The Bridgeless Gulf

“Beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they whicfc would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would comfrom thence.” — Luke xvi. 26.

FOR the last few months I have been led to blow the silver trumpet, sounding forth the love and mercy of our God in Christ. Many times in your hearing I have preached a full Christ for empty sinners, and have set forth the freeness and graciousness of the divine proclamation which in the gospel is made to the chief of sinners. I have not, concerning that point, shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. But I feel that I must now blow a blast upon the rough ram’shorn, for sometimes our congregations need to be reminded of the larc and terrors of God, and of the judgment to come; our experience is, that the preaching of judgment is greatly blessed of God; we have remarked that a very large number of conversions have occurred under those sermons in which the declaration of God’s wrath against all iniquity has been the most plain and solemn. A thunder-storm clears the air; there are pestilences which would gather beneath the wings of calm which can only be purged away by the lightning flash. When God sends his servant with heavy tidings, his message of alarm cleanses the spiritual atmosphere, and kills the sloth, pride, indifference, and lethargy, which otherwise might fall upon the people. As the sharp needle prepares the way for the thread, so the piercing law makes a way for the bright silver thread of divine grace. The lancet is quite as needful as the healing balm. The law is our pedagogue to bring us to Christ; like the old Greek pedagogue who led the boy to school, so the law leads us to Christ, who teaches and instructs us, and makes us wise unto salvation. Thos€ who preached the law, as well as the gospel, in the Puritanic times, were the most fruitful soul-winners. We find our blessed Lord and Master, whose heart was overflowing with compassion, and whose very nature was love, often dwelling upon the wrath to come; and indeed No. 518. 38 his utterances are more telling and terrible than the most burning threatening from the lips of thundering seers of old. God grant that this morning, the effect which so anxiously I desire, may follow from that burden of the Lord which now weighs so heavily upon me. May the Master gather out this day a seed unto himself, who shall be saved from the wrath to come, and be to all eternity the reward of the Redeemer’s travail. Lift up your hearts to God, ye that know him and have power with him, and ask that now the divine Spirit may work mightily, that hearts may be broken and sinners led to Jesus.

“Beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed.” Human ingenuity has done very much to bridge great gulfs. Scarcely has the world afforded a river so wide that its floods could not be over leaped; or a torrent so furious that it could not be made to pass under the yoke. High above the foam of Columbia’s glorious cataract, man has hung aloft his slender but substantial road of iron, and the shriek of the locomotive is heard above the roar of Niagara. This very week I saw the first chains which span the deep rift through which the Bristol A.von finds its way at Clifton; man has thrown his suspension bridge across the chasm, and men will soon travel where only that which hath wings could a little while ago have found a way. There is, however, one gulf which no human skill or engineering ever shall be able to bridge; there is one chasm which no wing shall ever be able to cross; it is the gulf which divides the world of joy in which the righteous triumph, from that land of sorrow in which the wicked feel the smart of Jehovah’s sword. Whatever other arguments there may be why the righteous should have no communion with the wicked in a future state, beside all these other things, any one of which is enough and sufficient of itself, there is a great gulf fixed, so that there can be no passage from the one world to the other.

I. In trying solemnly to speak upon this matter, I shall commence

With this — THERE IS NO PASSAGE FROM HEAVEN TO HELL —” They which

would pass from hence to you, cannot.” Glorified saints cannot visit the prison-house of lost sinners. Long enough were the righteous mingled with the wicked; sufficient was the evil time in which the wheat waa choked with the tares; quite long enough was the period in which the chaff laid upon the same floor, side by side with the wheat. Patience had its perfect work. They did both grow together until the time of the harvest; it is not necessary now that harvest has come, that they should lie together any longer. It were inconsistent with the perfect joy and the beatific state of the righteous, with its perfect calm and purity, that sin should be admitted into their midst, or that they should be permitted to find companionships in the abodes of evil. It were not glorious to the Lord Jesus Christ, that they should cease from beholding his beauties and adoring his person, in order to succour

THE BRIDGELE8R GULF. 37g

his enemies, and comfort his desperate foes. Shall the courtiers of heaven become traitors to their King, that they may relieve his implacable adversaries? Shall the princes of the blood imperial, who wear eternal coronets, lay aside their robes of honour, to become menial servants to tha damned in hell, who would not, when Christ was preached to them, bow the knee and kiss the Son? This must not and cannot be. Besides, the decree of God, like a great mountain of brass, has for ever shut the righteous in with holiness, with happiness, with God, and they cannot, if they would, must not, cross the great gulf which divides them from the world of the wicked.

It follows that the most earnest and assiduous preacher must then renounce all hope of converting sinners. God has raised up some apostolic spirits, whose presence in a nation is like the rising of the sun; darkness flies before them, and the light of salvation streams from them to tens of thousands. When they lift up their hands to preach, God gives them power to shake the gates of hell, and when they bend the knee to pray, they unlock the gates of heaven. Men like Baxter with bursting hearts of love, or Joseph Alleine with glowing tongue, or Whitfield with seraph’s fire, or Wesley with cherub’s zeal; these are the men who bless their age and are most truly great. These men can go to the borders of the earth if they will; their commission is co-extensive with the human race — “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature;” “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the ends of the world.” These men are never so happy as when they are preaching. Woe is unto them if they preach not the gospel, and when they preach it and God helps them, they are like Elihu, refreshed by the effort. They were born to preach the gospel and to win sinners to Christ, and the are never content except they are fulfilling their high commission. But they must cease from their labours soon, for in heaven they are not needed, and from hell they are excluded. 0 sinner, even our voice, feeble though it be, may win you to Jesus now; but if you die impenitent, it can never woo you again to a Saviour. Now is my time to preach to you, and set open mercy’s door before you, but then I can never warn you, nor invite you; never again depict the agonies of my Lord and Master and endeavour to attract you by the story of his love, his dying bleeding love. No, it will be all over then. “They rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.” They must bring their sheaves with them, for they cannot return into another field to sow, nor journey into other broad acres to reap. Burning as their hearts will still be with divine love, they will have to exercise it in another way. Their passionate longings for God’s glory will find other channels in which to flow. They will bow their heads and adore him day and night, but they can no longer serve him in gospel ministry. The ambassador rolls up his commission for God has run up the black flag of damnation, and hangs out no more signals of peace. Poor sinner, fain would I win thee now, ftv it is new or never with thee and me.

The efforts of the most importunate visitor, the most earnest friend, must cease with death. Some of you have Mends who can get nearer to your heart than I can. You can afford sometimes to forget my poor words and go your way to sin again; but you have a sister, and when she pleads with you, you do feel it; you have one loving friend, and when he speaks to you you cannot be deaf; your conscience has often been impressed by him, and sometimes through him the strivings of the Spirit have been very mighty with your soul. I love, my brethren and sisters, to see you earnest for the souls of others. God may give you some souls whom he will never give to me, and so long as they be but saved, though I have a holy covetousness and earnestly desire to bring many to Christ, yet I will as unfeignedly rejoice in their salvation by your instrumentality as if it had been accomplished by my own. Go and labour with all your might. Tell what Christ has done for you. With pleading, loving accents, beseech them to be reconciled to God. But oh! remember you can only do that in this life, for when the gates are shut, you are shut in for your reward, and all the world is shut out from your efforts. O my hearer, dost thou hear this? not only will there be no public congregations, no Sabbaths, no houses of prayer, but there shall be no private messengers, no earnest Christians who shall privately seek thy soul’s good. What sayest thou to this? Does not this give an awful value to those tender words of importunate love? Turn thee at the gentle rebuke, for otherwise thou shalt be suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy.

Those who are nearest and dearest must be divided from you, if you perish in your sins. A mother can put her arms about her child’s neck and pray for it here; she may affectionately exhort her son to seek peace with God now; she may earnestly and incessantly follow him with her holy entreaties, but she can never come to him from the realms of glory if once he is lost. “They that would come from us to you cannot.” Do ye hear it, young man? Those glistening eyes of a mother’s love shall never weep again for you. That touching voice which sometimes awoke the echoes of your heart, shall never plead again. O ungodly woman, thou shalt never see thy godly child. Father, ia it that daughter you are thinking of who loved and feared God in childhood and was taken from you? Did she say to you when she was dying, “Follow me to heaven, my Father?” You have heard her voice for the last time; that child will never see her father more unless he turns from his evil ways. Methinks if she could be in heaven what she was on earth, she would fling her arms about your neck and seek to draw you to the glorious throne of the Most High; but oh! it cannot be. A just God condemns the imoenitent sinner, and just men assent to the Divine sentence. See thep, 0 ye ungodly ones that are present to-day, you often think our company a great nuisance, and perhaps while I am preaching, my alarming words annoy you. Ah, we shall not annoy you long. Does your mother tease you when she bids you seek the Lord? She will not tease you long. When I bring home the judgment to come, is the subject obnoxious to you? I shall not ask your patience long. We shall be separated; if you go your way and follow after sin and wrath, there will come a dividing time, and 0 let me say to you, you would give worlds if you had them; you would give them if they were solid diamonds, to hear again the voice which now fatigues you, and to listen once more to those plaintive invitations which vex you and spoil your mirth. Ah, how would you bless God if he would let you come back again an have once more those Sabbaths which were so dull and dreary, and permit you to go up once more to the house of God which now perhaps is like a prison-house to your vain and frivolous spirits. 0 sirs, I say ye may well have patience with us for a little time and bear with our importunities, for we shall not plague you much longer. We beseech you to come to Jesus; we would pluck you by your garments and beseech you to flee from the wrath to come; forgive us for being thus in earnest, for even if we should fail with you, you will soon escape the importunities of our love. A few short months of mortal life, and then you will be far away from all religious discourses and all spiritual talk of things to come; you will be in your own company, but I warn you this will yield you little enough content.

Dear friends, how earnest this ought to make the people of God to work while it is called to-day. If this is our only time for doing good, let us do good while we can. I hear people sometimes say, “Mr. So-and-so does too much; he works too hard.” Oh! we none of us do half enough. Do not talk about working too hard for Jesus Christ, the thing is impossible. Are souls perishing, and shall I sleep? My idle, lazy flesh, shalt thou keep me still while men are dying and hell is filling? Brethren and sisters, let us be lukewarm no longer. If God makes us lights in the world, let us spend ourselves as a candle does, which consumes itself by shining. As the poor work girl, who has but one light, works with desperate pace because that will soon be burned out. so let us be instant in season and out of season, watching, praying labouring for the souls of men. We are not earnest enough about* immortal souls. If we had but a view of the shortness of life, the fleeting character of time, and the terrors of eternal wrath; if we could but see lost souls, and understand their unutterable woe, we should shake ourselves from the dust, and go forth to work while it is called k)-day.

II. As we cannot go from heaven to hell, so the text assures us,

44 NEITHER CAN THEY COME TO US THAT WOULD COME FROM THENCE.”

The lost spirits in hell are shut in for ever. I see the angel standing at that iron door; I hear the awful key as it grates among the tremendous wards, and when that gate is closed, he hurls the key into the abyss of oblivion, and the captives are fast immured, bound in fetters which will never break, in chains which never rust. The sinner cannot come to heaven for a multitude of reasons. Among the rest, these. First, his own character forbids it. As a man lives and dies, so will he be throughout eternity. The drunkard here will have all a drunkard’s thirst there without the means of gratifying it. The swearer here will become a yet more ripe and proficient blasphemer. Death does not change but fixes character; it petrifies it. “He that is holy let him be holy still; he that is filthy let him be filthy still.” The lost man remains a sinner and a growing sinner, and continues to rebel against God. Would you have such a man in heaven? Shall the thief prowl through the streets of the New Jerusalem? Shall the atmosphere of Paradise be polluted by an oath? Shall the songs of angel* be disturbed by the ribaldry of licentious conversation? It cannot be. Heaven were no heaven, if the sinner could be permitted to enter it. “Except a mar be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” and as there is no hope of the finally lost ever being born again, that kingdom of God they cannot see. Sinner, if you are not fit for heaven now, hast thou any right to hope thou ever wilt be? If you die without God and without hope, where must your portion be? Without a God can ye dwell in heaven — God’s own dominions? Without hope, can ye enter where hope is consummated in full fruition? Never. The enemies of God shall never be permitted to beard him to his face, and vent their blasphemies in his own palace; they must be driven from his presence, and driven from that presence for ever.

Moreover, not only does the man’s character shut him out, but also the sinner’s doom. *What was it? “These shall go away into everlasting punishment.” If it is everlasting, how can they enter heaven? What does the Saviour say, “Where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched.” If there be any truth in that metaphor, the lost are lost for ever; the worm would die if they entered heaven, and the fire were quenched if they obtained celestial seats. How does the Holy Spirit put it? Does he not describe the wrath to come as a bottomless pit? It were not such if they could get handhold, and afterwards climb upward to the starry thrones of angels. Brethren, he that dooms men, he that has put it in the strong expression, “He that believeth not shall be damned,” will certainly and literally carry out his own words; and if it be so, it shall never be possible for thenTto break their prison of fire, and enter the land of joy and peace.

Moreover, sinner, thou canst not go out of the prison-house because God’s character and God’s word are against thee. Shall God ever cease to be just? But if he be just, he must never cease from punishing thee when thou art finally condemned. “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth,” is the never ceasing cry of cherubim, but as long as he is “Holy, Holy, Holy,” thou canst never be acceptable to him. Shall God ever cease to be true? But remember, as long as he is true to his own threatenings, he must and will send his arrows through you, and make his fierce wrath to consume you. Then there stands his decree, “He that believeth not shall be damned;” this is the great gulf, that fixed chasm by which the impenitent sinner is fast as firmest destiny bound like Prometheus to the rock for ever, never to be loosed in time or in eternity. It must not — it shall not be — if God be God, and if his decree be not a falsehood and a vanity, ye must not come out of the place of your torment.

Nay, yet more, remember sinner, there never was but one bridge between fallen man and a holy God. That bridge you reject. The person of the Mediator, his substitution, his righteousness, his painful death, these make the only road from sin to righteousness, from wrath to acceptance. But these you reject. If you should ever be lost you will have finally rejected Christ; and inasmuch as you are not this morning saved, O my poor fellow creature, thou art now rejecting Christ; thou art as good as saying, “Christ died, but not for me; Christ shed his blood to save men, but I will not be saved in his way. Let him die. I count his death a trifle, and his blood a vanity; I had sooner perish than be saved by him.” This is what you in effect are saying. I know the words make you shudder; you would not venture to utter them, but that is your feeling. Ye will not have this man to reign over you; you will not bow the knee and kiss the Son; you will still be an adversary to God, and sooner be destroyed than be saved through the atonement of Christ. Well, now, if you reject the only way, what wonder, if having rejected that, there remains no hope? Besides, remember there is no other sacrifice for sin. Scripture expressly tells us that there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. Do you think that Jesus will come a second time to die? Shall those divine hands be stretched again to the wood? You reject him now. If he died again you would reject him. Shall the head again be pierced with thorns? Shall the side again be rent with the spear? Why, sinner, if thou refusest to have him now thou wouldest refuse him could he die a second time. But that cannot be. He has offered an atonement once for all, and now for ever he sits down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. No second atonement — no second redemption shall ever be offered for the sin of men.

Besides, remember, there is no Holy Spirit in the pit. The blessed Spirit is here to-day, and often has he striven with some of you. Do you remember when you trembled like Felix? Do not you remember the time when, like Agrippa, you were almost persuaded? but still all this was put away; conscience was hushed; the Spirit of God was quenched. Well, that Spirit can strive with you again, and if he comes forth in his irresistible strength, if your heart be like a flint, he can break it; and if like iron, he can melt it. But once in the pit, and the Holy Spirit never comes there. That blessed dove shuns the place of wrath, and over souls given up to destruction, never will his life-giving wings be known to brood. If so, then you cannot be born again, and cannot enter heaven; ye can not be sanctified; and unsanctified spirits cannot have a portion in the skies. So then, it is clear enough you cannot possibly pass from hell to heaven. Ah, this will be a judgment upon you, a solemn judgment upon you for many things. You do not like the house of God; you shall be shut out of it. You do not love the Sabbath; you are shut out from the eternal Sabbath. The voice of sacred song had no charm in it for you; you shall not join it. The face of God you never loved; you shall never see it. The name of Jesus Christ was never melodious in your ears; you shall never hear it. Jesus Christ was preached to you, but you rejected him; his blood you trod beneath your feet. The way to heaven was freely set open before you, but you would not come unto him that ye might have life. There is a road from earth to heaven: sinner, though thou hast gone into the depths of sin, if thou hast been the most infamous and most outrageous of offenders, there isa road for thee to heaven yet. The harlot, the thief, the profane, th& drunkard, may yet find mercy through the grace of Jesus, but

“There are no acts of pardon passed
In that cold grave to which we haste;
But darkness, death, and long despair
Reign in eternal silence there.”

God bless the solemn remarks we make, and he shall have the glory.

III. But now, once again to change the subject for a few minutes, I have to notice in the third place, that while no persons can pass that bridgeless chasm, so NO THINGS CAN. Nothing can come from hell to heaven. Rejoice ye saints in light, triumph in your God for this — no temptation of Satan can ever vex you when once you are landed on the golden strand; you are beyond bowshot of the arch-enemy; he may howl and bite his iron hands, but his howlings cannot terrify and his bitings cannot disturb. No longer shall you be vexed with the filthy conversation of the ungodly. Lot shall never hear another foul word. You shall not have to say, “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar.”

“No light discourse shall reach your heart,
Nor trifles vex your ear.”

Ton shall be shut out from everything that belongs to hell. And, remember, you shall be in heaven, so secure that the wrath of God which makes hell shall never light on you. Your Saviour carried it, not a drop of it shall fall upon your persons. No present pains shall be in heaven, they are for the lost; no pains of body, no distractions of mind. You shall have no sin; sin cannot pass from them to you; you shall be perfect — like your Lord, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.

“Your inward foes shall all be slain,
Nor Satan vex your peace again.”

You shall have no fears for the future. You shall know that your bliss is eternal. This shall always be the honey of your honeycombthat it lasts for ever. Millions of years you shall gaze into the face of your beloved; throughout endless ages you shall bask in the sunlight of his smile. This is joy, I say, to the Christian, if he will but think it over it will reconcile him to the hardest strokes of temporary tribulation, and make him rejoice in the hardest toil of this mortal struggle. Courage, man, it is but a day or two of wrestling, and then the immortal crown; an hour or two of fighting, and then the everlasting rest. Methinks I see to-day the angels leaning from the battlements of the celestial palace, and as they mark you, like armed men cutting your way to the gates thereof, they cry to you: —

44 Come in, come in,
Eternal glory you shall win.”

Will ye sheathe your swords? Will ye stop the conflict? No; press on, and let your true Jerusalem blades cut through soul and spirit, and divide joint and marrow, till you reach the summit, and the eternal glory shall be yours.

IV. Again, we change the strain for a fourth point, and this a terrible one. As nothing can come from hell to heaven, so nothing heavenly can ever come to hell. There are rivers of life at God’s right hand — those streams can never leap in blessed cataracts to the lost. Nay, Lazarus is not permitted to dip the tip of his finger in water to administer the cooling drop to the fire-tormented tongue. Not a drop of heavenly water can ever cross that chasm. See then, sinner, heaven is rest, perfect rest — but there is no rest in hell; it is labour in the fire, but no ease, no peace, no sleep, no calm, no quiet; everlasting storm; eternal hurricane; unceasing tempest. In the worst disease, there ae some respites: spasms of agony, but then pauses of repose. There is no pause in hell s torments. The dreadful music of the eternal miserere has not so much as a single stop in it. It is on, on, on, with crash of battle, and dust and blood, and fire and vapour of smoke.

Heaven, too. is a place of joy; there happy fingers sweep celestial chords; there joyous spirits sing hosannahs day without night; but there is no joy in hell; for music there is the groan; for joy there is the pang; for sweet fellowship there is the binding up in bundles; for everything that is blissful there is everything that is dolorous. No, I could not exaggerate, that were impossible; I cannot come up to the doleful facts, therefore there I leave them. Nothing of the joy of heaven can ever come to hell.

Heaven is the place of sweet communion with God —

“There they behold his face,

And never, never sin;
There from the rivers of his grace,
Drink endless pleasures in.”

There is no communion with God in hell. There are prayers, but they are unheard; there are tears, but they are unaccepted; there are cries for pity, but they are all an abomination unto the Lord. God willeth not the death of any; he had rather that he should turn unto him and live, but if that grace be refused —

44 The Lord, in vengeance dressed,

Shall lift his hand and swear,
You that despised my promised reat
Shall have no portion there.”

Tell me what heaven is if ye will, and I must say of any description that ye give of its joys, that there is none of them in Tophet, for heaven’s blessings cannot cross from the celestial regions to the infernal prison-house. No, it is sorrow without relief, misery without hope, and here is the pang of it — it is death without end. There is only one thing that I know of in which heaven is like hell — it is eternal. “The wrath to come, the wrath to come, the wrath to come” for ever and for ever spending itself, and yet never being spent.

And now, would to God, I could speak with you as my heart desireth; for this is my only opportunity, since, as I have already said, I can do this no more if I be saved and if you be lost. Spare me, then, two or three minutes while I close this poor discourse of mine, by trying to reason with those of you who are unconverted. I have had little to say to God’s people this morning; I may comfort them in the evening, but this morning I have to deal with you who fear not God. Many of you now present are unconverted. I will never flatter you by preaching to you as though you were all Christians. The Lord my God knoweth there is many a heart here that never was broken; there is many a spirit here that never trembled before the majesty of infinite justice, and never kissed the outstretched sceptre of a crucified Redeemer. You know this, some of you; you know you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. I do not mean you alone who live in open sin; but I mean you who are amiable, excellent, admirable in your carriage and deportment, but yet the love of God is not in you. There is no fault to be found with your outward character, may* be, but you have not been born again; you have never passed from death unto life; and remember, sirs, there is the same hell for the most excellent as for the most abominable, unless ye fly to Christ — “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ;” and if ye believe not in him, ye shall die in your sins, “for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Come, then, let me plead with you, and I will ask you a question — do you believe all this? Do you believe that there is a hell? Do you believe that there is a heaven to be lost? If you profess that you do not so believe, I have done with you. God bring you to a better mind. But what did you come here for? Why do you profess to be a Christian if you reject the Christian’s inspired Book? Become an infidel, and be honest. For my part, modern infidelity never gives me any alarm; I had as soon see you outwardly infidels, as to hear you pretend to be Christians, and yet disbelieve what that Book teaches. I like honesty, and it seems to me that when a man honestly says, “I shall not make a profession of believing what I do not believe,” that there is at least one virtue in him, and we may hope that others may find soil to grow in. But you that profess to be religious, and attend your Church or your Chapel, and yet do not believe the revelation of God, what can I say to you, but that your damnation will be most just. I think I hear many of you say, “Believe it, sir, oh! we never doubted it; we learned it in our earliest childhood, we have heard it always, and we never ventured to doubt.” Ah! well then, I ask you — are you in your sober senses to believe that there is hell, and not seek to escape from it? Do you believe there is a wrath to come, and that it, may fall upon you in the next minute, for you may be dead and never leave this house of prayer, and yet do you sit easy in your pews; or are you mad? has sin so besotted you with its foul intoxication, that you cannot think? for if you can think, and there be an angry God who will punish with the awful force of his omnipotence, how is it that you can be at ease in Zion?

Let me ask you another question: if these things be so, have you used your senses in giving a preference to the pleasures of this life beyond tfce joys of heaven? in following the pleasures of to-day, when you know they will be followed with the miseries of eternity. Do not mistake, I do not mean to say that a Christian is without pleasures, we have the highest and purest pleasure that mortal or immortal can know; we have not the pleasures of sin, but we have higher, more delightful, and deeper pleasures. But this is what I mean, will you spend yourselves in sinful pleasure? will you occupy your time with lust, or drunkenness, or with the frivolities of fashionable life, and do you think that these are worth the expense that they will cause? “Oh,” said one to me, who holds a high position in society, as I talked with him long, after having preached earnestly the gospel, he took me by the button, and he said, “it does seem to me to be an awful thing, that I, knowing as I do what will be my lot if I live and die as I am, should still act as I do. When you are with me,” said he, “and I listen to a solemn address, I think there’ shall come a change over me; I will serve God, but 0 sir, you do not know the temptations of my life; you do not know how it is when I get into the midst of pomps and vanities, and perhaps mingle with men who ridicule all thoughts of religion, it all goes, and I am such a fool that I sell my soul — sell my soul for it.” Oh! there are such fools here to-day, who sell their souls for a little sin — one or two whirls in the world’s mad dance, and then the devil is your partner, and your mirth is over. I ask you to use your reason, and judge whether it be worth your while to gain the whole world and lose your own soul.

1 shall put it to you in another way. How is it that ye do not lay hold of Christ, since this is the only time when there is a probability that Christ can be laid hold of. I will tell you why it is. You do not love Christ; you love sin. Or else you are too proud to come to Christ; you think yourselves good enough, and you think that Christ is not for such as you are, but only for great sinners and the lowest of the low. 0 sirs, is your pride such a fine thing, that you will be damned in order to maintain its dignity? Throw your pride down, come as a sinner must come, and lay hold of Jesus Christ. Or if it be your sin which hinders, may God the Holy Ghost help you to pluck out the right eye and cast off a right arm sooner than having two eyes and two arms to be cast into hell fire.

“But,” saith one, “how may I lay hold on Christ?” May the blessed Spirit enable you to do it. Here it is, trust Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Conscious that you deserve his wrath, trembling because of his terrible law, look to Jesus. There hangs a bleeding Savioiu. Methinks these eyes can see him bleeding there; God eternal, he by whom the heaven of heavens were made, and the earth and the fulness thereof, takes upon himself the form of man and hangs npc a the tree of the curse.

“See from his head, his hands, his feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down J
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?”

There is life in a look at that crucified One, there is life at this moment for thee. Will you glance at him with a tearful eye, “Jesus, slaughtered, martyred, murdered for my sake, I do believe in thee; here at thy feet I throw myself, all guilty, polluted, foul; let thy blood drop on me; turn thine eye upon me; say to me ‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with the bands of my kindness have I drawn thee.’ Corne and welcome, sinner — come.” I have but preached the law to you out of love. God knoweth how these hard things, as I speak them, make my heart bleed blood. 0 that you would believe in Jesus; he is freely preached to you — accept him. May the Spirit of God lead you now to accept him. These are no hard terms, no stern conditions of a blood thirsty tyrant; he does but say, “Bow the knee and kiss the Son. Come, and welcome, sinner — come.” Young man, wilt thou be saved or not? Thou sinner, yonder, with thy grey head, betokening the approach of death, wilt thou believe in Christ or not? It may be this is thy last time — thou shalt never hear the gospel faithfully and affectionately pressed home upon thee again. Wilt thou have Jesus to be thine? Spirit of God, lead that heart to say, “Yea, Lord, I will;” and as the acceptance is heard on earth, may it be registered in heaven, and may talvation come to that man’s heart this day. The Lord bless you all, every one of you; and when he gathers his people together, may I and f ou, every one of us, he found at his right hand, to see his smiling face.

$ mi Street |)mpt

A PREACHER FROM THE DEAD.

& pennon

DELIVERED ON SABBATH MORNING, JULY 26, 1857, BY TUB

REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE MUSIC HALL, ROYAL SURREY GARDENS.

And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded Chough one rose from the dead. — Luke xvi. 31.

MAN is very loath to think ill of himself. The most of mankind are very prone to indulge in apologies for sin. They say, “If we had lived in better times we had been better men; if we had been born into this world under happier auspices we should have been holier; and if we had been placed in more ex cellent circumstances we should have been more inclined to the right.” The mass of men, when they seek the cause of their sin, eeek it anywhere but in the right place. They will not blame their own nature for it; they will not find fault with their own corrupt heart, but they will lay the blame anywhere else. Some of them find fault with their peculiar position. “If,” says one, “I had been born rich, instead of being poor, I should not have been dishonest.” “Or if,” ays another, “I had been born in middle life, instead of being rich, I should not have been exposed to such temptations to lust and pride as I am now; but my very condition is so adverse to piety, that I am compelled by the place I hold in society, to be anything but what I ought to be.” Others turn round and find fault with the whole of society; they say that the whole organism of society is wrong; they tell us that everything in government, everything that concerns the state, everything which melts men into commonwealths, is all so bad that they cannot be good while things are what they are. They must have a revolution, they must upset everything; and then they think they could be holy! Many on the other hand throw the blame on their training. If they had not been so brought up by their parents, if they had not been so exposed in their youth, they would not have been what they are. It is their parent’s fault; the sin lay at their father’s or their mother’s door. Or it is their constitution. Hear them speak for themselves, “If I had such a temper as so-and-so, what a good man I would be! But with my headstrong disposition it is impossible. It is all very well for you to talk to me: but men have different turns of mind, and my turn of mind is such that I could not by any means be a serious character; “and so he throws the blame on his constitution. Others go a deal farther, and throw the blame on the ministry. 41 If,” say they, “at one time the minister had been more earnest in preaching, I should have been a better man; if it had been my privilege to sit under sounder doctrine and hear the Word more faithfully preached, I should have been better.” Or else they lay it at the door of professors of religion, and say, “If the church were more consistent, if there were no hypocrites and no formalistSj then we should reform!” Ah! sirs, you are putting the saddle on the wrong norse, yuu are laying the burden on the wrong back; the blame is in your nearts, nowhere else. If your hearts were renewed you would be better; but until that is done, if society were remodelled to perfection, if ministers were angels, and profecsors of religion were seraphs, you would be none the better; but having less excuse for your sin, you would be doubly guilty, and perish with r, iuvre terrible destruction. But yet men will always be having it, that ii Mings wore different they would be different too; whereas, the difference must be mad:.- in themselves, if they begin in the right place.

Amongst other “hims v’hich have occureu to the human mind. siKh aw oac

No. U3. 39

A PliKACIIEi; FKOM THK DEAD.

as that of my text may sometimes have arisen. “If,” said the rich man m hell, “if one should arise from the dead, if Lazarus should go from heaven to preach, my hardened brethren would repent,” And some have been apt to say, “If my aged father, or some venerable patriarch could rise from the dead and preach, we should all of us turn to God.” That is another way of casting the blame in the wrong quarter: we shall endeavour, if we can, to refute such a supposition as that this morning, and affirm most strenuously the doctrine of the text, that “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” Let us proceed with this subject.

Suppose a preacher should come from another world to preach to us, we must naturally suppose that he came from heaven. Even the rich man did not ask that he or any of his compeers in torment might go out of hell to preach. Spirits that are lost and given up to unutterable wickedness, could not visit this earth; and if they did, they could not preach the truth, nor lead us on the road to heaven which they had not trodden themselves. The advent of a damned spirit upon earth would be a curse, a blight, a withering blast; we need not suppose that such a thing ever did or could occur. The preacher from another world, if such could come, must come from heaven. He must be a Lazarus who had lain in Abraham’s bosom, a pure, perfect, and holy being. Now, imagine for a moment that such an one had descended upon earth; suppose that we heard to-morrow a sudden piece of news — that a venerable spirit, who had been a long time buried, had on a sudden burst his cerements, lifted up his coffin-lid, and was now preaching the word of life. Oh! what a rush there would be to hear him preach! What place in this wide world would be large enough to hold his massive congregations! How would you rush to listen to him! How many thousands of portraits would be published of him, representing him in the dread winding-sheet of death, or as an angel fresh from heaven. Oh! how would this city be stirred: and not this city only, but this whole land! Nations far remote would soon hear the news; and every ship would be freighted with passengers, bringing men and women to hear tnis wondrous preacher and traveller who had returned from the bourne unknown. And how would yon listen? And how solemnly would you gaze at that unearthly spectre! And how would your ears be attent to his every word! His faintest syllable would be caught and published everywhere throughout the world — the utterances of a man who had been dead and was alive again. And we are very apt to suppose, that if such a thing should happen, there would be numberless conversions, for surely the congregations thus attracted would be immensely blest. Many hardened sinners would be led to repent; hundreds of halters would be made to decide, and great good would be done. Ah! stop, though the first part of the fairy dream should occur, yet would not the last. If some one should rise from the dead, yet would sinners no more repent through his preaching than through the preaching of any other. God might bless such preaching to salvation, if he pleased; but in itself there would be no more power in the preaching of the sheeted dead, or of the glorified spirit, than there is in the preaching of feeble man to-day. “Though one should rise from the dead, they would not repent.”

But yet, many men would suppose that advantages would arise from the resurrection of a saint, who could testify to what he had seen and heard. Now, the advantages, I suppose, could only be three. Some would say there would be advantage in the strength of evidence which such a man could give to the truth of Scripture; for you would say, “If a man did actually come from the pearly-gated city of Jerusalem, the home of the blest, then there would be no more dispute about the truth of revelation. That would be settled. f Some wouln. suppose that be could tell us more than Moses and the prophets had told us5 and tha;; there would be an advantage in (he instruction which he could confer, as well as in the evidence which he would bear. And, thirdly, there may be soms who suppose that it would be an advantage gained in the manner in which such an cue would speak, “For surely,” say they, “he would speak with great eloquence, with a far mightier power, and with a deeper feeling than any common preacher who had never beheld the solemnities of another world.” Now, these three points one after another, and we think we will settle them.

I. First, it is thought that if one did come from the dead to pr?nch, then would he A CONFIRMATION OF THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL, and a testimony borne at which jeering infidelity would stand aghast in silence. Stop, we will see about that. We do not think so. We believe that the resurrection of one dead man to-day, to come into this hall and preach, would be no confirmation of the gospel to any person here present who does not believe it already.

If, my friends, the testimony of one man who had been raised from the dead were of any value for the confirming of the gospel, would not God have used it before now? This shall be my first argument. It is undoubtedly true that some have risen from the dead. We find accounts in Holy Scripture of some men who by the power of Christ Jesus, or through the instrumentality of prophets, were raised from the dead; but ye will note this memorable fact, that they never any of them spoke one word which is recorded, by way of telling us what they saw while they were dead. I shall not enter into any discussion as to whether their souls slept during the time of their death, or whether they were in heaven or not. That would be a discussion without profit, only gendering disputes, which could yield no fruit. I only say, it is memorable that there is not a record of any one of them having given any description of what they saw while they were dead. Oh, what secrets might he have told out, who had laid in his grave four days! Do ye not suppose that his sisters questioned him? Do ye not think that they asked him what he saw — whether he had stood before the burning throne of God, and been judged for the things done in his body, and whether he had entered into rest? But, however they may have asked, it is certain he gave no answer: for had he given an answer we should have known it now; tradition would nave cherished the record. And do ye remember, when Paul once preached a long sermon, even until midnight, there was a young man in the third loft named Eutychus, who fell asleep, and fell down, and was taken up dead? Paul came down and prayed, and Eutychus was restored to life. But did Eutychus get up and preach after he had come from the dead? No; the thought never seems to have struck a single person in the assembly. Paul went on with his sermon, and they sat and listened to him, and did not care one fig about what Eutychus had seen; for Eutychus had no thing more to tell them than Paul had. Of all the number of those who by divine might have been brought again from the shades of death, I repeat the assertion, we have not one secret told; we have not one mystery unravelled by them all. Now, God knoweth best; we will not compare our surmises to divine decision. If God decided that resurrection men should be silent, it was best it should be; their testimony would have been of little worth or help to us, or else it would have been borne.

But again, I think it will strike our minds at once, that if this very day a man should rise from his tomb, and come here to affirm the truth of the gospel, the infidel icorld would be no more near believing than it is now. Here comes Mr. Infidel Critic. He denies the evidences of the Bible; evidences which so clearly prove its authenticity, that we are obliged to believe him to be either blasphemous or senseless, in that he does so, ana we leave him his choice between the two. But he dares to deny the truth of Holy Scripture, and will have it that all the miracles whereby it is attested are untrue and false. Do you think that one who had risen from the dead would persuade such a man as that to believe? What? when God’s whole creation having been ransacked by the hand of science, has only testified to the truth of revelation — when the whole history of buried cities and departed nations has but preached out the truth that the Bible was true — when every strip of land in the far-off East has been an exposition and a confirmation of the prophecies of Scripture; if men are yet unconvinced, do ye suppose that one dead man rising from the tomb would convince them? No; I see the critical blasphemer already armed for his prey. Hark to him; “I am not quite sure that you ever were dead; sir, you profess to be risen from the dead; 1 do not believe you. You say you have been dead, and have gone to heaven; my dear man you were in a trance. You must bring proof from the parish register that you were dead.” The proof is brought that he was dead. Well, now you must prove that you were buried.” It is proved that he was buried, and it is proved that some sexton in old times, did take up his dry bone* and cast his d lst in the air. “That is very good: now I want you to proY?

that you are the identical man that was buried.” “Well I am, I know f am; I tell you as an honest man I have been to heaven, and I have come back again.” “Well then,” says the infidel, “it is not consistent with reason; it is ridiculous to suppose that a man who was dead and buried could ever come to life again, and so I don’t believe you, I tell you so straight to your face.” That is how men would answer him, and instead of having only the sin of denying many miracles men would have to add to it the guilt of denying another; but they would not be so much as a tithe of an inch nearer to conviction; and certainly, if the wonder were done in some far-off’ land, and only reported to the rest of the world, I can suppose that the whole infidel world would exclaim, “Simple childish tales and such traditions have been current elsewhere: but we are sensible men, we do not believe them.” Although a churchyard should start into life, and stand up before the infidel who denies the truth of Christianity: I declare I do not believe there would be enough evidence in all the church yards in the world to onvince him. Infidelity would still cry for some thing more. It is like the horse-leech; it crieth, “Give, give!” Prove a point to an infidel, and he wants it proved again; let it be as clear as noon day to him from the testimony of many witnesses, yet doth he not believe it. In fact, he doth believe it; but he pretendeth not to do so, and is an infidel in spite of himself. But certainly the dead man’s rising would be little worth for the conviction of such men.

But remember, my dear friends, that the most numerous class of unbelievers are a set of people who never think at all. There are a great number of people in this land that eat and drink, and everything else except think at least, they think enough to take their shop shutters down of a morning, and put them up at night; they think enough to know a little about the rising of the funds, or the rate per cent, of interest, or something like how articles are selling, or the price of bread; but their brains seem to be given them for nothing at all, except to meditate upon bread and cheese. To them religion is a matter of very small concern. They dare say the Bible is very true, they dare say religion is all right; but it does not often trouble them much. They suppose they are Christians; for were they not christened when they were babies? They must be Christians — at least they suppose so; but they never sit down to enquire what religion is. They sometimes go to church and chapel and elsewhere; but it does not signify much to them. One minister may contradict another, but they do not know; they dare say they are both right. One minister may fall foul of another in almost every doctrine; it does not signify, and they pass over religion with the queer idea — “God Almighty will not ask us where we went to, I dare say.” They do not exercise their judgments at all. Thinking is such hard work for them that they never trouble themselves at all about it. Now, if a man were to rise from the dead to-morrow these people would never be startled. Yes, yes, they would go and see him once, just as they go and see any other curiosity, the living skeleton, or Tom Thumb; they would talk about him a good deal, and say, “There’s a man risen from the dead,” and possibly some winter’s evening they might read one of his sermons; but they would never give themselves trouble to think whether his testimony was worth anything or not. No, they are such blocks they never could be stirred; and if the ghost were to come to any of their houses trie most they would feel would be, they were in a fearful fright; but as to what he said, that would never exercise their leaden brains, and never stir their stony senses. Though one should rise from the dead, the great mass of these people never would be affected.

And, besides, my friends, if men will not believe the witness of God, it is impossible that they should believe the witness oj man. If the voice of God from the top of Sinai and his voice by Moses in the book of the Law, if his voice by the divers prophets in the Old Testament, and especially his own word by his own Son, who hath brought immortality to light by the gospel, cannot convince men, then there is nothing in the world that can of itself accomplish the work. No; if God speak once, but man regardeth him not, we need not wonder that we have to preach many a time without being regarded; and we should not harbour the thought that some men who had risen from the dead would have a greater power to convince than the words of God. If this Bible be not enough to cpn-Tert you, apart from the Spirit, (and certainly it is not) then there is nothing

A P1EACHER FT7OM TI[E DEAD.

in the world that can, apart from his influence; and if the revelation which God has given of his Son Jesus Christ in this blessed book, if the Holy Scripture be not in the hands of God enough to bring you to the faith of Christ, then, though an angel from heaven, then, though the saints fiom glory, then, though God himself should descend on earth to preach to you, you would go on unsaved and unblest. “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” That is the first point.

II. It is imagined, however, that if one of *’ the spirits of the just made perfect “would come to earth, even if he did not produce a most satisfactory testimony to the minds of sceptics, he would yet be able to give abundant information concerning the kingdom of heaven.” Surely,” some would say, “if Lazarus had come from the bosom of Abraham, he could have unfolded a tale that would have made our hair stand upright, while he talked of the torments of the rich man; surely, if he had looked from the gates of bliss, he might have told us about the worm that dieth not and the fire that never can be quenched: some horrible details, some thrilling words of horror and of terror he might have uttered, which would have unfolded to us more of the future state of the lost than we know now.” “And,” says the bright-eyed believer,” if he had come on earth he might have told us of the saints’ everlasting rest: he might have pictured to us that glorious city which hath the Lord God for its eternal light, the streets whereof are of gold, and its gates of pearl. Oh! how sweetly would he have descanted upon the bosom of Christ, and the felicity of the blest. He had been

‘Up where eternal ages roll;
Where solid pleasures never die,
And fruits immortal feast the soul.’

Surely he would have brought down with him some handfuls of the clusters of Eshcol; he would have been able to tell us some celestial secrets, which would have cheered our hearts, and nerved us to run the heavenly race, and put a cheerful courage on.” Stop; that is a dream too. A spirit of the just descending from heaven could tell us no more that would be of any use to us than we know already. What more could that spirit from heaven tell us of the pains of hell than we do already know? Is not the Bible explicit enough? Did not the lips of Christ dreadfully portray the lake of fire? Did he not, even he who wept over men, did he not in awful language tell us that God would say at last, “Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels?” Do you need more thrilling words than these? “The worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched.” Do you need more terrible warnings than these, — “The wicked snail be cast into hell, with all the nations that forget God?” Do you want more awful warnings than this — “Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” What! do you want a fuller declaration than the words of God. “Tophet is prepared of old; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it?” You cannot want more than Scripture gives of that. Even that you try to run away and escape from; you say the book is too horrible, and tells you too much of damnation and hell. Sirs, if you think there is too much there, and therefore reject it, would you stand for an instant to listen to one who should tell you more? No; ye do not wish to know more, nor would it be of any use to you if you did. Do you need more details concerning the judgment, that day of wrath to which each of us is drawing nigh? Are we not told that the king “shall sit on the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all people; and he shall divide them the one from the other, as the shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats.” Suppose there were one here who had seen the solemn preparation for the great assize — one who had stood where the throne is to be planted, and had marked the future with a more piercing eye than ours. Yet of what avail would it be to us? Could he tell ui more than Holy Writ hath told us now — at least, any which would be more profitable? Perhaps he knows no more than we. And one thing I am sure of, he would not tell us more about the rule of judgment than we knovr now. Spirit that hath returned from another world, tell me, how are men judged? Why are they condemned? Why are they saved? I hear him say, “Men are condemned because of sin. Read the ten commandments of Moses, and you will find the ten great condemnations whereby men are for ever cut off.” I knew that before, bright Spirit; thou hast told me nothing! “No,” says he, “and nothing can I tell.” “Because I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was sick, and ye visited me not; I was in prison, and ye came not unto me; therefore, inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me. Depart, ye cursed!” “Why, Spirit, was that the word of the King?” “It was,” says he. ‘’ I have read that, too; thou hast told me no more.” If you do not know the difference between right and wrong from reading the Scripture, you would not know it if a spirit should tell you; if you do not know the road to hell and the road to heaven from the Bible itself, you would never know it at all. No book could be more clear, no revelation more distinct, no testimony more plain. And since without the agency of the Spirit, these testimonies are insufficient for salvation, it follows that no further declaration would avail.

Salvation is ascribed wholly to God, and man’s ruin only to man. What more could a spirit tell us, than — a distinct declaration of the two great truths. — “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help found!”

Beloved, we do solemnly say again, that Holy Scripture is so perfect, so complete, that it cannot want the supplement of any declaration concerning a future state. All that you ought to know concerning the future you may know from Holy Scripture. It is not right to say with Young —

“My hopes and fears start up alarmed,
And o’er life’s narrow verge look down,
On what? A bottomless abyss,
A dread eternity.”

It is not right to say that, as if it were all we know. Blessed be God, the saint does not look down upon a bottomless abyss; he looks up to the celestial “city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Nor do even the wicked look down upon an unknown abyss; for to them it is clearly revealed. Though “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,” the tortures of the lost, yet hath Holy Scripture sufficiently told us of them to make it a well-mapped road; so that when they meet with death, and hell, and terror, it shall be no new thing; for they heard of it before, and it was distinctly revealed to them. Nothing more could we know that would be of any use. Tattlers, idle curiosity people, and such like, would be mightily delighted with

such a man. Ah! what a precious preacher he would be to them, if they could get him all the way from heaven, and get him to tell all its secrets out! Oh, how would they love him — how would they delight in him! “For,” say they,

“he knows a great deal more than anybody else; he knows a great deal more than the Bible tells us; he knows a great many little details, and it is wonderful to hear him explain them!” But there the matter would end. It would be merely the gratification of curiosity; there would be no conferring of blessing; for if to know more of the future state would be a blessing for us, God would not withhold it; there can be no more told us. If what you know would not

Sersuade you, “Neither would you be persuaded though one rose from the ead.”

III. Yet some say, “SURELY, IF THERE. WERE NO GAIN IN MATTER, YET THERE WOULD BE A GAIN IN MANNER. Oh, if such a spirit had descended from the spheres, how would he preach! What eloquence celestial would flow frcm his lips! How majestically would he word his speech! How mightily would he move his hearers! What marvellous words would he utter! What sentences that might start us from our feet, and make us quiver with their thrilling influence. There would be no dulness in such a preacher; it would be no fatigue to hear him; there would be no want of affection in him, and surely no want of earnestness; we might well be pleased to hear him every day, and never weary with his wondrous speech. Such a preacher earth hath never heard. Oh, if he would but come! How would we listen!” — Stay! that too ils a dream*

£ do believe that Lazarus from Abraham’s bosom would not be so good a preacher as a man who has not died, but whose lips have been touched with a live coal from oft the altar. Instead of his being better, I cannot see that he would be quite so good. Could a spirit from the other world speak to you more solemnly than Moses and the prophets have spoken? Or could ther speak more solemnly than you have heard the word spoken to you at divers times already? O sirs, some of you have heard sermons that have been as solemn as death and as serious as the grave. I can recall to some of your memories seasons when you have sat beneath the sound of the word, wondering and trembling all the while. It seemed as if the minister had taken to himself bow and arrows, and were making your conscience the butt at which his shafts were levelled. You have not known where you were; you have been so grievously frighted and smitten with terror that your knees did knock together, and your eyes ran with tears. What more do you want than that? If that solemn preaching of some mighty preacher whom God had inspired for the time — if that did not save you, what can save you, apart from the influence of the Spirit? And oh! you have heard more solemn preaching than that. You had a little daughter once; that child of yours had been to the Sabbath-school it came home, and was sick unto death; you watched it by night and day, and the fever grew upon it; and you saw that it must die. You have not forgotten yet how your little daughter Mary preached you a sermon that was solemn indeed: just before she departed she took your hand in her little hand, and she said, “rather, I am going to heaven; will you follow me?” That was a solemn sermon to you. What more could sheeted dead have said? Ye have not forgotten yet, how when your father lay a dying — (a holv man of God he had been in his day, and served his Master well) — you with your brothers and sisters stood around the bed, and he addressed you one by one. Woman! you have not forgotten yet, despite all your sin and wickedness since then, how he looked you in the face and said, “My daughter, ‘twere better for thee that thou hadst never been born than that thou shouldst be a despiser of Christ and a neglecter of his salvation,’ And you have not forgotten how he looked when with solemn tears in his eyes he addressed you and said, “My children, I charge you by death and by eternity, I charge you, if you love your own souls, despise not the gospel of Christ; forsake your follies, and turn unto God and live.” What preacner do you want better than that? What voice more solemn than the voice of that of your own parent upon the confines of eternity? And you have not yet quite clean escaped from the influence of another solemn scene. You had a friend, a so-called friend; he was a traitor, one who lived in sin and rebelled against God with a high hand and an outstretched arm. You remember his death-bed, when he lay near to death terrors got hold of him; the flames of hell began to get their grip of him, before he had clean departed. You have not yet forgotten his shrieks, his screams; you have not yet quite got from your vision in your dreams that hand through which the finger nails were almost pierced in agony, and that face, contorted with direful twitchings of dismay. You have not clear escaped yet from that horrid yell with which the spirit entered the realm of darkness and forsook the land of the living. What more of a preacher do you want? Have you heard this preaching, and yet have you not repented? Then verily, if after all this you are hardened, neither would you be persuaded though one rose from the dead.

Ah! but you say, you want some one to preach to you more feelingly. Then, Sir, you cannot have him in the preacher you desire. A spirit from heaven could not be a feeling preacher. It would oe impossible for Lazurus, who had been in Abraham’s bosom, to preach to you lnth emotion. As a perfect being of course he must be supremely happy. Imagine this morning a supremely happy being preaching to you, about repentance and the wrath of God. Do you not see him? there is a placid smile ever upon his brow; the light of heaven gilds his face; he is talking about the torments of hell, it was the place for sighs and groans; but he cannot sigh; his face is just as placid as ever. He is speaking of the torments of the wicked, it was the time for tears; he cannot weep; that lyere incompatible with blessedness. The man is Breaching of dreadful things with a smile upon his face; there is summer on his brow, ana winter on his lips — heaven in his eyes, and hell in his mouth. You couia not bear such a preacher; he would seem to mock you. Ay, it needs a man to preach, a man like yourselves, who is capable of feeling. There wants one who, when he preaches of Christ, smiles on his hearers with love — who, when he tells of terror, quails in his own spirit whilst he utters the wrath of God. The great power of preaching, next to the power of God’s Spirit, lies in the preacher’s feeling it. We shall never do much good in preaching unless we feel what we utter. “Knowing the terrors of the Lord we persuade men.” Now, a glorified spirit from heaven could not feel these things; he could show but ittle emotion. True, he could speak of the glories of heaven; and how would his face grow brighter, and brighter, and brighter, as he told the wonders of that upper world! But when he came to cry “Flee from the wrath to come,” the voice would sound as sweet when he spoke of death and judgment, as when he spoke of glory; and that would make sad discord, the sound not answering to the sense — the modulations of his voice being unfit to express the idea upon the mind. Such a preacher could not be a powerful preacher, even though he came again from the dead.

And one thing we may say, he could not preach more closely home to you than you have had the truth preached to you. I shall not say that you have had preaching put very close to you from ,the pulpit. I have striven to be very personal sometimes: I have not shunned to point some of you out in the congregation, and given you a word of rebuke, such as you could not mistake; nor if I knew that any of you were indulging in sin would I spare you. I bless God that I am not afraid to be a personal preacher, and to shoot the arrow at each separate man when he needs it. But, nevertheless, I cannot preach home to you as I would. Ye are all thinking your neighbour is intended, when it is yourself. But you have had a personal preacher once. There was a great preacher called at your house one day; his name was Cholera and Death. A terrible preacher he! With grim words and hard accent he came and laid his hand upon your wife; and then he put his other hand on you, and you grew cold and well-nigh stiff. You remember how he preached to you then. He made your conscience ring again and again; he would not let you lie still; he cried aloud concerning your sin and your iniquity; he brought all your past life to light, and set all your evil conduct in review. From your childhood even up till then he led you through all your wanderings: and then he took the whip of the law, and began to plough your back with furrows. He affrighted you with “the wrath to come.” You sent for the minister; you bade him pray; you thought you prayed yourself; and after all that, that preacher went away, and he had come on a fruitless errand; no good had been done to you; you had been a little startled and a little stirred, but you are to-day what you were then, unsaved and unconverted. Then, sir, you would not be converted, though one rose from the dead You have been wrecked at sea; you have been cast into the jaws of the grave by fever; you have been nearly smitten to death by accident; and yet, with all this personal preaching, and with Mr. Conscience th-.,dering in your ears, you are to-day unconverted. Then learn this truthp that no outward means in the world can ever bring you to the footstool of divine grace and make you a Christian, if Moses and the prophets have failed. All that can be done now is this: God the Spirit must bless the word to you, otherwise conscience cannot awaken you, reason cannot awaken you, powerful appeals cannot awaken you, persuasion cannot bring you to Christ. Nothing will ever do it except God the Holy Spirit. Oh! do you feel that you are drawn /his morning? Does some sweet hand draw you to Christ, and does some Messed voice say, “Come to Jesus, sinner; there is hope for thee.” Then that is God’s Spirit. Bless him for it! He is drawing thee by the hands of love and the cords of a man. But oh! if thou be undrawn and left to thyself, thou wilt surely die. Brethren and sisters in the faith, let us lift up our prayers to God for sinners, that they may be drawn to Christ — that they may be led to come, all guilty and burdened, and look to Jesus to be lightened, and that they may be persuaded, by the coming power of the Spirit, to take Christ to be their “all-in-all,” knowing that they themselves are “nothing at all.” O God the Holy Spirit bless these words, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen and Amen.

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