Brethren, it is a good thing to be under the sound of the word of God. Even if the very lowest motive should induce persons to come to hear the gospel, it is nevertheless a good thing that they should come. We have heard of some who have even come to steal, and yet the word of God has stolen into their hearts. In many cases in the olden times spies were sent to hear the Protestant divines who preached the gospel, and these took notes of all that was said, with a view to accuse them of false doctrine, that they might be punished; yet in several cases the spies themselves were converted. Such is the power of the gospel of Christ, that it wooeth and winneth even its greatest enemies. He that comes near to its fire, even with the intent to quench it, may find himself overcome by its heat.

Master Hugh Latimer, in his quaint manner, when exhorting people to go to church, tells of a woman who could not sleep for many nights, notwithstanding that drugs had been given to her; but she said that it they would take her to her parish church she could sleep there, for she had often enjoyed a quiet slumber under the sermon; and he goes the length of saying that if people even come to the sermon to sleep, it is better than not to come at all; for, he adds, in his fine old Saxon, “they may be caught napping.” It is even so. A sick man doeth well to live where there are physicians, for one day he may be healed. If men are in the heat of a battle they may be wounded: if they come where gospel arrows are shot they may fall under them. Plants that grow in the open are likely to be watered when the shower falls. We dare not say to any man who wills to enter the house of prayer, “Thou must not come, because thy motive is gross and low.” Nay, thou art welcome, anyhow. Who knoweth but that, being in the way, God may meet with thee. Being where his truth is preached, thou mayest hear it; and “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

Yet it will strike you at once that though it be well to come to the hearing of the word in any case, yet it is better to come in a better way. We should endeavour to gather the most we can from the means of grace, and not pluck at them at random. A farmer may feel that there will be sure to be some crop upon his land if he doth but seed it; yet, if he be a wise man, he is not satisfied with a bare crop; but he manureth his land heavily, and tilleth it well, that it may bring forth a large return to him, for in these times the largest harvest is no more than he needeth. So, my brethren, let us so use the holy ordinance of preaching that we may extract the largest possible amount of gold from the ore. Let us so come into the solemn assembly that we may hope to meet with God there, for this is the chief end of our gathering together; and let us so behave ourselves before the coming, and in the coming, and after the coming, to the sanctuary, that we may gain the greatest possible profit by our coming together. To hear the word of the Lord is often made of the Spirit of God to be life to dead souls, and the most eminent means of further quickening to those who are already alive unto God. Let us not lose a grain of the blessing through our own fault. The word of the Lord is precious in these days; let us not trifle with it.

This morning, I shall handle my text with the earnest design of teaching you how to hear. Oh, that the Spirit of God may graciously help me! First, let us note what to do before sermon: “Lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness.” Secondly, let us learn how to behave during sermon: “Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.” And thirdly, here is the instruction for after sermon: “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

Let us consider the fit and proper preparation for listening to the gospel, or what is to be done before hearing. It will strike every man who thinks about it, that there should be some preparation of the heart in coming to the worship of God, and to the hearing of the gospel. Consider who he is in whose name we gather, and surely we cannot rush together without thought. Consider whom we profess to worship, and we shall not hurry into his presence as men run to a fire. Moses, the man of God, was warned to put off his shoes from off his feet when God only revealed himself in a bush; how should we prepare ourselves when we come to him who reveals himself in Christ Jesus his dear Son? There should be no stumbling into the place of worship half-asleep, no roaming thither as if it were no more than going to a play-house. We cannot expect to profit much if we bring with us a swarm of idle thoughts and a heart crammed with vanity. If we are full of folly, we may shut out the truth of God from our minds. We should make ready to receive what God is so ready to bestow. If he was condemned who came to the wedding-feast not having on a wedding-garment, what shall we say of those who habitually come into the festivals of our Lord and never think of being meet to be partakers of his royal dainties? What shall we say of those who defile the temple of God by never seeking to have their souls washed from the filthiness of their sin? Certainly there should be a serious preparation when a sinful creature draws nigh to the most holy God.

Brethren, when I think of our engagements throughout the week, who of us can feel fit to come into the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High? I mean not into these tabernacles made with hands, but into the inner spiritual temple of communion with God. How shall we come unto God until we are washed? After travelling so miry a road as that which runs through this foul world, can we come unto God without shaking the dust from off our feet? Can we be busy with earthly cares all the six days of the week and be ready for the holy Sabbath without a thought? I trow not. Even in the heathen temples before the solemn mysteries began the herald cried, “Far hence, ye profane! Far hence, ye profane!” and should not some herald cry to our wandering thoughts, “Far hence, vain thoughts, for God is here!” When the hour is come for drawing near unto the glorious Lord before whom angels veil their faces as they cry, “Holy, holy, holy,” it becomes us to be devout and humble, holy and earnest. Yes, brethren, if we were always occupied with divine worship, if we never knew thought or care except for his glory, if we were altogether dissociated from the entanglements and defilements of the world, I should not be so earnest to speak of preparation before hearing the word; but, alas! it is not so; we are men of unclean lips, and we dwell among a people of unclean lips. We have not yet come into the holy country where every one that saluteth us is either saint or angel. We have not yet cut off all the Canaanites, but we have need to watch against them daily. Because of the sin which dwelleth in us and around us, we have need to wash ourselves in the laver at the tabernacle door before we may come near unto the Most High.

There is a common consent among mankind that there should be some preparedness for worship. I see the visible signs of it here to-day. Before the Sabbath dawned you began to prepare clean linen and brighter garments than those of common days. It is but an outward and common matter; still, within the shell there lieth a kernel. Man putteth off his ordinary week-day garments and puts on his best apparel for the Sabbath, because by instinct he feels that he should pay some reverence to his God. I fear me this change of clothing full often degenerates into a wish to appear well before your fellow-men, but the underlying meaning should be this: “I am going up this day to the worship of my God. I will not go, therefore, either in uncleanness of body or of apparel, but will put on the best raiment, that I may show respect to my God and to the assemblies of his house.” My counsel to you is, cleanse your hearts rather than your garments. Go before God in newness of spirit rather than in newness of clothing. If of old the prophet said, “Rend your heart, and not your garments,” so may I say to-day, Put on the garments of righteousness and holiness by the grace of Christ Jesus our Lord, far rather than external garments, which do but adorn the flesh. Yet, I say, even in that change of raiment there is an admission that there should be God and to worship his holy name. God grant we may not be forgetful some kind of special preparation, when we go up to hear the word of of such fitting preparedness.

In making this preparation our text tells us that there are some things to be laid aside. What saith it? “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness.” Some things must be removed ere the word of God can be received. And what are these things? The text mentions all filthiness. Now sin of every kind is filthiness. It does not strike the most of men so; they call it pleasure; I have even known them think it ornament. But in the judgment of the Spirit of God, who speaketh here by his servant James, every sin is filthiness. In the sight of every renewed man all sin is filthiness and nothing better. Ever since the day when the Spirit of God took the scales from off his eyes, the godly man sees sin to be a foul thing; abominable in the sight of a holy God. Sin in the thoughts is filthiness of the thoughts, sin in words is filthiness of speech; sin in action is filthiness in the life. Everywhere the transgression of the law is a foul and polluting thing, which neither God nor good men can bear. Now, brethren, in coming before God by the help of his Spirit every sin must be confessed, forsaken, and hated. By faith in the precious blood of Jesus it must be washed out, for we cannot come before God with acceptance while iniquity is indulged. We must remain apart from God till we are apart from filthiness. Filth, you know, is a debasing thing, meet only for beggars and thieves; and such is sin. Filth is offensive to all cleanly persons. We cannot bear close contact with a person who neglects the washing of his body or of his clothes, so as to become a living dunghill. However poor a man is he might be clean; and when he is not, he becomes a common nuisance to those who speak with him, or sit near him. If bodily filthiness is horrible to us, what must the filthiness of sin be to the pure and holy God! I cannot attempt to express the abomination of sin to God. He hates it with all his soul. If we are to be acceptable before God, there must be no keeping up of favourite sins, no sparing of darling lusts, no providing for secret iniquities: our service will be filthiness before God if our hearts go after our sins. He saith, “Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.” He would not have the vessels of his sanctuary touched with filthy fingers. Have we well considered this? Lay aside, then, all filthiness unless you wish to arouse the wrath of God. If we ourselves are offensive to God, all we do becomes offensive to him. Remember how it is written, that “the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.” The Lord’s acceptance is first to the person, and then to the sacrifice-to Abel first, and to his offering afterwards. If God hath no delight in a man’s person, then hath he no delight in his services. Think not, ye unclean, that your hymns and praises, however sweetly they are sung, can be music in his ear! Think not that your forms of prayer can ever ascend like sweet perfume before him: they are a stench unto him, and an abomination, so long as ye yourselves are not washed from your filthiness. The filthiness of sin is to be put aside if we would hear the word aright.

Moreover, sin is not only offensive, but it is dangerous. We have learned at last, I hope, though some are still ignorant of the fact, that filthiness means disease. Men begin to see that unless we are clean we cannot be healthy. He who harbours filth is making a hot-bed for the germs of disease, and thus he is the enemy of his family and of his neighbourhood. The filthy man is a public poisoner, a suicide, and a murderer. Sin is the greatest conceivable danger to a man’s own soul: it makes a man to be dead while he lives, yea, corrupt before he is dead. Sin is a mortal disease, and he that bears it about him is not far from hell: while he continues to love it, he can never enter heaven. Will you come before God and tread his courts with this leprosy upon your foreheads? Will you bring your infectious diseases into his temple. They must be laid apart. Oh, for grace to do this!

There are three sins at least that are intended here, and one is covetousness. Hence the desire of unholy gain is called filthy lucre, because it leads men to do dirty deeds which else they would not think of. If the lust of wealth enters into the heart, it rots it to the core. The apostle cries, “Your gold and your silver are cankered”: truly, the man becomes cancered and cankered too. Now when a man’s heart is full of filth, when the desire to get gain, and to get it anyhow, is strong on a man, he is in a very unfit condition to profit by hearing the gospel. You cannot get the gospel into him; a golden bolt fastens the door. He is somewhat in the condition of the sea captain I have heard of who went out after whales, and when he landed and heard the gospel preached, he said to the man of God, “Sir, it was of no use your preaching to me, for all the while I was thinking about where I should find a whale. There is no room for anything else in my mind but whales. I must have whales, and for the time I can think of nothing else but whales.” So it must be with the man who is hot for gain: his farm and his merchandise are in his heart crowding out everything else. He who has a stall in Vanity Fair is in an unfit state to buy the truth, since his merchandise is vanity. A covetous man is an idolater, and cannot receive the gift of God till he has mastered his bosom sin. He is too foul to draw near to the Lord. God help him to escape from the idolatry of riches.

Then, with peculiar correctness, lustfulness may be spoken of as filthiness. I need not enlarge. Doth not nature itself teach us that the indulgence of our animal passions, whatever form that indulgence may take, whether of drunkenness or lewdness, is a condition that unfits man for the reception of the pure word of God? How should spotless purity come and dwell with that man whose life is brutish indulgence? How should the thrice holy Spirit come and dwell in that heart which is a den of unclean desires? Did the men of Sodom profit by the teaching of Lot? Shall a man come from the chamber of lust to the house of the Lord? No, brethren. We must lay apart all filthiness if we are to worship God in spirit and in truth.

But in the connection of my text the filthiness meant is especially anger. Read it, and you will see. “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God; wherefore lay apart all filthiness.” Some persons when they are angry will say things that never ought to be repeated, or even said for the first time. It was so no doubt in James’s day even more than in our own; then angry men let fly horrible epithets and abominable insinuations which were indeed a superfluity of naughtiness. Now, the child of God is to subdue his anger, wrath, and malice. How can you accept the word of peace while you are at enmity with your brother? How can you hope to find forgiveness under the hearing of the word when you forgive not those that have trespassed against you? We would have you pray ere you come into this house on the Sabbath morning or evening, and see to it that you come in the spirit of gentleness and meekness; only thus will you receive the engrafted word. The wrath of man is so filthy a thing, that it cannot work the righteousness of God; nor is it likely that the righteousness of God will be wrought in the heart that is hot like an oven with passion and malice. A revengeful, bitter, and malicious spirit is little likely to imbibe the sweet forgiving spirit of the gospel. God help us, then, to lay apart all filthiness, and especially all enmity.

But it is added, “and superfluity of naughtiness.” What does that mean? Any kind of naughtiness in a child of God is superfluous: iniquity ought not to be within him. “Superfluity of naughtiness,” or the outpouring of evil, is unnecessary; it is an excrescence upon a child of God. The phrase here used differs not in meaning from the first epithet of the text: it gives another view of the same thing. You have seen a rose tree which, perhaps, was bearing very few roses, and you half wondered why. It was a good rose, and planted in good soil, but its flowers were scanty. You looked around it, and by-and-by you perceived that suckers were growing up from its root. Now, these suckers come from the old, original briar, on which the rose had been grafted, and this rose had a superfluity of strength which it used in these suckers. These superfluities, or overflows, took away from the rose the life which it required, so that it could not produce the full amount of flowers which you expected from it. These superfluities of naughtiness that were coming up here and there were to the injury of the tree. Children of God, you cannot serve the Lord if you are giving your strength to any form of wrong; your naughtinesses are springing from the briar stock of your old nature, and the best thing to do is to cut off those suckers and stop them as much as possible, so that all the strength may return into the rose, and the lovely flowers of grace may abound. Oh, that God’s people, when they come up here on the Sabbath-day, may first have undergone that divine pruning which shall take away the superfluity of naughtiness, for there cannot be grafting without a measure of pruning. The gardener takes off from a certain part of the tree a shoot of the old stock, and then he inserts the graft. There must be a removal of superfluities in order that we may receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save our souls. This is what is to be put away.

The garments spotted with the flesh and infected with disease are to be taken off and laid apart. We are to wear them no more, if we desire to profit by the word which we hear. We are not to lay up these to put them on again, but lay them apart among the offal of Tophet’s fire, with the strong desire never to touch them again. To the fires we condemn these filthy things. What have we to do with filthiness, now that we have been begotten by the will of God to be the firstfruits of his creatures? You who are the children of a holy God, what have you to do with naughtiness, or any such superfluity? God help you to shake off sin as Paul shook off the viper into the fire.

Why is this? Why is a man as he comes to hear the gospel to see to this? I take it because all these evil things preoccupy the mind. Whether it be covetousness, or lewdness, or anger, in addition to the pollution which these bring, they also possess the thoughts, so that they are not likely to be blessed while hearing the word. These are the rocks which prevent the seed from entering the mind, these the birds which devour that which is sown, these the weeds which choke the upspringing shoots. Wherefore lay these aside. If you bring your measures to this place filled to the brim with chaff, how can you expect to have them filled with wheat? If we come here with this filthiness about us, how can we expect that the pure and incorruptible word shall be sweet to us?

Moreover, sin prejudices against the gospel. A man says, “I do not enjoy the sermon.” How can you? What have you been enjoying during the week? What flavour did last night leave in your mouth? “I cannot bear that man,” says one; and if you could, it would be an evidence that the man was not faithful. Can Ahab love Elijah? I remember seeing one get up and go out in hot indignation at what I had said, which happened to come personally home to him, though the man was a stranger to me. What I had said was the pure truth of God, and I could not be sorry that an ill-living man was indignant at it, since this was the only homage that such as he could pay to purity. Had he but known it, there was therein a manifestation to himself of what his nature was, and in what condition he was. Think you Christ’s servants desire to please those who will not please God? “Oh,” said one to a Puritan divine, “my lord heard you this morning, and he is mightily offended at your remarks upon profane language; for my lord is given to drop an oath now and then in his ordinary speech.” What said the Puritan divine? He answered, “Sir, if your lord offends my Lord, then your lord ought to be offended, and I cannot say less than I have said.” If any men are offended with the gospel it is because they themselves offend against God. It is almost invariably the case that when persons grow sceptical who once professed to be religious, and begin picking at this and that, there is a secret evil in their lives which they thus try to cover from their own consciences. The devil tempts them to rail at the ministry because the gospel presses hard upon their guilty consciences, and makes them feel uneasy in their sins. If you are to hear God’s word with pleasure and profit to yourselves, you must “lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness”; for these things will prejudice you against the word of God, and render you incapable of that lively appreciation of it which is so needful to profiting thereby. God bless these words of mine, and may many of you who have come carelessly here at different times, henceforth seek to come with preparedness into the assembly of God’s people.

Secondly, I will talk a little about during hearing. How shall we act while listening to the word? “Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.” The first thing, then, is receive. That word “receive” is a very instructive gospel word; it is the door through which God’s grace enters to us. We are not saved by working, but by receiving; not by what we give to God, but by what God gives to us, and we receive from him. In the hearing of the word there should be a receiving of it, not into the ear only, but into the understanding, into the heart, into the conscience, together with a laying-up of this good treasure in the memory and the affections. Ye must receive the word, or it cannot bless you. For look ye, sirs, the word of God is a feast; but what comes of it if a man only looks at the banquet? Shall he not go away as empty as he came if he doth not receive it? The preaching of the word is as a shower from heaven; but what happens to the soil if the rain-drops fall, but none are absorbed into the soil? Of what avail is the shower if none is drunk in by the thirsty furrows? A medicine may have great healing power, but if it is not received, then it does not purge the inward parts of the body. There must be a receiving of any good thing before the goodness of it can be ours. I do love, when I read the Bible, or hear the word, to throw the doors of my soul wide open; ay, and to open all the windows of my heart. My soul cries, “Come in, most blessed Spirit; come in, divine Life. Thou shalt not say there is no room for thee in the inn; come, take possession of every chamber of this house of mine, and be thou Master of it henceforth and for ever.” I pray you, my brethren, do not block up your souls against the incoming tide of the gospel. On the contrary, break down the dams, and let the river flow into you till you are filled therewith. Receive the word. Many men are not profited by the word, because it does not penetrate them, but is like water flowing down a slab of marble. Truth must soak into the heart if it is to bless the heart. May the blessed Spirit give us a sweet receptiveness of the truth, for else it is of no avail to hear it.

Then it is added, “receive with meekness.” Many do not receive the gospel because they are not of a meek and teachable spirit: they come up to God’s house, but the only seat they will occupy therein is the judgment-seat. One would imagine them to be the god of God by their bold talk. Judge not the word of God, I charge you. Ye may judge me as you like; small matter shall that be to me; for we are not anxious as to men’s judgment, but our judgment is with the living God. If the preacher truly declares the word of God, woe unto the man who sits in judgment upon it: this same word shall judge him at the last great day. We stand at the bar to be tried by God’s word, and searched, and sifted; but woe unto us if, rejecting every pretence of meekness, we ascend the tribunal, and summon God himself before us. The spirit of critics ill becomes sinners when they seek mercy of the Lord. His message must be received with teachableness of mind. When you know it is God’s word, it may upbraid you, but you must receive it with meekness. It may startle you with its denunciations: but receive it with meekness. It may be, there is something about the truth which at the first blush does not commend itself to your understanding; it is perhaps too high, too terrible, too deep; receive it with meekness. This is not the spirit of the present age, but it is the spirit which the living God requires of us. It is by receiving with meekness that we receive the truth in the power of it, and so it is able to save our souls. Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. The door of heaven is open to those who sit at Jesus’ feet, and learn of him. Thou art not his servant unless he is thy Master. Thou canst not be said to be his disciple if thou dost question his teaching; for in the questioning of Christ’s teaching lies the rejection of his Person. To doubt Jesus is treason against the authority he claims over every human heart. Receive with meekness if you would be blessed with grace.

What is this which is to be received? “Receive with meekness the engrafted word.” We are not bidden to receive with meekness men’s words, for they are many, and there is little in them; but receive with meekness God’s word, for it is one, and there is power in each word which proceedeth out of his mouth. One word of God created the heavens and the earth; by the word of God the heavens still stand; one word of his shall ere long shake not only earth but also heaven; therefore, hear with meekness that word; that word which testifies of sin, and of its sure punishment; that word which testifies of grace most large and free, and of an atonement provided by the Only Begotten Son of the Father, by which sin is put away in consistency with justice and holiness. Receive with meekness the word of the Lord in its entirety and unity. Reject no part of it, but receive the whole.

Any little particle of God’s word, so far as we know it, is precious, and should be highly esteemed of us. The odds and ends, and corners, and fragments of the divine word are to be received by you and by me; and there is a lack of meekness in us if we begin to pick and choose, and cut and carve the divine word. Who are we that we should say, “This or that is not essential”? Who art thou, O man, that thou shouldest decide what is essential or otherwise? He who gave the word did not write trifles. It is essential that thou receive the word of the Lord as supreme and perfect; and it is essential that thou be lost if thou dost wilfully reject any portion of that which the Most High deigns to reveal to men. Receive with meekness the one, only, and indivisible word of the Lord.

It is called “the engrafted word.” The Revised Version has “the implanted word,” which is, perhaps, more literal than the Authorized translation; and it puts in the margin, “the inborn word,” which gives another idea, and yet conveys a like sense. I will keep to our old and well-beloved version, and read it “engrafted word.” When a graft is to be made, the first thing is to make a cut or gash. Nobody ever received the word of God into his heart to be engrafted there without being cut and wounded by the truth. It needs two wounds to make a graft; you wound the tree, and you wound that better tree which is to be grafted in. Is it not a blessed grafting when a wounded Saviour comes into living contact with a wounded heart? when a bleeding heart is engrafted with a bleeding Saviour? Engrafting implies that the heart is wounded and opened, and then the living word is laid in and received with meekness into the bleeding, wounded soul of the man. There is the gash, and there is the space opened thereby. Here comes the graft: the gardener must establish a union between the tree and the graft. This new life, this new branch, is inserted into the old stem, and they are to be livingly joined together. At first they are bound together by the gardener, and clay is placed about the points of junction; but soon they begin to grow into one another, and then only is the grafting effectual. This new cutting grows into the old, and it begins to suck up the life of the old, and change it so that it makes new fruit. That bough, though it be in the grafted tree, is altogether of another sort. Now we want the word of God to be brought to us after a similar fashion: our heart must be cut and opened, and then the word must be laid into the gash till the two adhere, and the heart begins to hold to the word, to believe in it, to hope in it, to love it, to grow to it, to grow into it, and to bear fruit accordingly. “Christ liveth in me,” said the apostle. Is not that a wonderful thought? The daily incarnation of Christ in the believer, or in other words, the new eternal life, living in us, and producing fruit after its own kind, while we live in it, and the fruit is our own. Christ is come in all the newness of his life, and is living in me. Oh, blessed grafting! “Receive with meekness the engrafted word.”

Once more, you are to receive it by faith, for you are to regard the word as being able. Believe in the power of God’s word, receive it as being fully able to save your souls from beginning to end. Two ways it does this: by putting away your sin as you accept the blood and righteousness of Christ, and by changing your nature as you accept the Lord Jesus to be your Master and your Lord, your life and your all. There is such potency in the word of God, that if it be received into the heart, it will effectually save the soul: it will not merely give you a hope of being saved, but really save you; save you now, save you through life, save you to all eternity. Oh, with what ears ought men to listen to a word which can save their souls! With what open mouths ought they to drink in this living water! How wisely might we wish to be like sponges, to suck it all up; or like Gideon’s fleece, to be saturated with the dew of heaven! How we ought to wish to be like the ploughed ground which is broken up and pulverised, so that every drop that falls may soak into it! Oh, that the new life that is come to us would put out the old life of the flesh, so that our life should no longer be after the old fashion, but in all newness of power! Let us rejoice to have the word engrafted in us.

This is how to behave at sermon. Oh, what need have we of the Holy Ghost to help us to hear the truth as well as to prepare us before we hear it!

Lastly, and very briefly, let us think of after sermon. “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

First, the command is positive-” Be ye doers of the word.” Oh, dear sirs, I come to this pulpit oftentimes and speak with you, but as I come hither my heart is more and more burdened with this desire: that mine may not be an unprofitable ministry unto you. I shall be useless to you unless you are doers of the word as well as hearers. Sirs, ye have heard about repentance and the putting away of filthiness: repent, then, and let your filthiness be put away. May God the Holy Ghost lead you to do so-not to hear about it, but do it. Ye have heard us preach continually concerning faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you know all about believing; but have you believed? Sirs, have you believed? If not, to what avail is it for us to cry, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”? We are to admonish you concerning all those blessed duties which spring out of that living faith which works by love; but it is nothing to hear about these virtues unless you possess them. Doing far surpasses hearing. I believe that with a very little knowledge and great doing of what we know, we may attain to a far higher degree of grace than with great knowledge and little doing of what we know. The man who knows how to keep shop makes no profit by his knowledge if he does not keep any shop. The doctor who knows how to cure the sick is not therefore a healer if he never has a patient. The man who knows how to teach children but never does teach them, is not an instructor of youth. If a schoolmaster teaches the little he does know, he may be a better teacher than a great philosopher who keeps all his wisdom to himself. We value clouds by their rain, and men by their actual doings. The world is always looking to the church, not so much to hear her teachings as to see her doings. Few ask, “What is the doctrine taught at such a meeting-house?” The ungodly world cries, “Bother the doctrine. What good is done there?” If the people who attend there are mean, false, hypocritical, the world condemns the tree which yields such fruit. The bulk of men do not read the Bible, but they read you; and if they do not come to hear the minister preach the gospel, yet they say, “These people who hear him are no better than other people, and why should we trouble to go and listen to him?” The minister gets the blame which should rightly belong to those who are hearers but not doers of the word. Oh, may the Eternal Spirit work in us all to will and to do of his own good pleasure! There is nothing done by these Sundays, there is nothing done by these pulpits, there is nothing done by these pews, there is nothing done by these vast gatherings, unless our hearers are doers of the word. Practice is the harvest; the rest is but the ploughing and the sowing.

Observe that the command is put negatively: the text says, “not hearers only.” Those who are hearers only are wasters of the word. What poor creatures hearers are, for they have long ears and no hands! Ye have heard of him who one day was discoursing eloquently of philosophy to a crowd, who greatly applauded him. He thought he had made many disciples, but suddenly the market-bell rang, and not a single person remained. Gain was to be made, and in their opinion no philosophy could be compared to personal profit. They were hearers till the market-bell rang, and then, as they had been hearers only, they quitted the hearing also. I fear it is so with our preachings: if the devil rings the bell for sin, for pleasure, for worldly amusement, or evil gain, our admirers quit us right speedily. The voice of the world drowns the voice of the word. Those who are only hearers, are hearers but for a time. Some of those now before me are hearers only. We cannot mark your houses by putting a cross upon your doors, and writing thereon, “Lord, have mercy upon us”; but if I did so, London would seem to be smitten with the plague. Oh that you would cease from this mocking of God, and ruining of yourselves! Remember, if any man will be lost, he will most surely be lost who heard the gospel and refused it. Write that word in great capital letters: if any soul will be lost emphatically, it is he who has been for years a hearer only, a hearer where thousands have believed unto eternal life. Over the cell of such a man write, “He knew his duty, but he did it not”; and that cell will be found to be built in the very centre of Gehenna; it is the innermost prison of hell. Wilful rejection of Christ ensures woeful rejection from Christ. Take heed, ye that deny him entrance now, lest he deny you entrance hereafter. Your hearts are hardening to an eternal impenitence necessitating eternal punishment.

“How they deserve the deepest hell

That slight the joys above!

What chains of vengeance must they feel

Who break the bonds of love!”

The text closes with this solemn word: “deceiving your own selves.” Whereupon says Bishop Brownrig, “To deceive is bad, to deceive yourselves is worse, to deceive yourselves about your souls is worst of all.” Alas! there are many in that sad condition. A syllogism may be bad, and yet it may look like logic; and such are the hopes which men fashion out of a bare hearing of the word. It is very easy, when you get well accustomed to the gospel, au fait at it, as they say, to be able to twist it so as to make it seem to favour you, though it condemns you. He who wills to be deceived can feign an acquittal out of a sentence of death. Many think it is all right with them, when it is all wrong with them. They always hear the gospel; how can they be castaways? They sit under a thoroughly evangelical divine; how can they be reprobates? They know what is what; they will not consent to hear false doctrine; they have a discriminating faculty, and will not abide unorthodox teaching. I am very glad they will not; but they seem to make a god of this discernment. Alas! it is a mere idol. Hundreds believe that because their minister is unquestionably sound in the faith, therefore they are sound also. As they have the good sense to hear him, surely they are first-rate people, and the Lord will overlook their faults. Oh, sirs, be not such fools! Do not deceive yourselves in that way, for there is no truth in this comforting conclusion. The better that which you hear, the more guilty are you if you do not practise it; and the plainer and more straight the gospel which is taught you, the more inexcusable are you if you do not receive it. When the gospel comes to you with a heavy knock at the door of your heart, the more terrible your crime if you bolt and bar your door against it, or say, “When I have a more convenient season I will send for thee.” God grant to each one of us that when we go home we may attend to the doing of the sermon. You know the old story; I am half ashamed to repeat it again, but it is so pat to the point. When Donald came out of kirk sooner than usual, Sandy said to him, “What, Donald, is the sermon all done?” “No,” said Donald, “it is all said, but it is not begun to be done yet.” Let my sermon be done in your chambers by prayer, and in your lives by holiness. Let it be done all through the week by our each one seeking to put away all filthiness. Let us cling to the holy Christ, desiring to live his life, and breathe his spirit. God grant it may be so with you all, for Jesus Christ’s sake.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-James 1.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-104, 652, 645.

THE LOOKING-GLASS

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, July 5th, 1885, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”-James 1:23-25.

Last Sabbath-day I tried to show the right way of hearing the Word of God. We spoke of how to behave before sermon, at sermon, and after sermon. May God grant that the word which I then spoke may continue in your minds, and bring forth good fruit! At this time I shall draw a distinction between the true and blessed hearer of the Word, and the person who misses the blessing because he hears to forget. You will forgive my coming back to this subject when I confess that I groan in my own heart with unutterable longings to be a channel of blessing to all who hear or read my discourses. To what purpose do I stand here so often, and pour out my soul before you, if you are not the better for it? I am an unhappy sower, if all the handfuls of seed which I scatter must needs fall upon unbroken soil, to be devoured of birds, and never take root. Blessed be God, it is not altogether so; we have reaped many harvests in this place; but still, our hearts ache for larger results! There remain among us still those who are impervious to the truth, in whom the divine Word has taken no lodging-place: will these never be saved? They still continue to listen, and to listen with kindly respect, but they are not yet doers of the Word. Our lament is that of Paul “They have not all obeyed the gospel”; they have heard it, and in a measure appreciated it, but they have not obeyed it; it has not come to them with power constraining them to yield to its commands. It will be a sad thing if, when I give in my account, it shall be with grief and not with joy; for this will be as unprofitable for you as it will be grievous for me. That I shall meet my hearers at the judgment day I know, and I know also that then an account will be demanded of me, much more searching than any through which my conscience can put me even when it is most awake. How will you stand in that account? It will be read in the seven-fold light of that great day for which all other days were made, and what will the record be? I earnestly desire to present you all as a chaste virgin unto Christ, but I fear it will not be so. Concerning some of you I fear that I shall have run in vain, and laboured in vain. I am bowed with grief at such a prospect. O my hearers, do not kill me by destroying your own souls! Oh, that you may now turn to our Lord Jesus, and in him find acceptance with the Lord in that day The Lord grant it for his infinite mercy’s sake!

Two things are very obvious in the text: the first is the hearer of the Word who does not profit by it, and is represented as looking into a glass; and then, secondly, we see the man who does profit by the Word, for he is represented as looking into the perfect law. May the Holy Spirit help us to see these clearly!

First, then, here is looking into a glass.

Looking into a glass is a trivial business. In all ages men, not to say women, have been fond of seeing themselves. In the earlier days they had no reflecting glasses as we now have, but they used mirrors made of brass and kindred metals, highly polished. These mirrors yielded a sufficiently clear image of the beholder. Albeit, the children of Israel came out of Egypt in a great hurry, yet we find that the women carried their looking-glasses with them into the wilderness. (See Ex. 38:8.) It was according to their womanly nature: whatever else they forgot they must have the indispensable looking-glass, for the purpose of their toilet. It is to their praise, however, that in the desert their devotion overcame their vanity; for when the brazen laver was to be made in which the priests should wash, it was made of the looking-glasses of the serving-women who were accustomed to meet at the door of the tabernacle. Still, the use of the mirror must be ranked among the trifles of life: I see that you are half-smiling at the playfulness which glitters around a glass. Is not this a hint at the light in which many regard the hearing of the gospel? They crowd to hear a preacher if he has some sort of name; not that they desire to get a blessing thereby, but merely that they may say that they have heard him, or that they may gratify their curiosity by seeing what he is like. Truly the burden of our lives is a pastime to some of you. Sirs, this reminds me of the fable of the frogs. When the boys stoned them, the poor creatures said, “It may be sport to you, but it is death to us.” You may hear me this day with the idlest curiosity, and judge my message with the coldest criticism; but if you do not receive the blessings of the gospel, it strikes a chill at my heart. Your unspiritual hearing is sport to you, but it is death to me. A deadly shadow as of a hell-mist hovers over my spirit while I suppose it possible that I am, with all my earnestness, ministering to your condemnation. Can it be that I am laboriously doing nothing? Worse than that, are my instructions, persuasions, and entreaties to be so treated as to increase your responsibility, and bury you under a heavier load of sin? As God’s servant, I tremble at so dreadful a prospect. We live if you live unto God; and if you do not turn to God we wish that we had never been born. It were better for us to plough the thankless sea, than to utter truth which will be a savour of death to you. O sirs, to hear the gospel will one day appear to be the most solemn of exercises! Indeed, it is not the trivial matter that many make of it; it is infinitely more than gazing into a mirror. How long will it be ere ye know this?

Upon my first head of looking into a glass let me say, that to every hearer the true Word of God is as a mirror. Certain preachers dream that it is their business to paint pretty pictures: but it is not so. We are not to design and sketch, but simply to give the reflection of truth. We are to hold up the mirror to nature in a moral and spiritual sense, and let men see themselves therein. We have not even to make the mirror, but only to hold it up. The thoughts of God, and not our own thoughts, are to be set before our hearers’ minds; and these discover a man to himself. The Word of the Lord is a revealer of secrets: it shows a man his life, his thoughts, his heart, his inmost self.

A large proportion of hearers only look upon the surface of the gospel, and upon their minds the surface alone is operative. Yet, even that surface is sufficiently effectual to reflect the natural face which looks upon it, and this may be of lasting service if rightly followed up. Brethren, the chief blessing cannot come to us by surface-work; he that would be enriched by the gospel must dig for it, and must dig deep. He must sink shafts into its fathomless mines, that he may bring up “the much fine gold.” Let not our thoughts glide over the surface of the Word like swift birds that touch the crests of the waves; but let us plunge into the depths of Scripture like pearl-fishers who seek for hid treasures.

The Scripture gives a truthful reflection of man’s nature: it lets the man see himself, not as others see him, for others make mistakes, nor as he would see himself, for he is very apt to be partial to his own soul; but the Scripture makes him see himself as God sees him. Look at the scriptural portrait of a sinner. That art thou, O man! Look at the depraved heart, the rebellious will, the darkened understanding: that heart, will, and understanding are thine, O my brother! What a sight it is which meets the sinner’s eye when he is hearing the faithful Word! “I thought,” saith he, as he looks into the Word,” that I was much more comely than this. I had never dreamed of these freckles and spots. I was not aware that I suffered from such a twist of features, such an exaggeration of one and such a deficiency in another.” The holy Book does not flatter human nature, neither does the true preacher attempt so base a work; but in plain and downright honesty of truth the witness is given, “They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” When conscience is aroused, and the man sees himself as the revelation of God declares him to be, he can hardly think that this can be the same self with which he was upon such excellent terms. If God blesses the sight, he is led to abhor himself, and to seek for cleansing and renewal; but if not, the man has at least seen himself, and has had the opportunity of knowing his true state.

The reflection of self in the Word is very like life. You have, perhaps, seen a dog so astonished at his image in the glass that he has barked fiercely at himself. A parrot will mistake its reflection for a rival. Well may the creature wonder, since every one of its movements is so accurately copied; it thinks itself to be mocked. Under a true preacher men are often so thoroughly unearthed and laid bare that even the details of their lives are reported. Not only is the portrait drawn to the life, but it is an actually living portrait which is given in the mirror of the Word. There is little need to point with the finger, and say, “Thou art the man,” for the hearer perceives of his own accord that he is spoken of. As the image in the glass moves, and alters its countenance, and changes its appearance, so doth the Word of the Lord set forth man in his many phases, and moods, and conditions. The Scripture of truth knows all about him, and it tells him what it knows. Many a time the hearer has said, “Somebody has told the preacher.” Yes, somebody has told him: that which thou doest in thy bedchamber the Lord hath revealed unto his servant. The Holy Spirit guides our hands wittingly, so that we lay them upon the right heads. I have sometimes said to you that people frequently wish that the preacher knew their experience, in order that he could preach to it; but it is not necessary to tell God’s sent servant anything about it, for he will speak to you with all the more power because he does not know. You may go in to hear the sermon, and be wearing a disguise, but even a blind prophet will find you out, and say, “Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam, wherefore feignest thou thyself to be another woman? I have heavy tidings from the Lord for thee.” The Chaldean soothsayers said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “Tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation”; but Daniel knew the dream and the interpretation also, and that marked him out as being sent of God. When the preacher’s description of the man’s heart is true to the life, and yet no human mouth has whispered it into his ears, then the man cries, “This is the finger of God.” A great part of the self-evidencing power of the gospel lies in the way in which it discovers to our minds that which aforetime lay within our bosoms, hidden even from ourselves.

The glass of the Word is not like our ordinary looking-glass, which merely shows us our external features; but, according to the Greek of our text, the man sees in it “the face of his birth”; that is, the face of his nature. He that reads and hears the Word may see not only his actions there, but his motives, his desires, his inward condition. As the butcher cuts down the carcase, and reveals all the inwards, which never could have been seen but for his knife, so is the Word of God “quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The secrets of the man are opened up to himself, and he is astonished to see his inward depravity, his carnal tendencies, and his corrupt inclinations. As a man sees his outward self in the looking-glass, so may he see his inward self in the Word; but if this be all, to what purpose is it?

Secondly, many a hearer does see himself in the mirror of the Word. We are told so twice in the text: “He is like a man beholding his natural face in a glass, for he beholdeth himself.” He really does see himself, for he cannot help doing so. He is not such a careless hearer as to be utterly blind to the revelation of God: he beholds, he beholds himself, he beholds the face of his birth. He is thoughtful during the discourse, he spies out the application of the truth to himself, and marks his own spots and blemishes.

Oftentimes he sees himself so plainly that he grows astonished at what he sees. He cries, like the woman of Samaria,-“Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did.” Barbarous people, when they first of all see looking-glasses, are quite taken aback. “How can these things be?” is their first question. Now, have not you, dear hearers, who are unconverted, been often staggered at the home-thrusts of the Word? You have seen, yourselves so unmistakably that you have been unable to escape from the truth, but have been filled with wonder at it. But what is the use of this, if it goes no further?

Such observers have been known to praise the excellence of the mirror, and speak well of its faithfulness. You may hear them say, “The man is a true servant of God, and preaches in all honesty and courage.” So far so good. Alas! there are many preachers who will win no such praise. As I have seen glasses which have elongated my face or broadened it, so that it was by no means my true image, so have I known ministers whose description of human nature is flattering and false. But after all, if the face is not to be washed, to what purpose is it that the mirror faithfully shows the smuts and stains which are upon it? O my hearers, I desire to be always faithful to you, but how will my faithfulness benefit you if you are not faithful to yourselves? Why should I show you your blots if you do not seek to the Lord Jesus to have them removed?

Many of our hearers go somewhat further, for they are driven to make solemn resolves after looking at themselves. Yes, they will break off their sins by righteousness; they will repent; they will believe on the Lord Jesus; and yet their fine resolves are blown away like smoke, and come to nothing. The sight of their natural face leads to a natural resolve; but the strength of nature suffices not to carry the resolution into practice. O sirs, ye must be born again; and for lack of that new birth your goodness is as a morning cloud and as the early dew; both of these vanish soon, and so do your fine feelings and resolvings. What a multitude of dead resolves fall in this house of prayer! The blossoms upon our fruit-trees give great promise of a heavy crop of fruit, but, alas! the most of them do not knit, but drop from the tree and powder the ground as with snow; so the flowers of promise are upon our hearers, but they come not to real soul-fruit. O Spirit of God, make it otherwise with my congregation! Save them from their own inconstancy! Let them not resolve and re-resolve, and yet die in their sins!

But what follows? Observe, “He beholdeth himself, and goeth his way.” Many hearers go away from what they have seen in the Word. There are two “ands” in the text, following quickly one after the other, and they have a force which I cannot very well convey to you. They show that the man looks at himself hurriedly, and as it were in passing, and so goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was, because his glance was hasty, casual, and soon over. He heard the Word, and there was an end of it; no echoes lingered in his soul. The sermon was over when it was over. Many a man, having seen himself in the glass of the Word, has no time for any further thought about himself. To-morrow morning he will be over head and ears in business; the shutters will be down from his shop-windows, but they will be put up to the windows of his soul. His office needs him, and therefore his prayer-closet cannot have him; his ledger falls like an avalanche over his Bible. The man has no time to seek the true riches; passing trifles monopolize his mind. Sirs, ye call earthly things “business”; but the salvation or the damnation of your souls is such a trifling matter that any stray hour will suffice for it. Is it not so? Do you not propose to put off the Lord till your last gasp? The Lord deliver you from this madness! Oh, that you would no more allow your earthly business to crush your souls!

Others have no particular business to engross them, but having seen themselves in the glass of the Word with some degree of interest, they go their way to their amusements. Their principal difficulty is how to kill time, and spin the weary hours away. What will become of some of you who are going down to perdition with all your time to spare? You will not be able to say that you went your way to your farm, and to your merchandise, for you have neither farm nor merchandise, and do not know what to do with your time; and yet for all that you cannot spare an hour to think upon your souls and upon your God. Oh, that it were not so! May infinite mercy make men wiser than to go their way while their souls are going down to hell!

Alas! there are some who go their way to sin. It is not mere pleasure, or business, but it is an overt act of transgression to which they go. It is an awful thing to my mind that men go from hearing the Word of God to speaking the word of the devil; they go from God’s house to the house of sin; they go straight away from the holy to the profane, from the pure to the foul. They go from the mercy-seat to the seat of the scorner. I do not wonder that no good comes of such hearing as this. When a man seeth his face in the glass, and then goeth his way to defile that face more and more, of what use is the glass to him? If you return to sin, to procrastinate, to live in wilful neglect of God and eternity, you would derive no benefit from such hearing, though all the apostles should in turn preach to you, or even their Master himself.

This going away is followed by forgetting all they have seen. This forgetfulness is indeed very mischievous. How different is this from that word of David, “I will never forget thy precepts”! The wicked forget God; but the favoured of the Lord “remember his commandments to do them.” Forget the words of man, but be zealous to remember the Word of the Lord; for forgetfulness leads to inaction. Those who forget, forget to do. They follow not the Lord’s command in the Book of Numbers: “Remember to do all my commandments.” In Purchas’s Pilgrim we read of certain Spaniards of the olden time who were often pinched with hunger, and yet immense shoals of fish passed along their shores. They saw the fish, but were too idle to take them. Are there not many hearers of that kind? The truth passes by them unappropriated, unused, unpractised, and all because they take no earnest heed to make it their own by personal obedience to it. They say, “I go, sir,” but they forget to go. They see the pearl of great price, but forget to buy it. They are mere players with the Lord’s message, and never come to honest dealing with it.

Forgetfulness of the Word leads to self-satisfaction. Looking in the glass the man felt a little startled that he was such an ugly fellow, but he went his way and mingled with the crowd, and forgot what manner of man he was, and therefore he felt quite easy again. The sweep thinks he is as clean as his neighbours, for he has forgotten the soot upon his face. By the force of sheer ignorance a man can climb to a desperately false assurance of his own excellence. He can cry “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace, till at length a blast of trumpets will not alarm him. What can be more fatal than this? One may as well not know, as only learn and straightway forget.

This forgetfulness leads to a growing carelessness. A man who has once looked in the glass, and afterwards has not washed, is very apt to go and look in the glass again, and continue in his filthiness. He who thinks his conscience has cried “wolf” in mere sport, will think the same till he takes no heed when it cries in earnest. When men get to play with the Word of God they are near to destruction. Beware of hearing the gospel as a pastime: it is the next stage to eternal ruin. When that which God designs to be to our salvation becomes a pastime to us, then all likelihood that it will save us is gone. He who sports with heaven and hell will soon lose all hope of the one, and be hurried downward to the other.

Yes, but let me remark that this forgetfulness of the Word leads to increased sin; for we do not hear the Word of God without some result coming of it. As I am responsible for preaching, so are you for hearing. O unconverted hearers, you to whom the gospel has come as a revealer of yourselves, but not as a renewer of your hearts, you have grown harder in sin, and you have sinned against more light and against more knowledge, and thus your sin grows blacker!

Thus have I sketched the hearer of the Word who is not a doer of it. I do not wish personally to apply this to any one here, but I beg that every person who does not know the Lord will make a personal application of it to his own conscience, and I pray God the Holy Ghost himself now to come and press these truths upon each conscience. O, my dear friends, will you not invite his sacred operations? You have seen your faces in the mirror of the Word; do you not desire to have them cleansed and beautified? You know your impurity; do you not wish to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus from all sin? Will you go your ways as if there were no law to accuse you, no gospel to invite you, no Christ to forgive you? Will you live and die as if there were no heaven, no hell, no eternity, no God? May the Lord deliver you from being triflers with the Word, and forgetters of it, lest at the end your religion should turn out to be vain, and you should find yourselves accursed by that which might have been a blessing to you!

May I have your further attention while I speak upon the true and blessed hearer? He does not look into the glass, but he is represented as looking into the law:-“Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”

The picture I have in my mind’s eye at this moment is that of the cherubim upon the mercy-seat: these are models for us. Their standing is upon the golden mercy-seat, and our standing-place is the propitiation of our Lord: there is the resting-place of our feet, and, like the cherubs, we are joined thereto, and therefore continue therein. They stand with their eyes looking downward upon the mercy-seat; as if they desired to look into the perfect law of God which was treasured within the ark: even so do we look through the atonement of our Lord Jesus, which is to us as pure gold like unto transparent glass, and we behold the law, as a perfect law of liberty, in the person of our Mediator. Like the cherubim, we are in happy company; and like them, we look towards each other, by mutual love. Our common standing is the atonement; our common study is the law in the person of Christ; and our common posture is that of angels with outstretched wings prepared to fly at the Master’s bidding. Oh, that we might in this sense be as the cherubim, and like them abide in the secret-place of the Most High, where the light is the light of God, and the glory is the Divine Presence! We are not to look casually at the Word as though it were a mere looking-glass; but we are to gaze earnestly upon it as our law under the new covenant. As the apostles stooped down and looked into the sepulchre, so are we to search diligently into the blessed law of the Lord, and delight in it after the inner man.

Note well that the law of God is worth looking into. I understand by the “law” here not merely the law of ten commandments, but the law as it is condensed, fulfilled, and exhibited in Christ Jesus. The Gospel law, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that gospel which we are called upon to obey, is worthy of deep meditation; I mean that holy law which the Lord has promised to put into our inward parts and write upon our hearts: the law of faith and not of self-righteousness, even the command of grace which bids us believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and obey his commands. A law is always worth considering, for we may break the law unwittingly, and involve ourselves in penalties which we might have avoided. An unknown law is a pit-fall, into which a man may fall without knowing it. It is the duty of all loyal subjects to learn the law, that they may obey it.

Better still, it is a perfect law. All human laws are imperfect, but the law of the Lord is perfect. The law in the hand of Christ is perfect in itself, having no excess and no deficiency; and it is a law which makes those perfect who obey it. It is a law which is set forth in the person of the perfect Christ, and wrought in us by the perfect Spirit. It is a law which touches our whole nature, and works it unto perfect beauty. Who would not wish to look into a law which, like its Author, is love and purity itself?

It is called the “perfect law of liberty.” Now, the law under the old covenant gendereth to bondage, but the law in the hand of Christ is liberty. We never walk in liberty till we walk in the Lord’s commands. He that wears the yoke of Christ is the Lord’s free man. Oh, brothers, I do trust our eyes will be turned to the “perfect law of liberty;” for freedom is a jewel, and none have it but those who are conformed to the mind and will of our God!

The true hearer looks into this perfect law of liberty with all his soul, heart, and understanding, till he knows it, and feels the force of it in his own character. He is the prince of hearers, who delights to know what God’s will is, and finds his joy in acting out the same. He sees the law in its height of purity, breadth of comprehensiveness, and depth of spirituality, and the more he sees the more he admires. He cannot have too much of it, but meditates in it both day and night, and hence he cries, “Oh, how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day.” His most frequent prayer is that he may be conformed unto that perfect law in all respects; and in proportion as his prayer is heard he enters into perfect rest. I pause and ask you whether you belong to the blessed company, who look into the crystal glass of the law. If you can answer that you are such, then please follow me for a minute or two. As I stand here I look into the mirror of the Word and see myself. But this is not enough for me: I will look till I see more. I continue looking into the mystic glass until, to my great surprise, I see another form appearing. Evidently some mysterious Personage is reflected in this mirror. How beautiful and majestic is the Stranger’s visage! I look till the image of my countenance melts into the reflection of his countenance, and he alone is seen. I only appear in him. Is he not lovely? Indeed he is the Chief among ten thousand. Now I see the meaning of that word, “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

“This is the thankful glass,

That mends the looker’s eyes; this is the well

That washes what it shows.”

Surely this is the mirror that Mercy, in “The Pilgrim’s Progress, “longed for. Does not Master Bunyan say of it, “Now the glass was one of a thousand. It would present a man one way, with his own features exactly; and turning it another way it would show one the very face and similitude of the Prince of Pilgrims himself. Yea, I have talked with them that can tell, and they have said that they have seen the very crown of thorns upon his head, by looking in that glass. They have therein also seen the holes in his hands, in his feet, and his side”?

A man looks into the law of liberty, and he sees all perfection in Christ: he looks and looks till, by a strange miracle of grace, his own image dissolves into the image of Jesus. Surely this is a thing worth looking into, and infinitely superior to any looking into a glass merely to see yourselves. We are compelled to say, “Come, see a Word which tells me all things that ever I did: did not this come from God?” Nay, more; we said this at first, but now we see Jesus, and we cry, “Come, see a Man that told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?”

He that looks into the perfect law of liberty will not only see Christ, but he will begin to see the Eternal Spirit of God bearing witness with that law of liberty, and operating by that witness upon his own soul. “Oh,” saith he, “this is a blessed law indeed now, for I have it written upon the prepared tablets of my heart!” What a sight is that which lets us see the Holy Spirit working in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure, and making us conformable to the law of his own declaring!

Ay, and he that looks into that perfect law will, by-and-by, see God the Father; for the pure in heart shall see God. Those who love and live the law of God become like unto God, they are “imitators of God as dear children.” They that are familiar with God’s will, and love it, and study it, gradually receive the likeness of God their Father till they are called the children of God. Thus the sacred Trinity are seen and known by those who do the will of the Father in heaven. Is not this a joy, to have our fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ? Oh, to prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God!

Dear friends, I cannot speak to you as I should like this morning; my theme masters me. I cannot make you see all that I see myself; but you must look into it for yourselves in the light of God. Look, and look again, till what you see in the Word is also to be seen in yourself. Transformation of character will follow upon meditation upon the truth of God, by the blessing of the Holy Ghost.

Note carefully that our text says, “he continues,”-“whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth.” Our translators insert the word “therein”; but it is not in the Greek text. “And continueth”; that is, he continues to meditate in the law, and he continues to own his allegiance to it. The law of the Lord is always law to him. He also continues to practise it: he does not begin and then turn aside, but he continues to make advances in holy living and gracious conformity to the Lord’s statutes, and he continues by a final perseverance to follow on. This is the hearer that shall win the blessing: not you who make a profession one day, and then disgrace it the next; not you who are all hot for Christ to-day and lukewarm tomorrow. The man who obtains the blessing of the Lord is by God’s grace made to continue in it. I have heard of a famous King of Poland, who did brave deeds in his day, and confessed that he owed his excellent character to a secret habit which he had formed. He was the son of a noble father, and he carried with him a miniature portrait of this father, and often looked upon it. Whenever he went to battle he would look upon the picture of his father, and nerve himself to valour. When he sat in the council-chamber he would secretly look upon the image of his father, and behave himself right royally; for he said, “I will do nothing that can dishonour my father’s name.” Now, this is the grand thing for a Christian to do: to carry about with him the will of God in his heart, and then in every action to consult that will. We ought to ask:-What shall I do, as a child of God? What course shall I follow as a man of God, bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ? It is thought by some that you cannot continue always in the will of God: they dream that you are to hear a sermon, and then be very pious: or go to a prayer-meeting, and then be very devout; but they think that this piety and devotion cannot remain with us all day. Brethren, we must continue in the law of the Lord, or we have no true religion. Living godliness is for the shop, and for the kitchen, and for the parlour, and for the street; it is a continuous struggle for holiness. Looking at the perfect will of God is for every day, and all the day. We are to believe for holiness; looking to the Lord to become like the Lord. I would fain have my Saviour’s image painted on my eye-balls, so that I could not see except I saw everything through him. It is well to have Christ’s portrait hung up in every chamber of your soul; I do not say of your house-that might lead to idolatry; but in every chamber of your mind and heart. I once saw a room so covered with mirrors, that when I looked I saw myself some fifteen times, certainly to my taste fourteen times too often. But oh, I would have my whole being to be such, that whenever Jesus comes into it, he may see himself everywhere-above, below, to the right, to the left, and on all sides! Oh, to have him shining even into the innermost closet of our nature, so as to have no part dark! Oh, to become new editions of the life of Christ! We would not only look into the mirror, but we would be ourselves mirrors, reflecting the beauties of the holy Lord Jesus. But remember, this must not be occasional, but continual; for the true heart continues looking into the perfect law of liberty.

To conclude: you notice how it says, “this man shall be blessed in his deed.” Mark: “this man,” “this man.” These demonstrative pronouns act like fingers. A man has gone up to the temple to pray. What a fine gentleman he is! He wears a striking phylactery between his eyes, and he boasts a broad blue hem to his garment. He is a very superior person; you can see that at a glance. He stands in a prominent place in the temple, and he most pompously cries, “God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are.” Curious that the Book does not make much account of him. But yonder is a poor weeping creature who does not dare to come into a prominent position, nor even to lift up his eyes towards heaven. Every now and then he beats upon his breast as if very much depressed. At last he cries, “God be merciful to me a sinner!” See, the Saviour points out the publican and says, “this man,-this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.” He lays his hand on him as one near to him, and says, “this man.” In my text there is a person who has seen himself in the glass, and he has gone his way; but we need not mind about him, he is of no account. But here is a man who has been looking into the law, and has continued to look into it, and the Holy Spirit has selected him from all others, and marked him as “this man.” This man is blessed. Perhaps he does not wear the best broad-cloth, perhaps he is arrayed in a fustian jacket; but he is selected and distinguished as “this man.” Perhaps he has received no elaborate education: you will not see him at the Athenaeum, or hear him discussing Evolution with the learned; yet he is “this man.” “This man,” says the text, “is blessed.” Where is this man? Where is this woman? Judge whether you are the persons thus called and chosen; whether you are abiding in love to that law, which has won your heart.

“This man shall be blessed in his deed.” “Oh,” saith one, “I do not see the blessedness of true religion!” No, my friend, you are not likely to see it, because you do not do it. This man is blessed “in his deed.” “In keeping his commandments there is great reward.” Much of the blessedness of godliness lies in the practice of godliness. Not in consideration of doctrine, but in obedience to precept the blessing lies. “This man shall be blessed in his deed.” In the very act of serving his Lord and Master he shall be blessed; not for it but in it. The doing of the obedient deed is the evidence that God has blessed the doer from before the foundation of the world. His practical godliness is the evidence of his election; his actual holiness is the evidence of his redemption; his keeping close to the will of God is the evidence of his adoption. Holiness is the witness that its possessor shall be blessed in the day when Christ shall glorify his people.

You who do not get a blessing by hearing the gospel may now see why it is so. You glance into a looking-glass, and that is all. Much good may it do you! After having seen your pretty selves you go your ways into the world to live as you lived before, and therefore you get no blessing. If you had gone to the divine law, that heavenly mirror of the will and mind of the Most High, it had been better for you. If, instead of making the Word a mirror to look at, you had made it a window to look through, and you had seen God in Christ, and perfect holiness in him, and had put your trust in Jesus, he would have given you a higher and better life, so that you would have become like to Jesus. Then you would have been blessed in your deed. Behold I set before you this morning, as they did of old upon Ebal and Gerizim, blessing and curse-the curse for those who peep into the looking-glass, but do no more; the blessing for those who attentively look into the perfect law of liberty, and continue so to do, till they are transformed into the image of the Lord! Which shall it be? May God the Eternal Spirit decide that question by leading you now solemnly, seriously, earnestly, to close in with Christ and his perfect law of liberty, and to him be glory for ever and ever! Amen and amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon.-Matthew 7:13-29.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn-Book”-132, 641, 459.