This was a very brave, outspoken confession of faith. Please to notice that it was made by a woman, a young woman, a poor woman, a widow woman, and a foreigner. Remembering all that, I should think there is no condition of gentleness, or of obscurity, or of poverty, or of sorrow, which should prevent anybody from making an open confession of allegiance to God when faith in the Lord Jesus Christ has been exercised. If that is your experience, my dear friend, then whoever you may be, you will find an opportunity, somewhere or other, of declaring that you are on the Lord’s side. I am glad that all candidates for membership in our church make their confession of faith at our church-meetings. I have been told that such an ordeal must keep a great many from joining us; yet I notice that, where there is no such ordeal, they often have very few members, but here are we with five thousand six hundred, or thereabouts, in church-fellowship, and very seldom, if ever, finding anybody kept back by having to make an open confession of faith in Christ. It does the man, the woman, the boy, or the girl, whoever it is, so much good for once, at least, to say right out straight, “I am a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I am not ashamed of it,” that I do not think we shall ever deviate from our custom. I have also noticed that, when people have once confessed Christ before men, they are very apt to do it again somewhere else; and they thus acquire a kind of boldness and outspokenness upon religious matters, and a holy courage as followers of Christ, which more than make up for any self-denial and trembling which the effort may have cost them.

I think Naomi was quite right to drive Ruth, as it were, to take this brave stand, in which it became an absolute necessity for her to speak right straight out, and say, in the words of our text, “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” What is there for any of us to be ashamed of in acknowledging that we belong to the Lord Jesus Christ? What can there be that should cause us to be ashamed of Jesus, or make us blush to own his name?

“Ashamed of Jesus! that dear Friend

On whom my hopes of heaven depend!

No: when I blush, be this my shame,

That I no more revere his name.”

We ought to be ashamed of being ashamed of Jesus; we ought to be afraid of being afraid to own him; we ought to tremble at trembling to confess him, and to resolve that we will take all suitable opportunities that we can find of saying, first to relatives, and then to all others with whom we come into contact, “We serve the Lord Christ.”

I should think that Naomi was-certainly she ought to have been-greatly cheered by hearing this declaration from Ruth, especially the last part of it: “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” Naomi had suffered great temporal loss; she had lost her husband and her two sons; but now she had found the soul of her daughter-in-law; and I believe that, according to the scales of true judgment, there ought to have been more joy in her heart at the conversion of Ruth’s soul than grief over the death of her husband and her sons. Our Lord Jesus has told us that “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth;” and I always understand, by that expression, that there is joy in the heart of God himself over every sinner’s repentance. Well, then, if Naomi’s husband and sons were true believers,-if they had been walking aright before the Lord,-as, let us hope, they had done, she need not have felt such sorrow for them as could at all compare with the joy of her daughter-in-law being saved.

Perhaps, some of you, dear friends, have had bereavements in your homes; but if the death-the temporal death-of one should be the means of the spiritual life of another, there is a clear gain, I am sure there is; and though you may have gone weeping to the grave, yet, if you have evidence that, with those tears, there were also tears of repentance on the part of others of your family, and with that sad glance into the grave there was also a believing look at the dying, risen, and living Saviour, you are decidedly a gainer, and you need not say, with Naomi, “I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty.” Really Naomi, with her converted daughter-in-law at her side, if she had only been able to look into the future, might have been a happier woman than when she went away with her husband and her boys, for now she had with her one who was to be in the direct line of the progenitors of Christ,-a right royal woman; for I count that the line of Christ is the true imperial line, and that they were the most highly honoured among men and women who were in any way associated with the birth of the Saviour into this world; and Ruth, though a Moabitess, was one of those who were elected to share in this high privilege. So I beg you, if you have been sorrowful because of any deaths in your family circle, to pray God to outweigh that sorrow with a greater measure of joy because, by his grace, he has brought other members of your family to trust in Jesus.

Another thought strikes me here; that is, that it was when Naomi returned to the land which she ought never to have left, it was when she came out from the idolatrous Moabites among whom she had, as you see, relatives, and friends, and acquaintances,-it was when she said, “I will go back to my own country, and people, and God,”-that then the Lord gave her the soul of this young woman who was so closely related to her. It may be that some of you professedly Christian people have been living at a distance from God. You have not led the separated life; you have tried to be friendly with the world as well as with Christ, and your children are not growing up as you wish they would. You say that your sons are not turning out well, and that your girls are dressy, and flighty, and worldly. Do you wonder that it is so? “Oh!” you say, “I have gone a good way to try to please them, thinking that, perhaps, by so doing, I might win them for Christ.” Ah! you will never win any soul to the right by a compromise with the wrong. It is decision for Christ and his truth that has the greatest power in the family, and the greatest power in the world, too. If a soldier in the barracks is converted, and he says, “I mean to be a Christian; but, at the same time, I will join with the other men as much as I can; I will sometimes step into the public-house with them,” and so forth, he will do no good. But the moment he boldly takes his stand for his new Captain, and is known to be a Christian, his comrades may begin to scoff at him, but they will also begin to be impressed; and if he bravely maintains that stand, and never gives way in the least degree, but is faithful to his Lord and Master, then he will be likely to see conversions among his fellow-soldiers.

It was while Naomi was on her way back to her own land that she heard the good news that her dear daughter-in-law had decided to be a follower of Jehovah, and to say, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” This gave her great joy; but how must some of you Christian people feel when you find out that others have been caused to stumble through your living at a distance from Christ? What pangs of-remorse will seize you when you discover that your arm has been paralyzed for good, that you have been unable to lead others to the Saviour, because you yourself were living so far off from him that it was a serious question whether you were not growing to be a worshipper of the Moabitish idols, and giving up altogether your profession of being a follower of the one true God!

Now, with this as a preface, I come distinctly to the subject of the text. Here is a young woman who says to a follower of Jehovah, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”

My first observation is, that affection for the godly should influence us to godliness.

It did so in this case. Affection for their godly mother-in-law influenced both Orpah and Ruth for a time, “and they said unto her, Surely we will return with thee unto thy people.” They were both drawn part of the way towards Canaan; but, alas! natural affection has not sufficient power in itself to draw anybody to decision for God. It may be helpful to that end; it may be one of the “cords of a man” and “bands of love” which God, in his infinite mercy, often uses in drawing sinners to himself; but there has to be something more than that mere human affection. Still, it ought to be of some service in leading to decision; and it is a very dreadful thing when those who have godly parents seem to be the worse rather than the better for that fact, or when men, who have Christian wives, rebel against the light, and become all the more wicked because God has blessed their homes with godly women who speak to them, lovingly and tenderly, concerning the claims of the religion of Jesus. That is a terrible state of affairs, for it ought always to be the case that our affection for godly people should help to draw us towards godliness. In Ruth’s case, by the grace of God, it was the means of leading her to the decision expressed in our text, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”

Many forces may be combined to bring others to this decision. First, there is the influence of companionship. Nobody doubts that evil company tends to make a man bad, and it is equally sure that good companionship has a tendency to influence men towards that which is good. It is a happy thing to have side by side with you one whose heart is full of love to God. It is a great blessing to have as a mother a true saint, or to have as a brother or a sister one who fears the Lord; and it is a special privilege to be linked for life, in the closest bonds, with one whose prayers may rise with ours, and whose praises may also mingle with ours. There is something about Christian companionship which must tell in the right direction unless the heart be resolutely bent on mischief.

There is something more than this, however, and that is, the influence of admiration. There can be no doubt whatever that Ruth looked with loving reverence and admiration upon Naomi, for she saw in her a character which won her heart’s esteem and affection. The few glimpses which we have of that godly woman, in this Book of Ruth, show us that she was a most disinterested and unselfish person, not one who, because of her own great sorrow, would burden others with it, and pull them down to her own level in order that they might in some way assist her. She was one who considered the interests of others rather than her own; and all such persons are sure to win admiration and esteem. When a Christian man so lives that others see something about him which they do not perceive in themselves, that is one way in which they are often attracted towards the Christian life. When the sick Christian is patient, when the poor Christian is cheerful, when the believer in Christ is forgiving, generous, tenderhearted, sympathetic, honest, upright, then it is that observers say, “Here is something worth looking at; whence came all this excellence?” And they take knowledge of them that they have been with Jesus, and that they have learnt these things of him; and in that way they are themselves inclined to become his followers.

Nor is it only by companionship and admiration that people are won to the Saviour; there is also the influence of instruction. I have no doubt that Naomi gave her daughter-in-law much helpful teaching. Ruth would want to know about Naomi’s God, and Naomi would be only too glad to tell her all she knew. When the Spaniards went over to South America, they treated the poor natives so badly that the Indians did not wish to know anything about the Spaniards’ god, for they thought, from the cruelties they had suffered, that he must be a devil; and there are certain sorts of professors who are so unkind, they have such an absence of everything gentle and generous about them, that one does not want to know anything about their god, for if they are like him, probably he is the devil.

But, dear friends, it ought not to be so with us. We should make people want to know what our religion really is, and then be ready to tell them. I have no doubt that, many a time, in the land of Moab, when her daughters-in-law ran in to see her, Naomi would begin telling them about the deliverance at the Red Sea, and how the Lord brought his people through the wilderness, and how the goodly land, which flowed with milk and honey, had been given to them by the hand of Joshua. Then she would tell them about the tabernacle and its worship, and talk to them about the lamb, and the red heifer, and the bullock, and the sin-offering, and so on; and it was thus, probably, that Ruth’s heart had been won to Jehovah the God of Israel. And, perhaps, for that reason,-because of Naomi’s instruction,-Ruth said to her, “ ‘Thy people shall be my people;’ I know so much about them, that I want to be numbered with them; ‘and thy God shall be my God.’ Thou hast told me about him, what wonders he has wrought, and I have resolved to trust myself under the shadow of his wings.” Well, beloved, it ought to be thus with us also. We should take care that the influence of our companionship, the influence of our lives, in which there should be something for observers to admire, and the influence of our conversation, which should be full of gracious instruction, should lead those who come under our influence in the right way.

Besides that, I have no doubt that some persons are drawn towards good things by a desire to cheer the godly persons whom they love; and, though I do not put this forward as one of the highest and strongest motives, yet I do feel at liberty to suggest to some young people here that their sins are a great grief to their loving fathers and mothers, and that, if their hearts were given to Christ, it would fill the whole house with holy joy. It was a great joy to me when my sons were born, but it was an infinitely surpassing joy as, one after the other, they told me that they had sought and found the Saviour. To pray with them, to point them yet more fully to Christ, to hear the story of their spiritual troubles, and to help them out of their spiritual difficulties, was an intense satisfaction to my soul. Ah! my young friends, you do not know how much those who love you would be cheered if you were converted,-especially any of you who have not lived as you should have done,-who have, perhaps, even gone away from home, and acted in a way that might well bring your father’s grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. I think that he would almost dance with delight if he could only hear that you were truly converted to God. I know a minister, who took out of his pocket an old letter that was nearly worn to pieces; he made a journey from the country to bring it up for me to see. It was not really old, it was worn out because he had so constantly taken it out to read. It was somewhat to this effect. His son had been such a scapegrace, and such a disgrace to his family, that he was helped to go abroad, and he came to London to join the ship. As he had heard his father speak of me, he thought that he would spend his last Thursday night, before starting on the Friday morning, in hearing me in this Tabernacle; and here God met with him, for I was moved by the Holy Spirit to say, “Here you are, Jack; going away from home, from your father’s house. Oh, that the great Father in heaven would take you to himself!” It happened that his name was Jack, so it was the very word for him, and the Lord blessed it to him there and then. He went to America. He did not write to his father to tell him about his conversion till he had had time to prove the reality of it; but when he had been baptized, and had joined the church, and walked consistently for six months, he sent the good news home. The old man said, “I thought he might have been lost at sea, but the Lord had saved him through your preaching. God bless you, sir!” I had a thousand blessings heaped upon my head by that grateful father. It was only a simple sermon that I had preached on a Thursday night, but it was the means of that son’s conversion, and it was the source of great joy to that father. He did not mind about his son being in America, or what he was doing, so long as he had become a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. What a mercy it would be if this sermon should be blessed as that one was!

I think, too, that there was another thing which had great influence over Ruth, as it has had over a great many other people. That is, the fear of separation. “Ah!” said one to me, only last week, “it used to trouble me greatly when my wife went downstairs to the communion, and I had to go home, or to remain with the spectators in the gallery. I did not like to be separated from her even here; and then, sir, the thought stole over me, ‘What if I have to be divided from her for ever and ever?’ ” I think that a similar reflection ought, with the blessing of God, to impress a good many. Young man, if you live and die impenitent, you will see your mother no more, except it be from an awful distance, with a great gulf fixed between her and you, so that she cannot cross over to you, or you go over to her. There will come a day when one shall be taken and another left; and before the great separation takes place, at the judgment-seat of Christ, when there shall be a sundering made between the goats and the sheep, and between the tares and the wheat, I do implore you to let the influence of the godly whom you love help to draw you towards decision for God and his Christ.

My time would fail me if I dwelt longer on this point, though it is a very interesting one, so I must pass on to my second observation, which is, that resolves to godliness will be tested. Ruth speaks very positively: “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” This was her resolve, but it was a resolve which had already been put to the test, and had in great measure satisfactorily passed through it.

First, it had been tested by the poverty and the sorrow of her mother-in-law. Naomi said, “The Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me;” yet Ruth says, “Thy God shall be my God.” I like that brave resolution of the young Moabitess. Some people say, “We should like to be converted, for we want to be happy.” Yes, but suppose you knew that you would not be happy after conversion, you ought still to wish to have this God to be your God. Naomi has lost her husband, she has lost her sons, she has lost everything; she is going back penniless to Bethlehem, and yet her daughter-in-law says to her, “Thy God shall be my God.” Oh, dear friends, if you can share the lot of Christians when they are in trouble, if you can take God and affliction, if you can accept Christ and a cross, then your decision to be his follower is true and real. It has been tested by the afflictions and the trials which you know belong to the people of God, yet you are content to suffer with them in taking their God to be your God, too.

Next, Ruth’s decision had been tested when she was bidden to count the cost. Naomi had put the whole case before her. She had told her daughter-in-law that there was no hope that she should ever bear a son who could become a husband to Ruth, and that she had better stay and find a husband in her own land. She set before her the dark side of the case,-possibly too earnestly. She seemed as if she wanted to persuade her to go back, though I do not think that, in her heart, she could really have wished her to do so. But, my young friend, before you say to any Christian, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God,” count the cost. Recollect, if you are following an evil trade, you will have to give it up; if you have formed bad habits, you will have to forsake them; and if you have had bad companions, you will have to leave them. There are a great many things, which have afforded you pleasure, which must become painful to you, and must be renounced. Are you prepared to follow Christ through the mire and the slough, as well as along the high road, and down in the valley as well as up upon the hills? Are you ready to carry his cross as you hope, afterwards, to share his crown? If you can stand the test in detail,-such a test as Christ set before those who wanted to be his followers on earth, then is your decision a right one, but not else.

Ruth had been tried, too, by the apparent coldness of one in whom she trusted, and whom she had a right to trust, for Naomi did not at all encourage her; indeed, she seemed to discourage her. I am not sure that Naomi is to be blamed for that, and I am not certain that she is to be much praised. You know, it is quite possible for you to encourage people too much. I have known some encouraged in their doubts and fears till they never could get out of them. At the same time, you can certainly very easily chill enquirers and seekers. And though Naomi showed her love to Ruth, yet she did not seem to have any very great desire to bring her to follow Jehovah. This is a test that many young people find to be very trying; but this young woman said to her mother-in-law, “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”

Another trial for Ruth was the drawing back of her sister-in-law. Orpah kissed Naomi, and left her; and you know the influence of one young person upon another when they are of the same age, or when they are related as these two were. You went to the revival meeting with a friend, and she was as much impressed as you were. She has gone back to the world, and the temptation is for you to do the same. Can you stand out against it? You two young men went to hear the same preacher, and you both felt the force of the Word; but your companion has gone back to where he used to be. Can you hold out now, and say, “I will follow Christ alone if I cannot find a companion to go with me”? If so, it is well with you.

“Can ye cleave to your Lord? Can ye cleave to your Lord,

When the many turn aside?

Can ye witness he hath the living Word,

And none upon earth beside?

And can ye endure with the virgin band,

The lowly and pure in heart,

Who, whithersoever the Lamb doth lead,

From his footsteps ne’er depart?

“Do ye answer, ‘We can’? Do ye answer, ‘We can,

Through his love’s constraining power’?

But, ah! remember the flesh is weak,

And will shrink in the trial-hour.

Yet yield to his love, who round you now,

The bands of a man would cast;

The cords of his love, who was given for you,

To the altar binding you fast.

But one of the worst trials that Ruth had was the silence of Naomi. I think that is what is meant, for after she had solemnly declared that she would follow the Lord, we read, “When she saw that she was stedfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her.” She left off stating the black side of the case, but she does not appear to have talked to her about the bright side. “She left speaking unto her.” The good woman was so sorrowful that she could not talk, her heart-break was so great that she could not converse, but such silence must have been very trying to Ruth; and when a young person has just joined the people of God, it is a severe test to be brought face to face with a very mournful Christian, and not to get one encouraging word. Sometimes, brethren and sisters, we must swallow our own bitter pills as fast as ever we can, that we may not discourage others by making a wry face over them. It is sometimes the very best thing a sorrowful person can do to say, “I must not be sad; here is young So-and-so coming in. I must be cheerful now, for here comes one who might be discouraged by my grief.” You remember how the psalmist, when he was in a very mournful state of mind, said, “If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me.” Let it be too painful for us to give any cause for stumbling or disquietude to those who have just come to the Saviour, but let us cheer and encourage them all we can. Still, Naomi’s silence did not discourage Ruth; she was evidently a strong-minded though gentle young woman, and she gave herself up to God and his people without any reserve. Even though she might not be helped much by the older believer, and might even be discouraged by her, and still more by the departure of her sister-in-law Orpah, yet still she pressed on in the course she had chosen. Well, you do the same, Mary; and you, Jane, and John, and Thomas. Will you be like Mr. Pliable, and go back to the City of Destruction? Or will you, like Christian, pursue your way, and steadfastly hold on through the Slough of Despond, or whatever else may be in your pathway to the Celestial City?

Now, thirdly, and very briefly, true godliness must mainly lie in the choice of God. That is the very pith of the text: “Thy God shall be my God.”

First, dear friends, God is the believer’s choicest possession; indeed, it is the distinguishing mark of a Christian that he owns a God. Naomi had not much else,-no husband, no son, no lands, no gold, no silver, no pleasure even; but she had a God. Come, now, my friend, are you determined that, henceforth, and for ever, the Lord shall be your chief possession? Can you say, “God shall be mine; my faith shall grasp him now, and hold him fast”?

Next, God was, henceforth, to Ruth, as he had been to Naomi, her Ruler and Law-giver. When anyone truthfully says, “God shall be my God,” there is some practical meaning about that declaration; it means, “He shall influence me; he shall direct me; he shall lead me; he shall govern me; he shall be my King. I will yield to him and obey him in everything. I will endeavour to do all things according to his will. God shall be my God.” You must not want to take God to be your helper, in the sense of making him to be your servant; but to be your Master, and so to help you. Dear friends, does the Holy Spirit lead you to make this blessed choice, and to declare, “This God shall be mine, my Law-giver and Ruler from this time forth”?

Well, then, he must also be your Instructor. At the present day, I am afraid that nine people out of ten do not believe in the God who is revealed to us in the Bible. “What?” you say. It is so, I grieve to say. I can point you to newspapers, to magazines, to periodicals, and also to pulpits by the score, in which there is a new god set up to be worshipped;-not the God of the Old Testament, he is said to be too strict, too severe, too stern for our modern teachers. They do not believe in him. The God of Abraham is dethroned by many nowadays; and in his place they have a molluscous god, like those of whom Moses spoke, “new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.” They shudder at the very mention of the God of the Puritans. If Jonathan Edwards were to rise from the dead, they would not listen to him for a minute, they would say that they had quite a new god since his day; but, brethren, I believe in the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob; this God is my God;-ay, the God that drowned Pharaoh and his host at the Red Sea, and moved his people to sing “Hallelujah” as he did it; the God that caused the earth to open, and swallow up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and all their company;-a terrible God is the God whom I adore;-he is the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, full of mercy, compassion, and grace, tender and gentle, yet just and dreadful in his holiness, and terrible out of his holy places. This is the God whom we worship, and he who comes to him in Christ, and trusts in him, will take him to be his Instructor, and so shall he learn aright all that he needs to know. But woe unto the men of this day, who have made unto themselves a calf of their own devising, which has no power to bless or to save them! “Thy God” says Ruth to Naomi,-not another god,-not Chemosh or Moloch, but Jehovah-“shall be my God;” and so she took him to be her Instructor, as we also must do.

Then, let us take him to be our entire trust and stay. O my beloved friends, the happiest thing in life is to trust God,-first to trust him with your soul through Jesus Christ the Saviour, and then to trust him with everything, and in everything. I am speaking what I do know. The life of sense is death, but the life of faith is life indeed. Trust God about temporals,-nay, I do not know any division between temporals and spirituals;-trust God about everything, about your daily livelihood, about your health, about your wife, about your children; live a life of faith in God, and you will truly live, and all things will be right about you. It is because we get partly trusting God and partly trusting ourselves that we are often so unhappy. But when, by simple faith, you just cast yourselves on God, then you find the highest joy and bliss that is possible on earth, and a whole series of wonders is spread out before you; your life becomes like a miracle, or a succession of miracles, God hearing your prayers, and answering you out of heaven, delivering you in the time of trial, supplying your every need, and leading you ever onward by a matchless way which you know not, which every moment shall cause you greater astonishment and delight as you see the unfoldings of the character of God. Oh, that each one of you would say, “This God shall be my God; I will trust him; by his grace, I will trust him now.”

The last thing is, that this decision should lead us to cast in our lot with God’s people as well as with himself, for Ruth said, “Thy people shall be my people.”

She might have said, “You are not well spoken of, you Jews, you Israelites; the Moabites, among whom I have lived, hate you.” But, in effect, she said, “I am no Moabitess now. I am going to belong to Israel, and to be spoken against, too. They have all manner of bad things to say in Moab about Bethlehem-Judah; but I do not mind that, for I am going to be henceforth an inhabitant of Bethlehem, and to be reckoned in the number of the Bethlehemites, for no longer am I of Moab and the Moabites.”

Now, dear friend, will you thus cast in your lot with God’s people; and though they are spoken against, will you be willing to be spoken against, too? I daresay that the Bethlehemites were not all that Ruth could have wished them to be. Even Naomi was not; she was too sad and sorrowful; but, still, I expect that Ruth thought that her mother-in-law was a better woman than she was herself. I have heard people find fault with the members of our churches, and say that they cannot join with them, for they are such inferior sort of people. Well, I know a great many different sorts of people; and, after all, I shall be quite content to be numbered with God’s people, as I see them even in his visible church, rather than to be numbered with any other persons in the whole world. I count the despised people of God the best company I have ever met with; and I often say of this Tabernacle, as I hope members of other churches can say of their own places of worship,-

“Here my best friends, my kindred dwell,

Here God my Saviour reigns.”

“Oh!” says one, “I will join the church when I can find a perfect one.” Then you will never join any. “Ah!” you say, “but perhaps I may.” Well, but it will not be a perfect church the moment after you have joined it, for it will cease to be perfect as soon as it receives you into its membership. I think that, if a church is such as Christ can love, it is such as I can love; and if it is such that Christ counts it as his Church, I may well be thankful to be a member of it. Christ “loved the Church, and gave himself for it;” then may I not think it an honour to be allowed to give myself to it?

Ruth was not joining a people out of whom she expected to get much. Shame on those who think to join the church for what they can get! Yet the loaves and fishes are always a bait for some people. But there was Ruth, going with Naomi to Bethlehem, and all that the townsfolk would do would be to turn out and stare at them, and say, “Is this Naomi? And pray who is this young woman that has come with her? This Naomi,-dear me! How altered she is! How worn she looks! Quite the old woman to what she was when she left us.” Not much sympathy was given to them, as far as I gather from that remark; yet Ruth seemed to say, “I do not care how they treat me; they are God’s people, even if they have a great many faults and imperfections, and I am going to join them.” And I invite all of you who can say to us, “Your God is our God,” to join with the people of God, openly, visibly, manifestly, decidedly, without any hesitancy, even though you may gain nothing by it. Perhaps you will not; but, on the other hand, you will bring a good deal to it, for that is the true spirit of Christ. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Yet, in any case, cast in your lot with the people of God, and share and share alike with them.

I conclude by saying that, whatever the other Bethlehemites might be, there was among them one notable being, and it was worth while to join the nation for the sake of union with him. Ruth found it all out by degrees. There was a near kinsman among those people, and his name was Boaz. She went to glean in his field; and, by-and-by, she was married to him. Ah! that was the reason why I cast in my lot with the people of God, for I said to myself, “There is One among them who, whatever faults they may have, is so fair and lovely that he more than makes up for all their imperfections. My Lord Jesus Christ, in the midst of his people, makes them all fair in his fairness; and makes me feel that, to be poor with the poorest and most illiterate of the Church of Christ, meeting in a village barn, is an unspeakable honour, since he is among them.” Our Lord Jesus Christ himself is always present wherever two or three are gathered together in his name. If his name is in the list, there may be a number of odds and ends put down with him,-members of different denominations, some queer persons, some very old people; but as long as his name is in the list, I do not mind about what others are there, put my name down. Oh, that I might have the eternal honour of having it written even at the bottom of the page beneath the name of Jesus, my Lord, the Lamb! As Boaz was there, it was enough for Ruth; and as Christ is here, that is quite enough for me. So I hope I have said sufficient to persuade you, who say that our God is your God, to come and join with us, or with some other part of Christ’s Church, and so to make his people to be your people. And mind you do it at once, and in the Scriptural fashion, and God bless you in the doing of it, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-73 (Part II.), 660, 658.

COVENANT BLESSINGS

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, July 1st, 1900, delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at new park street chapel, southwark,

On a Thursday Evening, in the summer of 1858.

“He hath given meat unto them that fear him: he will ever be mindful of his covenant.”-Psalm 111:5.

This verse occurs in one of the Hallelujah Psalms, that is, those commencing with “Praise ye the Lord.” We often find the psalmist praising and extolling God; let us imitate his example. Let us do so, because we shall find it very pleasant and profitable, and because, also, it is our bounden duty. One of the highest exercises of the new life is praising God. Our doubts and fears are indications of life, for the dead man neither doubteth nor feareth. But our songs of praise are far higher demonstrations of the life within, and are more worthy fruits of a soil which has been the subject of God’s husbandry, which has been ploughed by the agonies of the Saviour, and made fertile through his precious blood. My brethren, our life should be one continued psalm, with here and there a note descending very deep. Yet we should always seek to sing as we live. The stars sing as they shine, and they sing by shining. Let us sing whilst we live, and live by singing; and let our life be singing one great psalm perpetually.

There are many ways of praising God. We should do it with the lip; and grateful is the voice of song in the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth. We should do it by our daily conversation; let our acts be acts of praise, as well as our words be words of praise. We should do it even by the very look of our eyes, and by the appearance of our countenance. Let not thy face be sad, let thy countenance be joyous. Sing wherever thou goest; yea, when thou art laden with trouble, let no man see it. “Thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face.” Be thou ever glad, for it is God’s commandment, through his servant, the apostle Paul, “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.” And yet once more he saith, “Rejoice evermore.” That we may have themes for song, David has in this Psalm mentioned many subjects. Let us attend to the subjects of the text,-the subject, I might have said, for it is all one. This verse is the voice of experience. It is not the voice of hope, saying, “He will give;” but the voice of experience, “He hath given meat unto them that fear him;” and the voice of faith, “He will ever be mindful of his covenant.”

We shall notice, first of all, the gift: “He hath given meat unto them that fear him;” then we shall notice the covenant: “He will ever be mindful of his covenant;” and then, lastly, the character of the persons here spoken of: “He hath given meat unto them that fear him.”

Let us first consider the gift: “He hath given meat.” We are to understand this expression, of course in a twofold sense, of our necessities; the first, temporal, the other, spiritual.

First, we are to understand this expression in a temporal sense. Our bodies need meat; we cannot keep this mortal fabric in repair without continually providing it with food. God’s children are not, by the fact of their being spiritual men, prevented from feeling natural wants; they hunger and they thirst even as do others. Sometimes, too, they are even called to suffer poverty, and know not where their next morsel of meat shall come from. Blessed be God,-

“He that has made our heaven secure

Will here all good provide;”-

and God’s covenant relates not merely to the great and marvellous things that we need spiritually, but it is a covenant which includes in the catalogue of its gifts mercies that are food for the body, mercies for our immediate and pressing wants: “He hath given meat unto them that fear him.” God has never suffered his people to starve. “The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.” The promise is as true under the new covenant as under the old, that our bread shall be given us, and our water shall be sure. The Lord, who feeds the ravens, will not be less careful of his people; he who supplies every insect with its food, and feeds the prowling lion in his majesty, will not suffer his own home-born children, those who are nearest his heart, to perish for lack of nutriment. “The cattle on a thousand hills are his;” so he will not allow his children to lack for their meat. He it is to whom the earth belongeth, and the fulness thereof; he will not, then, suffer his children to go without necessary supplies: “He hath given meat unto them that fear him.”

Some of us are qualified to speak from experience upon this point. We may truly say that God has ever given us our meat; indeed, we have not lacked anything. Hitherto, the road has been to us like that of the Israelites when they came to the camp of the Syrians, and found the way strewn with gold, and silver, and garments. God has provided for our wants even before they have come; he has anticipated our necessities. But there are others of you who have been brought so low by poverty and affliction that you are qualified to speak in a still more emphatic fashion. You have sometimes gone, with a hungry stomach, to an empty cupboard; you have wondered where your supplies would come from; you may even have been houseless and homeless. But ah, children of the living God, has he failed you utterly? Though he has reduced you very low, so that the last morsel was eaten from the wallet, has he not ultimately supplied your wants, and that, too, by means not miraculous, but almost so? Has he not in providence sent you things which you needed, and which you scarcely expected to receive? In answer to prayer, has he not delivered you out of your deepest tribulations? And when you were well-nigh famished, has he not spread your board with plenty when you have bent your knees before him? Yes, ye tried ones, ye have tested this text, and have proved it true. Ye sons of poverty and toil, ye have had to rest the whole weight of your daily maintenance on the promise of God, without anything to look to save that; and have you ever found him fail? No; you will unanimously bear witness that this is a great truth, “He hath given meat unto them that fear him.”

But it is surprising, sometimes, how God has done it. Many a story have I heard, from the poor amongst my own flock, of how God has delivered them,-strange stories, at which some of you would laugh if I were to repeat them. There are some of them who could write “Banks of Faith” that would be as wonderful as that of William Huntington. Some of you laugh at that book, and do not believe it; but it is only because there are so many things of the same sort all put together that they seem to be incredible through their number. But there are many of the Lord’s servants who could easily compose a “Bank of Faith” like Huntington’s, for they have had their necessities most deep and their sorrows most poignant, and they have had their reliefs well-nigh miraculous, so that, if God had thrust his hand out of the clouds, and handed down bread and clothing for them, their deliverance would not have been more apparently from his hand than it has been in the way whereby his providence has supplied their wants. They can say that he hath done it, and he hath done it marvellously, and constantly, too: “He hath given meat unto them that fear him.” Why, if the child of God were in such a position that the earth could not yield him bread, God would open the windows of heaven, and rain manna from thence again. If a Christian could be placed in such a position that the common course of providence could not serve his end, God would change the nature of everything rather than break his promise; he would reverse all the seasons, and unloose the very bonds of creation itself, and let the laws of nature run riot, rather than suffer one of his promises to fail, or one of his children to lack. “He hath given meat”-and he will ever do so-“unto them that fear him.”

But we are to understand this expression chiefly in a spiritual sense. God’s people need spiritual meat. I was talking, the other day, to a minister, who certainly is not noted for his great soundness in the faith. He was making a joke to me about certain people in his congregation, who said they could not feed under him. “There is Mrs. So-and-so,” he said, “who tells me that she cannot get a bit of food out of my ministry. I do not know how it is,” he continued, jocularly, “for I do not think you say half as many good things as I do; but yet the old woman cannot feed upon my sermons.” He laughed at the idea of feeding under a ministry, but there is a good deal more in the expression than many think; there is much meant by it that cannot be expressed by any other word. It is only the true Christian who can understand its meaning. He hears a very eloquent discourse delivered; “but,” says he, “I have got no food out of it.” Or he hears a very learned discourse; “but,” he says, “I cannot feed under that.” There is a peculiar style of preaching, and a peculiar style of hearing, which can only be described as a “feeding preaching” and a “feeding hearing”; in which the child of God feels that, though he may have learned little that is fresh, yet still his soul has been receiving spiritual food, and he can go on his way rejoicing.

And, my brethren, the house of God is one of the principal places where he feeds his people; and those to whom he has committed the solemn work of the ministry should be very careful that there is something in what they say that the child of God can feed on. The child of God can never feed under a ministry unless he hears the doctrines of grace, and listens to the things of the kingdom of God.

“Our minister preached a fine metaphysical sermon, the other day,” says one; “I never heard such a clear distinction as he made between that point and the other.” But the child of God goes out, and says, “Well, I don’t want any of his metaphysics; there was no food in the sermon for my soul. I went there to hear about the Lord Jesus Christ; I went to be taught something for my soul’s welfare, something about the heaven that is to come, or the hell that is to be shunned; I wanted to hear something about communion with Christ, something about the eternal covenant; but there was nothing of the kind in the whole discourse.” Sermons need to be instructive; there should be real teaching in them concerning the things of the kingdom. “Why,” said a good writer once, “if you were to hear six lectures by a geologist, he would be the poorest geologist in the world if he did not give you some clear ideas concerning geology; but you may hear sixty sermons from many preachers without getting any notion of their system of divinity.” It is the glory of the men of this age that they have no system of divinity; they have cast creeds to the wind; they have no forms in which they can state systematically the truths which they believe. The reason is, because they have nothing to state. No man will avoid having a system when he has certain definite principles. It is impossible for a man to believe the truths in God’s Word without insensibly to himself forming a creed of some sort or other. It is the fashion to talk about giving up creeds, but creeds are only the orderly way of stating God’s truth. If we hold the truths them selves, we shall always be able to set them out in some fashion, and to communicate our knowledge to others, so that, in a given number of discourses, our hearers will be pretty tolerably acquainted with our ideas of the truth of God. “He hath given meat unto them that fear him” under the ministry. Sometimes God gives your minister such a gift of utterance that, if he were to preach for a week, you would listen to him. There are periods when your own minister gives no food to you, though he does to others, because he has to care for different members of God’s family. But there are other periods when the Lord seems to have given him such bountiful gifts that he has let fall handfuls to be gathered by the gleaners as did the man Boaz, and you pick them up, and feast thereon, and are satisfied.

There is another way in which God gives food unto his children; that is, in the Bible. This precious volume is the greatest granary of spiritual food for God’s people. Would to God ye read it more! With your magazines, and newspapers, and tracts on this, that, and the other subject, ye have too much covered up this ancient Bible, this grand old Book, this emporium of all wisdom, this sum of all knowledge. Ay, Christian, if you want spiritual meat, study a chapter of God’s Word. If you want to have food for your souls, give up for a little while reading the works of even the best of men, and take a Psalm for the theme of your study,-or if not a whole Psalm, take one verse of it; take it for your daily meditation; masticate and digest it all day long, and so you will find meat for “them that fear him.” Let me just say a word or two of caution to you on this point. When you read the Bible, do not think that you will get spiritual food out of it simply by reading. I know some people who make a point of reading two chapters of the Bible every day. They do so as a sort of mental exercise; they simply run their eyes down the page, and, after all, do not know a word they have been reading. That is not the way to feed upon God’s Word; we cannot truly feed except we understand and believe what we read. In reading the Scripture, do as Luther advised. He says, “When I get a promise, I treat it as if it were a tree in my garden. I know there is rich fruit on it; and if I cannot at once get it, I shake the tree backwards and forwards by prayer and meditation, until at last the fruit drops into my hand.” Do you the same. Read a short portion of Scripture; turn it over and over again in your meditation all day long; and then, if you cannot get anything out of it, I will tell you a way whereby you will be sure to get something. Go down on your knees before the passage, and say, “O Lord, open this passage to me; give me something out of it; teach me to understand it;” and you will not be long before God refreshes you with dainty portions from the tables of paradise, and makes your soul glad with choice morsels of royal dainties, wherewith he feeds his own chosen ones.

But there is another way of getting spiritual meat, even when we have not our Bible with us. The Lord sometimes gives meat “unto them that fear him,” by bringing Jesus Christ home to them, without the use of the Word, simply in meditation and communion. You know, beloved, after all, that what a child of God feeds upon is Jesus Christ. When the Jews went to the temple, they did not eat the tongs and fire-shovels; they did not eat the garments of the priests, and the bells and the pomegranates; they valued all these things, for they were made according to God’s orders, and therefore they thought them precious But they did, at the appointed season, eat the paschal lamb. So the Christian does not eat the doctrines of the Word; he feeds on Christ. He loves the truth, he loves the ordinances, he loves everything in the Bible for Christ’s sake; but his food is the Lamb himself. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, is the real food for all the Lord’s chosen. And are there not most sweet and happy moments, when the spirit is carried aloft in blessed communion, when Jesus Christ seems very present and very precious, when we lean our head on his bosom, when we seem to feel the very beating of his heart, and to realize his love for us, when we lose ourselves in him, and almost forget that we have a separate existence, being-

“Plunged in his Godhead’s deepest sea,

And lost in his immensity”?

I was much struck, the other evening, at a prayer-meeting, by the prayer of one of our brethren, which came home to my heart. When he prayed, he said, “O Lord, give me Mary’s place,-

“ ‘Oh that I could for ever sit

With Mary at the Master’s feet;

Be this my happy choice:

My only care, delight, and bliss,

My joy, my heaven on earth, be this,

To hear the Bridegroom’s voice.’ ”

He prayed that he might have Mary’s part, and always sit at the feet of Jesus. But, by-and-by, the good man’s fervour increased, and in his prayer he said, “No, my Master, I have not asked enough of thee. Mary’s place is too low for me, if I may have a better one. Lift me up higher, Lord; give me John’s place.

“ ‘Oh! that I might with favoured John,

For ever lean my head upon

The bosom of my Lord.’ ”

As he pleaded for that higher degree of communion between his soul and Christ, I thought, “Surely, now you have asked enough.” But, suddenly rising another flight on the wings of communion, like the eagle taking its last soar into the skies, he said, “No, Lord, John’s place doth not suffice me. Thou hast lifted me from thy feet to thy bosom, now lift me from thy bosom to thy lips.” Then, quoting the words of the spouse, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine,” he sweetly paraphrased it thus, “Let the lip of my petitioning meet the lip of thy benediction; let the lip of my praise meet the lip of thine acceptance; so shall the kiss of love be consummated, and my joy be complete.” Ay, and when we also are favoured to go through these various stages of fellowship with Christ; to go from the foot to the bosom, and from the bosom to the lip; to go from the mere learner, and to be a friend and companion; and then to go higher still,-to be lifted up, and to feel our fellowship with Christ, by standing as high as he does, and our lips being on his lips; it is there that the child of God almost insensibly receives strength, and, like Elijah smitten by the angel, he rises up, and finds his meat baked upon the coals, and eats thereof, and lives upon it for forty days. This is indeed a most precious mode of feeding for our souls.

But, somehow or other, God doth give meat unto his children, and will never leave them to be famished. You have often noticed, I daresay, that, when one means of feeding fails for God’s children, others become available and effective. You are sick, and cannot be fed by the public ministry, you cannot go out to hear sermons; so God’s Word becomes more precious to you. Or, you have nobody to read to you, and your sight has failed; generally, then, communion becomes more precious. One way or other, God will have his children fed.

We will now consider the covenant: “He will ever be mindful of his covenant.”

God has made many covenants at divers times, and none of these covenants has he ever broken. Let me briefly mention these covenants. There was the covenant with Adam, the covenant of works: “Obey me, and thou shalt live; disobey me, and thou shalt die.” That covenant God did not break. He did not subject Adam to pain or misery until he had first broken the covenant, and so became the inevitable heir of suffering. God made a covenant with Noah that the waters should no more go over the earth; and the rainbow, the sign of that covenant, has lit up the sky ever since at various intervals, and the earth has not been drowned with a flood a second time. He made a covenant with Abraham, that he would give the land of Canaan to be the heritage of his seed; and that covenant hath he kept, neither hath he altered the thing that went out of his lips. He made a covenant with David, that his seed should sit upon his throne; and that covenant he kept.

But the covenant here referred to is a better covenant than all these, it is the covenant of grace. That is a sweet subject to preach upon. Suffer me to go back to the time when this covenant was made. It is older than the oldest things that man has ever seen; the covenant of grace is more ancient than the everlasting hills. It was made by God with Christ for us before all worlds were created. God had foreseen that man would be a sinner. Jesus Christ and his Father were determined to save him, and therefore a covenant was made between them. God the Son on his part stipulated that he would suffer all the punishment which all the elect deserved to suffer, that he would offer a perfect righteousness on their behalf, and pay all the demands of God’s justice. God the Father on his part covenanted that all the elect, being redeemed by the blood of Christ, should most certainly be accepted and saved. That is the covenant of which God is ever mindful.

Some people believe in a rickety kind of covenant, which I never could find in the Bible, a covenant that has conditions in it which you and I are to fulfil. If there was such a covenant as that, it would not be a covenant of grace, but of works. If the covenant of grace were made with men,-with those that should be saved, on condition of their believing,-it would be as impossible for any man to be saved on that condition as it would be on the condition of obeying, since faith is no more possible to unaided man than is perfect obedience. Faith in Christ is as difficult a thing, to a man dead in trespasses and sins, as is perfect obedience to every command of God. The covenant of grace is a covenant without any conditions on our part whatever, of any sort, in any shape, in any form, or any fashion. The covenant, in fact, is not made between us and God; it is made between God and Christ, our Representative. All the conditions of that covenant are fulfilled, so that there are none left for us to fulfil. The conditions were that Christ should suffer, and he has suffered; that Christ should obey, and he has obeyed. All that is done; and all that is now standing is the unconditional covenant, that God will give to all his elect, though dead in sin, power to live; that he will give to them, though black, perfect cleansing in the fountain filled with blood; that he will give to them, though naked, a robe of perfect righteousness; that he will ultimately accept them to dwell with him for ever in glory everlasting. This covenant, on which our hopes are built, this glorious covenant, is-

“Signed, and sealed, and ratified,

In all things ordered well.”

Will God ever forget it? No; “He will ever be mindful of his covenant,” in everything that it guarantees, and towards every person who is interested in it. God will not suffer one single promise of the covenant to be unfulfilled, nor one single blessing of the covenant to be kept back. Every iota, and jot, and tittle of the covenanted purpose of God shall be fulfilled, and everything which he has promised to his people in the covenant, and which Christ hath bought for his people through the covenant, shall most infallibly be received by his people. As for the persons interested therein, not one of them shall be forgotten. If in the covenant, they shall most assuredly be saved, despite every attack of the devil, and all their own wickedness, and any casuality, so-called, of providence, or whatsoever may happen; all who are in the covenant must and shall be gathered in.

The Arminian says there are some in the covenant who tumble out of it; that God has chosen some men,-that he justifies them, that he accepts them, and then turns them out of his family. The Arminian holds the unnatural, cruel, barbarous idea, that a man may be God’s child, and then God may unchild him because he does not behave himself. The idea is revolting even to human sensibility. If our children sin, they are our children still; though chastened and punished, yet never do they cease to be numbered amongst our family. There are many of God’s children who have gone astray from him, and been chastened for it; but it were an idea too barbarous to suppose that God would unchild his child for any sin he doth commit. He keepeth fast his covenant; he loveth them, sinners though they be. He keepeth them from running riotously into sin; and when, sometimes, they go astray, as the best of them will, still his loving heart towards them is unchangeably the same. I do not serve the god of the Arminians at all; I have nothing to do with him, and I do not bow down before the Baal they have set up; he is not my god, nor shall he ever be, I fear him not, nor tremble at his presence. A mutable god may be the god for them; he is not the god for me. My Jehovah changeth not. The god that saith to-day, and denieth to-morrow; that justifieth to-day, and condemns the next; the god that hath children of his own one day, and lets them be the children of the devil the next, is no relation to my God in the least degree. He may be the relation of Ashtaroth or Baal, but Jehovah never was nor can be his name. Jehovah changeth not; he knoweth no shadow of turning. If he hath set his heart upon a man, he will love him to the end. If he hath chosen him, he hath not chosen him for any merit of his own; therefore he will never cast him away for any demerit of his own. If he hath begotten him unto a lively hope, he will not suffer him to fall away and perish. That were a breaking of every promise, and an abrogation of the covenant. If one dear child of God might fall away, then might all. If one of those for whom the Saviour died might be damned, then would the Saviour’s blood be utterly void and vain. If one of those whom he hath called according to his purpose might perish, then would his purpose be null and void. But, children of God, you may lay your heads upon the covenant, and say, with Dr. Watts,-

“Then should the earth’s old pillars shake,

And all the wheels of nature break,

Our steady souls should fear no more

Than solid rocks when billows roar.”

Now I close by noticing the character of the persons here referred to: “them that fear him.” Those who fear the Lord are in the covenant of his grace.

The anxious enquirer or the young convert oftentimes says to the minister, “Sir, how can I know that I am elect?” And the usual answer is, “You have nothing to do with that; you may think of that matter by-and-by.” Begging the gentleman’s pardon, that is not true. A sinner has everything to do with it. Instead of having nothing to do with election, he has everything in the world to do with it. But it is said that he need not trouble his mind about it. Perhaps he should not; but he will, and it is no source of comfort to tell him that he ought not. If I have a toothache, it is poor comfort for a physician to tell me that I ought not to have it. So, when a sinner is troubled about the doctrine of election, it is poor comfort to tell him he ought not to be troubled. The best way is to go fairly through the whole question, and say to him, “Do you fear the Lord? Then, so sure as you are a living man, you are elect. You have the fear of the Lord before your eyes; then you need have no doubt but that your name is in the covenant.” None have feared the Lord who were not first loved by the Lord. Never did one come, and cast himself at the feet of Jesus simply because he feared the penalty of sin; and none ever came to embrace the loving skirts of the Redeemer because he feared lest he should go astray, without having been first called, and chosen, and made faithful. No, the fear of God in the heart is the proof of being God’s elect one. If we fear him, we may believe that he will ever give meat unto us, and that he will always keep his covenant towards us which he has made for us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

“But,” says one, “how am I to know whether I am elect?” Beloved, thou canst not know it by any outward profession. Thou mayest be of any church in the world, or of no church, and yet be one of God’s elect. Nor canst thou know it even by the sentiments which thou receivest as being true, for thou mayest know truth, and yet not have truth in thy soul; thou mayest be orthodox in thy head, and heterodox in thy heart; thou mayest believe everything, and yet be cast away at last. The only way whereby thou canst judge thyself is this: dost thou fear the Lord? Dost thou reverence his name and his Sabbath? Hast thou trembled at his Word? Hast thou cast away thy self-righteousness at his command? And hast thou come to him, and taken Christ to be thine All-in-all? I do not ask thee whether thou fearest hell; many fear hell who fear not God. Dost thou fear to offend a loving Father? Dost thou fear lest thou shouldst go astray from God’s commandments? Dost thou cry to him,-

“Saviour, keep me lest I wander”?

Dost thou ask him to preserve thee? And canst thou honestly say that, if thou couldst be perfect, thou wouldst be; that thou desirest to be freed from sin; that thou hatest every false way? And is it thy daily groaning to be set free from guilt, and to be wholly surrendered to the Crucified? Lastly, canst thou say this after me,-

“A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,

On Christ’s kind arms I fall:

He is my strength and righteousness,

My Jesus and my all”?

Then you are elect; then you are justified; then you are accepted; and you have no more reason to doubt your acceptance and your election than you will have when you stand before the throne of God, amid the blazing lustre of eternal glory. You are elect; and you always were elect. God hath chosen you; your fearing him is the evidence of it; and your believing in Christ, without any righteousness of your own, is a proof positive that you were chosen of God before the foundation of the world.

Now what shall I say in conclusion? There are some of you who fear not God. Alas, for you, my brethren, that you should be in a state so utterly miserable and pitiable, without the fear of God before your eyes! Oh, that God would teach you to fear him! Oh, that he would break your hearts, and so make you feel your ruined state as to bring you to his feet to receive the perfect righteousness of Christ, then would you fear him, and then might you rejoice that he would give you meat, and keep you in his covenant.

Methinks I hear one say, “I am a great sinner, I am in the very front rank of the army of guilt. I have verily transgressed and gone astray from the Most High. Tell me, did Jesus die for me? Did he die,-not as some say he died, for all men,-but in that special sense which ensures salvation?” I will answer thee. Canst thou say, “I am a sinner,” not as a kind of idle compliment that most men pass when they say they are sinners, and do not mean what the word implies, for they no more mean that they are sinners than that they are horses; but do you really believe that you are sinners deserving God’s wrath and the fire of hell for ever? Then the Lord Jesus died for you; and “this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” If the word is to be understood in the sense in which Hart uses it when he says,-

“A sinner is a sacred thing,

The Holy Ghost hath made him so;”-

if you feel you are a sinner in that sense, Christ died for you. But you say, “I wish he had set my name down in the book, that I might read it.” Why, my friend, if he had done so, you would believe it was intended for somebody else! If the book contained the name of Smith, in such a street, Smith would declare that there were so many Smiths, that it could not be meant for himself; and if you could read your name, you would still doubt that it could, by any possibility, be a description of you, since another person might bear the same title. But since it says “sinners”, Satan himself cannot beat you out of that. God has taught you what the term “sinner” means, and Satan cannot unteach you that. Are you, then, a sinner, fully, wholly, in all the black sense of the word? Then Christ died for you. Cast yourself upon that truth, Christ died for sinners.

“But,” say you, “Sir, if I were a little better, I might believe that he died for me.” I should not; for he died for sinners. Or you say, “If I were a saint, I might believe that he died for me.” I should not; for he died for sinners. Only prove thyself a sinner, and thou hast proved that Christ died for thee; only be thou sure that thou art a sinner, that thou hast revolted from God, and that thou knowest it; only confess with thine heart thy trangressions, and take this title to thyself, and thou mayest believe that Jesus died for thee.

Let me give you a lesson in logic,-not from Whateley nor Watts, but from the logic of Faith. It is extraordinary how different are the conclusions of Faith from those of Reason. Once Reason came along, and heard a man cry, “I am guilty, guilty.” She stopped, and said, “The man is guilty; God condemns the guilty, therefore this man will be condemned.” She went away, and left the man condemned, and ruined, and quivering with fear. Faith came, and heard the selfsame cry, rendered more bitter by the cruel syllogism of Reason. Faith stopped; she said, “The man is guilty; but Christ died for the guilty, therefore the man will be saved;” and her logic was right; the man lifted up his head, and rejoiced. Reason came one day, and saw a man naked, and she said, “He hath not on a wedding garment; can naked souls appear before the bar of God? Should they have a place at the supper of the Lamb? The man is naked; he must be cast out, for naked ones cannot enter heaven!” Then Faith came by, and said, “The man is naked; Christ wrought a robe of righteousness; he must have made it for the naked; he would not have made it for those who have a robe of their own. That robe is for the naked man, and he shall stand in it before God.” And her logic was right and just. The other might seem strictly according to rule, but this was better still. Reason one day heard a man say that he was very good and righteous. She saw him go up to the temple, and heard him pray, “Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men,” and Reason said, “That man is better than others, and he will be accepted.” But she argued wrongly; for, lo, he went out; and a poor sinner by his side, who could only say, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” went down to his house justified, while the proud Pharisee went on his way disregarded. The logic of Faith is to argue white from black, whereas the logic of Reason argues white from white. Luther says, “Once upon a time, the devil came to me, and said, ‘Martin Luther, you are a great sinner, and you will be damned.’ ‘Stop, stop,’ said I, ‘one thing at a time; I am a great sinner, it is true, though you have no right to tell me of it. I confess it; what next?’ ‘Therefore you will be damned.’ ‘That is not good reasoning. It is true I am a great sinner, but it is written, “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners;” therefore I shall be saved. Now go your way.’ So I drove off the devil with his own sword, and he went away mourning because he could not cast me down by calling me a sinner.” I have a right to believe that Jesus Christ died for me, and I cast myself wholly upon him. Do thou the same, poor disconsolate one, for thou hast nothing of thine own to depend upon; but thou, O great, and good, and rich man, I have naught to say to thee!

“Not the righteous,

Sinners, Jesus came to save.”

While thou hast a rag of thine own, thou shalt never have Christ’s robe. Go thy way, thy righteousness shall prove like the shirt of Hercules, when it burnt him, and did eat his flesh away; though thou gloriest in it, it shall be the winding-sheet of thy soul for ever. But if thou hast nothing, and art poor, and penniless, and miserable, reduced to utter spiritual destitution and poverty, in God’s name I preach to thee the gospel; Christ died for thee, and thou shalt not perish. God will not punish Christ for us, and then punish us afterwards. He will not demand the payment first at his hands, and then again at ours. He is not unjust to punish first the Scapegoat, the Surety, the Substitute, and then to punish you. Christ was your Substitute; he bore your guilt, he carried your iniquities upon his head; your sins were numbered upon him, and your punishment was laid upon him. Go your way; you can never be punished. Your sins, which are many, are all forgiven. Rejoice in pardon bought with blood; be glad, be satisfied, be happy, even till thou diest, and then thou shalt be happy for ever.