The Translation

And hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. — COL. i. 13.

A LL pain, that is passing, and not perpetual, is, in that circumstance, attended with great consolation. This is true of pain, whether its seat be the body or mind; whether it be a dead, or, worse still, a living grief; the pangs of disease, the lingering sufferings of a common, or the terrible shock of a violent death. It will soon be over, says a man; and, with that, he bares his quivering limb for the surgeon’s knife; or, eyeing the tall black gallows, walks with firm step and erect mien to stand beneath the dangling noose. Saying to himself, It will soon be over, he closes his eyes, casts away the handkerchief, and takes the leap into eternity.

This feeling enters as an element into Christian as well as common heroism. I knew a precious saint of God who was often cast into the furnace, but always, like real gold, to shine the brighter for the fire; and who, having now left her sorrows all behind her, has joined the company of whom the angel said, “These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; therefore,” in the front rank as the highest peers of heaven, “are they before the throne of God.” The courage with which she met adversity — one trial after another, shock succeeding shock, billow bursting on the back of billow — was as remarkable as the strength with which, though a bruised reed, she seemed to bear it. Where did her great strength lie? The grand secret of that serene demeanour and uncomplaining patience was, no doubt, a sense of the divine favour. The peace of God kept her heart and mind through Jesus Christ. Yet her sorrows found a solace, life’s bitterest hour a sweetness, also, in the simple couplet that was often on her lips —

“Come what, come may; Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”

This prospect of relief, this not distant end of suffering, has often divested even the grave of its horrors. “There’ll be no sorrow there.” Ah! that sometimes turns our eyes with a longing look on its deep dream less sleep. Supporting and restraining them by his grace, God with one hand keeps his people up under their sorrows, and with the other keeps them back from anticipating their appointed time. They do not rush on death, nor go unsummoned to the bar of judgment. Unless reason give way, and responsibility cease, they wait his time, and bide it as their own; holding their post like a sentinel who, however cold the night, or fierce the storm, or thick the battle, refuses to desert it till he is duly relieved. They say with Job, All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Yet, with whatever bravery trials are met, and with whatever patience they are borne, there are times when the prospect of relief, which even the grave affords, is most welcome. An object of aversion to light-hearted childhood, and to him who is bounding away over a sunny path thickly flowered with the hopes of spring, the grave is not so to many who have lived to see these fair flowers wither away, beneath whose slow and lonely steps the joys of other days lie strewed — like dead leaves in autumn. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. There is no sorrow for them in the tomb, or beyond it. Thus, from the grassy sod, which no troubled bosom heaves, sorrow plucks blossoms of refreshing odours; thus, weary life grows strong by feeding on the thought of death; thus, to that grave which remorselessly devours the happiness of the ungodly, Christian faith can apply the language of the strong man’s riddle, saying with Samson, when he found the lion that he had rent with a hive of honey within its skeleton ribs, Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.

Hope may flatter in this common solace of worldly men, that the longest road has a turning. But, turn or not turn, God’s people know that it has a termination; and that the weary journey, with its heaviest trials, shall end in rest. But for this, thousands had sunk beneath their griefs. And, when calamity came with the shock of an earthquake, and reason sat stunned and stupified on her tottering throne, how often has that blessed prospect restrained man from turning the wish that he were dead into a daring act; and casting life away from him as a burden — one greater than he could bear.

There have been such cases. I remember in one a scene never to be forgotten. It surpassed anything it had been my fortune ever to witness in the most terrible shapes of mortal agony, and anything also which I had ever seen of the power of Christian endurance. To be hanged, or burned, or broken on the wheel, as the martyrs were — some brief hours of torture, followed by an eternity of rest — how the sufferer would have welcomed that! His was no such enviable, happy fortune. Death struck him — like a tree, which first withers at the top — in the head; and, in excruciating sufferings protracted over weary years, he suffered the pain of a hundred deaths. His endurance was heroic, and never failed but once. Once, for pity’s sake, for the love she bore him, he implored his wife to tear out his eyes — an expression of impatience, recalled as soon as uttered; regretted on earth, and forgiven in heaven. Now, never as by that bed, where I have seen him turn, and twist, arid writhe, like a trodden worm, have I felt so much the power of the consolation of which I speak. Happy was it that religion was not then to seek; and that, beside a wife struck dumb with grief, and little children who stood still and saddened by the sight of a father’s agony, I could bend over a pillow, wet with the sweat of suffering, and implore him to remember that these pains were not eternal, and that the Saviour who loved him, and whom he loved, would, ere long, come to take him to himself. In such a scene what comfort in the words —

“Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”

Nor is this unscriptural comfort. The transient nature of all earthly trials is one important ingredient of that cordial with which Paul comforts sorrowing believers — Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Nay, may not that have been poured by the angel’s hand into the very cup of. redeeming sorrows? When our Lord was alone in the garden, and death’s cold shadow had begun to fall, and the gloom of the approaching storm was settling down upon his soul, an angel sped from heaven to strengthen him. He finds him prostrate before God. His face is on the ground. In an agony of supplication he has thrown himself at his Father’s feet; and, shrinking from the pains of the cross, he cries, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. At that eventful moment, with the salvation of the world hung on its issues, may not the angel, reverently approaching this awful and affecting scene, have strengthened our Saviour, and revived his fainting spirit with this comfort, Lord of Glory, drink; the cup is bitter, but not bottomless? It is no presumption to fancy that, pointing to the moon as she rode in heaven, he had reminded our

Redeemer that ere she had set and risen again, his pangs should all be over; and that when next she rose, it should be to shine upon an empty cup, and an empty cross, and Roman sentinels keeping watch beside his sleeping form and peaceful tomb. Something of this, indeed, our Lord seems to intimate in the words he addressed to the traitor’s band —” This is your hour, and the power of darkness.1’ They may bind these hands; but they shall soon be free to rend the strongest barriers of the tomb, leaving him to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. With the foul shame of thorns, with spitting, and with scornful rejection, they may hide his glory; but it shall burst forth, like the sun above his dying head, from the shadow of a strange eclipse. Let them put forth their utmost power; its triumph shall be brief — shut up within the limits of a passing hour.

Does not the same idea also appear in the words which our Lord addressed to the traitor at the supper table? As one who, though shrinking from the sufferings of a severe operation, feels confident of relief, and braces up his spirit to endurance by setting permanent ease over against a passing pain, Jesus bent his eye on Judas, and said, “That thou doest, do quickly,” — do it, and have done with it; I know it shall not last; I am not to be buried but baptized in sufferings; from the cross where it shall bow in death — exposed on a bloody tree; from the grave where it shall lie in dust — pillowed on a lonesome bed, shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me; so that thou doest, do quickly; I foresee an end of sorrows, and long to enter upon my rest. Now, the relief which death brought to Christ, blessed be God, it brings to all that are Christ’s. The passing bell rings out sin with all its sorrows, and rings in eternity with all its joys. And the very same event which plunges the unbeliever into everlasting perdition, ushers the believer into the inheritance of the saints in light. With gladness and rejoicing they shall be brought; they shall enter into the palace of the king. Before taking up the subject of the translation, this leads me to remark —

I. That in delivering his people from the power of darkness, Christ saves them from eternal perdition.

The punishment which sin deserves, and which the impenitent and unbelieving suffer, is a very awful subject — one on which I could have no pleasure in dwelling. It is a deeply solemn theme; a terrible mystery; one in presence of which we stand in trembling awe, and can only say with David — Clouds and darkness are round about him.

It is a painful thing to see the dying of a poor dog, or any dumb creature suffer; but the fate of the impenitent, the sorrows that admit of no consolation, the misery that has no end — these form a subject brimful of horrors; the deepest, darkest, unfathomed mystery in the whole plan of the divine government. Yet what affords no pleasure may, notwithstanding, yield profit; and that even by reason of the pain it inflicts. And so, in the hope of such a blessed result, let me warn, and beseech, and implore careless sinners to be wise, and consider this solemn matter in the day of their merciful visitation. Better fear that punishment than feel it; better look into the pit than fall into it; better than fill your ears with syren songs of pleasure, listen to this warning voice, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” “To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” The chains which bind you are yet but locked, and the gospel has a key to open them. Reject that gospel, and what is now but locked by the hand of sin, shall be ri vetted by the hand of death — like the fetters on the limbs of him who leaves the bar to suffer that most awful sentence, the doom of perpetual imprisonment. “As the tree falls, so it lies.” “He that is filthy, let him be filthy still.”

People talk about the mercy of God in a way for which they’have no warrant in his word; and, ignoring his holiness, and justice, and truth, they lay this and the other vain hope as a flattering unction to their souls. Thinking light of sin, seeing no great harm in it, they judge God by themselves. “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself,” accounts for the manner in which many explain away the awful revelations of Scripture about future punishment, and in the face of such terrible words as these, “Depart from me-, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,” give such a ready ear to the devil’s old falsehood, Thou shalt not surely die. The fire, they allege, and are sure, is a mere symbol. Well, just look by the light of that symbol at the condition of the lost. Fire! What does that mean? Take it as a symbol, grant that it is but a figure of speech, still it has a terrible meaning, as will be manifest, if we consider the nature and characteristic features of that element. Let us see.

According to the imperfect science of the world’s early ages, there were four elements, of which ancient philosophers held that all things else were compounded. These were fire, air, earth, and water; and from the other three, the first is strikingly distinguished by this peculiar and well-marked feature, that it is destructive of all life. Let us examine this matter somewhat in detail.

1. The element of earth is associated with life. Prolific mother, from whose womb we come, and to whose bosom we return, she is pregnant with life, an exhaustless storehouse of its germs. Raise ‘the soil, for example, from the bottom of deepest well or darkest mine. And as divine truths, lodged in the heart by a mother in early childhood, though they have lain long dormant, spring up into conversion so soon as God’s time comes and the Spirit descends, so seeds, that have lain in the soil for a thousand years, whenever they are exposed to the quickening influences of heat, and light, and air, and moisture, awake from their long sleep, and rise up into forms of grace and beauty. Nowhere but within the narrow walls of the churchyard — with its earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust — are death and the dust associated. Even there how does life, contending for the mastery of this world, intrude upon death’s silent domains, and both in the grass that waves above, and the foul worms that feed below, claim the earth as her own! This earth is far less the tomb than a great prolific womb of life. Of its matter life builds her shrines; beneath its surface myriads of creeping things have their highways and homes; while its soil yields bountiful support to the forests, and flowers, and grasses, that clothe its naked form in gayest robes of life and beauty.

2. Air, too, is an element associated with life. Invisible substance, it is as much our food as corn or flesh. Symbol of the Holy Spirit, it feeds the vital flame, and is essential to the existence of all plants and animals, whether their home be the land or water, the ocean or its shores. They live by breathing it, whether it be extracted from the waters by their inhabitants, or directly from the atmosphere by the plants and animals that dwell on the dry land. Ceasing to breathe it, they die. With that groan, or gasp, or long-drawn sigh, man expires. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. And as life exists on air, it exists in it; nor ever presents itself in a fuller, happier aspect, than at the serene close, for instance, of a summer day. The air is filled with the music of a thousand choristers; creation’s evening hymn, sung by many voices, and in many notes, goes up to the ear of God; and, while the lark supplies music from the ringing heavens, nature holds innocent revels below; and happy insects, by sparkling stream, or the sedgy borders of the placid lake, keep up their mazy merry dances, till God puts out the lights, and, satiated with enjoyment, they retire to rest, wrapped round in the curtains of the night. Figure of the truth that in God we live, and move, and have our being, our world itself, with all that lives on it, is a sphere that floats, buoyant and balanced, in an ocean of air.

3. Water, too, is an element associated with life. Fit emblem of saving mercies, so indispensable is water to the continued existence of life, that unless it be furnished by some source or other, all plants and animals must speedily die. Then how does this element, which covers more than two-thirds of the surface of our globe, teem with life! He has not seen one of the wonders of creation, who has not seen a drop of water changed, by the microscope, into a little world full of living, active, perfect, creatures, over whom a passing bird throws the shadow of an eclipse, and whose brief life of an hour or day seems to them as long as to us a century of years. Imagination attempts in vain to form some conception of the myriads that, all creatures of God’s care, inhabit the living waters — the rushing stream, the mountain lake, the shallow shore, the profound depths of ocean — from the minutest insect which finds a home in some tiny pool, or its world on the leaf of the swaying sea-weed, to leviathan, around whose mighty bulk, whether in play or rage, the deep grows hoary, and foams like a boiling pot. How soon we abandon the attempt, and, dropping the wings of fancy, fall on our knees before the throne to say, 0 Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all.

Mark, now, the broad and outstanding difference between these elements and fire. Earth and life, air and life, water and life, are not, as we have seen, neces sarily antagonistic; but fire and life are. Unless under such miraculous circumstances as those in which the three Hebrew children walked unhurt in the furnace, or the mountain bush, as if bathed in dew, flowered amid the flames, life cannot exist in fire under any shape or form. No creature feeds, or breeds, or breathes in flames. What the winds fan, and the soil nourishes, and the dews refresh, fire kills. It scorches whatever it touches, and what ever breathes it, dies. Turning the stateliest tree, and sweetest flowers, and loveliest form of the daughters of Eve, into a heap of ashes, or a coal-black cinder, fire is the tomb of beauty, and the sepulchre of all life; the only region and realm within which death reigns, with none to dispute his sway. And thus the characteristic feature of this element — beside the pain it inflicts — is the destruction and death it works.

Suppose, then, that the fire that is never quenched is but a painted flame — grant that it is nothing but a symbol or figure of the punishment which awaits the impenitent and unbelieving, in what respects have they, who have persuaded themselves of that, improved their prospects? It is, “as if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.” Although the language of Scripture were figurative, yet expressing, as it does, the utter consumption and death of all hope and happiness, it is not less madness for any one to reject the Saviour, and for the enjoyment of a passing pleasure to brave so terrible a doom. Endless misery — the worm that never dieth, and the fire that is never quenched — in whatever shape it comes, is an awful thought. We can not think of it without shuddering. Oh, why should any hear of it without fleeing instantly to Jesus; for who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burning? I do not undertake to defend God’s procedure in this matter. He will defend it himself, and one day justify his ways, in the judgment even of those whom he condemns. They shall not have the miserable consolation of complaining that they have been hardly and unjustly dealt with. The sentence that condemns them shall find an awful echo in their own consciences. How they shall blame themselves, and regret their life, and curse their folly — turning their stings against their own bosoms, as the scorpion, maddened with pain, is said to do, when surrounded by a circle of fire!

Before we leave this subject, let us all join in thanksgiving, both saints and sinners. Let the people praise thee, 0 God; let all the people praise thee. Fascinated, bewitched by pleasure, do you still linger beside the pit, notwithstanding, perhaps, that its flames are rising fearfully lurid against the darkening skies of a fast-descending night? Be thankful that you are not in the pit; and falling on your knees by its horrible brink, let its miserable captives, who envy you your time of prayer, hear your cry for mercy, and that that gracious long-suffering God, who has preserved you to this day as a monument of his sparing, would now make you a monument of his saving mercy. And how should saints praise him! How should they praise him, who have exchanged the horrible fear of hell for a holy happy fear of God, and — in a good hope through grace, that they have been delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of his dear Son — enjoy a peace that passeth understanding. “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” Blessed, more blessed than if he had the wealth of Croasus, the poorest, humblest, weakest child of God, who can say with David — He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. It is beautiful to see a bird spring from its grassy bed, mounting up on strong wing into a morning sky of amber, and ruby, and gold, and sapphire, and to hear her, as she climbs the heavens, sing out the joy which God has poured into her little heart in a thrilling gush of music; but, oh, if God’s people through more purity enjoyed more peace of heart, were they as holy, and therefore as happy as they might be, how would angels stay their flight, and pause upon the wing to watch the rise, and listen to the song of him who, as he rises, sings — My soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler: the snare is broken, and we are escaped. “Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.”

II. Consider how we are brought into this kingdom.

Translation is the expression used to describe the method. There is a difference between being transformed and being translated; in so far as the first describes a change of character, while the second describes a change of state. These changes are coincident — they take place at the same time; but the transformation is not completed, nor are saints made perfect in holiness, until the period arrive for a second translation. Then those who were translated at con version into a state of grace, are translated at death into a state of glory. The transformation of the soul into the image of God, and of God’s dear Son, begins at the first translation, and is finished at the second. And it is with man as with a rude block of marble. Raised from its dark low quarry-bed, it is, in the first instance, removed to the sculptor’s studio. There the shapeless mass gradually assumes, under his chisel, the features and form of humanity — blow after blow, touch after touch is given, till the marble grows into a triumph of his genius, and seems instinct with life. And, now a perfect image, it is once more removed, and leaves his hand to become on its pedestal the attractive ornament of some hall or palace.

Now, it is the change of state corresponding to the removal of the block from the quarry, that we have here to do with. And let us take care that the word employed to describe the change from nature to grace leads to no mistake. It were a great mistake to suppose that God only is active while man remains passive in this work. You may, indeed, translate a man from one earthly kingdom to another, you may carry him, for instance, across the channel which parts Great Britain from France, while his senses and faculties are steeped in slumber. The traveller falls asleep in one country to awake in another; and, conveyed smoothly along the level road or over an arm of the sea, — rocked, it may be, into deeper slumber by the gentle motion — he opens his eyes, amid a Babel of tongues, on the strange costumes, and faces, and scenery of a foreign land.

Not only so; but, greater and most solemn change, a man may be translated from this world into the next in a state of entire unconsciousness. As I have seen a mother approach the cradle and gently lift up the sleeping babe to take it to her own bed and bosom, so, muffled in the cloud of night, death has stolen on the sleeper, and, moving with noiseless step across the floor, has borne him off so gently, that, on awaking, he was in heaven, and opened his eyes on the glories of the upper sanctuary; and when his children, wondering what detains their father from the morning meal, enter his chamber, they find the spirit fled, and, as one who had done his work, his lifeless form resting on the couch in a posture of calm repose. Such sudden transition from time into eternity brings an awful arrestment to a life of sin! The sinner is like some wretched criminal, who has been tracked to his hiding-place. Lying asleep in the arms of guilt, he is roused by rough hands, loud voices, and the flash of lanterns; starting up, he stares wildly round; and how pale he turns to see his bed beset, and door and window guarded by the stern officers of justice — they are come to drag him to prison. But to die and not know it, not even to taste death, to be spared the bitter cup, to be exempt from the mortal struggle, to be borne across the deep cold waters asleep in Jesus’ arms, to be wakened from nature’s unconscious slumbers by strains of heavenly music, and the bright blaze of glory, what a happy close of a holy life!

It is not in this quiet, gentle, placid way, that sinners are translated out of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son; far otherwise. And in illustration of that, I now remark —

1. That this translation is attended by suffering and self-denial.

Killed by a bullet, prostrated by a blow, deprived at once of consciousness and of existence by means of an opiate or some other narcotic poison, man may die to natural life quite unconsciously. But thus he never dies to sin. Best of all deaths! yet it is attended by a painful, and often a protracted struggle; during which he is as sensible of pain as the victim of a cross, who, when the nails have crashed through nerve, and flesh, and bone, hangs convulsed and quivering on its extended arms. Hence these striking metaphors: “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts;” “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” I would not deter you from the cross, or from resolving now, by the grace of God, and aids of the Holy Spirit, to take it up, and deny yourselves daily, and follow Jesus. On the contrary, I say, the crown is worthy of the cross. I have no doubt that there is far more pain suffered in going to hell than to heaven. And, although there were not, how will one hour of glory recompense you for all the sufferings and sacrifices of earth? I only wish to dissipate the delusion under which some apparently live, and, living, certainly perish, that indolence, and ease, and self-indulgence may inherit the kingdom of God. They think, therefore, that they have no occasion to be anxious about their souls; and rest satisfied that it may be, and is all right with them, though they are not conscious of having ever felt any serious alarm, having made any great exertion, or suffered, indeed, any self-denying pains whatever.

Be assured that, as it is among pangs and birthstruggles that a man is born the first time, it is in sorrow and pain that he is born again. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.” May it not be in part with reference to this, that John, speaking of Jesus, said, He that cometh after me is mightier than I — he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire? To be baptized with fire is another thing from being baptized with water. How often has the water fallen from our hand on the calm brow of a sleeping infant, which, held up in a father’s arms, was returned to a mother’s bosom perfectly unconscious of its baptism — translated into the visible church of Christ in a state of profound repose. But a fiery baptism! that which symbolises the descent of the Spirit in conversion, implies pain — such convictions of sin and dread of hell, such self-reproach, and deep remorse, as have often risen to agony, and sometimes driven man to the verge of madness. Fire burns the flesh, penetrates to the bone, and dries up the very marrow. Can a man take fire into his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? If not, how could a soul receive the fiery baptism of the Holy Spirit, and be unconscious of it? Ah, fancy not that it is to sinners only that our God is a consuming fire. He is a consuming fire, not indeed to his people’s souls, but to his people’s sins. The unholy pleasures and habits that bind those whom he has chosen for him self out of a world that lieth in wickedness, he will burn.

Nor are these bonds burned off them in a way as painless as happened to the three Hebrews. They, whom Nebuchadnezzar cast bound into the fiery furnace, were suffering for God, not for sin. And preserved by Christ’s presence, like his people in corresponding trials, they walked right pleasantly on burning coals, and found the flames as fresh as the breath of a balmy morning. If you have never felt pain, be assured that you have never parted with sin. Nothing short of burning out will remove it. Yet, painful as it may be, throw open your bosom for this baptism of fire! What ever wounds it inflicts, they shall be healed. There is balm in Gilead, and a physician there.

2. In this translation both God and man are active.

When the hour of our Lord’s ascension had come, he rose from Olivet neither on angel’s wings, nor in the prophet’s fiery chariot. He put forth no effort. His body, as if belonging to another sphere, floated buoyant, upward through the air, until, as he bent over his disciples in the attitude of blessing, a cloud received him out of their sight. But no man rises in this glorious manner from a state of nature into one of grace; or leaves the horrible pit, for the light, and love, and liberty of a son of God. There is help afforded on God’s part; but there is also an effort required on ours. We must climb the ladder which divine love lets down.

The soul is not, as some seem to think, a piece of softened wax, receiving the image of God as that does the impress of a seal. We receive salvation; still, we must put forth our hand for it, as the starving for a loaf of bread; as he who dies of thirst for a cup of water; as a drowning man, .who eagerly eyes and rapidly seizes the falling rope — clinging to it with a grasp that neither his weight nor the waves can loose.

“Between us and you,” said Abraham to the rich man, “there is a great gulf fixed; so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us that would come from thence.” I know that a gulf as impassable and profound divides the state of sin from the state of grace; and that no quantity nor quality of good works that we may attempt to throw in, can form a passage for our guilty feet. Rubbish at the best! how are they lost in its unfathomed depths! lost like the stones which travellers in Iceland fling into those black, yawning, volcanic chasms, which descend so deep into the fiery bowels of that burning land, that no line can measure, and time never fills them. Yet, blessed be Christ’s name! the great gulf has been bridged. Redemption, through his blood and merits, spans the yawning chasm. An open way invites your feet. And would to God we saw men seizing that opening and opportunity of escape, as a retreating army makes for the bridge when bayonets are bristling on the heights, and the shot is plunging amid its disordered ranks, and clouds of cavalry are cutting down the stragglers! Oh, what diligence, what activity, what energy, what shouts and cries for help in such a crisis, such a terrific scene! They cast away their baggage; everything is sacrificed for life. Husbands dragging on their wives, fathers carrying helpless children, brother raising up wounded brother, the cry of all is for the bridge, the bridge! And as the iron hail rattles among their flying squadrons, save where the rear-guard faces round to the enemy and gallantly covers the retreat, every man forces on his way; until, the living wave surging on it, the bridge is choked with eager fugitives. Who thinks of sitting down there, and waiting a more convenient season, waiting till the press and crowd is over? They may envy the bird that, frightened from her brood, darts through the sulphureous cloud, and wings her rapid way high over the swollen flood, but who sits down there in the idle hope that God will send some eagle from her rocky nest, some angel from the skies, to bear the loiterer across, and save him all effort of his own? No man. Every man is on his feet. He throws himself into the crowd; seizes every opening in the dense, desperate, maddened throng, to get forward; nor relaxes the strain of his utmost efforts, till he stand in safety on the other side — blessing the man that bridged the stream.

Is not God, it may be said, sovereign and omnipotent? As such, does he not sometimes save those who are not seeking to be saved? and even send them back from church to pray who came to scoff? True. He may set aside the ordinary laws of grace, as he set aside the ordinary laws of nature, when at his bidding iron swam, and flames were cool, and the flinty rock yielded drink, and the blue skies gave not dews but corn, and unstable water stood up in solid walls like adamant. But be it ever remembered, that in the ordinary course of his providence, God works in grace as in nature. To use a common but expressive adage, God helps the man who helps himself. Even the young bird chips its own shell, and I have heard its voice in a feeble cry for liberty before it had burst its prison walls; and what violent exertions have I seen an insect — about to enter on a new existence — make to shuffle off its worm case, and come forth in resplendent beauty to spend happy days in sunbeams, and sleep away the short summer nights in the soft bosom of a flower. Instinct teaches the lowest of God’s creatures to exert themselves; and providence teaches man, in the common affairs of life, to exert himself. The blessing is on the busy. He reaps a harvest who tills his field; and sickles flash, and sheaves stand thick where the ploughs have gone. The history even of Christ’s miracles is pregnant with the same lesson. Who were the lame he healed, but those who painfully crawled to him on their knees, or crept to him on crutches, or got kind friends to bear them on beds and break through houseroofs, that they might get near the Saviour? Who were the blind whose eyes he opened, but those whose hearts leaped within them, and who leaped to their feet when, by the hum and rush of the crowd, they knew that the Saviour was passing? Be these your pattern. Allow no difficulties about this or that doctrine to hinder you from giving immediate attention and earnest obedience to these plain commandments, Pray without ceasing, Labour for the bread that never perisheth, Give all diligence to make your calling and election sure, Take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Why is it that many, that perhaps you, are not saved? Will the Lord cast off for ever; and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Is heaven full? Is there no room for more? Or, has the blood of Christ lost its efficacy, or God his pity? No. It is miserable to see how carefully gold and jewels are preserved, while souls are thrown away, as of no value. Men are not saved; but why? They will give themselves no trouble — take no pains to be saved. This change is indeed a birth; but remember that it is not like the birth of the body — the pangs there are all the mother’s. This change is a translation, but forget not that it is not such as Elijah’s, when that deathless man had only to step into the chariot, and angels shook the reins, and horses of fire whirled him at his ease through the skies to heaven. I am persuaded that there would be many more saved, if fewer of us abused the doctrines of man’s depravity, and God’s free, sovereign, saving grace. It is the gospel, that Without shedding of blood there is no remission; it is the gospel, that Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God; it is the gospel, that Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; but remember, I pray you, that, according to the same gospel, those who receive are they who ask, and those who find are they who seek. It is to the knocking hand that the door is opened.