the man Christ Jesus was the Representative of those who are his own body, his own brethren, of whom he says, “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me.” The second Adam is the Head of the new race, which is born under the new covenant, not according to the works of the law, but according to the promise of the grace of God. Isaac, the happy child of Sarah, the free woman, born according to the promise, lives at home with his father, and is heir with his father for ever; but Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman, born according to the strength of nature, is banished and cast off, as it is written, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.”

Oh, rejoice, you people of God, that if there be a covenant with God’s ordinary works, there is a higher, better, deeper, and more spiritual covenant made with you!

Further than this, God’s tenderest consideration is given to his saints. He cares for all the works of his hands. Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without being noticed by our Father. God cares for every fish of the sea; and even such fish as never see the light, but dwell in black pools, in the monster caverns of the earth, are not forgotten of him. But as for his children, what care he gives to them! No farmer has as much care for his barn-door chickens as he has for his own little chicks indoors. The Lord cares for all those countless multitudes that wait upon him; but there is the tenderer care of the Father for all those who are allied to him by nature, and are heirs with him by grace. Remember that text, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” There is a special fatherly consideration and pity that the Lord has for all his children.

Let us look back, and think how God has loved us long before we thought of him, and how he has thought of us when we have forgotten him. One said to me, the other day, “What will become of Gordon?” I answered, “He is safe enough, I believe; for he has given himself into the hand of God, and he will take care of him.” To this the questioner replied, somewhat flippantly, “It may be so; but, you see, he is so dashing that he gives God a great deal to think of and to do.” I did not like the expression, but still it is exceedingly applicable to many of us; for the office of “Preserver of men” is no sinecure in the case of the Most High. Even a quiet life at home is crowded with the most spiritual, minute, and tender thoughts of God. The Lord’s guardian care extends to everything, and to every particle of everything, so that nothing in the whole of life is left to chance, or regarded as a trifle. And how sweetly the Lord cares for us! He does all so quietly, calmly, perfectly. Martha, you see, cannot go about her little room without making a fuss, and complaining of Mary; but the great Father goes about his great house, and takes care of all his children, and never makes a complaint about the greatness of their needs, or the urgency of their necessities, or the repetition of their faults. He “giveth liberally, and upbraideth not.” You who are God’s saints are first in the Almighty’s care. “I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me,” says David. It is worth while to be poor and needy, if for that reason we have more of the thought of God set upon us. See what a special position you occupy, oh, ye sanctified ones, not only in creation and in the covenant, but in the tender care of God.

And what a position you have as to God’s visits! “Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water.” But the visits of God to creation-what are they compared with his visits to us, his own redeemed! When he came to Bethlehem, he did so visit us that he took our nature, and became bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. And he wears that nature still. God is still incarnate.

“He is at the Father’s side,

The Man of love, the Crucified.”

To none of his other creatures has he paid such a visit as that. Even now, to-day, you who are humble and contrite are nearer to God than kings and princes. God in his visitations of men astounds us. “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?” Yet he will come to your cottage, come to your chamber, come to your sick bed. “To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.” “Thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit.”

You see, the saints have the first seats all along, and they hold them to the end of the chapter, for they shall he crowned with glory and honour. God crowns the year with his goodness. The time is coming when the Lord will cover the earth with the wheat-sheaf, and with the barley crown, and these shall be followed by the ruddy fruits of the orchard. God shall make glad the heart of man with the varied gifts of his bounty. The earth hath its coronation; but what is the coronation of the saints? “Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season;” or, if it be not so with thee, thou shalt behold thy Lord coming here to receive thee, for he hath said it, “I will come again, and receive you unto myself.”

There is a glory yet to come to the whole of creation; for its groans and travail will lead up to its new birth. What a zodiac of glory will flame from the new heavens above the new earth at the latter day! But what of that? The greatest glory is for us to be fashioned, as we soon shall be, in the image of the Son of God, and then to dwell at his right hand for ever. Between God and man there seems to be an infinite distance; yet when you see the God-man, Christ Jesus, you perceive that God has made his creature, man, near of kin unto himself. God has taken man into the nearest possible degree of consanguinity to himself, and has illustrated this by varied degrees of relationship. He has made us to be his sons and daughters, and as a corporate body he has made us to be the spouse, the bride, the Lamb’s wife. The Lord Jesus is not ashamed to call us brethren. Thus are we child, spouse, brother. The nearness of our kin to Deity ought to overwhelm us with humble gratitude and with intense delight. God has done infinitely more for us than for all his creatures besides. Rise as you may in creatureship, even till you reach the cherubim and the seraphim, if they be creatures of his hand; even above these stands the Son of God,-the Son of man,-and we are one with him. Oh, the exceeding riches of the grace and the glory of God in his saints!

So I finish by noticing, dear friends, that as God has a people called saints, and as he has put them in the front rank, they render a special homage to him. This homage is true praise, and yet it has a certain difference of principle in it, so that it is instructive to say, “All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord,” but “thy saints shall bless thee.”

Praise is a very proper thing to render to God; and in common with all his works we do render it. But praise has not in it those elements of warmth which belong to blessing God. For instance, you can praise a man, and yet have no kind of regard for him. I suppose that when Wellington defeated the French at Waterloo, there could hardly be found in all the ranks of Napoleon’s army men who did not praise Wellington. They said, “He must, indeed, be a marvellous warrior to have annihilated such an army as ours.” They could not help praising him, but they could have no love for him, and would no doubt have been heartily glad if he had never existed. In the same way, you probably know men towards whom personally you have no warm feeling, and yet when you see their works you are bound to praise them. A man is an eminent painter, and you exclaim, “His pencil is instinct with life.” Still, the man is no friend of yours, you pronounce no blessings on his name. It may be that your feeling towards him is that of deep regret that such abilities should be united with so ill a character. A certain person is exceedingly skilful in his profession, but he treats you unjustly, and, therefore, though you often praise him for his extraordinary performances, you cannot bless him, for you have no cause to do so. I am afraid that there might be such a feeling as that of admiration of God for his great skill, his wonderful power, his extraordinary justness, and yet no warmth of love in the heart towards him. Cold-blooded philosophers have written of God as if he were some far-off abstraction, and they have allowed words to fall from their pens, like masses of ice, which, when we have dissolved them, have been fragrant with reverence. Such men stand like the Israelites, outside the bounds, and gaze at the fire and smoke of Sinai, awe-struck and trembling. As for us, it is our delight to come up unto God, even within the thick darkness, and to commune with him as a man communeth with his friend. Others may praise God, but it is ours, with our whole hearts, to bless his name. “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”

Praise is a form of worship in which we cannot attain to communion with God of the highest order; for that we must ascend another step, and learn to bless him. I never read that God praises men. It may be true that in some sense he does so when he says, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” but I do not find the expression used in Scripture. God blesses men. Everybody knows that; and therefore when we bless God we enter upon a singularly happy fellowship with him. He blesses us, and we bless him; and herein is communion. I grant you, that between the two blessings there is a very great disproportion; but it is the same word, with much of the same meaning.

Again, God’s works all praise him. The lily lifts itself upon its slender stem, and displays its golden petals and its glittering ivory leaves; and by its very existence it praises God. Yonder deep and booming sea rolls up in storm and tempest, sweeping everything before it; and every dash of its waves praises God. The birds in the morning, and some of them all through the night, can never cease from praising; uniting with the ten thousand other voices which make ceaseless concert before the throne. But observe, neither the flower, nor the sea, nor the bird, praises with intent to praise. To them it is no exercise of intellect, for they do not know God, and cannot understand his worthiness; nor do they even know that they are praising him. They exhibit his skill, and his goodness, and so forth, and in so doing they do much; but we must learn to do more. When you and I praise God, there is the element of will, of intelligence, of desire, of intent; and in the saints of God there is another element, namely, that of love to him, of reverent gratitude towards him, and this turns the praise into blessing.

Oh, do you not sometimes feel, as you behold the glory of God, “Let his name be praised for ever and ever”? When you stand at the foot of Calvary you are not only astonished at the glorious love of God in Christ Jesus, but you are melted down, and every beat of your heart is to the tune “Blessed be his name!” Your soul goes out towards Jesus. It is not merely the sense of what he is, but the sense of what he is to you. “He loved me, and gave himself for me.” There is a consequent love and gratitude to him who gave these benefits; and then there is a desire that you could do something by way of expressing your deep gratitude to him. You have almost wished that Christ were at your door, hungry, that you might feed him. You cannot do it literally, but he tells you that you can do it in the person of his poor saints. You have thought, “Oh, that he were at my door on some cold night, when the snow was drifting, that I might open unto him, and give him the best place at my table, and my choicest bed. What a host I would be if he would but be my guest!” Now, that is blessing him, an active benevolence towards him. It is not merely praising him, but it is feeling a good-will, a practical desire. If it were possible for you to bestow some good thing on him, you would rejoice to bestow it. If you could do anything to make him more happy than he is, if that were possible, you wish to do it. It is the end and design of our actions which Christ looks at. It is not merely the hymn we sing, nor the alms we give, nor the service that we render, though all that is part of it; but the innermost soul of blessing God is loving himself, the love that bows over his feet, and wets and waters and washes them with tears,-that unbinds one’s locks to wipe those feet,-that finds the precious alabaster-box to break, and pours the contents upon him,-that is not satisfied unless it can do something to show its love,-this is blessing him. Such love thinks nothing of what it does. All its thought is of him, and how it will please him. Oh, for a crown to put upon his head! Oh, for a song to sing at his feet! Oh, for a perfect heart, that I might reserve it for him alone! Oh, that I had a soul as wide as heaven, that I might entertain my Lord, and him only! Nay, even that were not large enough. Oh, that I could turn space into a great mouth with which to speak his praise, and make all eternity the song, and infinity the music!

We cannot reach half way to our desire, and so we have to wind up by saying, “Bless the Lord, O my soul!” Go in, dear hearts, and sit like David before the Lord, and cry, “Whence is this to me?” Then go out, and talk about him to your friends, and say great things and choice things concerning him. Make him a glorious God in their ears. Tell them there never was such a friend, or helper, or Saviour, or father, or brother, or husband, as your God has been to you. Make them hear it,-that you are the happiest of men because you have found the blessed God. Make all to know it,-that you are the most contented of men because you have chosen the good part, which is to sit at the feet of Jesus. Do bless him in secret; and then bless him with the few that are your daily companions, and if God has given you the tongue of eloquence, bless his name before the crowds, and never be ashamed. Tell them that there is no life like life for God; there is no joy like joy in Christ, no riches like the riches of God’s grace, no heaven like the heaven of dwelling for ever with him. Oh, speak well of him, and when you have spoken your best of him, then wish to begin again, and speak better; and when you have reached to that, and said your best things, then say, “These are nothing compared with what he deserves. I will try again, and yet rise beyond the loftiest conceptions of the present.”

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Psalm 145.