Without Christ — Nothing

“Without me ye can do nothing.” — John xv. 5.

THIS is not the language of a man of ordinary mould. No saint, no prophet, no apostle would ever have addressed a company of faithful men, and have said to them, “Without me ye can do nothing.” Had Jesus Christ been, as some say, a good man, and nothing more, such language as this would have been unseemly and inconsistent! Among the virtues of a perfect man we must certainly reckon modesty’,, but this from a mere man would have been shamelessly immodest. It is’ impossible to conceive that Jesus of Nazareth, had he not been more than man, could ever have uttered the sentence, “Without me ye can do nothing.” My brethren, I hear in this sentence the voice of that Divine Person without whom was not anything made that was made. The majesty of the words reveals the Godhead of him that uttered them. The “I am” comes out in the personal word “me,” and the claim of all power unveils the Omnipotent. These words mean God head or nothing. The spirit in which we listen to this language is that of adoration. Let us bow our heads in solemn worship, °and so unite with the multitude before the throne who ascribe power and dominion: and might to him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb.

In this adoring state of mind we shall be the better prepared to enter into the innermost soul of the text. I am not going to preach upon the moral inability of the unregenerate, although in that doctrine I most firmly believe; for that truth did not come in our Lord’s way when he uttered these words, neither did he allude to it. It is quite true that unregenerate men, being without Christ, can do no spiritual action whatever, and can do nothing which is acceptable in the sight of God; but our Lord was not speaking to unregeuerate men at all, nor speaking about them. He was surrounded by his apostles, the eleven out of who in Judas had been weeded, and it is to them as branches of the true vine that he says, “Without me ye can do nothing.” The statement refers to such as are in the vine, and even to such as have been pruned, and have for a while been found abiding in the stem, which is Christ; evea No. 1,625. z-t in such there is an utter incapacity for holy produce if separated from Christ.

We are not called upon just now to speak upon all forms of doing, as beyond us, but of that form of it which is intended in the text. There are certain forms of doing in which men excel who know little or nothing of Christ; but the text must be viewed in its own connection, and the truth is clear. Believers are here described under the figure of branches in the vine, and the doing alluded to must therefore be the bearing of fruit. I might render it, “Apart from me ye can produce nothing — make nothing, ‘create nothing, bring forth nothing.” The reference, therefore, is to that doing which may be set forth by the fruit of the vine branch, and therefore to those good works and graces of the Spirit which are expected from men who are spiritually united to Christ: it is of these that he says, “Without me, ye can do nothing.” Our text is only another form of the fourth verse: “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye except ye abide in me.” I am therefore going to address myself to you who profess to know and love the Lord; and nre anxious to glorify his name, and I have to remind you that union to Christ is essential; for only as you are one with him, and continue to be so, can you bring forth the fruits which prove you to be truly his.

I. Heading again this solemn sentence, “Without me ye can do nothing,” it first of all excites in me AX ASPIRATION OF HOPE. There is something to be done, our religion is to have a grand practical out come. I have been thinking of Christ as the vine, and of the myriads of branches in him, and my heart has hoped for great things. From such a root what a vintage must come! Bsing branches in him, what fruit we must produce! There can be nothing scanty or poverty-stricken in the fruitage of a vine so full of sap. Fruit of the best quality, fruit in the utmost abundance, fruit unrivalled, must be borne by such a vine. That word “do” has music in it. Yes, brethren, Jesus went about about doing good, and, being in him, we shall do good. Everything about him is efficient, practical, — in a word, fruit-bearing; and being joined to him much will yet be done by us. We have been saved by the almighty grace of God apart from all doings of our own, and now that we are saved we long to do something in return: we feel a high ambition to be of some use and service to our great Lord and Master. The text, even though there be a negative in it, yet raises in our soul the hope that ere we go hence and be no more we may even here on earth do something for Christ.

Beloved, there is the ambition and hope before us of doing some thing in the way of glorifying God by bringing forth the fruits of holiness, peace, and love. We would adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. By pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by love unfeigned, by every good and holy work we would show forth the praises of our God. Apart from the Lord Jesus we know we cannot be holy; but joined unto him we overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, and walk with garments unspotted from the world. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, and all manner of holy conversation. For none of these things are we equal in and of ourselves, and yet by faith we say with Paul, “1 can do all things through Christ which strengthened me-” We may be adorned with plentiful clusters, we may cause the Saviour to have joy in us that our joy may be full: great possibilities are before us.

We aspire not only to produce fruit in ourselves, but to bear much fruit in the conversion of others, even as Paul desired concerning the Romans, that he might have fruit among them. In this matter we can do nothing- whatever alone; but being united unto Christ we bring forth increase unto the Lord. Our Lord Jesus said, “The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do, because I go unto the Father.” Brethren, a hope springs up in our bosom that we may each one of us bring many souls to Jesus. Not because we have any power in ourselves, but because we are united to Jesus we joyfully hope to bring forth fruit in the way of leading others to the knowledge of the gospel.

My soul takes lire of hope, and I say to myself, If it be so, all these branches, and all alive, how much fruit of further blessing will ripen for this poor world. Men shall be blessed in us because we are blessed in Christ. What must be the influence of ten thousand godly examples! What must be the influence upon our country of thousands of Christian men and women practically advancing love, peace, justice, virtue, holiness! And if each one is seeking to bring others to Christ what numerous conversions there must be, and how largely must the church of God be increased. Do you not know that if there were only ten thousand real Christians in the world, yet if each one of these broug’hfc one other to Christ every year it would not need twenty years to accomplish the conversion of the entire population of the globe? This is a simple sum in arithmetic which any schoolboy can work out. Certainly it looks a small thing that each one should bring another to the Lord; and surely if we are one with him we may hope to see it done. So 1 sit me down and dream right comfortably, according to the promise, “Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” See these thousands of branches, proceeding from such a stem as Christ Jesus, and with such sap as the Holy Ghost flowing through them; why, surely, this vine muse soon clothe the mountains with its verdure, and there shall not remain a single barren rock unadorned with the blessed foliage! /Then shall the mountains drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. Not because of any natural fertility in the branches, but because of their glorious root, and stem, and sap, each one shall bear full clusters, and each fruitfal bough shall run over the wall. Beloved friends in Christ, have you not strong desires to see some such consummation? Do you not long to take a share in the high enterprise of winning the world to Christ? Oh, ye that are young and full of spirits, do you not long to press to the front of this great crusade? Our souls pine to see the knowledge of the Lord covering the earth as the waters cover the sea. It is glad tidings to us that, joined unto Christ, we can do something in. this great business, something upon which the Lord will smile, something which’ shall redound to the glory of his name. We are not condemned to in action; we are not denied the joy of service, the superior blessedness of. giving and of doing: the Lord hath chosen us and ordained us to go and bring forth fruit, fruit that shall remain. This is the aspiraiiou which irises in our soul; the Lord grant that we may see it take actual form in our lives.

II. But now, in the second place, there passes through my heart a shudder, — A SHUDDER OF FKAR. Albeit I glow and burn with strong desire, and rise upon the wing of a mighty ambition to do something great for Christ, yet I read the text, and a sudden trembling takes hold upon me. “Without me”: — it is possible, then, that I may be without Christ, and so may be utterly incapacitated for all good. Come, friends, I want you to feel, even though it cast a cold chill over you, that you may possibly be “without Christ.” I would have you feel it in the very marrow of your bones, yea, in the centre of your hearts. You profess to be in Christ; but are you so? The large majority of those to whom I speak this morning are visible members of the visible church of Christ; but what if you should not be so in him as to bring forth fruit? Evidently there are branches which in a certain sense are iii the vine, and yet bring forth no fruit! It is written, “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away.” Yes, you are a member, perhaps an elder, perhaps a deacon, possibly a minister, and so you are in the vine; but are you bringing forth the fruits of holiness? Are you consecrated? Are you endeavouring to bring others to Jesus Christ? Or is your profession a thing apart from a holy life, and devoid of all influence upon others? Does it give you a name among the people «f .God and nothing more? Say, is it a mere natural association with the church, or is it a living, supernatural union with Christ? Let the thought go through you and prostrate you before him who looks down from heaven upon you, and lifts his pierced hand, and cries, “Without me ye can do nothing.” My friend, if you are without Christ, what is -the use of carrying on that Bible-class; for you can do nothing? What is the use of my coming to this pulpit if I am without Christ? What is the use of your going down into the Sunday-school this afternoon if, after all, you are without Christ? Unless we have the Lord Jesus ourselves we cannot take him to others. Unless within us we have the living water springing up unto eternal life, we cannot overflow so that out of our midst shall flow rivers of living water.

I will put the thought another way, — What if you should be in Christ, and not so in him as to abide in him? It appears from our Lord’s words that some branches in him are cast forth and are withered. “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered.” Some who are called by his name, and reckoned aiming his disciples, whose names are heard whenever the muster-roll of the church is read, yet do not continue in him. My hearer, what if it should happen that you are only in Christ on a Sunday, but in the world all the week! What if you are only in Christ at the communion table, or at the prayer-meeting, or at certain periods of devotion? What if you are off and on with Christ! What if you play fast and loose with the Lord! What if you are an outside saint and an inside devil! Ah me, what will come of such conduct as this? And yet some persist in attempting to hold an intermittent communion with Christ; in Christ to-day because it is the Sabbath; out of Christ to-morrow because it is the market, and obedience to Christ might be inconvenient when they buy and sell This will not do. We must be so in Christ as to be always in him, or else

we are not living branches of the living vine, and we cannot produce fruit. If there were such a thing as a vine branch that was only occasionally joined to the stem, would you expect it to yield a cluster to the husbandman? So neither can you if you are off and on with Christ. You can do nothing if there be not constant union.

One year when I was travelling towards my usual winter resting-place I hiil ted at Marseilles, and there was overtaken by great pain. In my room in the hotel I found it cold, and so I asked for a fire. I was sitting in a very desponding mood, when suddenly the tears came to my eyes, as if smitten with a great sorrow. I shall never forget the thoughts which stirred my heart. The porter came in to light the fire. He had in his hand a bundle of twigs. I called to him to let me look at it. He was about to push it into the stove as fuel with which to kindle the fire. As I took the bundle into my hand, I found it was made of vine branches — branches that had been cut off now that the pruning time was come. Ah me, I thought, will this be my portion? Here I am, away from home, unable to bear fruit, as I love to do. Shall I end with this as my portion? Shall I be gathered for the fire? Those vine shoots were parts of a good vine, no doubt — branches that once looked fair and green; but now they were fuel for the flame. They had been cut off and cast off as useless things, and then men gathered them and tied them in bundles, and they were ignobly thrust into the fire. What a picture! There goes a bundle of ministers into the fire! There is a bundle of elders! There’s another bundle of deacons, a bundle of church members, a bundle of Sunday-school teachers! “Men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” Dear brothers and sisters, shall this be the lot of any of us who have named the name of Christ? Well did I say a shudder may go through us as we listen to those words, “without me.” Our end without Christ will be terrible indeed. First, no fruit; then no life; and at last no place among the saints, no existence in the church of God. AVithout Christ we do nothing, we are nothing, we are worse than nothing. This is the condition of the heathen now, and it was our own condition once; God forbid that we should find it to be our condition now — “without Christ, having no hope!” Here is grave cause for heart-searching, and I leave the matter with you to that end.

III. Having come so far in our second head, under the third I behold A VISION OF TOTAL FAILURE. “Without me,” says the text, “ye can do nothing” — ye can produce nothing. The visible church of Christ has tried this experiment a great many times already, and always with the same result. Separated from Christ, his church can do nothing which she was formed to do. She is sent into the world upon a high enterprise, with noble aims before her, and grand forces at her disposal; but if she could cease from communion with Christ she would become wholly incapable.

Now what are the outward signs of any community being apart from Christ? Answer, first, It may be seen in a ministry without Christ in its doctrine. This we have seen ourselves. Woe worth the day that it is so! History tells us that not only in the Romish church and the Anglican church, but among the Nonconformist churches, Christ has been at times forgotten. Not only among Unitarians, but among Presbyterians,

Methodists, Baptists, all round, Jesus has been dishonoured, Attempt* have been made to do something without Christ as the truth to be preached. Ah me, what folly it is! They preach up intellectualism, and hope that this will be the great power of God; but it is not. “Surely,” say they, “novelties of thought and refinements of speech will attract and win! The preachers aspire to be leaders of thought; ’ will they not command the multitude and charm the intelligent? Add music and architecture, and what is to hinder success?” Many a young minister has given up his whole mind to this — to try and be exceedingly refined and intellectual; and what has he done with these showy means? The sum total is expressed in the text — “No thing”: “Without me ye can do nothing.” What emptiness this folly has created: when the pulpit is without Christ the pews are soon without people. I knew a chapel where an eminent divine was to be heard for years. A converted Jew coming to London to visit a friend, set out on Sunday morning to find a place of Christian worship, and he chanced to enter the chapel of this eminent divine. When he came back he said that he feared he had made a mistake; he had turned into a building which he hoped was a Christian place of assembly; but as he had not heard the name of Jesus all the morn ing, he thought perhaps he had fallen in with some other religionists. I fear that many modern sermons might just as fairly have been delivered in a Mahometan mosque as in a Christian church. We have too many preachers of whom we might, complain, “they have taken away my” Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.” Christianity without Christ is a strange thing indeed. And what comes of it where it is held up to the people? Why, by-and-by there are not enough people to support the ministry; empty benches are plentiful, and the thing getspretty nearly wound up. Blessed be God f.»r it! I am heartily glad that without Christ these pretended ministers cannot prosper. Leave-Christ -out of the preaching and you shall do nothing. Only advertize it all over London, Mr. Baker, that you are making bread without flour; put it in every paper, “Bread without flour;” and you may soon shut up your shop, for your customers will hurry off to other tradesmen. Somehow there is a strange prejudice in people’s minds in favour of bread made of flour, and there is also an unaccountable prejudice in the human mind which makes men think that if there be a gospel it must have Christ in it. A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution. However grand the language it will be merely much-ado-about-nothing if Christ be not there. Ay, and I mean by Christ not merely his example and the ethical precepts of his teaching, but his atoning blood, his wondrous satisfaction made for human sin, and the grand doctrine of “believe and live.” If “Life for a look at the Crucified One” be obscured, all is dark * if justification by faith be not set in the very forefront in the full blaze of light, nothing can be accomplished. Without Christ in the doctrine ye shall do nothing.

Further, without acknowledging always ffie absolute supremacy of Christ we shall do nothing. Jesus is much complimented nowadays; but he is not submitted to as absolute Lord. I hear many prettythings about Christ from men who reject his gospel. “Lives of Christ “”

;< WITHOUT CHHIST — NOTHING. 599

we have in any quantity. Oh for one which would set him forth in his glory as God, as Head of the church and Lord of all. I should greatly, like to see a “Life of Christ” written by one who knew him by communion with him and by reverently sitting at his feet. Most of the pretty things about’ Jesns which I read nowadays seem to have been written by persons who have seen him through a telescope at a great distance, and know him “according to Matthew,” but not according to personal fellowship. Oh for a “Life of Christ” by Samuel Rutherford or George Herbert, or by some other sweet spirit to whom the ever-blessed One is as a familiar friend. Certain modern praises of Jesus are written upon the theory that, on the whole, the Saviour has given us a religion that is tolerabfy suited to the enlightenment -pf the nineteenth century, and may be allowed to last a little longer* Jesus iscommended by these critics, and somewhat admired as preferable to most teachers; but he is by no means to be blindly followed. It is fortunate for Jesus that he commends himself to the “best thought” and ripest culture of the period; for, if he had not done so, these wise gentlemen would have exposed him as being behind the times. Of course they have every now and then to rectify certain of his dogmas, especially such as justification by faith, or atonement, or the doctrine of election — these are old-fashioned things, which belong to an older and less enlightened period, and therefore they adapt them by tearing out their real meaning. The doctrines of grace, according to the infallible critics of the period, are out of date — nobody believes them now, and so they settle off old-fashioned believers as non-existent. Christ is rectified and squared, and his garment without seam is taken off, and he is dressed out in proper style, as by a West-End clothier; then he is introduced to us as a remarkable teacher, and we are advised to accept him as far as he goes. For the present the wise ones tolerate Jesus; but there is no telling what is to come: the progress of this age is so astonishing that it is just possible we shall before long leave Christ and Christianity behind. Now, what will come of this foolish wisdom? Nothing but delusions, mischief, infidelity, anarchy, and all manner of imaginable and unimaginable ills. The fact is, if you do not acknowledge Christ to be all, you have virtually left him out, and are without him. We must preach the gospel, because Christ has revealed it. “Thus saith the Lord,” is to be our logic. We must preach the gospel as ambassadors delivering their message; that is to say, in the King’s name, by an authority not their own. We preach our doctrines, not. because we consider that they are convenient and profitable, but because Christ has commanded us to proclaim them. We believe the doctrines of grace, not because the enlightenment of the age setsits wonderful imprimatur upon them, but because they are true and are the voice of God. Age or no age has nothing to do with us. The world hates Christ and must hate him: if it would boldly denounce Christ it would be to us a more hopeful sign than its deceitful Judas kiss. We keep simply to this, — the Lord hath said it, and we care not who approves or disapproves. Jesus is God and Head of the church, and we must do what he bids us, and say what he tells us: if we fail in this, nothing of good will come of it. If the church gets back to her loyalty she shall see whut her Lord will do; but without Christ as absolute Lord, infallible Teacher, and honoured King, all must be failure even to the end.

Go a little further: you may have sound doctrine, and yet do nothin°- unless you have Christ in your spirit. I have known all the doctrines of grace to be unmistakably preached, and yet there have been no conversions; for this reason, that they were not expected and scarcely desired. In former years many orthodox preachers thought it to be their sole duty to comfort and confirm the godly few who by dint of great perseverance found out the holes and corners in which they prophesied. These brethren spoke of sinners as of people whom God might possibly gather in if he thought fit to do so; but they did not care much whether he did so or not. As to weeping over sinners as Christ wept over Jerusalem ;4 as to venturing to invite them to Christ as the Lord did when he stretched out his hands all the day long; as to lamenting with Jeremiah over a perishing people, they had no sympathy with such emotions, and feared that they savoured of Arminianism. Both preacher and congregation were cased in a hard shell, and lived as if their own salvation was the sole design of their existence. If anybody did grow zealous and seek conversions, straightway they said he was indiscreet, or conceited. When a church falls into this condition it is, as to its spirit, “without Christ.” What comes of it? Some of you know by your own observation what does come of it. The comfortable corporation exists and grows for a little while, but it comes to nothing in the long run; and so it must: there can be no fruit-bearing where there is not, the spirit of Christ as well as the doctrine of Christ. Except the spirit of the Lord rests upon you, causing you to agonize for the salvation of men even as Jesus did, ye can do nothing.

But above all things we must have Christ with us in the power of his actual presence. Do we always think of this — “Without me ye can do nothing”? We are going out this afternoon to teach the young; shall we be quite sure to take Christ with us? or on the road shall we suddenly stop and say, “I am without my Master, and I must not dare to go another step”? The abiding consciousness of the love of Christ in our soul is the essential element of our strength. We can no more convert a sinner without Christ than we could light up new stars in the sky. Power to change the human will, power to enlighten the intellect as to the things of God, and to influence the mind as to repentance and faith, must come entirely from the Most High. Do we feel that? or do we put our thoughts together for an address, and say, “Now, that is a strong point, and that will produce effect”; and do we rest there? If so, we can do nothing at all. The power lies with the Master, not with the servant; the might is in the hand, not in the weapon. We must have Christ in these pews and in these aisles, and in this pulpit, and Christ down in our Sunday-school, and Christ at the street corner when we stand up there to talk of him, and we must feel that he is with us even to the end of the world, or we shall do nothing.

We have, then, before us a vision of total failure if we attempt in any way to do without Christ. He says, “Without me ye can do nothing:” it is in the doing that the failure is most conspicuous. Yon may talk a good deal without him; you may hold congresses, and conferences, and conventions; but doing is another matter. Without Jesus you can talk any quantity; but without him you can do nothing. The most eloquent discourse without him will be all a bottle of smoke. You shall lay your plans, and arrange your machinery, and start your schemes; but without the Lord you will do nothing. Immeasurable clondland of proposals and not a spot of solid doing large enough for a dove’s foot to rest on — such shall be the end of all! You may have all the money that generosity can lavish, all the learning that your universities can supply, and all the oratory that the most gifted can lay at your feet; but ‘• without me,” saith Christ, <kye can do nothing.” Fuss, flare, fireworks, and failure; that is the end of it. “Without me ye can do nothing.” Let me repeat those words again, “Do nothing.” u Do nothing,” and the world dying around us! Africa in darkness! China perish ng! Hindostan sunk m superstition, and a church which can do nothing! No bread to be handed out to the hungry, and the multitude fainting and dying! The rock to be smitten and the water of life to leap out for the thirsty, but not a drop forthcoming, because Jesus is not there. Ministers, evangelists, churches, salvution armies, the world dies for want of you, and yet “ye can do nothing ‘* if your Lord is away. The age shall advance in discovery, and men of science shall do their little best, but you shall do “nothing” without Christ, absolutely nothing! You shall not proceed a single inch upon your toilsome way, though you row till the oars snap with the strain; you shall be drifted back by winds and currents unless you take Jesus into the ship. Remember that all the while the great Husbandman is watching you, for his eye is on every vine-branch. He sees that you are producing no grapes, and he is coming round with that sharp knife of his, cutting here and there! What must become of lou who produce nothing? It makes one’s very soul to curdle within him to think that we should live to do nothing. Yet I fear that thousands of Christians get no further than this; they are not immoral, dishonest, or profane; but they do nothing. They think of what they would like to do, and they plan and they propose; but they do nothing. There are buds in plenty, but not a single grape is produced and all because they do not get into that vital, overflowing, effectual communion with Christ which would fill them with life, and constrain them to bring forth fruit unto the glory of God. There is a vision, then, of the failure all along the line if we try to do without Christ.

IV. But now, fourthly, I hear A VOICE OF WISDOM, a still small voice which speaks out of the text, and says to us who are in Christ, let us acknowledge this. Down on your knees, bow your mouths in the dust and say, “Lord, it is true: without thee we can do nothing, nothing whatever that is good and acceptable in the sight of God. We have not ability of ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our ability is of God.” Now, do not speak thus, as if you paid a compliment which orthodoxy requires you to make; but from the deeps of your soul, smitten with an absolute self-despair, own the truth unto God. “To will is present with me, but how to perform that which I would I find not.” Lord, I am a good-for-nothing do-nothing, a fruitless, barren, dry, rotten branch without thee, and this I feel in my inmost soul. Be not far from me, but quicken me by thy presence.

Next, let us pray. If without Christ we can do nothing, let us cry to him that we may never be without him. Let us with strong- crying and tears entreat his abiding presence. He comes to those who seek him: let us never cease seeking. In conscious fellowship with him, let us plead that the fellowship should be unbroken evermore. Let us pray that we may be so knit and joined to Jesus that we may be one spirit with him, never to be separated from him again. Master and Lord, let the life floods of thy grace never cease to flow into us, for we know that we must be thus supplied or we can produce nothing. Brethren, let us have much more prayer than has been usual among us. Prayer is appointed to convey the blessings God ordains to give; let us constantly use the appointed means, and may the result be ever increasing from day to day.

Next, let us personally cleave to Jesus. Let us not attempt a life of separation; for that were to seek the living among the dead. Do not let us depart from him for a single minute. Would you like to be caught at any one second of your life in a condition in which you could do nothing? I must confess I should not like to be in that state — . incapable of defence against my enemies, or of service for my Lord. If an awakened one should come before you under distress of mind, and you should feel quite incapable of doing any good to him, what a sad perplexity. Or if you did not feel incapable, and yet should really be so, and what if you should therefore talk on in a religious way, but know no power in it; would it not be a sad thing? May you never be in such a state that you would be a do-nothing, with opportunities afforded and yet without strength to utilize them! If you are divided from Christ you are divided from the possibility of doing good; cling,, therefore, to the Saviour with your whole might, and let nothing, take you off from him; no, not for an hour.

Heartily submit yourselves, also, dear frien Is, to the Lord’s headshipand leadership, and ask to do everything in his style and way. He will not be with you unless you accept him as your Master. There must be no quarrel about supremacy, but you must yield yourself up absolutely to him, to be, to do, or to suffer, according to his will. When it is wholly so he will be with you, and you shall do everything that is required of you. Wonderful things will the Lord perform through you when once he is your all in all. Will we not have it so?

Once more; joyfully believe in him. Though without him you can do-nothing, yet with him all things are possible. Omnipotence is in that man who has Christ in him. Weakness itself you may be, but you shall learn to glory in that weakness because the power of Christ doth rest upon you if your union and communion with Christ are continually kept up. Oh for a grand confidence in Christ! We have not believed in him yet up to the measure of the hem. of his garment; for even that faith made the sick woman whole. Oh to believe up to the measure of his infinite Deity! Oh for the splendour of the faith which measure* itself by the Christ in whom it trusts! May God bring us there, then shall we bring forth much fruit to the glory of his name.

Y. And now, lastly. While I was listening to my text as a child puts a shell to its ear and listens till it, hears the deep sea rolling in its windings, I heard within my text A SONG OF CONTENT. “Without me ye can do nothing,” My heart said,” Lord, what is there that 1 want to do without thee? There is no pain in this thought to me. If I can do without thee 1 am sorry to possess so dangerous a power. I am happy to be deprived of all strength except that which comes from thee. it charms, it exhilarates, and delights my soul to think that thou art my all. Thou bust made me penniless as to all wealth of my own, that 1 might dip my hand into thy treasury; thou hast taken all power

away from every sinew and muscle of mine, that I may rest on thv bosom,” “Without me ye can do nothing.” Be it so. Brethren, are you not all agreed? Do you wish to have it altered, any of you that love his dear name? I am sure you do not; for suppose, dear friends, we could do something without Christ, then he would not have the glory of it. Who wishes that? There would he little crowns for our poor littlj heads, for we should have done something without him j but now there is one great crown for that dear head which once was girt with thorns; for all his saints put together cannot do anything without him. The goodly fellowship of the apostles, the noble army of martyrs, and the triumphant host of the redeemed by blood, all put together, can do nothing without Jesus. Let him be crowned with majesty who worketh in us both to will and to do of his own good pleasure. For our own sakes, for our Lord’s sake, we are glad that it is so. All things are more ours by being his; and if our fruit is his rather than our own, it is none the less but all the more ours. Is not tin’s rare music for a holy ear?

I feel so glad that without Christ we can do nothing because I fear that if the church could do something without Christ she would try to Jive without him. If she could teach the school and bring the children to salvation without Christ, I am afraid Christ would never go into a Sunday-school again. It’ we could preach successfully without Jesus, I suspect that the Lord Jesus Christ would seldom stand on high among the people again. If our Christian literature could bless men with out Christ, I am afraid we should set the printing-press going, and never think about the crucified One in the matter. If there could be work done by the church without Jesus, there would be rooms into which he would never be invited; and these would soon become a sort of Blue Beard’s chambers, full of horror. A something that we could do without Christ! Why the mass of the church would get to working that machinery tremendously, and all the rest would be neglected, and so it is a blessed thing for the whole church that she must have Christ -everywhere.

“Without me ye can do nothing.” As I listened to the song within these words I began to laugh: I wonder if you will laugh too. It was to myself I laughed, like Abraham of old. I thought of those who are going to destroy the orthodox doctrine from off the face of the earth. How they boast of the decline and death of old-fashioned evangelism. I have read once or twice that I am the last of the Puritans, the race is all dying out To this I demur: I am willing to be esteemed last in merit, but not last as ending the race. There are many others who are steadfast in the faith. They say our old theology is decaying, and that nobody believes it. It is all a lie; but wise men say so, and therefore we are bound to consider ourselves obsolete and extinct. We are, in their esteem, as much out of date as antediluvians would be could they walk down our streets. Yes, they are going to quench our coal and blot us out from Israel. Newspapers Mid reviews and the general intelligence of the age all join to dance upon our graves. Put on your night-caps, ye good people of the evangelical order, and go home to bed and sleep the sleep of the righteous, for the end of you is coine. Thus say the Philistines, but the armies of the Lord think not so. The adversaries exult exceedingly; but Christ is not with them. They know very little about him, they do not work in his spirit, nor cry him up, nor extol the gospel of his precious blood, and so I believe that when they have done their little best it will come to nothing. “Without me ye can do nothing: “if this be true of apostles, much more of opposers! If his friends can do nothing without him, I am sure his foes can do nothing against him. If they that follow his steps and lie in his bosom can do nothing without him, I am sure his adversaries cannot, and so I laughed at their laughter and smiled at their confusion. I laughed, too, because I recollected a story of a New England service when the pastor one afternoon was preaching in his own solemn way, and the good people were listening or sleeping, as their minds inclined. It was a substantial edifice wherein they assembled, fit to outlive an earthquake. All went on peacefully in the meeting-house that afternoon till suddenly a lunatic started up, denounced the minister, and declared that he would at once pull down the meeting-house about their ears. Taking hold of one of the pillars of the gallery, this newly-announced Samson repeated his threatening. Everybody rose; the women were ready to faint; the men began to rush to the door, and there was danger that the people would be trodden on as they rushed down the aisles. There was about to be a great tumult; no one could see the end of it; when suddenly one cool brother sitting near the pulpit produced a calm by a single sentence. ‘* Let him try!” was the stern sarcasm which hushed the tempest. Even so to-day the enemy is about to disprove the gospel and crush out the doctrines of race. Are you distressed, alarmed, astounded? So far from that, my reply to the adversary’s boast that he will pull dowo the pillars of our Zion is this only, — LET HIM TRY! Amen.

tan §aknwde

THE SECEET OF POWER IN PEAYEB.

DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY STH, 1888,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” — John xv. 7.

THE gifts of grace are not enjoyed all at once by believers. Coming unto Christ, we are saved by a true union with him; but it is by abiding in that union that we further receive the purity, the joy, the power, the blessedness, which are stored up in him for his people. See how our Lord states this when he speaks to the believing Jews in the eighth chapter of this gospel, at the thirty-first and thirty-second verses: — “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” We do not know all the truth at once: we learn it by abiding in Jesus. Perseverance in grace is an educational process by which we learn the truth fully. The emancipating power of that truth is also gradually perceived and enjoyed. “The truth shall make you free.” One bond after another snaps, and we are free indeed. You that are young beginners in the divine life may be cheered to know that there is something better still for you: you have not yet received the full recompense of your faith. As your hymn puts it — “It is better on before.” You shall have happier views of heavenly things as you climb the hill of spiritual experience. As you abide in Christ you shall have firmer confidence, richer joy, greater stability, more communion with Jesus, and greater delight in the Lord your God. Infancy is beset with many evils from which manhood is exempt: it is the same in the spiritual as in the natural world.

There are these degrees of attainment among believers, and the Saviour here incites us to reach a high position by mentioning a certain privilege which is not for all who say that they are in Christ, but for those only who are abtders in him. Every believer should be an abider, but many have hardly earned the name as yet. Jesus says, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” You have to live with Christ to know him, and the longer you live with him the more will you admire and adore him; yes, and the more will VQU receive from him, eveD No. 2,002. 52 ( grace for grace. Truly he is a blessed Christ to one who. is but a month old in grace; but these babes can hardly tell what a precious Jesus he is to those whose acquaintance with him covers well-nigh half a century! Jesus, in the esteem of abiding believers, grows sweeter and dearer, fairer and. more .lovely, day by day. Not that he improves in himself, for he is perfect; but that as we increase in our knowledge of him, we appreciate more thoroughly his matchless excellences. How glowingly do his old acquaintances exclaim, “Yea, he is altogether lovely “! Oh, that we jnay continue to grow up into him in all things who is our head, that we thus may prize him more and

more 1

I call your earnest attention to our text, begging you to consider with me three questions. First, what is this special blessing? “Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” Secondly, how is this special blessing obtained? “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you.” Then, thirdly, why is it obtained in this way? There must be a reason for the conditions laid down as needful to obtaining the promised power in prayer. Oh, that the anointing of the Holy Spirit which abideth on us may now make this subject very profitable to us!

I. WHAT is THIS SPECIAL BLESSING? Let us read the verse again. Jesus says, “If- ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”

Observe that our Lord had been warning us that, severed from him, we can do nothing, and, therefore, we might naturally have expected that he would now show us how we can do all spiritual acts. But the text does not run as we should have expected it to run. The Lord Jesus does not say, “Without me ye can do nothing, but, if ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall do all spiritual and gracious things.” He does not now speak of what they should themselves be enabled to do, but of what should be done unto them: “it shall be done unto you.” He says not, “Strength shall be given you eumcient for all those holy doings of which you are incapable apart from me.” That would have been true enough, and it is the truth which we looked for here; but our most wise Lord improves upon all parallelisms of speech, and improves upon all expectancies of heart, .and says something better still. He does not say, “If ye abide in .me, and my words abide in you, ye shall do spiritual things “; but, “ye shall ask.” By prayer you shall be enabled to do; but before all attempts to do, “Ye shall ask.” The choice privilege here given is a mighty prevailing prayerf ulness. Power in prayer is very much the gauge of our spiritual condition; and when that is secured to us in a high degree, we are favoured as to all other matters.

One of the first results, then, of our abiding union with Christ will be the certain exercise of prayer: “Ye shall ask.” If others neither seek, nor knock, nor ask, ye, at any rate, shall do so. Those who keep away from Jesus do not pray. Those in whom communion with. Christ is suspended feel as if they could not pray; but Jesus says, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask.” Prayer comes spontaneously from those who abide in Jesus, even as certain oriental trees, without pressure, shed their fragrant gums. Prayer in the natural outgushing of a soul in communion with Jesus. Just a* the leaf and the fruit will come out of the vine-branch without any conscious effort on the part of the branch, but simply because of its living union with the stem, so prayer buds, and blossoms, and fruits out of souls abiding in Jesus. As stars shine, so do abiders pray. It is their use and their second nature. They do not say to themselves, “Now it is the time for us to get to our task and pray.” No, they pray as wise men eat, namely, when the desire for it is upon them. They do not cry out as under bondage, “At this time I ought to be in prayer, but I do not feel like it. What a weariness it is! “but they have a glad errand at the mercy-seat, and they are rejoiced to go upon it. Hearts abiding in Christ send forth supplications as fires send out flames and sparks. Souls abiding in Jesus open the day with prayer; prayer surrounds them as an atmosphere all day long; at night they fall asleep praying. I have known them even dream a prayer, and, at any rate, they are able joyfully to say,” When I awake, I am still with thee.” Habitual asking comes out of abiding in Christ. You will not need urging to prayer when you are abiding with Jesus: he says, u Ye shall ask “; and, depend upon it, you will.

You shall also feel most powerfully the necessity of prayer. Your great need of prayer will be vividly seen. Do I hear you say — “What! When we abide in Christ, and his words abide in us, have we not already attained?” Far are we, then, from being satisfied with ourselves; it is then that we feel more than ever that we must ask for more grace. He that knows Christ best, knows his own necessities best. He that is most conscious of life in Christ, is also most convinced of his own death apart from Christ. He who most clearly discerns the perfect character of Jesus, will be most urgent in prayer for grace to grow like him. The more I see to be in my Lord, the more I desire to obtain from him, since I know that all that is in him is put there on purpose that I may receive it. “Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” It is just in proportion as we are linked to Christ’s fulness that we feel the necessity of drawing from it by constant prayer. Nobody needs to prove to an abider in Christ the doctrine of prayer, for we enjoy the tiling itself. Prayer is now as much a necessity of our spiritual life as breath is of our natural life: we cannot live without asking favours of the Lord. “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask “: and ye shall not wish to cease from asking. He hath said, “Seek ye my face,” and your heart will answer, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.”

Note next, that the fruit of our abiding is not only the exorcise of prayer, and a sense of the necessity of prayer, but it includes liberty in prayer: “Ye shall ask what ye will.” Have you not been on your kuees at times without power to pray? Have you not felt that you could not plead as you desired? You wanted to pray, but the waters were frozen up, and would not flow. You said, mournfully, “I am shut up, and cannot coine forth.” The will was present, but not the freedom to present that will in prayer. Do you, then, desire liberty in prayer, so that you may speak with God as a man speaketh with his friend? Here is the way to it: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will “I do not mean that you will gain liberty as to mere fluency of utterance, for that is a very inferior gift. Eluency is a questionable endowment, especially when it is not attended with weight of thought and depth of feeling. Some brethren pray by the yard; but true prayer is measured by weight, and not by length. A single groan before God may have more fulness of prayer in it than a fine oration of great length. He that dwells with God in Christ Jesus, he is the man whose steps are enlarged in intercession. He comes boldly because he abides at the throne. He sees the golden sceptre stretched out, and hears the King saying,” Ask what thou wilt, and it shall be done unto thee.” It is the man who abides in conscious union with his Lord who has freedom of access in prayer. Well may he come to Christ readily, for he is in Christ, and abides in him. Attempt not to seize this holy liberty by excitement, or presumption: there is but one way of really gaining it, and here it is — “” If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will.” By this means alone shall you be enabled to open your mouth wide, that God may fill it. Thus shall you become Israels, and as princes have power with God.

This is not all: the favoured man has the privilege of successful grayer. “Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” You may not do it, but it shall be done unto you. You long to bear fruit: ask, and it shall be done unto you. Look at the vine branch. It simply remains in the vine, and by remaining in the vine the fruit oomes from it; it is done unto it. Brother in Christ, the purport of your being, its one object and design, is to bring forth fruit to the glory of the Father: to gain this end you must abide in Christ, as the branch abides in the vine. This is the method by which your prayer for frujtfulness will become successful, “it shall be done unto you.” Concerning this matter, “you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.” You shall have wonderful prevalence with God in prayer, insomuch that before you call he will answer, and while you are yet speaking he will hear. “The desire of the righteous shall be granted.” To the same effect is the other text: “Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” There is a great breadth in this text, “Ye shall ask wha*. ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” The Lord gives the abidnr carte blanche. He puts into his hand a signed cheque, and permits him to fill it up as he wills.

Does the text mean what it says? I never knew my Lord to say any thing he did not mean. I am sure that he may sometimes mean more than we understand him to say, but he never means less. Mind you, he does not say to all men, “I will give you whatever you ask.” Oh no, that would be an unkind kindness: but he speaks to his disciples, and says, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” It is to a certain class of men who have already received great grace at his hands — it is to them he commits this marvellous power of prayer. 0 my dear friends, if I may covet earnestly one thing above every other, it is this; that I may be able to ask what I will of the Lord, and have it. The prevailer in prayer is the man to preach successfully, for he may well prevail with man for God when he has already prevailed with God for men. Thik- is the man to face the difficulties of business life; for what can baffle him when he can take all to God in prayer? One such man as this, or one such woman as this in a church, is worth ten thousand of us common people. In these we find the peerage of the skies. In these are the men in whom is fulfilled God’s purpose concerning man, whom he made to have dominion over all the works of his hands. The stamp of sovereignty is on the brows of these men: they shape the history of nations, they guide the current of events through their power on high. “We see Jesus with all things put under him by the divine purpose, and as we rise into that image, we also are <clothed with dominion, and are made kings and priests unto God. Behold Elijah, with the keys of the rain swinging at his girdle: he shuts or opens the windows of heaven! There are such men still alive. Aspire to be such men and women, I beseech you, that to you the text may be fulfilled. “Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be -done unto you.”

The text seems to imply that, if we reach this point of privilege, this gift shall be a perpetuity: “Ye shall ask,” ye shall always ask; ye shall never get beyond asking, but ye shall ask successfully, for 41 ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” Here we have the gift of continual prayer. Not for the week of prayer, not during a month’s conference, nor upon a few special occasions shall ye pray prevailingly; but ye shall possess this power with God so long as you abide in Christ, and his words abide in you. God will put his omnipotence at your disposal: he will put forth hia <kpdhead to fulfil the desires which his own Spirit has inwrought in you. I wish I could make this jewel glitter before the eyes of all the saints till they cried out, “Oh that we had it!” This power in prayer is like the sword of Goliath: wisely may every David say — “There is none like it; give it me.” This weapon of all-prayer beats the enemy, and, at the same time, enriches its possessor with all the wealth of God. How can he lack anything to whom the Lord hath said, “Ask what thou wilt, and it shall be done unto thee “? Oh, come, let us seek this boon. Listen, and learn the way. Follow me, while by the light of the text I point out the path. May the Lord lead us in it by his Holy Spirit!

II. The privilege of mighty prayerfulness — HOW is IT TO BE OBTAINED? The answer is, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you.” Here are the two feet by which we climb to power with God in prayer.

Beloved, the first line tells us that we are to abide in Christ Jesus ur Lord. It is taken for granted that we are already in him. May it be taken for granted in your case, dear hearer? If so, you are to abide where you are. As believers we are to remain tenaciously clinging to Jesus, livingly knit to Jesus. We are to abide in him, by always trusting him, and him only, with the same simple faith which joined us to him at the first. We must never admit any other thing or person into our heart’s confidence as our hope of salvation, but rest alone in Jesus as we received him at the first. His Godhead, his manhood, his life, his death, his resurrection, his glory at the rignt hand of the Father — in a word, himself must be our heart’s sole reliance. This is absolutely essential. A temporary faith will not save; an abiding faith is needful.

But abiding in the Lord Jesus does not only mean trusting in him; it includes our yielding ourselves up to him to receive his life, and to let that life work out its results in us. We live in him, by him, for him, to him, when we abide in him. We feel that all our separate life has gone: for “ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ.” We are nothing if we get away from Jesus; we should then be branches withered, and fit only to be cast into the fire. We have no reason for existence except that which we find in Christ; and what a marvellousreason that is! The vine needs the branch as truly as the branch needs the vine. No vine ever bore any fruit except upon its branches. Truly it bears all the branches, and so bears all the fruit; but yet it is. by the branch that the vine displays its fruitfulness. Thus are abiding believers needful to the fulfilment of their Lord’s design. Wonderful thing to say; but the saints are needful to their Saviour! The church, is his body; the fulness of him that filleth all in all. I want you ta recognize this, that you may see your blessed responsibility, your practical obligation to bring forth fruit, that the Lord Jesus may be glorified in you. Abide in him. Never remove from your consecration to his honour and glory. Never dream of being your own master. Be not the servant of men, but abide in Christ. Let him be the object, as well a* the source, of your existence. Oh, if you get there, and stop there in perpetual communion with your Lord, you will soon realize a joy, a delight, a power in prayer, such as you never knew before. There are times when we are conscious that we are in Christ, and we know our fellowship with him; and oh, the joy and the peace which we drink from this cup! Let us abide there. “Abide in me,” saith Jesus. You are not to come and go, but to abide. Let that blessed sinking of yourself into his life, the spending of all your powers for Jesus, and the firm faith of your union with him remain in you evermore. Oh,, that we might attain to this by the Holy Grhost!

As if to help us to understand this, our gracious Lord has given us a delightful parable. Let us look through this discourse of the vine and its branches. Jesus says, “Every branch in me that bear eth fruit, he purgeth it.” Take care that you abide in Christ when you are being purged. “Oh,” says one, “I thought I was a Christian; butp alas! I have more troubles than ever: men ridicule me, the devil tempts me, and my business affairs go wrong.” Brother, if you are to have power in prayer you must take care that you abide in Christ. when the sharp knife is cutting everything away. Endure trial, and never dream of giving up your faith because of it. Say, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” Your Lord warned you when you first came into the vine that you would have to be purged and cut closely; and if you are now feeling the purging process, you must not think that some strange thing hath happened unto you. Rebel not because of anything you may have to suffer from the dear hand of your heavenly Father, who is the husbandman of the vineyard. No, but cling to Jesus all the more closely. Say, “Cut, Lord, cut to the quick if thou wilt; but I will cling to thee. To whom should we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” Yes, cling to Jesus when thep purging knife is in his hand, and so “shall ye ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”

Tcike care, also, that when the purging operation has been carried out you still cleave to your Lord. Notice the third verse: “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you.” Abide after cleansing where you were before cleansing. When you are sanctified, abide where you were when first justified. When you see the work of the Spirit increasing in you, do not let the devil tempt you to boast that now you are somebody, and need not come to Jesus as a poor sinner, and rest in his precious blood alone ior salvation. Abide still in Jesus. As you kept to him when the knife cut you, keep to him now that the tender grapes begin to form. Do not say to yourself, “What a fruitful branch I am! How greatly I adorn the vine! Now I am full of vigour!” You are nothing and nobody. Only as you abide in Christ are you one whit better than the waste wood which is burned in the fire. “But do we not make progress?” Yes, we grow, but we abide: we never go an inch further, we abide in him; or, if not, we are cast forth, and are withered. Our whole hope lies in Jesus at our best times as well as at our worst. Jesus saith, “No wye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you.”

Abide in him as to all your fruitfulness. “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in me.” “Here, then, I have something to do,” cries one. Certainly you have, but not apart from Jesus. The branch has to bear fruit; but if the branch imagines that it is going to produce a cluster, or even a grape, out of itself alone, it is utterly mistaken. The fruit of the branch must come forth of the stem. Your work for Christ must be Christ’s work in you, or else it will be good for nothing. I pray you, see to this. Your Sunday-school teaching, your preaching, or whatever you do, must be done in Christ Jesus. Not by your natural talent can you win souls, nor by plans of your own inventing -can you save men. Beware of home-made schemes. Do for Jesus what Jesus bids you do. Remember that our work for Christ, as we call it, must be Christ’s work first, if it is to be accepted of him. Abide in him as to your fruit-bearing.

Yea, abide in him as to your very life. Do not say, “I have been a •Christian man now twenty or thirty years, I can do without continued -dependence upon Christ.” No, you could not do without him if you Trere as old as Methuselah. Your very being as a Christian depends upon your still clinging, still trusting, still depending; and this he must give you, for it all comes from him, and him alone. To sum it -all up, if you want that splendid power in prayer of which I spoke just now, you must remain in loving, living, lasting, conscious, practical, abiding union with the Lord Jesus Christ; and if you get to that by divine grace, then you shall ask what you will, and it shall be

/done unto you.

j But there is a second qualification mentioned in- the text, and you must not forget it — “and my words abide in you.” How important, then, are Christ’s words! He said in the fourth verse, “Abide in, me, and I in you,” and now as a parallel to this it is, “If yep abide in ine, and my words abide in you.” “What, then, are Christ’s words and himself identical? Yes, practically so. Some talk about Christ being, the Master, but as to doctrine, they do not care what his word declares. So long as their hearts are right towards his person they claim liberty of thought. Ay, but this is a mere subterfuge. We cannot separate Christ from the Word; for, in the first place, he is the Word; and, in the next place, how dare we call him Master and Lord and do not the things which he says, and reject the truth which he teaches? We must obey his precepts or he will not accept us as disciples. Especially that precept of love which is the essence of all his words. We must love God and our brethren; yea, we must cherish love to all men, and seek their good. Anger and malice must be far from us. We must walk even as he walked. If Christ’s words abide not ins thee, both as to belief and practice, thou art not in Christ. Christ and his gospel and his commands are one. If thou wilt not have Christ and his words, neither will he have thee nor thy words; but thou shalt ask in vain, thou shalt by-and-by give up asking, thou shalt become as a withered branch. Beloved, I am persuaded better things of you,, and things that accompany salvation, though I thus speak.

Oh for grace to pass through these two-leaved gates, these twogolden doors! “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you.” Push through the two, and enter into this large room — “Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”

III. It is my last work to try to show WHY THIS PRIVILEGE SHOULD* BE so OBTAINED. This extraordinary power of prayer, why is it given to those who abide in Christ? May what I have to say encourage you to make the glorious attempt to win this pearl of great price! Why is it, that by abiding in Christ, and having his words abide in us, we get to this liberty and prevalence in prayer?

I answer, first, because of the fulness of Christ. You may very well ask what you will when you abide in Christ, because whatsoever you may require is already lodged in him. Good Bishop Hall worked out this thought in a famous passage. I will give you the substance of it. Do you desire the grace of the Spirit? Go to your Lord’s anointing. Do you seek holiness? Go to his example. Do you desire pardon of sin? Look to his blood. Do you need mortification of sin? Look to* his crucifixion. Do you need to be buried to the world? Go to his. tomb. Do you want to feel the fulness of a heavenly life? Behold his resurrection. Would you rip,e above the world? Mark his ascension. Would you contemplate heavenly things? Remember his. session at the right hand of God, and know that, he “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places.” I see clearly enough why the branch gets all it wants while it abides in the stem, since all it wants is already in the stem, and is placed there for the sake of the branch. What does the branch want more than the stem can give it? If it did want more it could not get it; for it has no other means of living but by sucking its life out of the stem. 0 my precious Lord, if I want anything which is not in thee, I desire always to be without it. I desire to be denied a wish which wanders outside of thyself. But if the supply of my desire is already in thee for me,. should I go elsewhere? Thou art my all; where else should I look? Beloved, “it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell,” and the good pleasure of the Father is our good pleasure also: WQ are glad to draw everything from Jesus. We feel sure that, ask wnat we will, we shall have it, since he has it ready for us.

The next reason for this is, the richness of the Word of God. Catch this thought, “If my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” The best praying man is the man who is most believingly familiar with the promises of God. After all, prayer is nothing but taking God’s promises to him, and saying to him, “Do as thou hast said.” Prayer is the promise utilized. A prayer which is not based on a promise has no true foundation. If I go to the bank without a cheque I need not expect to get money; it ie the “order to pay” which is my power inside the bank, and my warrant for expecting to receive. You that have Christ’s words abiding in you are equipped with those things which the Lord regards with attention. If the Word of God abideth in you, you are the man that can pray, because you meet the great God with his own words, and thus overcome omnipotence with omnipotence. You put your finger down upon the very lines, and say, “Do as thou has* said.” This is the best praying in all the world. 0 beloved, be n.ied with God’s Word. Study what Jesus has said, what the Holy Ghost has left on record in this divinely-inspired Book, and in proportion as you feed on the Word, and are filled with the Word, and retain the Word in your faith, and obey the Word in your life — in that proportion you will be a master-man in the art of prayer. You have acquired skill as a wrestler with the covenant angel in proportion as you can plead the promises of your faithful God. Be well instructed in the doctrines of grace, and let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, that you may know how to prevail at the throne of grace. Abiding in Christ, and his words abiding in you, are like the right hand and the left hand of Moses, which were held up in prayer, so. that Anialek was smitten, Israel was delivered, and God was glorified.

Let us go a little further: you still may say you do not quite see why a man who abides in Christ, and in whom Christ’s words abide, should be allowed to ask whatever he wills, and it shall be done untohim. I answer you again: it is so, because in such a man as that there is a predominance of grace which causes him to have a renewed will which is according to the will of God. Suppose a man of God is in prayer, and he thinks that such and such a thing is desirable, yet he remembers that he is nothing but a babe in the presence of his all-wise Father, and so he bows his will, and asks as a favour to be taught what to will. Though God bids him ask what he wills, he shrinks and cries, “My Lord, here is a request which I am not quite clear about. As far as I can judge, it is a desirable thing, and I will it; but, Lord, I am not fit to judge for myself, and therefore I pray thee, give not as I will, but as thou wilt.” Do you not see that, when we are in such a condition as this, our real will is God’s will. Deep down in our hearts we will only that which the Lord himself wills; and what is this but to ask what we will, and it is done to us? It becomes safe for God to say to the sanctified soul, “Ask what thou wilt, and it shall be done unto thee.” The heavenly instincts of that man lead him right; the grace that is within his soul thrusts down all covetous lustings and foul desires, and his will is the actual shadow of God’s will. The spiritual life is master in him, and so his aspirations are holy, heavenly, Godlike. He has been made a partaker of the divine nature; and as a son is like his father, so now in desire and will he is “one with his Q-od. As the echo answers to the voice, so does the renewed heart echo the mind of the Lord. Our desires are reflected beams of the divine will: ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be even so.

You clearly see that the holy God cannot pick up a common man in the street, and say to him, “I will give you whatsoever you will.” “What would he ask for? He would ask for a good drink, or permission to enjoy himself in evil lust. It would be very unsafe to trust the most of men with this permit. But when the Lord has taken a man, and has new-made him, has quickened him into newness of life, and has formed him in the image of his dear Son, then he can trust him! Behold, the great Father treats us in our measure as he treats his Firstborn. Jesus could say, “I know that thou hearest me always “; and the Lord is educating us to the selfsame assurance. We can say with one of old, “My God will hear me.” Do not your mouths water for this privilege of prevailing prayer? Do not your hearts long to get at this? It is by the way of holiness, it is by the way of union to Christ, it is by the way of a permanent abiding in him, and an obedient holding fast of his truth, that you are to come to this privilege. Behold the only safe and true way. When once that way is really trodden, it is a most sure and effectual way of gaining substantial power in prayer.

I have not quite done. A man will succeed in prayer when his faith is strong; and this is the case with those who abide in Jesus. It is faith that prevails in prayer. The real eloquence of prayer is a believing desire. “All things are possible to him that believeth.” A man abiding in Christ with Christ’s words abiding in him, is eminently a believer, and consequently eminently successful in prayer. He has strong faith indeed, for his faith has brought him into vital contact with Christ, and he is therefore at the source of every blessing, and may drink to his full at the well itself.

Such a man, once more, will also possess the indwelling of the Spirit of God. If we abide in Christ, and his words abide in us, then the Holy Ghost has come and taken up his residence in us; and what better help in prayer can we have? Is it not a wonderful thing that the Holy Ghost himself maketh intercession in the saints according to the will of God? He “maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.” .What man knoweth the mind of a man save the spirit of a man? The Spirit of God knows the mind of God, and he works in us to will what God wills, so that a believing man’s prayer is God’s purpose reflected in the soul as in a mirror. The eternal decrees of God project their shadows over the hearts of godly men in the form of prayer. What God intends to do he tells unto his servants by inclining them to ask him to do what he himself is resolved to do. God says, “I will do this and that “; but then he adds, “For this will I bo enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them.” How clear it is that if we abide in Christ, and his word a abide in us, wo may ask what we will! For we shall only ask what the Spirit of God moves us to ask; and it were impossible that God the Holy Ghost and God the Father should be at cross-purposes with one another. What the one prompts us to ask, the other has assuredly determined to bestow.

I struck out a line just now to which I must return for a single moment. Beloved, do you not know that when we abide in Christ, and his words abide in us, the Father looks upon us with the same eye with which he looks upon his dear Son? Christ is the vine, and the vine includes the branches. The branches are a part of the vine. God, therefore, looks upon us as part of Christ — members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. Such is the Father’s love to Jesus that he denies him nothing. He was obedient to death, even the death of the <jross; therefore doth his Father love him, as the God-man Mediator, and he will grant him all his petitions. And is it so, that when you and I are in real union to Christ, the Lord God looks upon us in the same way as he looks on Jesus, and says to us, “I will deny you nothing; ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you “? So do I understand the text.

I call your attention to the fact that in that fifteenth chapter, the ninth verse, which I did not read this morning, runs thus: — “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.” The same love which God gives to his Son, the Son gives to us; and therefore we are dwellers in the love of the Father and of the Son. How can our prayers be rejected? Will not infinite love have respect unto our petitions? 0 dear brother in Christ, if thy prayers speed not at the throne, suspect that there is some sin that hinders them: thy Father’s love sees a necessity for chastening thee this way. If thou dost not abide in Christ, how canst thou hope to pray successfully? If thou dost pick and choose his words, and doubt this, and doubt that, how canst thou hope to speed at the throne? If thou art wilfully disobedient to any one of his words, will not this account for failure in prayer? But abide thou in Christ, and take fast hold upon his words, and be altogether his disciple, then shalt thou be heard of him. Sitting at Josus’ feet, hearing his words, thou mayest lift up thine eyes to his -dear face, and say, “My Lord, hear me now “; and he will answer thee graciously: he will say unto thee, “I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee. Ask what thou wilt, and it shall be done unto thee.” Oh for power at the mercy-seat!

Beloved friends, do not hear this sermon, and then go away and forget it. Do try to reach this place of boundless influence. What a church we should be, if you were all mighty in prayer! Dear children of God, do you want to be half starved? Beloved brethren, do you desire to be poor, little, puny, drivelling children, who will never grow into men? I pray you, aspire to be strong in the Lord, and to enjoy this exceedingly high privilege. What an army would you be if you all had this power with God in prayer! It is within your reach, ye children of God! Only abide in Christ, and let his words abide in you, and then this special privilege will be yours. These are not irksome duties, but they are in themselves a joy. Go in for them with your whole heart, and then you shall get this added to you, that you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.

Unhappily, to a portion of this congregation my text says nothing at all; for some of you are not even in Christ, and therefore you cannot abide in him. 0 sirs, what shall I say to you? You seem to me to miss a very heaven even now. If there were no hell hereafter, it is hell enough not to know Christ now, not to know what it is to prevail with God in prayer, not to know the choice privilege of abiding in him, and his words abiding in you. Your first matter is that you believe in Jesus Christ to the saving of your souls, yielding your souls to his cleansing, your lives to his government. God hath sent him forth as a Saviour, accept him. Receive him as your Teacher; yield your self up to him as your Master. May his gracious Spirit come and do this work upon you now; and then, after this, but not before, you may aspire to this honour. First of all — “Ye must be born again.” I cannot say to you as you are now, “Grow,” because you will only grow a bigger sinner. However much you may be developed, you will only develop what is in you: and that is, the heir of wrath will become more and more the child of evil. You must be made anew in Christ: there must be an absolute change, a reversal of all the currents of nature, a making you a new creature in Christ Jesus; and then you may aspire to abide in Christ, and let his words abide in you, and the consequent prevalence with God in prayer shall be yours.

Gracious Lord, help us this morning. Poor creatures as we are, we can only lie at thy feet. Come thyself, and uplift us to thyself, for thy mercy’s sake! Amen.

PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON — John xv. 1 — 8;

1 John ii.

HYMNS FROM “OuR OWN HYMN BOOK” — 103 (Vers. III.), 761, 800.

JJtoplifcm 35;

THE CANDLE.

DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 24TH, 1881, BT

AT TUB METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

•’ Neither do men light a caudle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” — Matthew v. 15, 16.

OUR Saviour was speaking of the influence of his disciples upon their fellows, and he first of all mentioned that secret but powerful influence which he describes under the figure of salt: “Ye are the salt of the earth.” No sooner is a man born unto God than he begins to affect hisfellow-men with an influence which is rather felt than seen. The very existence of a believer operates upon unbelievers. He is like a handful of salt cast upon flesh; he has a savour in himself, and this begins to pe uetrate those who are in contact with him. The unobserved, and almost unconscious influence of a holy life is most effectual to the con serving of society and the prevention of moral putrefaction. May there be salt in every one of us, for “salt is good.” Have salt in yourselves,, and then you will become a blessing to all around you.

But there is about every true Christian a manifest and visible influence which he is bound to exercise, and this our Lord sets forth under the figure of light: “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.” In any case the genuine Christian will exercise the silent and unseen salting influence upon those who come into immediate contact with him.; but let him also labour to possess the second, or illuminating influence, which covers a far larger area, and deals more with real life; for salt is for dead flesh, and light for living men. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Saltness and light are the power of a Christian. I do not believe that any man will give forth light if he has not first received salt; and yet some have a measure of salt who are none too liberal with their light. May God grant us grace to balance the inward and the outward. May we have the con serving salt and the diffusive light. Our thoughts will now run towardslight-giving, and I pray that I maybe helped to move the more retiring and less active among us to exert their influence upon others to a greater Nos. 1.5U 53 extent; to crown the silent testimonies of their humble faith by an outspoken witness-bearing for their Lord and Saviour. All who have salt will now be urged to show their light.

The figure which our Saviour uses is a homely one, borrowed from the eastern tent and house. He speaks of a candle, or, more accurately, of a lamp. We should read the passage — “Neither do men light a lamp and put it under the bushel, but on the lampstand, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.” I shall use the figure both in its eastern and in its western dress, and sometimes we will make a lamp of it and sometimes a candle. Perhaps we shall see all the better with both a lamp and a candle; and, though we may confuse the metaphor, we shall not confuse anybody’s mind upon the important truth which it sets forth.

Three things are in the text. The first is the lighting, the second is the placing, and the third is the shining. The first two are both intended to produce the third. May he who alone can create light illuminate our minds while dwelling on his word.

I. First let us consider THE LIGHTING. “Neither do men light a candle.” What is this lighting up of the souls of men? They are with out light by nature, “having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them.” What, then, is this lighting?

It is, first of all, a divine work. God began his creating work of old by saying, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And as in the old creation so in the new, the first thing that God worketh in the heart of man is light: “the entrance of thy word giveth light.” Well said David, “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” The Holy Spirit enlightens the understanding, so that the man perceives the desperateness of his own condition, and his inability to win salvation by his own works. The Lord pours light into the soul, so that Christ is seen by faith, and at the sight of him the heart catches fire, and light takes hold upon the inner man, so that he not only sees light but has light. The light not only shines upon the heart but from the heart. “Ye were sometime darkness,” — not only in the dark, but darkness, — “but now are ye light in the Lord”: not only have ye light from the Lord, but ye are light, your souls having caught the flame. The Holy Spirit alone can accomplish this work. No human being will ever have light within himself till God who spoke the fiat at creation shall by the selfsame word create light in the soul. The apostle Paul says of all the saints, “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

This lighting is a separating work. When this light comes it separates a man from those around him who are as the darkness. It does not take him away from his surroundings, it does not shut him up in a monastery, but the separation is complete; for to set a division between a candle and the darkness all that is wanted is to light it. The tiniest spark will by its very existence be distinguished from the darkness. There is no need to label light to prevent its being confounded with the darkness, and there is no need for it to sound a trumpet before itself, saying, “Here am I,” What fellowship hath light with darkness? No sooner cometh the light into a man’s heart than he is separate from

THE CANDLE. 21 if

those who are round about him, called by the grace of God by a vocation which at once sets a difference between the called ones and the rest of the sons of men. The darkness could not have created the light, for it does not even comprehend it, “the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” Those that are round about the Christian man cannot make him out, for his life is hid with Christ in God. At his conversion they perceive that a strange alteration had come over him; and, as Dr. Watts says, they “gaze and admire, and hate the change “; but they know no more about it than owls do of the sun. At first they set the change down to melancholy, until the man’s experience flashes into delight, and then they call it fanaticism or a kind of madness, a sort of twist of the mind. Oh, blessed twist! Would God that those who know it not could be twisted after the same fashion! It is the kindling of the candle, so that where all was darkness before there may now be the heavenly light.

The darkness, though it does not understand or love the light, is nevertheless compelled to yield to it; for the battle between light and darkness is short and decisive. Up to the measure of the light is the measure of its conquest. Though only a few beams should irradiate the eastern sky, yet so far the arrows of the sun have pierced the heart of the night; and as that light shall glow into high noon all trace of darkness must fly before it. Beloved, if God has given light to us, he has put within us a principle that shall go forth conquering and to conquer. Let the darkness be as dense as that which plagued the Egyptians, yet must it yield to light. A conflict is to be expected, but a conquest is guaranteed. We must not dream that the darkness will put forth its black arms to embrace our light; nor may we imagine that it will come cowering at the foot of our candlestick and ask to make a league with us. Light cannot dwell side by side with the darkness, making covenant therewith, for it is written, “God divided the light from the darkness, and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night,” thus giving to each its own distinguishing name, that none might confound them. No man shall ever be able to mingle the two: they are and must be for ever distinct. To the end of time there shall be two seeds, the heirs of light and the children of darkness, and these two cannot be one. The light shall war with the darkness till the eternal light hath fully risen and reached its zenith, and then the earth shall be filled with the light of the glory of God. Till then, ye children of light, see to it that ye have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. This lighting up of the candle takes place at regeneration, and you perceive it in enlightenment, conviction, conversion. The question is, have you ever been lit, dear friend? Have you ever received that divine light? Have you ever felt the touch of the heavenly torch of the word by which light has come to you, and now dwells within you, so that you yourself have become a light, and arfe shining to the glory of God?

Furthermore, this light giving is a personal work to every man who is the subject of it. The text says, “Let your light so shine before men,” When a man lights a candle the light does not belong to the candle originally; but when once the candle has accepted the flame the light becomes the candle’s own light, and the candle begins to shine by its own.

light. So, beloved, the grace of God, the light from heaven, must come to each one of us individually from the divine hand, and we must personally receive it. Light is not inherent in any one of us, and therefore it must be bestowed. Its bestowal necessitates a personal acceptance. It is not bestowed upon us as part of a nation or family. In its enlightening operations grace does not deal with men in the gross, but with each man by himself. Sin is personal, and so must grace be. We are individually in the darkness, and must be individually kindled into light. One by one each man must accept the light, permitting it, as it were, to kindle upon him, so that the very wick of his being, that innermost life which goes through the very centre of his nature, shall embrace the flame and begin to burn with it. There must be an individual appropriation of the light, so that to each one of you it becomes your own. ‘’Let your light so shine before men.” Do not deceive yourselves with the notion of national Christianity or hereditary Christianity; the only true religion is personal godliness. We cannot light these candles by the pound at a time, nor heap up lamps in a pile and light them in a mass. We have nowadays wonderful lights, which can be all lit in an instant by a single touch of electricity; but even then each one of the lights has to receive a flame for itself, which becomes all its own. There is no way by which individuality can be destroyed and men saved en masse.

In each man the light is peculiar and distinct. The light that burns in one true minister of Christ is the same which shines forth from another, and yet one star differeth from another star in glory: Peter is not John, Paul is not James, Whitefield is not Wesley. You shall examine the whole range of God’s lamps and candlesticks and you shall not find two exactly alike. Many artists exhaust themselves and then repeat themselves; but God is inexhaustibly original; no two touches of his pencil are the same. Light is one, and its glory is one, and yet there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars. There is a difference in the lights of various oils and gases, and so there is in your light, my brother, and my light. It is very possible that you would like to put my candle in order; you may do so if you can, but do not snuff me out. Your own light is, however, your main concern, and you had better ask for special grace that it may not fail. Your light is distinct from mine, as distinct as your life is from mine, though in another sense it is ’ -ue that your spiritual light is one with all the light that ever shone in «nis world. There is in the lighting a, personal appropriation of the divine flame, and afterwards a personal and distinct sending forth of the sacred light in the individual’s own way. Look ye well to this, lest ye be mistaken, and suppose yourselves to be lighted from heaven when you are the mere will-o’-the-wisps of delusion.

I like our translators reading the word candle — ‘* Neither du men light a candle,” for nowadays a candle is the smallest of all lights. We almost despise a candle in these days of the electric light; yet small lights are useful, and tiny lamps have their sphere. God has many email lights; in his great house he has candles as well as stars, and he would not have even a small light wasted. Even the most twinkling ray of light is of God’s kindling: think of that, you who cannot do more than talk to a child or give away a tract for love of his dear name.

THE CAJfDLK. 221

You are a little light, but if the Lord has given you even a spark of the sacred tire he means that you should shine. In this world there are many lights, but none too many. We could not spare the sun, and it would be a calamity if the smallest star were quenched. We cannot spare those modern inventions which so cheer us by turning our city’s night into day; but I wot we should miss even the glowworm from its dewy haunt in the quiet lane. We cannot aiford to lose a ray of light in this misty, foggy, all-beclouded sky of ours. The church and the world need all the light that has been vouchsafed, and much more. I, therefore, would press upon all my brethren and siste.rs here who may happen to have but one talent the necessity of their putting it out to interest. Your light, my friend, may be but a farthing rushlight, but you must not hide it, for all lights are of God, and are sent with a kind and gracious purpose by the great Father of lights.

Note further, that lighting is a work which needs sustaining. Whilst lighting is a process performed in a moment, it is also, as a matter of fact, prolonged; for the lamp needs to be trimmed, and it would be ill to light a lamp and leave it to itself. The lamp must have fresh oil from time to time, since by shining it consumes its fuel. Do not any of you, therefore, think if you can fix upon a certain time and say, “I was converted then,” that you may live as you like afterwards. God forbid! The saints prove their conversion by their perseverance, and that perseverance comes from a continual supply of divine grace to their souls. Judge ye, then, yourselves by this, not so much whether on a certain special occasion you were turned from darkness to light, but are you still “light in the Lord “? Have you oil in your vessels with your lamps? Are you looking unto Jesus? It was well that you looked; but are you looking? for that is the great thing. Remember, it is a present business — looking. It is well that you came to Jesus, but that is merely the beginning; it is “to whom coining,” coming continually, as unto a living stone. Our lungs must have, as we all know, fresh supplies of air. It will avail me nothing that I breathed yesterday; I am dead, unless I breathe to-day. We must have constant food: you ate yesterday; but could you without hunger and weakness go without to-day? We continually need to be built upas to our bodies, and it is just the same with our souls, and if we neglect this, if we fancy that something done twenty years ago is all that is wanted, we shall make a great mistake. There must be the frequent trimming of the lamp, which is, in effect, a continuation of the lighting.

Once again, let me say that this work of lighting is a work which when it is done upon a man consecrates him entirely to the service of light giving. A candle once lit, if it continues alight will be all consumed in giving light. It is what it was made for, not to be laid by in a glass case and looked at, but to be burned away. Blessed is the man who can say, “My zeal hath consumed me.” You will say that in the case of the lamp the lamp itself is not consumed. No, but it is consecrated to the one purpose of lighting the house, and it contains the supply of oil by which the flame is fed. The whole of the lamp, whether it be of gold or silver or clay, or whatever it may be, is dedicated to the one purpose of giving light: and if God ever comes and lights you, my dear brother, you are henceforth separated from all other purposes, and appointed to the one calling. Yoti may be & great many other things according to your human calling, but these must be subordinate. I wish that some men kept earthly things muchmore subordinate than they do. The first thing in a Christian is his Christianity. The chief business of one whom God has called is that he should live as the elect of God. Look at Christ Jesus, he was a carpenter, but I confess I seldom think of him as such: it is as the Saviour of men, and the servant of God that he comes before my mind. Evert thus a Christian man ought so to live if he be a carpenter that the Christian swallows up the carpenter; and if he be a business man, or a man of letters, or an orator, he ought so to live that the most conspicuous fact about him is that he is a Christian. He is a lamp, and his one business is to shine. You may use a candle for many purposes; I saw a man grease a saw with one the other day, and another made his boots fit for walking in the snow in like manner; but still these are not the objects for which a candle is designed: it has missed the object of its existence if it does not give light. I suppose on occasions you might use a lamp for a weight, or for some other purposes; but it would not be the fib instrument for any purpose except that of giving light. Every thing is best when fulfilling its proper purpose. Have you ever seen a swan out of water? How ungainly is his walk! What an uu wieldly bird he seems! But see him on the water. What a fine model for a ship! What grace! What beauty! So is it with the Christian, his beauty is best seen in his proper element; give him any other aim and he is. awkward and uncomely. When seeking to instruct and save his fellow man, he is where God would have him, and then all the lines of creating wisdom, and all the beauties of divine grace are manifested in him. Let us take care then about this lighting, that it be lighting from above, that it be a lighting such as makes the light our own, and that it be a lighting which takes possession of us, and consecrates us entirely, and is perpetually sustained by the visitation of the Spirit of God. So much on that first point.

II. We will now, in the second place, consider THE PLACING. “No man lighteth a candle and putteth it under a bushel.” It is a great point this placing of a man — it may hide his light or send it further afield. The chief matter is the lighting him, and getting him to have light to give; but the next most important thing is where to put him when he is alight. For some men when they first find Christ are in the wrong place altogether. How can a lamp shine if it be dropped into a river? After the conversion of certain persons their removal becomes necessary. It is significant that when God called Abraham he did not let him stop in Ur of the Chaldees: the place for Abraham to shine was not even in Haran; but he must get into the chosen country and wander as a shepherd prince, for only there and in that character could Abraham shine to the glory of God. Most men will be wise to stay where they are and shine; but others must undergo a great change of position before they will be able to scatter their light to the extent which the Lord intends for them. That may account, my friend, for your having more trouble since you were converted than you ever had before. You have been left to lie still till now, but you are wanted, and so you are fetched out from your hiding. It did not matter where you were when you ‘HIE CANDLE.

gave no light, you were just as well behind a box or in a closet as any where else: but now that you are lighted you must be put on a larnpfitand, and hence you are undergoing processes of providence that are aomewhat painful to you. Our placing, whether it has necessitated removal or not, is largely done by the providence of God: one man is placed here and another there, and it is well for us to look at our position from this point of view. God puts us where we can best serve his cause and bless our age. If you had your choice, perhaps, if yon had to be a street lamp, you would like to be a lamp in Hyde Park, to chine upon the nobles who pass that way. But the poor souls want lights far more down that blind alley, down that den of a court, where wild Irish are quarrelling, or drunkards murdering their wives. He that loves God, if he had his choice, might sooner choose to shine in the worse place than in the better. “Oh, that I lived in the midst of a warm hearted church!” says one. If you are an earnest, thorough-going man, lam glad that you are placed in that dreary village where the people are pretty nearly starved for spiritual life. “What,” cries one, “glad chat I shave to suffer so much?” No, not for that, but because if you are a strong man, you will not suffer, but you will make other people suffer; that is to say, make it hard for the minister, and the deacons, and the church to remain in their wretched condition of lukewarmness. I hope you will ;be the means of arousing them, and bringing them nearer to Christ. How often a place which appears undesirable will become desirable if we a regard it in this light. Providence puts us where we can give the most .light, and if our lamp is set up in the midst of darkness, where else should it be? This Tabernacle reminds me of those frames on wheels, rilled with lamps, which are used at our railway stations; here we have •.Scores of lamps all burning together, and when first one and then Another is dropped through the roof into a carriage and whisked away along the line, though it be to Australia, or America, or India, I am sorry to lose you, but I am glad that you are going where you will do more good than you will do here. Why should you not be scattered abroad like the first believers? Why should not the candles be carried rrhere the darkness is? Why should we keep up an everlasting illumination upon this particular spot, just to gladden our own eyes, ins’ead of lending light to all the world? It is ours to say to others, “There is a -candle, let it shine in your houses “; or, “Here is a lamp, set it up in jour tents, that God may bless you thereby.”

But though I have thus spoken of Providence, a good deal of our placing is in our own hands. There are ways of placing yourselves — tor instance, that mentioned in the text, which may be as ruinous to our influence as if a candle were placed under a bushel; or you can put yourself in a place of advantage, as when a lamp is set upon a lamp- stand.

First, note the word in the negative — “Neither do men place it under a bushel.” A bushel is a good and useful article. In almost every eastern house there was a corn-measure, here called a bushel, though it did not generally measure much more than a peck; this measure was commonly in every house, because they ground their own corn, and so we’re generally dealing with the neighbours. That useful corn-measme :tc me represents the pursuits of ordinary life — the proper and natural avocations of the household. Many men and women hide the candle that God has lit under the bushel of business and domestic cares. Bat you ask, Is not a housewife to be a housewife? Certainly; but not so a housewife as to conceal her godliness. Is not the labouring man to work with his hands? Certainly, but not so to work for the bread that perisheth as to. miss life eternal. Is not the man of business to give his best attention thereto? Of course he is, but he must see to it that he do not lose his own soul, or injure the souls of others. Keep your bushel; nobody asks you to burn it; but do keep it in its place. Subordinate all worldly things to the glory of God. Suffer not your possessions or your desires, your pleasures or your cares to act as a bushel hiding his light.. This happens with a great many. I must ask conscience to be so kind as to preach for me for a minute or two. Will you, look at home, dear friends, and see where you place your business and your religion? Which is uppermost? Which is foremost? Is religion your business, or is business your religion? Does your candle shine upon the bushel, or does the bushel hide the candle? I will not dwell upon the question, because it will be well for you to answer it in quiet, each man for himself. I know how a minister can put his light under a bushel — he can be a mere official and perform service, being nothing more than 3 performer. The worst thing to do with the gospel is to parson ificate it. As soon as we preach as mere officials we have lost all power: we must speak as men to men. A brother minister one day said to me, “The moment I shut the pulpit door I shut out my natural self.” This will never do: a man must be all there when he is serving God, and if ever he is himself it must be in preaching. We can also cover the candle by using hard words, words which are not hard to educated people, but to the bulk of our hearers. We can also use technical creed words,, such as we might use in the class room or in the discussion hall, and these may conceal our meaning from the people. I know some Christians who put their light under a bushel by being excessively bashful, and shamefaced. They are not so dreadfully retiring when five-pound notesare to be made; but if anything is to be said for Christ then they blush and stammer. Oh that they could overcome this hindrance. Others put their light under a bushel by inconsistency: they do not act as Christians should act, and when people see their bad work? they do not glorify God. God forbid that in the house our darkness should be more conspicuous than our light. Some, I fear, cover their light under the bushel of indifference: they do not seem to care how things go with the cause and kingdom of Christ. They look well to the state of their flocks and herds, but for the house of the Lord they have small concern. I pray you, dear friends, do not hide your light in any way. Let not your lawful callings, your relationships, your sicknesses, your literary pursuits, or your personal sorrows become so exaggerated as to conceal the divine light within your soul.

The text is, however, positive. Put yourself on a candlestick or on. a lampstand. What must that be? A candlestick is an appropriate exhibitor of the light; and each man should make an appropriate confession of his faith. The best way is prescribed in God’s word. It is written, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Take care thut when you have faith you declare it in the ordained manner; for he that with his heart believeth and with his mouth muketh confession of him shall be saved. 0 lamp, do not say, “I will shine, but I will lie upon the floor and do it.” No, your place is on the stand which is provided. Dear Christian friend, join the church that you may be placed where you will be in order with the arrangements of the divine household. A lamp-stand should also be something which makes the lamp sufficiently visible. If you do not come out and diffuse your light willingly and cheerfully it is very likely the master of the house will fetch you out. Providence will arrange that the light shall not be hidden. See what the Lord did for his church years ago; he allowed her to be persecuted into publicity. What a lamp-stand was found for Christianity in the martyrdoms of the Colosseum, in the public burnings by pagans and papists, and in all the other modes by which believers in Christ were forced into fame. When there was no printing-press, when there were scanty opportunities of making the gospel public compared with those of to-day, the Lord caused his witnesses to stand before rulers and kings,, and there publish in the most public places the word of his salvation. Persecution built the lighthouse, and the divine love set up aloft the burning and shining light of sacred truth. You may find that God will make such a candlestick for you. You shall be forced into testimony in your family by the opposition of those about you, unless you take other and happier methods. We ought to be valiant for the truth, and speak of it with all prudence, but without stint

I long for the day when the precepts of the Christian religion shall be the rule among all classes of men, in all transactions. I often hear it said “Do not bring religion into politics.” This is precisely where it ought to be brought, and set there in the face of all men as on a candlestick. I would have the Cabinet and the Members of Parliament do the work of the nation as before the Lord, and I would have the nation,, either in making war or peace, consider the matter by the light of righteousness. We are to deal with other nations about this or that upon the principles of the New Testament I thank God that I have lived to see the attempt made in one or two instances, and I pray that the principle may become dominant and permanent, We have had enough of clever men without conscience, let us now see what honest, God-fearing men will do. But we are told that we must study “British interests,” as if it were not always to a nation’s truest interest to do righteousness. “But we must follow out our policy.” I say, No! Let the policies which are founded on wrong be cast like idols to the moles and to the bats. Stand to that most admirable of policies, — 4< As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” Whether we are kings, or queens, or prime ministers, or members of parliament, or crossing sweepers, this is our rule if we are Christians.

Yes, and bring religion into your business, and let the light shine in the factory and in the counting-house. Then we shall not have quite so much china clay in the calicoes wherewith to cheat the foreigner, nor shall we see cheap and nasty articles described as of best quality, nor any other of the dodges in trade that everybody seems to practise iiowa-days. You tradespeople and manufacturers are very much one like the other in this: there are tricks in all trades, and one sees it every where. I believe everybody to be honest in all England, Scotland, and

Ireland until he is found out; but whether there are any so incorruptible that they will never be found wanting this deponent sayebh not, for I am not a judge.

Do not put your candle under a bushel, but let it shine, for it was intended that it should be seen. Religion ought to be as much seen at our own table as at the Lord’s table. Godliness should as much influence the House of Commons as the Assembly of Divines. God grant that the day may come when the mischievous division between secular and religious things shall no more be heard of, for in all things Christians are to glorify God, according to the precept, “Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

III. Our time has gone, but I must detain you a little while I speak upon the SHINING: “Let your light so shine before men.”

When a candle shines it is because it cannot help it. Shining is the natural result of possessing light, and I want you, dear brethren, to exert a holy influence upon others, because the grace of God is really in you. Some men made desperate attempts to appear good; they would be far more successful if they would seek to be good. Grace must be in a man as a living fountain, and then rivers of living water will flow from him. The natural result of a renewed heart is a renewed life, and the natural result of a renewed life is that men see it and glorify God.

Shining, however, is not altogether a thing of necessity so as to forbid our attention to it, for the text demands care of us. “Let your light so shine.” I must ask the printer to put the two letters — s, o, — in very large capitals. “Let your light SO shine — -let it so shine that men may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” You will not shine in the best manner though you may have grace in your heart unless you abound in prayerful, watchful, earnest care. You must guard heart and lip and hand, or your light will not so shine before men as could be desired. Your light will need trimming. Neglect it not.

The shining which comes from the Christian is here described as “good works,” Good talk is very well, but it takes a great deal of talk to light a room. Good works are the splendour of the light of God. What works are good works? I would answer — upright actions, honest dealings, sincere behaviour. When a man is scrupulously true, and sternly faithful, all right-minded persons admit that his works are good works. Good works are works of love, unselfish works, works done for the benefit of others and the glory of God. Deeds of charity, kindness, and brotherly love are good works. As also careful attendance to duty, and all service honestly done, together with all courses which promote the moral and spiritual good of our fellow-men. Works of devotion in which you prove that you love God and his Christ, that you love the gospel, that you desire to spread the kingdom of Christ, — these may not be so highly valued by ordinary people, but are eminently good works. Let these good and true things abound in you, and shine out from you; do them not out of ostentation, but still without shame.

Good works, like the shining of a candle, have good effects. A candle cheers the gloom. What a comfort it is when you have long been wandering in the dark to spy out a twinkling candle in a cottage window J A candle directs and guides men, and by its illumination it instructs thsm. In its light they see, discern, and discover. He who acts teaches.

The man who lives Christianity preaches it. He is the truest evangelist whose life brings glory to God and goodwill to men.

But note, it is said “it giveth light to all that are in the house”; so that when we are lit from on high we are first to shine at home. It is not abroad alone that we should make our Christianity known, but chiefly at the fireside, to those who are in the house. Some have a very little house, they live in a couple of rooms with a small family; let them take care that they have grace enough to make a few thoroughly happy, which is not always the easiest thing in the world. Others have a large family; may they have grace enough to influence the whole. A few have large workshops, and employ many hands, and these ought to exercise a holy influence over all their workfoiks. Some of us are preachers of the gospel, and have a large house in which to shine: we shall need more of the oil of grace than others, that we may give light to the whole of our house; and that grace is to be had. The whole world is a house in which the church is the caudle; and, therefore, the members of the church should so shine, each one in his place, that the whole world shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God.

The text says that the candle gives light to all that are in the house. Some professors give light only to a part of the house. I have known women very good to all but their husbands, and these they nag from morning to night, so that they give no light to them. I have known husbands so oi’ten out at meetings that they neglect home, and thus their wives miss the light. I have known wasters who are utterly indifferent about their servants; and mistresses who quite forget to seek the good of their maids. If our light be in good order it will illuminate the parlour and the kitchen, the drawing room and the scullery, shining upon all that are in the house. Candles do not shed all their light either that way or this, but they shine in all directions. A Christian should be an all round man, blessing all, both great and small, who come in contact with him.

The object of our shining is not that men may see how good we are, nor even see us at all, but that they may see grace in us and God in us, and cry, “What a Father these people must have.” Is not this the first time in the New Testament that God is called our Father? Is it not singular that the first time it peeps out should be when men are seeing the good works of his children? The Fatherhood of God is best seen in the holiness of saints. When men see that light is good they bless the source of that light, and seeing that ic cometh troin the Father of lights, they glorify his name.

1 have had to hasten over all this, but I pray God to make it none the less effectual for the stirring up of every Christian here to use ail the light he has. It is a dark world, and it seems to get darker, for the emissaries of Satan are going about thirsting to quench every light. Look ye well to your lamps — look ye well to your lamps, ye virgin souls. Trim well the flame, and go you forth even into the black night to meet the Bridegroom. Lift high your torches into the very face of darkness, and make men see that Gpd the Father is still in the midst of his people.

The venerable Bede, when he was interpreting this text, said that Christ Jesus brought the light of Deity into the poor lantern of our humanity, and then set it upon the candlestick of his church that the whole house of the world might be lit up thereby. So indeed it is. The reason why there is light in the church is that those who are in the dark may see. Churches do not exist for themselves, but for the world at large. Have ye thought of this, ye professors? Ye are blessed that ye may be a blessing. Take heed that ye behave aright. You go to Christ’s wedding feast, and you are glad to hear that he turneth water into wine, and you are ready to bless him that he has kept the best wine until now. But oh, ye servants of God, remember what is said, “Draw out now and bear.” These are your orders. There is the God-made wine — “Draw, out now, and bear.” Receive from Christ’s fulness, and distribute to others. Neglect not your duty as servitors at your Lord’s great feast. Your Master has taken the bread, and has blessed and broken it, and then he has given it to you. Is that the end of the process? Do you stand there and munch your own personal morsel with a miserable self-satisfaction? Nay, if you be indeed disciples of Christ you will remember that the next words are, “and the disciples to the multitude, and they did eat.” Break then your bread among the hungry that surround you. Take the whole loaf of Christ, and rightly divide and distribute it, and you shall have as much left as at the first; yea, more, you shall gather of the fragments many baskets full. Only see ye to it that ye freely give what ye have freely received, lest hoarded manna breed corruption, lest a canker come upon your hoarded gold and silver, and lest your very souls grow mouldy even to reeking rottenness before God, because you have not drawn out your souls unto the hungry, nor sought to teach those who are perishing for lack of knowledge.

The Baptist Missionary Society will enable you to teach the heathen. Take a share in it. There, make the collection! Do your best!

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON — Luke viii.

HYMNS FUOM “Ouu OWN HYMN BOOK” — 136 (Song I.), 652,
22 CFart 111.;

JHetropoliiau SEabenmcte

THE EYE AND THE LIGHT.

DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 13TH, 1889, BY

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

“No man, when he hath lighted a caudle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but ou a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light. The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If thy whole body therefore be full of lighr, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.” — Lukexi. 33 — 36.

IN this parable, our Lord Jesus Christ is the light. Some saw his brightness, and were even dazzled by it, as was that woman who cried, •” Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.” The malicious saw not his light, but even dared to impute Ids miracles to the Prince of darkness. Others professed to see go little light in him that they demanded a sign from heaven. Our Lord’s constant answer was, to go shining on. He was meant to be observed; even as a lamp is intended to be seen. A lamp is not lighted to be placed in a cellar, nor to be hidden under a bushel: the lamp is lighted on purpose that all who come into the house may see the light. Even so, our Lord Jesus Christ could not be hid. In the narrow circle of the Holy Land, he shone so clearly that Gentiles came to the brightness of his rising. Yet, to make him seen to the ends of the earth, he must needs be set on the lamp-stand. He was lifted up by crucifixion; and anon he was further raised by resurrection: he was lifted up from earth to heaven at his ascension, and in another .sense he was set on high by the descent of the Holy Ghost and the widespread ministry of his servants. Our Lord was thus taken from under the bushel of the obscurity which attached to his humble origin, brought away from the dark cellar of the despised Jewish nation, and set out in the open, where Greek and Roman, Barbarian and Scythian, might rejoice in his light. It is our duty to keep his name and his truth ever before the world, waiting for the time when every eye shall jsee him on the throne of his glory.

Our Lord would have all men behold the light of his gospel; for the text saith, “that they which come in may see the light.” Whosoever comes into the church, or even into the world, should be met with this lamp; for this gospel is to be preached to every creature No. 2,109. 54

55,4 ., p s METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE PULPIT.

under heaven. The mighty deeds of his salvation were not done in a corner: they are for .world- wide observation. He that hath eyes to see let him see. If you do not see Jesus, it is not ‘becauselie has hidden himself in darkness, but because your eyes are blinded. The light which streams from the face of Jesus is meant for human eyes: the tempered brightness of the “Mediator’s glory suits those eyes, which are bidden to look to him and live.,- Light is not for the rich, the wise, the strong, but for men as men. The doctrines of our Lord Jesus-Christ are not meant to be the monopoly of a few learned doctors; they are the common inheritance of those who labour and are heavy laden. As the morning breaks for all weary, watching eyes, so shines the light of the glorious gospel for all who sit in darkness and long for the light of God.

Beloved, the great thing to be desired is that the light which is so freely given forth by the Lord Jesus inay become light within our souls. There he stands, as the lamp placed upon the lampstand, conspicuous to all; but we need that the light outside in the room may become light inside, within the soul. Nothing more truly needs light than our inner man. We are, by nature, as a lantern with the candle blown out. Whether we will believe it or not, by nature we are in thick Egyptian night. Well saith the apostle, “Ye were sometimes darkness.1’ Much is said about the light of conscience, but. in many this is but a glimmering taper whose beams are “not light, but. darkness visible.” The light of nature is dimmed by so many surroundings, and has so little oil to sustain it, that it leads no man to eternal life, unless there be added to it light from above — :the light of grace, the clear shining of the Holy Spirit.

Light is absolutely essential to spiritual life. Ignorance is not the mother of devotion, but’ of superstition. Knowledge, grace, truth, are-the nurses ‘of true faith.’ The light of God is needful to the life of God’. We must know Christ, we must be illuminated ’ by his Holy Spirit,, we must have fellowship with the Father’s truth, or else we are dead, as well as dark. Light within we must- have, or the light outside will not benefit us. Upon that subject we will speak at this time. May God grant us the light of his Spirit; for it would be idle for us to try to explain the action of light while ourselves in darkness.. Shine within, 0 Holy Spirit, that’ we speak not of theory, but of actual, experience!

Tirst, we will consider how the light enters: “The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light.” Secondly, we shall note how this light may be perverted: “When thine eye ‘is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Takeheed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.” In conclusion, we shall observe how the light acts within: “If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full, of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.”

. I. First, then, consider HOW THE LIGHT ENTERS THE SOUL. Into the body the light ’ enters through the eye.; A man without an eyemight as’ well be, without the sun, so far as light is concerned. The eye is as needful as the lamp, if a man is to see. The most brilliant, light that ever” has *beeri *inveritedj o’r” ever can* be “discovered, will -bfe?

. of no use to the person who has no eye; .hene it is true, “The light of the body is the eye.” It is most important to attend to that winch, is the eye of the inner man; for in vain doth Christ himself shine if his light cannot enter our souls. The condition of the eye of the mind is of the utmost importance: our light or our darkness will depend upon it. The eye of the soul may be viewed as the understanding, the conscience, the motive, or the heart. It would not be possible to confine it to any one of these names.. I venture to call it “the intent of the mind “; or, if you will, “the aim of .the heart,” the honesty of the understanding. When Q-od has given a man a true intent to see the light of the gospel, he has in that honest intent furnished him with an eye for the heavenly light. If the Holy. Ghost makes us truly willing to know the truth, he has cleared the mental eye. The worst of it is, that men have .no will to see the light of God: their foolish heart is darkened, and hence they do not understand, but altogether misrepresent the doctrine of the Lord Jesus. The battle of grace is with man’s unwillingness to see those truths against which he isp naturally at enmity. If. a man wills to see the honest truth, and. submits himself to the enlightenment of the Holy Ghost, he will not be left in darkness. When a man does not want to see, he cannot see: when he is determined not to learn, when truth is unpalatable to him, when he designedly twists it from its meaning, then his eye isdiseased, and the light is hindered from its due effect.

Many things darken the eye of the soul. One of the most common is prejudice. The man conceives that he has light already. His father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather, and previous generations, were brought up, in .a certain religion, and therefore it must be right. Whether the lamp gives light or not, is not the .question: it is the family lamp, and he will have no other. He will not enquire: he is quite sure, and wants no evidence. When the light of God comes to him, he. at once repels it. .He .cannot be disturbed, and therefore he-will not hear, nor read, nor consider the matter: he is satisfied tolet things.be as they are. The .very supposition that he may be wrong he regards as an insult, maliciously invented by an uncharitable mind. What is to be done with one so blindfolded ?. Are there not many such?

Sloth, too, is a great blinder of the eye: it draws down the eyelid, and shuts out the light by the spirit of slumber. The man does not care what the gospel is, or is not, Like Pilate, jbe asks, “What is truth?” but he never waits for an answer. It is too much trouble to some people to think, to search the Scriptures, and to pray. ,They have no< heart for a process so troublesome.-/ “No,” saith the worldling, “I have other fish to fry. I go my way ito my farm, and to my merchandise. Let graceless bigots fight about creeds ‘and the like.; it matters not one jot what a man believes,” Thus .do many abide in the blackest darkness, because it is too much trouble to open the shulters, and draw up the blinds. All me! how dark are they who prefer an indolent ease to. the light of God!

The light is often shut out by gross error. I cannot go over the list of the favourite errors of the .present hour.; for .that list has grown, too long for one day’s reading. .Spaciously taught iip BQleofcftJ phrases cunningly supported by a dreamy science, and adorned with certain great names, errors come to us nowadays as respectable forms of thought. Falsehoods of which we heard when we were children — but only heard of them as loathsome heresies, long ago decayed and thrown into the limbo of worthless and mischievous imaginations — these are now refashioned, freshened up with touches of bright colour, and brought out as advanced ideas. When any of these are permitted to occupy the mind, as they so commonly do nowadays, the old gospel is no longer seen, because the eye is inflamed by the incoming of a foreign and irritating substance. Can it be that what was true a hundred years ago, is not true now? Can it be that the gospel which saved souls in the days of the apostles, cannot save souls now? Is it so, that some men are wiser than God, and are qualified to sit in judgment upon prophets and apostles? Surely, judicial blindness has happened to this generation: the chaff of their own folly has darkened their eyes, and Christ is hid from them.

One thing darkens the eye more than any other, and that is the love of sin. Nine times out of ten, allowed sin is the cataract which -darkens the mental eye. Men cannot see truth, because they love falsehood. The gospel is not seen, because it is too pure for their loose lives and lewd thoughts. Christ’s holy example is too severe for the worldly; his Spirit is too pure for lovers of carnal pleasure. When people reject the doctrines of the gospel, they also tolerate laxity of morals, and give predominance to the customs of the world. How can men see, when sin hath pricked the very eyeballs of the mind! “How can ye believe,” said Christ, “which receive honour one of another?” The love of worldly honour prevented the Pharisees from believing in the lowly Messiah. When sin, like a handful of mud, seals up the eye, you need not wonder that the man becomes an agnostic, a doubter, ,a caviller. To have a clear eye one must have a clean heart. The pure in heart shall see God; and hence the pure in heart see God’s truth, :so as to appreciate it and delight in it. Oh, that the Spirit of God may wash the filth out of our eyes, that we may walk in the light, as God Is in the light.

Pride, too, is a great darkener of the soul’s eye. When a man admires himself he never adores God. He that is taken up with the conceit of his own righteousness will never see the righteousness of Christ. If thou believest thyself to be pure thou wilt never prize the blood which cleanses from all sin. If thou believest thyself to be already perfect, thou wilt not prize the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier. .No man cries for grace till he perceives his own need of it: if, therefore, we be puffed up with the notion that we are rich and increased in goods, we shall never see the riches of grace which are treasured up in Christ Jesus. The light of God dwells not with human self-sufficiency. A man’s own shadow is very often the means of keeping him in the dark.

Self -seeking, in every form, is a sad cause of obscuring the light of the soul. Self-seeking, in the grosser form of avarice, makes men grope in the daytime. The glitter of gold is injurious to the eye. How could Judas see the beauty of Christ when he saw such value in the thirty pieces of silver? How can a man set store by a future heaven when a present fortune is heaven enough for him? Mammon repays its worshippers with blinded eyes. Self does the same when it appears as ambition, desire of honour and respect, or a wish to have a finger in one’s own salvation. The proud desire to share the glory of our salvation with free grace prevents the entrance of the light of God. Self, in the form of magnifying the nobility of human nature, extolling the grandeur of our common humanity, and all that, is a very blinding thing. How can a man that has his eye upon self have any sight for Jesus? Of all antichrists, self is the hardest to over come. It is written, “He must increase, but I must decrease”; but if proud self will not endure a decrease, how can I see Christ increasing? There is no room for him in my heart. Appreciation of self leads to depreciation of the Lord Jesus.

Multitudes are kept in darkness through fear of men. They dare not see. They feel bound to think as the fashion goes — and there is a fashion of opinions as well as of coats and bonnets. If you resolve to hold fast the faith once delivered to the saints you will be regarded as antiquated, and you will be as much pointed out for your faith, as you would be for your dress if you should walk down the street in the costume of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. To many it would be great sin to be singular. They never think for themselves; in fact, they are mentally shiftless. They ask their way of a certain person supposed to be a deeper student than themselves: of him they enquire what they ought to believe, disbelieve, praise, or blame. I remember well a man who never knew whether he liked a sermon till he had asked a certain knowing old gentleman whether it was a good one or not: he had no home-grown judgment, he imported his ideas. His brains, for safe keeping, were placed in another person’s head: this is a very convenient thing, and saves a good deal of headache; but it has its drawbacks. Some persons put all their thinking out, and have it done for them by the dozen: but he that would have God’s light, knows that it comes not to the coward who fears the frown of a mortal, and makes man his god. God could have given to the crowd a common judgment, and have left us to be guided by a central authority, if he had thought it right so to do; but having given to each individual an understanding, he expects us to use it, and to an honest personal use of understanding he gives the light. The eye of the sparrow or of the ant may be very small, yet it sees the grt-at light, if it be a single and clear eye. Pray, then, for grace, that you may search out for yourselves the truth of God, free from the fear of man which bringeth a snare. Let us never enquire, “Have any of the rulers believed?” Whether the rulers have or have not believed, let us follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, and rejoice in that pure light which flows from him.

God save you, dear friends, from having your eye injured by any ot the mischiefs I have mentioned. There are legions more of these blinding things: may grace guard you from them! God give you a “single eye,” by which is meant an eye which does not look at two things at a time — a mind which is free from sinister motives, and from anything which would cause you to choose falsehood rather than truth, and wrong rather than right. God grant that we may have a desire to be right, a resolute design to know the truth as it is in Jesus, and to feel and act in sincere conformity therewith! Oh, to be sincere, simple-hearted, child-like, true! We want neither great genius nor sparkling wit, but we need an unsophisticated, mind; for so the light gets entrance into the soul through the Spirit of God.

II. Secondly, let us consider HOW THE LIGHT MAY BE PERVERTED. Some men might have light enough, but their eye is in such an evil condition that the light, is turned into darkness. I suppose that in the natural world light could not actually become darkness; but in the spiritual kingdom it is certainly so: “When thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.” Hearken, my brethren, and take heed.

A man has heard the gospel of free grace and dying love, he hasheard a message full of love concerning the forgiveness of sin, and pardon bought with blood, and freely given to him that believeth. The doctrine of justification by faith has been clearly explained to him. He believes firmly in these great evangelical truths, and calls them glorious and precious. But he draws an inference from this teaching which is ruinous to his soul. He considers that, after all, sin is of small consequence, and he may indulge in it freely, for God is merciful, and grace is infinite. At some time or other he will repent and believe in Jesus, and then he will be set right, however grossly he may have offended. God is gracious, and therefore he may be sinful: Grod freely forgives, and therefore he may. recklessly offend. This is to turn light into darkness. Such turning of the grace of, God into lasciviousriess isinfamous. Words cannot set forth the hideous ingratitude of such depraved argument. We may justly say of a man who thus turns light into darkness, “his damnation is just.” Yet no doubt there are many such who silently, in their own hearts, draw from the goodness of God. a license to sin. Ah, my hearer! if your eye be in this condition, the more freely we preach to you the gospel .of the grace of God, the moresurely will you go from sin to sin. This is terrible. 0 false hearts. L what shall I do with you? You make me wish to be dumb, lest I minister to your condemnation. In the lowest hell you are digging for yourselves, a deeper hell: you use the promises of mercy as the instruments of your own destruction. What! can you hang yourselvesnowhere but on the cross? Can you drown yourselves nowhere but in the waters of Siloah? What has come to you, that you are soinfatuated as to find your death in the gospel which is ordained for life?

Let me set before you another form of this evil. A man perceivesthe great value of the means of grace, but he goes further and misuses them. Having been brought up religiously, he has a deep respect for the ministers of God’s house, for the services of the sanctuary, and especially for the two ordinances which Christ has established in his church — Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. He reverences the Sabbath and the inspired Word, and the church and all its sacred ministries. But it may, be that, he proceeds from a due regard .pf these things to a superstitious trust in them, making of them what God has never made of them: thus his light becomes darkness. He regards attendance upon public worship as a substitute for inward religion; he looks upon membership with a church as a certificate of salvation. He may be so foolish as to speak of Baptism as an ordinance whereby he was made a member of Christ, and a child of God; and of the Supper of the Lord as a saving ordinance, or even as a sacrifice for the quick and dead. When instructive symbols are perverted into instruments of priestcraft, the light is turned into darkness. By multitudes, in these days, aids to faith are degraded into the machinery of superstition. The church, which is our mother and inurse, is made into an antichrist, and men look to her for salvation instead of looking wholly and alone to the Lord Jesus Christ. Outward modes of worship and instruction may be very beneficial, but if they are allowed to usurp the confidence of the soul, they may gender disease and death. When a man’s religion becomes his destruction, .how sure is that destruction!

I have known many go another way: they have said, “I care very little about the shape or form of religion. A sincere spirit is every thing. The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life.” Such a man professes to clutch at the soul of things, but I have seen him grow indifferent in creed and licentious in life. He believes everything to have some measure of truth in it; every evil practice to have some good point about it. This is a poisonous atmosphere for any man to breathe. Hear him talk, if you would see how the worse can be made to seem the better. Nothing to him is fixed truth, nor even settled right. He is like the chameleon, which takes its colour from the changing light about it. This he calls “liberty “; but assuredly it is not the liberty wherewith Christ makes men free. Say, rather, it is the light of charity turned into the darkness of indifference. How great is this darkness! How many are deceived by it! After all, there is light and there is darkness, and they are not the same thing. There is truth, taught of God, and there is a lie, which is the devil’s own; and these will never sit at the same table. There is a blessing for the preacher of the truth; but if any man preach another gospel, for him there is an anathema which none can reverse.

I have also seen this light turned to darkness in the case of the student who has gathered great erudition, and enrolled himself among the learned. He begins to criticize. Do not condemn him for that: he judges very properly at first, he criticizes things that ought to be criticized; but he stops not there. Once having his critical faculty aroused, he is like a boy with a new knife; he must cut something or other. Nothing comes in his way more often than the Scriptures; and he must have a cut at them. He whittles at Genesis; he makes a gash in Deuteronomy; he halves Isaiah; he takes slices out of the Gospels, and cuts the Epistles into slivers. You see, he has so sharp a knife that he must use it. By-and-by, from a critic he advances to an irreverent fault finder, and from that to an utter unbeliever, hard in the mouth and stiff in the neck. His light has blinded him. He has taken his own eye to pieces that he might study its anatomy, and henceforth the light will be of no more use to him than to the dead.

We have seen the light turned to darkness in a further sense; hear and understand. There is a Uossed light called the full assurance of faith: the more we have of it the better. Blessed is that man who never doubts his God, who hangs with hoty confidence upon the eternal promise and the immutable covenant, and is never staggered through unbelief. He walks in the light of God, and enjoys divine fellowship. But I have seen something very like to this holy confidence which has been before the Lord a very different matter. Assurance has been counterfeited by presumption. The man has taken for granted that he is a child of God when he is not, and he has appropriated privileges which are none of his. He has supposed himself to be in the covenant when he has neither part nor lot in the matter; and without repentance, without the new birth, and without saving faith, he has dared to boast of those sacred securities which belong only to the heirs of grace, sanctified in Christ Jesus. Dreadful is the case of the man who has presumed to hope for heaven while living an ungodly life; boasting of freedom from all fear, when, indeed, he was destitute of all hope.

I have also seen the light turned to darkness in quite another manner. Sweet and soft is the light of holy fear: it is as the twilight of the evening. It is a light that comes from God, when a man is afraid to sin, when he fears lest he should grieve the Spirit of God, when he trembles lest in anything he should err from the teaching of his heavenly Father. But then this light may be corrupted into slavish dread, despondency, and despair. Introspection, or looking within, may degenerate into a morbid habit: under its influence, the soul may refuse to look to Christ, and may enshroud itself in the gloom of remorse. Truth may be distorted till it takes a most alarming shape, and the soul, in sullen despair, refuses to be comforted, refuses to believe in the Son of God.

Do you wonder that our Lord seemed to hold up his hands in astonishment as he said, “If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” If that which should lead misleads, how misled you will be! If your better part turns out to be evil, how evil must you be! See to it then, dear friends, as before the living God, that you have a clear eye, and that the light of Christ comes, streaming into your soul in all its glorious purity and power.

III. I close by coming to the third and most important point: HOW THE LIGHT ACTS WHEN IT COMES WITHIN. If the eye be right, single, and clear, there is no laborious work for that eye to do to obtain the light. When the sun is shining, if you wish for light you. simply open your eyes, and you have light at once. You have not to rub the eye, or work it into some singular position: let the outward light come to the eye, and at once it enters it, and conveys an image to the mind. When the eye is sound it takes pleasure in the light, and with delight conveys the image of things external to the mind within. If the Lord, in his great grace, has made your eye single, so that you desire only to know the truth, and to be yourself true, then without toil you will perceive truth, and the image thereof will readily appear before your mind. The light is willing enough to enter when the window of the soul allows its admission. When that light comes in, you will know it. No man passes from his natural darkness into heavenly light without being aware that a great change has taken place.

Beloved, I will try to show you how the holy light acts when it enters our nature.

When it first comes in it reveals much that was before unperceivecL If a room has been long shut up, and kept in darkness, the light has a startling effect. You may have hurried through that room with a candle, but you never stayed to look, and therefore did not notice the state of things. The room did not strike you as being very unpleasant, though it smelt a little stale and fusty; but now that you have put back the shutters and drawn up the blind, the light has made the mould and dust very manifest. That black festoon of spiders’ webs; those insects which hurry out of the light; that all-encrusting dust — these had been overlooked. The room cannot be suffered to remain in such a state. What a change is demanded! All hands are summoned to clean out the den, and turn it into a healthy chamber fit to be inhabited. The light of heaven reveals a thousand sins, and causes their removal. The first effect of the light of God in the soul is painfully unpleasant: it makes you loathe yourself, and almost wish that you had never been born. Things grow worse and worse to our consciousness as the light shines more and more. Beloved, we wish it to be so. We would have no part kept in the dark. We would have every idol discovered and broken, every secret chamber of imagery exposed to the sun, and then destroyed. Is it not so? Do you wish to keep the light from any one part of your nature? Do you not far rather desire that the light should search you through and through, and lay bare all the deceitfulness of the heart, and all the falseness of the depraved mind?

As that light continues to enter, it gradually illuminates each faculty of the mind. The will by nature prefers the darkness: the man claims the right to act as he pleases, and to give no reasons for his waywardness. When the light of God enters the soul, the Lord Jesus becomes altogether lovely, and then the sacred light falls on the proud will, and the man sees that it is evil and perverse, and he cries, “0 Lord Jesus, not my will, but thine, be done.” This same light falls on the outward life which is ruled by the will, and the conduct and conversation become bright with the light of love. The judgment feels the inner illumination, and decides according to the law of truth and righteousness. With the judgment the delight is lit up also, and the heart rejoices ia the law of the Lord.

The light is poured in upon the conscience, and now that poor, half-blinded thing issues edicts and gives forth verdicts which are according to the oracles of God. What a difference between a natural conscience and a conscience instructed by God, and enlightened by his Word I There remains much more to be done in this direction than many of us suspect. We may be living unconsciously in evils for which our consciences have never once accused us. Godly men, in old time, persecuted those who differed from them, and thought it a duty to do so: they even called toleration a crime. The best of men owned negro slaves, and were not conscious of wrong. When Mr. Whitefield left certain negroes to the” Orphan House, he did not dream that he was violating the rights of man: in fact, he was very careful for their present and future welfare. Conscience does not tolerate slavery now. Do you not think that a great enlightenment has taken place upon the drink question? Is not similar light needed as to war, as to wage-paying and wage-earning, and a thousand other things? It is a happy thing “that we have received a. light which will shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. There is nothing hid within us which this light ‘will not manifest; and so, as, one by one, we see our imperfections, we shall cry for grace to remove them, and, thus we shall grow in holiness through the grace of God.

This same light, falling on the memory, awakens penitence for our faults and gratitude for God’s goodness. Shining on our thoughts, it makes them sparkle with the beauty of holiness,’ shining upon our emotions, it makes them flash and glow with love to God and heavenly things. A soul is a fine object when thus lit up.! The holy light falls on our motives, and unveils the secret heart of all our actions. You do .right, but this light shows you why you do right. You are a friend to man, but why? You are a Christian professor,, but are you sincere? The light makes short work with that which did not flow from a pure motive. This light falls also on the spirit in which a deed was done; and here much is seen which some had rather not see.

Did you ever have the light of God brought to bear upon your imagination? Imagination is the play-room of the soul. Here many

a man considers that he is without law. “Surely,” says he, “thought is free.” The man gloats over sins which he would fear to commit: he

.finds a pleasure in thinking over lusts which his circumstances compel him to avoid. In the dark chambers of imagination the heart commits .adulteries, murders, thefts, and all manner of infamies. When the light falls here, the man shudders as he learns that as he thinketh in his heart so is he. He trembles as he perceives that the fond imagination of sin is sin. Then is the floor of imagination purged, and the foul

dust and chaff are driven into the fire. Fancy then gleams in the light of God, and imagination, washed in the brazen laver, sings songs on her stringed instruments unto the God of her salvation, who has brought her out of darkness into his marvellous light.

Brethren, we need the light to shine in upon our. tempers. We know some Christian people who will not let you mention their tempers: they have taken out a license to be as surly as they like, on the ground of “it is their constitution.” “No,” they say, “I cannot help being passionate. My mother was a very quick-tempered woman, and I am naturally in that way. There’s no help for it.” Let the light in upon that unseemly thing. If what you say be true, write it down in black and white that you are an incorrigible vixen, and must be so all your life. What! Do you not like it? If it is true, let the light in upon it. Let it be known to your own self and to others that you are a mad dog, and that there is no curing you. Are you angry with me for suggesting it? I am only taking you at your word. Do not say, “I cannot help having a bad temper.” Friend, you must help it. Pray God to help you to overcome it at once; for either you must kill it, or it will kill you. You cannot carry a bad temper into heaven. They will have none of your passions in the “Father’s house above. Let in the light of Christ’s love on it, and the vile thing will be made to die. It is a night-bird j it cannot bear the light of grace and love.

Live near to Jesus, and his compassion will destroy your evil passion. J.ry it.

Your desires, your hopes, your fears, your aspirations, should all be set m the light, and what a joy it will be when they all glitter in it!

No part dark” — what a wonderful condition! Some professors

appear to have a little light in the upper rooms; they have notions

their heads, and ideas on their tongues! Alas! the first floor is

clark, very dark. From their common conversation the light of God

is absent. Enter at the door, and you cannot see your way into the

passage, or up the stairs; the light is up aloft, but not in the dwellinff-Oh for light in the region of the heart! Oh, for light upon

household talk, and the business conversation! From Barret to

cellar may the whole houses of our humanity be lighted up! This is

the true work of grace, when the whole man is brought into the liht,

and no part is left to pine in the darkness. Then are we the children

of light, when we abide in the light, and have no fellowship with

darkness. Then is the distinction seen between Israel and Eo-ypt

for while all Egypt sat in a darkness which might be felt, in the land

of Groshen there was light.

Where this light comes it gives certainty: we cease to doubt, and we know whom we have believed. With this comes direction: we see our way, and how to walk in it. We pursue a plain path, and are no more m a maze “This is the way, walk ye in it,” is sounded in our ears as the light reveals to us the narrow way which leads to life eternal.

This light, when it dwells in the heart, brings good cheer with it. Darkness is doleful, light brings delight. Did you never travel by a train which passed through a tunnel, but was destitute of a single lamp? Somebody has struck a match, and lighted a candle, and all eyes have turned towards him. In a small way he was a benefactor: all eyes are glad of light. Oh, what a sweet thing is the light of the Holy Spirit to one that has been long in the darkness of ignorance, sorrow, and despair! A poor boy who was put down in the coal mine to close a door after the coal waggons had passed by, was forced to sit there all alone, hour after hour, in the dark. He was a gracious child; and when one said to him, “Are you not weary with sitting so long in the dark?” he said, Yes, I do get tired; but sometimes the men give me a bit of candle, and when I get a light I sing.’ So do we. When we get a light we sing. Glory be to God, he is our light and our salvation, and therefore we sing. 0 child of God, when ycur eye is single, and the light of God fills every part of your being, then you sing, and sing again, and feel that you can never have done singing on earth, till you begin singing in heaven.

The text has perplexed many a learned reader; and therefore you will not wonder that I confess that it has puzzled me many times. See what it says: — “If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light.” Is not this saying the same thing? The Holy Spirit would not use a tautology, nor utter a trite, self-evident thing. Yet we must not go beyond what the text says. It seems to me that our Lord wished us to feel that he could say nothing better in praise of a soul in which there was no part dark than what he had said, namely, “The whole shall be full of light.”

Some have thought that he meant that being lighted within we shaH be full of light to others. That is a great truth; but our Lord does not say so here; for he compares our inward light to a candle which shines on ourselves: “as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.” He refers to our own personal comfort. When a room is thoroughly well lighted up in every corner, it has a joyous splendour. One looks about and feels content and satisfied. So, when the whole nature is filled with the light of God, we have sweetness and light to the full, and heaven seems begun below. It is inexpressibly delightsome, luxuriously blessed, to dwell in the full light of Grod when there is no concealment and no love of evil. When once the sun thus shines full on me I would cry with Joshua,” Sun, stand thou still »!

This inner light will make us shine before others. It is the only shining we should seek. A clean lantern with a lighted candle in it makes no noise, and yet it wins attention: the darker the night, the more is it valued. There never was a time in which true inner light was more needed than now: may the Lord impart it to each one of us, and then we shall shine as lights in the world! The Lord Grod bring this light to you, and fill you with it; and unto his name shall be the glory! You have not to work for the light, you have only to receive it. Then shall your profiting be known unto all men when it is true profiting to your own character. Grod bless you, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON — Luke xi. 14 — 44.

HYMNS FROM “Qua OWN HYMN BOOK” — 911, 459, 126.

Sfldropolitmi SEabcrmtcle futpii.

THE TWO BUILDERS AND THEIR HOUSES.

sermon

DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 27TH, 1870, BY

C. II. SPUltGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINQTON.

“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken ‘him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.” — Matthew vii. 24 — 27.

THESE were the closing words of our Saviour’s most famous sermon ‘upon the mount. Some preachers concentrate all their powers upon an effort to conclude with a fine thing called a peroration; which, being interpreted, means a blaze of rhetorical fireworks, in the glory of which the speaker subsides. They certainly have not the example of Christ in this discourse to warrant them in the practice. Here is the Saviour’s peroration, and yet it is as simple as any other part of the address. There is an evident absence of all artificial oratory. The whole of his hill-sermon was intensely earnest, and that earnestness was sustained to the end, so that the closing words are as glowing coals, or as sharp arrows of the bow. Our Lord closes not by displaying his own powers of elocution, but by simply and affectionately addressing a warning to those who, having heard his words, should remain satisfied with hearing, and should not go forth and put them into practice. As according to usual experience a preacher warms to his subject as he advances, and becomes more intense as he nears his final sentences, we are bound to give the more earnest heed to the words which are now before us, with which the Lord of all preachers concluded his memorable discourse.

Jesus had been saying many things, but these are two words to which I think he specially alluded when he said, “Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man.” The first of these words was, “Enter ye in” (Matthew vii. 13); and the second was, “Beware” (Matthew vii. 15). Our Lord had spoken of the “strait gate,” of the “narrow way,” and of the few who travel it, and his urgent admonition was, “Enter ye in.” Not “Learn ye all concerning it, and then be satisfied;” not “Find fault with the travellers and the road;” not “Seek to enlarge the gate and widen the way,” but “Enter ye in.” Be obedient to the gospel, believe its

No. 918. 55 testimony concerning Jesus; enter into fellowship with its mysteries, receive its blessings: be travellers along its road. “Enter ye in.” He who hears of the way to heaven, but enters not into it, is a foolish man; he who hearing of the strait gate, presses to enter in, is a wise man.

Afterwards our Lord added the other admonition, “Beware.” “Beware,” saith he, “of false prophets;” and after having dwelt for awhile on that, he added in other words, “Beware of false professions.’* Of false prophets beware, for they may delude you, they may bring before you a salvation which will not save, a mere mirage that looks like-the pure, cooling, refreshing stream, but which only mocks your thirst. Beware of all teaching which would lead you away from the one Saviour of the souls of men. And then he adds, “Beware of false professions,” however loudly they make you cry, “Lord, Lord.” You may have in company with these professions the loftiest gifts, such as casting out devils; and the greatest abilities, such as only prophets possess; but they shall not avail you. In that day when the Master shall only accept into his marriage-feast the companions of his warfare on earth, he will say to those who have not done the Father’s will, “I never knew ye;, depart from me, ye workers of iniquity.” These are two of the sayings of Christ, and they are comprehensive of almost all he ever said: “Enter ye in” and “Beware.” Take heed that ye do them as well as hear them.

I. “We shall now proceed to the Master’s parable, and will you pleasenotice, first of all, THE TWO BUILDERS.

The wise and the foolish man were both engaged in precisely the same avocations, and to a considerable extent achieved the same design; both of them undertook to build houses, both of them persevered in building, both of them finished their houses. The likeness between them is very considerable. They were equally impressed with the need of building a house. They perceived the necessity of shelter from the heavy rains, they were alike desirous of being shielded from the floods, and screened from the wind. The advantage of a house to dwell in was evident to both. Even thus, at this period, we have a large number in the congregation who are impressed with the conviction that they need a Saviour. I am delighted to find that there is a stir among my hearers, and I trust it is a movement of God’s Holy Spirit; and as a result very many of you feel deeply that you need a refuge from the wrath to come. You now admit that you must be forgiven, justified, regenerated and sanctified, and your desires are fervent; for all which I am deeply grateful, but also deeply anxious. You are in crowds desirous of becoming builders,, and although some are wise and some foolish, up to this present we can see no difference in you; for you seem to be equally convinced that you need eternal life, and a good hope for the world to come. Nor doeg the likeness end here, for the two builders were both alike resolved to tUain what they needed — & house; and their determination was not in words only, but in deeds, for they both resolutely set to work to build. In the same way there are among us at this hour many who are resolved that if Christ “is to be had, they will have him; and if there is such a thing as salvation, they will find it. They are very earnest, intensely earnest, and though some of them will fail, and some of them succeed, yet up to this point they are both alike, and none but ‘he who searcheth all hearts can discern the slightest difference. I look with sadness upon the two pilgrims, with their faces zealously turned Zionward, and I sigh as I wonder which one will find the Celestial City, and which will join with Formalist and Hypocrisy, and perish on the Dark Mountains. We are glad to hear of yearning hearts and resolute determinations, but. alas! all is not wheat that prows in corn-fields, all is not gold that glitters. Appearances are very very hopeful, but appearances are often deceptive. There may be a deep sense of need, and there may be a determined resolution to get that need supplied, and yet out of two seekers, one may find and the other may miss, one may be foolish and the other may be wise.

These two builders seem to have been equally well skilled in architecture. The one could build a house without receiving any more instruction than the other. I do not find that there was halt or pause on the part of either because he could not turn an arch, or fix a truss. Evidently they were both skilled workmen, well acquainted with their art. So is it with many here. They know as far as the theory goes what the plan of salvation is, as well as I do. Yet, where the knowledge is the same, the ultimate result may vary; two men may be equally well instructed in the Scriptures, yet one of them may be wise and the other foolish. To know what faith is, what repentance is, what a good hope in Christ is, may all be yours, and yet it may but increase your misery for ever. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. It is not the hearer, but the doer of the word, that is blessed. Knowledge puffeth up; love alone buildeth up. My -dear friends, I am most earnest that those of you who are desiring to find everlasting life in Christ Jesus, may not be content with anything short of a true, deep, and real work of grace in your hearts; for no clearness of head knowledge, no natural earnestness of purpose or eagerness of desire can save you; without an interest in Christ Jesus you are lost to all eternity. “Ye must be born- again;” ye must be brought into vital union with the living Saviour, or your hopefulness will end in overwhelming destruction.

Once more, these two builders both persevered and finished their .ttructure. The foolish man did not begin to build, and then cease his work because he was not able to finish; but, as far as I know, his house was finished with us much completeness as the other; and, perhaps, furnished quite as well. If you had looked at the two structures, they would have seemed equally complete from basement to roof, and yet there was a great difference between them in a most essential point* Even thus, alas I many persevere in seeking salvation until they imagine that they have found it; they abide for years in the full belief that they are saved; they cry, “Peace, peace,” and write themselves down amongst the blessed, and yet a fatal error lies at the base of all their religion; all their hopes are vain, and their life-work will prove to be a terrible failure. The builders are much alike up to this point, but yet in reality they are wide as the poles asunder both in work and character. The one builder is wise, the other foolish; the one superficial, the other substantial; the one pretentious, the other sincere. The wise man’s work was honest work where men’s eyes could not judge of it, the other’s work was only well wrought above ground, there was nothing of reality in the hidden parts; and hence in due time the first builder rejoiced as he saw his house outlive the storm; the other with his house was swept away to total destruction.

II. Thus much upon the two builders, let us now think upon THEIR.

TWO HOUSES.

One chief apparent difference between the two edifices probably was this, that one of them built his house more quickly than the other. The wise man had to spend a deal of time in underground work. Luke, tells us that he digged deep, and laid his foundation on a rock. Now that rock-blasting, that carving and cutting of the hard granite, must have consumed days and weeks. The foolish builder had not thisdelay to encounter; the sand was all smooth and ready for him; he was able to commence at once to lay his courses of brick, and raise the walls with all rapidity. But all haste is not good speed, and there be some who travel too fast to hold. Unsound professors are often very rapid in their supposed spiritual growth. They were yesterday unconverted, to-day they become believers, to-morrow they begin to teach, the next day they are made perfect. They appear to be born of full stature, and equipped at all points, like Minerva, when, according-to the fable, she leaped from the brain of Jupiter. They come up in a night, and alas! too often, like Jonah’s gourd, they perish also in a night-Now I raise not a question concerning the genuine character of sudden conversions. I believe that sudden conversions are among the best and truest forms of conversion. Take, for instance, that of the apostle PauL But still there are among those who profess to have been suddenly converted a sadly numerous company who answer to the description I have just given, for they build very, very quickly, much too quickly for the masonry to be well constructed and lasting. It may be that some mourner is lamenting bitterly that he makes very slow progress* in grace. “I have been seeking God in prayer,” says one, “these months. I have been humbled and broken down under a sense of sin for weeks, and have only as yet had now and then a glimpse of hoper when I have been able to turn my eye to the crucified Saviour. I have as yet few consolations, and many doubts. I fain would have the full light of love in my heart, but the dawning is slow in breaking,” “Well,, friend, you are building slowly, but if it be surely, you shall have no cause to regret that deep digging. Small cause will you have to mourn, that it took you longer to arrive at peace than it did your hasty friend,. if your peace shall last you to eternity, while his hope shall be a possession in cloudland, driven away of the wind.

Of the two houses, one was built, I doubt not, ivithfar less trouble than? the other. Digging foundations in hard rocks, as I have said, takestime, but it also involves labour. Oftentimes did that wise builder pause to wipe the sweat from his brow; oftentimes did he retire to his bed worn out with his day’s work, and yet there was not a stone appearing above the soil. His neighbour, opposite, had run up the walls, had reached the gable, was almost about to put on the roof, before there was scarce a foot above the ground of the wise builder’s structure. “Ah,” said he of the sandy foundation, “your toil is need less, and you have nothing to show for it. See how quickly my wallahave risen, and yet I don’t slave as you do. I take things easily; 1 neither bore myself nor the rocks, and yet see how my house springs nn and how neat it looks! Your old-fashioned ways are absurd. You dig and hammer away down below there as if you meant to pierce the centre. Why not use your common sense, and go a-head as I do Away with your sighing and groaning, do as I do, and rejoice at once.’ Anxiety will kill you.” After this fashion are truly awakened souls, like Lamps despised of those who are at ease.” One man jumps as it were, into peace, and boasts himself secure; whether he is correct or not in his confidence, he does not pause to question, he is too comfortable to have time to enquire into that matter. The estate is fair, why worry about the title-deeds? The feast is rich, why tarry for the weddino — If a doubt should arise, the carnally secure man ascribes

i to Satan, and puts it aside, whereas it is his own conscience and the warning voice of hearen which bid him take heed and be not deceived lhe prayer for the Lord to search and try his heart and his reins he never sincerely offers. Such a man does not like self-examination, and cannot endure to be told that there must be fruits meet for repentance. He takes things at guess-work, comes to rash conclusions, and shuts his eyes to disagreeable facts. He dreams that he is rich and increased in goods, whereas he is naked, and poor, and miserable. Alas, what a waking will be his! His more serious companion aroused at the same time is, on the other hand, far more diffident and self- distrustful; when he prays his heart groans before God, yet he fears he does not pray aright, and never rises from his knees contented with himself. He is not quite so soon satisfied about the reality of his faith as the other; “Perhaps, says he, “after all it is not the faith of God’s elect.” He examines himself whether he be in the faith. He trembles lest he should have the form of godliness without the power. He is afraid of shams and counterfeits, and is for buying gold tried in the fire. “My repentance,” saith he, “am I sure it is a real loathing of sin as sin,’ or did I only shed a tear or two under the excitement of a revival service? Am I sure that my nature is renewed by the work of the Holy Ghost, or is it mere reformation?” You see this second man has much exercise of soul, he labours to enter into rest, lest by any means he should seem to come short of it. He has many strivings, many anxieties, many searchiugs of heart, because he is sincere and fears to be deceived. From him the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, he finds the gate strait and the way narrow, and that the righteous scarcely are saved.

Be thankful, dear hearer, if you are among this second class, for these are the true sons of God, and heirs of immortality. Your house costs you more to build, but it will be worth the cost. 0 beware of wearing the sheep’s clothing without the sheep’s nature; beware of saying “Lord, Lord,” while you are the servant of sin. Beware of getting up fictitious religion, borrowing your experience from biographies, picking up godliness at second-hand from your mothers and fathers, and friends and acquaintances. Whatever it mav cost you of heart breaking and agony, see to it that the sure foundation is reached, and the house so builded, that it will endure the trials which will inevitably test it. I would fain saturate my speech with tears, so weighty and so needful do I feel this caution to be, both to myself and you.

I should think that, in the course of time, although the foolish builder built with so much less cost, and so much more rapidly, his walls would le liable to very ugly settlements. For walls that have no foundation, but are piled up on the sand, would every now and then gape wide with hideous cracks; and stones would start here, and timbers would slip there, and cement and stopping would be much required. What work for daubers and plasterers to make the ruinous fabric look like decent masonry! Very likely when a settlement was covered up in one place, another would happen in the next wall; for with such a foundation it would be hard to keep the structure well together, and in the long run I should not wonder but what it would cost the foolish builder more pains to keep up his wretched edifice than it did the wise builder who laboured so hard with his foundation at the first. Mark you well, that mere formal religion and hypocrisy in the end become a very difficult affair to maintain. The man has to struggle hard to patch up his reputation, propping it up with new lies, and bolstering it with fresh pretences. At one time an un renewed will rebels fiercely, and he has to feign resignation to affliction; next an unconquered lust demands indulgence, and he has to conceal the sin with more double-distilled deceit; the form of prayer becomes irksome, and he has to screw him self up to the horrible farce; and meanwhile his outward life is always on the verge of a slip, and he fears detection. One way and another he is continually afraid, like a thief at large who fears that the police will find him. At every puff of wind his habitation threatens to tumble about his ears. He half wishes after ail that he had been at the trouble of digging a foundation on the rock, but with desperate resolve he puts from him the voice of caution, and will have none of its rebuke. 0 dear hearer, rest assured that truth, after all, is the cheapest and easiest in the long run. Your gilt, your varnish, your paint, your hypocrisy, soon wear off, while the reality is at no expense for beautifying. Even as a matter of consideration for this life, it will be more hard in the long run to keep up the pretentious than to maintain the true; and then in the latter case you have God at your back, while he abhors everything unreal. I beseech you see to it that ye daub not your walls with untempered mortar, lest they not only come down with a crash when most you need to shelter behind them, but even now begin to show alarming signs of decay.

The higher the foolish man built the harder work he had to keep it upright, for of course every tier of bricks that he laid made the weight the greater, and caused the sand to give way. The nearer heaven the builder went the sooner his wall bowed to its fall. A man who only makes it his aim to be thought a respectable man by attending a place of worship, may manage pretty well to keep up such a low wall even without a foundation; another man who joins a worldly church — a church that makes no pretence of purity — can also succeed with ease; but if he joins a church of Jesus Christ which carefully seeks to preserve purity in its membership, he has hard work to live up to the standard required of him. Suppose, yet further, that he should become a deacon or an elder, and he is devoid of grace, his higher aim will cost him more by far — for there are more to look at him, and there is more required of him. Now he prays in public, now he speaks a word of instruction to enquirers, and what straits and shifts the poor man is driven to, how constantly out of his own mouth is he condemned? “Why,” saith he in his heart, “I know nothing about these things in my soul, and yet I have to speak and act as if I were taught of God.” If he becomes a preacher, he is in a still more pitiful plight; what hard work must it be, then, to keep up the character! When the tower rises tier upon tier, upon so frail a base, it leans like the tower of Pisa, and unlike that singular structure it threatens to come down with a crash. By-and-by such a trumpery thing falls in utter ruin, and its elevation helps to hasten the catastrophe. So, my dear hearers, the more spirituality you aim at, and the more usefulness you strive for, the worse for you, unless you have a good foundation to begin with, in true sincerity and real faith. So bad is the course of unsound religion, that the further you go in it the worse it becomes.

The main difference, however, between the two houses did not lay in these cracks and settlements, nor in the cheapness or rapidity of the building — it lay out of sight, underground. It was all a matter of foundation. How many there are who suppose that if a thing is out of sight it may as well be out of mind! Who do you think is likely to dig down and see what the foundations are? “Well,” saith one, “I see no need for being over precise; I do not believe in being so particular. What nobody sees cannot signify.” Many subscribe to the graceless song —

“For faith and grace let foolish zealots fight;
He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.**

41 You pay twenty shillings in the pound, attend a plnce of worship take the sacrament, be charitable, and say your prayers, and never trouble about anything further” — that is the popular notion. “What is the use of fretting about your heart? That is all transcendental nonsense. What can it signify?” That is how the foolish builder comforted himself, and he doubtless sneered at the wise builder as a poor miserable creature, who was righteous overmuch, and melancholy. Outward appearance is everything with men, but nothing with God. The essential difference between the true child of God and the mere professor is not readily to be discovered, even by spiritual minds; but the Lord sees it. It is a secret mysterious something which the Lord prizes, “for he knoweth them that are his.” He separates between the precious and the vile. He putteth away the pretenders as dross, but he suffereth no sincere heart to be destroyed.

What, then, is this important matter? I answer it is just this. Beloved hearer, if thou wouldst be built on a rock, see to it that thou hast a true sense of sin. I do not say that a sense of sin is a preparation for Christ, and that we ought to put men back from the gospel till they feel their sin; but I do believe that wherever there is true faith in Jesus theregoes with it a deep abhorrence of sin. Faith without contrition is a dead and worthless faith. When 1 meet with professors who talk lightly of sin, I feel sure that they have built without a foundation. If they had ever felt the Spirit’s wounding and killing sword of conviction, they would flee from sin as from a lion or a bear. Truly forgiven einners dread the appearance of evil as burnt children dread the fire.

Superficial repentance always leads to careless living. Faith that was never bedewed with repentance never brings forth the flowers of holiness. Pray earnestly for a broken heart. Remember it is the contrite spirit which God is pleased with. Do not believe that you can have ground for rejoicing if you never saw reason for lamenting. The promised comfort is only secured to those who have been mourners. (Matt. v. iv.)

Next to this seek for real faith. Many things which men call faith are not the precious faith of God’s elect. Sincere trust in Jesus Christ is counterfeited in a thousand ways, and often imitated so accurately that only by rigid self-examination shall you discover the cheat. Ye must lie flat upon Christ, the Rock; ye ‘must depend entirely upon him, all your hope and all your trust must be in him. If you believe with the heart, and not nominally, you are safe, but not otherwise. You muse have true repentance and real faith, or ye are foolish builders.

Furthermore, seek an inwrought experience of divine truth. Ask to have it burnt into you. Why is it that people give up the doctrines of grace if they fall in with eloquent advocates of free will? Why is it they renounce the orthodox creed if they meet with smart reasoners who contradict it? Because they have never received the word in the power of the Holy Spirit so as to have it sealed in their hearts. I tremble for our churches now that false doctrine is rife, because I fear that many are not established in the truth. I pray the Lord for you, my dear flock, that you may know the truth by being taught of the Lord, for then you will not be led aside. The thieves and robbers will come,’ but as Christ’s sheep you will not hear them. It is one thing to have a creed; it is quite another thing to have the truth graven upon the tables of the heart. Many fail here because truth was never experimentally made their own.

Pray, moreover, that your faith may produce personal holiness. Do not believe yourself to be saved from sin while you are living in sin. If you can find pleasure in the lusts of the flesh, you are no child of God. If you are given to drunkenness — and, mark you, many professors are so, -only they drink at home and are not seen in the streets — how dwelleth the grace of God in you? If you delight in idle songs, and frequenting of places of vain amusement, you need not be long in weighing yourself, you are found wanting already. If you were renewed in the spirit of your mind, you would no more love these things than an angel would. There must be a new-boru nature implanted, and where there is not this exemplified in holiness of life, you may build ever so high and prate ever so loudly about your building, it is a poor miserable shanty after all, and will fall in the last hurricane.

Want of depth, want of sincerity, want of reality in religion — this is the want of our times. Want of an eye to God in religion, lack of sincere dealing with one’s own soul, neglect of using the lancet with our hearts, neglect of the search warrant which God gives out against sin, carelessness concerning living upon Christ; much reading about him, much talkingabout him, but too little feeding upon his flesh, and drinking of his blood — these are the causes of tottering professions and baseless hopes.

Thus have I tried to open up the parable: and I have not designed to discourage any sincere soul, my aim has been to say to yon, “Make your calling and election sure. Build on Christ’s love, sincerity, desire, the work of the Holy Spirit, and be not deceived.”

III. So now I come, in the third place, to notice THE COMMON TRIAL

OF THE TWO HOUSES.

Whether your religion be true or not, it will be tried; whether it be chaff or wheat, the fan of the Great Winnower will surely be brought into operation upon all that lies on the threshing-floor. If thou hast dealings with God, thou hast to do with a “consuming fire.’ Whether thou be really or nominally a Christian, if thou comest near to Christ he will try thee as silver is tried. Judgment must begin at the house of God, and if thou darest to come in to the house of God, judgment will begin with thee. By the way, let us note that, if there are such trials for those who profess to be Christians, what will become of you who make no profession? If the righteous scarcely be saved, where will the ungodly and the wicked appear? If judgment begin with the house of God what will the end be of them that believe not? Terrible thought! But to return. Trials will come to profession, whether it be true or false. If I do not mistake the reference in the text to rain, flood, wind, these trials will be of three sorts at least. The rain typifies afflictions from heaven. God will send you adversities like showers, tribulations as many as the drops of ‘the dew. Betweennow and heaven, 0 professor, you will feel the pelting storm. Like other men, your body will ‘be sick; or if not, you shall have trouble in your house; children and friends will die, or riches will take to themselves winirs, and fly like an eagle towards heaven. You must have trials from God’s hand; and, if you are not relying on Christ, you will not be able to bear them. If you are not, by real faith, one with Jesus Christ, even God’s rain will be too much for you. But there will also arise trials from earth —” the floods came.” In former daj s the floods of persecution were more terrible than now, but persecution is still felt; and if you are a professor, you will have to bear a measure of it. Cruel mockings are still used against the people of God. The world no more loves the true church to-day than it did in the olden times. Can you bear slander and reproach for Jesus? Not unless you are firmly rooted and grounded. In the day of temptation and persecution the rootless plants of the stony ground are withered away. See ye to this. Then there will come mysterious trials typified by tk the winds.” The prince of the power of the air will assail you, with blasphemous suggestions, horrible temptations, or artful insinuations. He know& how to cast clouds of despondency over the human spirit; he can attack the four corners of the house at once by his mysterious agency; he can tempt us in divers ways at the same time, and drive us to our wits’ end. Woe to thee, then, unless thou hast something co noid by better than the mere sand of profession!

Where there is a good foundation trials will do no hurt, but where there is no foundation they will frequently bring the man’s profession down in ruin, even in this life. How many lose their religion at the very outset! Pliable and Christian both set out for the Celestia. City, both aspiring to the crown of gold; but they fell into the Slougiv of Despond, and then, as one of them struggled out on the side nearest his own house, and went back to the City of Destruction, while the other strove manfully to reach the further shore, the difference between the wise and foolish pilgrim was made manifest.

After Christians have proceeded further they will be tried in other ways. Infidelities often try Christians, I mean doubts about the essentials of the faith, and all its doctrines; and those that are not well cemented to the rock are easily moved to unbelief. This is the age of infidelities, but they who are on the rock by a truthful experience are not moved. A negro was once told by a friend that some man had said the Bible was not true. Now, our poor friend had never thought anybody <jould doubt the Bible, but his quick way of disposing of the novel difficulty was, “Dat book not true! why, I take it into my house and I sit down and read it, and it make my heart laugh. How can it be a lie dat make my heart laugh? I was drunkard, thief, and liar, and <dat book talked to me and made me a new man — dat book no lie.” The very best proof in the world surely, at least to the man himself, if not -to others. We who have had our hearts made to laugh by God’s word cannot be laughed out of our faith. We have lived on the word and proved its truthfulness by experience, and are therefore invulnerable to all attacks, whilst strangers to such experience are staggered.

Where the heart is really grounded upon the truth, you will find that heresies as well as infidelities, have but little effect. The sound Christian is like a stone, if he is thrown into the pool of false doctrine, he may be wetted by it, but he does not receive it into his inner self, whereas the unsound professor is like a sponge, he sucks it all in greedily, and retains what he absorbs.

How many there are who are tried by woiidliness, and if their religion be but mere profession, woiidliness soon eats the heart of it as doth a canker, and they become even as others! If, however, the •Christian man’s heart is right with God, he comes out and is separate, and the pride of life does not entrap him.

In cases of backsliding, where there is a sound heart towards God, the backslider is soon brought back, but where the heart is rotten, the backslider goes from bad to worse. I was struck with a story of two men who were accustomed to give exhortations at meetings, who had fallen out with each other, and one of their brethren, who grieved to think two servants of God should be at difference with each other, went to reconcile them. He called upon the first, and said, “John, I am very sorry to find you and James have quarrelled. It seems a great pity, and it brings much dishonour on the church of God.” “Ah,” said John, “I am very grieved, too, and what grieves me most is, that I am the sole cause of it. It was only because I spoke so bitterly, that James took offence.” “Ah, ah,” said the good man, “we will soon settle this difficulty, then,” and away he went to James. “James, I am very sorry that you and John cannot agree.” “Yes,” he said, “it is a sad thing we don’t, we ought to do so, for we are brethren; but what troubles me most is, that it is all my fault. If I had not taken notice of a little word John said, there would have been an end of it.” The matter, as you may guess, was soon rectified. You see there was at bottom a true friendship between them, so that the little difficulty was soon got over, and so where there is a true union between God and the soul, the backsliding will soon be recovered.

IV. To close. Having thus mentioned the common trials and the effects produced in this life, let me now remind you of the DIFFERENT RESULTS OF THE TRIALS in reference to the life to come.

In the one case, the rain descended very heavily, and threatened to wash the house away, but it was built on a rock, and not only did the house stand, but the man inside found great comfort in it. He could hear the pelting torrent beating on the roof, and sit and sin?; when the gusts came against the windows he would only be the more happy to think he had such a shelter. Then came the floods. They would, if they could, have sapped and undermined the foundations, but they took no effect on the granite rock, and though the wind howled round the habitation, every stone was well cemented, and all bound as with iron bands to the grand old rock, and therefore the man was safe and happy within, and above all, grateful that he had built on such ap foundation. He could sit down and sing —

“Loud may the troubled ocean roar,
In sacred peace my soul abides.”

The Christian rests peacefully upon Christ. Troubles come one after another, but they do not sweep him away, they only endear to him the hope which is based upon Christ Jesus. And when at last death comes, that awful flood which will undermine everything that can be removed, it cannot find anything to shake in the wise builder’s hope. He rests on what Christ has done; death cannot affect that. He believes in a faithful God; and dying cannot affect that. He believes in the covenant signed, and sealed, and ratified, in all things ordered well. He lays hold on the “shalls” and “wills” of an immutable God, all sealed with the blood of the Redeemer; death cannot affect any of these. And when the last great trumpet sounds, and the last fire that shall try every man’s work of what sort it is, comes forth from the throne of God, the man who in true sincerity and with real etperience has laid hold on Christ, is not afraid of the tremendous hour. What though the trumpet sounds exceeding loud and long, and the dead awake, and the angels gather round the great white throne, and the pillars of heaven tremble, and the earth is dissolved, and the elements melt with fervent heat 1 the man of God feels that the rock on which he has built can never fail him, and the hope that grace has given him can never be removed. He smiles serenely amid it all.

But look at the case of the man whose hope is built on the sand! He could hardly endure the trials of life; he almost fell under common temptation; he turned his coat during the hour of persecution; but sorer trials now await him. Some hypocrites have been bolstered up even in the last moments, and perhaps have never known that they were lost till they felt they were; like Dives, of whom it is written, “In hell he lift up his eyes, being in torment.” He had never lift up his eyes before; he did not know his condition till he actually realised it in all its misery. But the most of men who have come under the sound of the gospel, and made a profession, if they have been deceivers find it out at death, and it must be a dreadful thing to make that

METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE PULPIT.

discovery when pain is sharp and parting is bitter. All! dear friend, if you be mistaken may you find it out now, and not on your dying couch. May your prayer be, “Lord, show me the worst of my case. If my profession has been a mistake, 0 let me not build up and prop up a rotten thing, but help me to build aright upon the Rock of Ages.” Do pray that prayer, I beseech you. Remember if death should Lot teach you “the whole truth of your case, judgment will. There will be no mistake there, and no opportunity for repentance. This fallen house was never built again; there was no salvage from the total wreck. Lost, lost, lost, there is no word to follow; for once lost, lost for ever! 0 dear hearer, I bid thee if thou hast a name to live and art dead, a-rise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life. I pray thee if thou be a seeker, be not put off with empty hopes and vain confidences. Buy the truth and sell it not. Lay hold on eternal life. Seek the true Saviour and be not content till thou hast him, for if lost thy ruin will be terrible. Oh, that lake! Have you ever read the words, “Shall be cast into the lake of fire: which is the second death”? The lake of fire! and souls cast into it! The imagery is dreadful. “Ah,” says one, “that is a metaphor.” Yes, T know il is, and a metaphor is but a shadow of the reality. Then, if the shadow be a lake of fire, what must the reality be? If we can hardly bear to think of a “worm that never dieth,” and a “fire that never shall be quenched,” and of a lake whose seething waves of fire that dash o’er undying and hopeless souls, what must hell be in very deed? The descriptions of Scriptures are, after all, but condescensions to our ignorance, partial revealings of fathomless mysteries; but if these are so dreadful, what must the full reality be? Provoke it not, my hearers, tempt not your God, neglect not the great salvation, for if you do, you shall not escape. Play not with your souls, be not heedless and careless of the realities of eternity; but now, even now, may God hear your prayer as you breathe it from your inmost souls, and give you truly to be washed in the precious blood, and effectually saved by him, in whom there is fulness of truth and sracft. Amen.

My God, I mark with fear
How many hopes decay,
And like the foolish builder’s house
Fall in the trial day.

Perhaps amid this throng
Thou dost a soul espy
Whose towering hopes are built on sand,
I ask, “Lord, is it I?”

A thousand doubts arise,
1 bring them all to thee;
Am I unconsciously deceived?
Lord, search my heart and see.

0 teach me deep to dig
Down to the solid rock,

That when tornadoes round me sweep
My house may bear the shock.

Jesus, thou only art
The sure foundation stone,
Firm as th’ eternal hills art thou,

1 build on thee alone.

Cemented fast to thee
No stone is laid in vain,
My hope defies th’ assaults of hell,
The flood, the wind, the rain.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON — Matthew vfL

Slabmwcte fluljrit

ON LAYING FOUNDATIONS.

DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 21ST, 1883, BY

At THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEVVINGTON.

“And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.” — Luke vi. 46 — 49.

THESE parables describe two classes of hearers; but they say nothing of those who are not hearers. Their position and prospects we must infer from what is said of hearers. Our Lord Jesus Christ has come into the world to tell us of the Father’s love, and never man spake as he spake, and yet there are many who refuse to hear him. I do not mean those who are far away, to whom the name of Jesus is well-nigh unknown, but I mean persons in this land, and especially in this great and highly-favoured city, who wilfully refuse to hear him whom God has anointed to bring tidings of salvation. Our Lord Jesus is proclaimed, I was about to say, upon the house-tops in this city; for even in their music-halls and theatres Christ is preached to the multitude, and at the corners of our streets his banner is lifted up; and yet there are tens of thousands to whom the preaching of the gospel is as music in the ears of a corpse. They shut their ears and will not hear, though the testimony be concerning God’s own Son, and life eternal, and the way to escape from everlasting wrath. To their own best interests, to their eternal benefit, men are dead: nothing will secure their attention to their God. To what, then, are these men like? They may fitly be compared to the man who built no house whatever, and remained homeless by day and shelterless by night. When worldly trouble comes like a storm those persons who will not hear the words of Jesus have no consolation to cheer them; when sickness comes they have no joy of heart to sustain them under its pains; and when death, that most terrible of storms, beats upon them they feel its full fury, but they cannot find a hiding place. They neglect the housing of their souls, and when the hurricane of almighty wrath shall break forth in the world to come they will have no place of refuge. In vain will they call upon the No. 1,702. 5G rocks to fal? upon them, and the mountains to cover them. They shall be in that day without a shelter from the righteous wrath of the Most High. Alas, that any being who wears the image of man should be found in such a plight! Homeless wanderers in the day of tempest! How my soul grieves for them! Yet, what excuse will those men invent who have refused even to know the way of salvation? What excuse can the tenderest heart make for them? Will they plead that they could not believe? Yet they may not say that they could not hear; and faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Oh my friend,. if the word of God comes to you, and you decline to hear it, and therefore do not believe in Jesus, but die in your sins, what is this but soul-suicide? If a man die of a disease when infallible medicine is to be had, must not his death lie at his own door? If a man perish of hunger when bread is all around him and others feed to the full, and he will not have it, will any man pity him? Surely not a drop of pity will be yielded to a lost soul wherewith he may assuage the torment of his conscience, for all holy intelligences will perceive that the sinner chose his own destruction. This shall ever press upon the condemned conscience, “You knew the gospel, but you did not attend to it: you knew that there was salvation, and that Christ was the Saviour, and that pardon was proclaimed to guilty men, but you would not afford time from your farm and from your merchandise, from your pleasures and from your sins, to learn how you could be saved. That which cost God so dear you treated as a trifle. Ah, my dear friends, may none of you belong to the non-hearing class. It is not to such that I shall this morning address myself, and yet I could not enter upon my discourse without a word of loving expostulation with them. Let me part with them by quoting the warning word of the Holy Spirit, “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven.”

Our earnest attention will now be given to those who are hearers of the word, and are somewhat affected by it. All hearers are builders of houses for their souls: they are each one doing something to set up a spiritual habitation. Some of these go a considerable distance in this house-building, and even crown the structure by publicly confessing Christ. They say unto him, “Lord, Lord”: they meet with his followers, and join with them in reverence to the Master’s name; but they do not obey the Lord; they hear him, but they fail to do the things which he says. Hence they are mistaken builders, who fail in the foundation, and make nothing sure except that their house will come down about their ears. Others there are, and we trust they will be found to be many among us, who, are building rightly, building for eternity; constructing a dwelling-place with basis of rock, and walls of well-built stone, of which the Lord Christ is both foundation and corner-stone.

I am anxious to speak at this time to those who are just beginning to build for eternity. I am indeed happy to know that there are many such among us. May the Holy Spirit bless this sermon to them.

I. Our first subject will be A COMMON TEMPTATION WITH SPIRITUAL BUILDERS. A common temptation with hearers of the word, according to the two parables before us, is to neglect foundation-work, to get hurriedly over the first part of the business, and run up the building quickly. They are tempted to assume that all is done which is said to be done; to take it for granted that all is right which is hoped to be right; and then to go on piling up the walls HS rapidly as possible. The great temptation, I say, with young beginners in religious life, is to scamp the foundation, and treat those things lightly which are of the first importance. The same temptation comes to us throughout the whole of life, but to young beginners it is especially perilous: Satan would have them neglect the fundamental principles upon which their future hope and character are to rest, so that in a future trying hour, from want of a solid foundation, they may yield to evil, and lose the whole of their life-building.

This temptation is all the more dangerous, first, because these young beginners have no experience. Even the most experienced child of God is often deceived; how much more the pilgrim who has but just entered (the wicket-gate! The tried saint sometimes mistakes that for a virtue which is only a gilded fault, and he fancies that to be genuine which is .mere counterfeit; how, then, without any experience whatever, can the mere babe in grace escape deception unless he be graciously preserved? .Newly awakened, and rendered serious, earnest hearts get to work in the divine life with much hurry, seizing upon that which first comes to hand, building in heedless haste, without due care and examination. Some thing must be done, and they do it without asking whether it is according to the teaching of the Lord. They call Jesus “Lord “; but they do what others say rather than what Jesus says. Satan is sure to be at hand at such times that he may lead the young convert to lay in place of gospel repentance a repentance that needs to be repented of, and instead of the faith of God’s elect a proud presumption or an idle dream. For that love of God which is the work of the Spirit of God he brings mere natural affection for a minister; and he says, “There, that will do: you must have a house for your soul to dwell in. There are the materials, pile them up.” Like children at play upon the beach, the anxious heap up their sand-castles, and please themselves therewith, for they are ignorant of Satan’s devices. I am for this cause doubly anxious to save my beloved young friends from the deceiver. The common temptation is, instead of really repenting, to talk about repentance; instead of heartily believing, to sayp “1 believe,” without believing; instead of truly loving, to talk of love, without loving; instead of coming to Christ, to speak about coming to Christ, and profess to come to Christ, and yet not to come at all. The character of Talkative in Pilgrim’s Progress is ably drawn. I have met the gentleman many times, and can bear witness that John Bunyan was a photographer before photography was invented. Christian said of him “He talketh of prayer, of repentance, of faith, and of the new birth; but he knows but only to talk of them, I have been in his family, and his house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of savour.” We have too many such persons around us who are, as to what they say, everything that is to be desired, and yet, by what they are proven to be, mere shams. As tradesmen place dummies in their shops, papered and labelled to look like goods, while yet they are .nothing of the sort, so are these men marked and labelled as Christiana, f;2 METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE PULPIT.

but the grace of God is not in them. Oh that you young beginners may be on the alert, that you be not content with the form of godliness, but are made to feel the power of it.

There is this to help the temptation too, that this plan for the present saves a great deal of trouble. Your mind is distressed, and you want comfort; well, it will comfort you to say, “Lord, Lord,” though you do not the things that Christ says. If you admit the claims of Jesus to be Lord, even though you do not believe on him for salvation, and so neglect the main thing which he commands, yet you will find some ease in the admission. He bids you repent of sin, trust his blood, love his word, and seek after holiness; but it is much easier to admire these things without following after them in your life. To feign repentance and faith is not difficult, but genuine godliness is heart-work, and re quires thought, care, sincerity, prayerfulness, and watchfulness. Believe me, real religion is no sport. He that would be saved will find it to be no jesting matter. “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence “;, and he that is easy about the thing, and thinks it is nothing more thatp the conjuror’s “Heigh, presto, done,” has made a fatal mistake. “Strive,” saith Christ, “to enter into the strait gate.” The Spirit striveth in us mightily, and often works us to an agony. The crown of eternal glory is not won without fighting, nor the prize of our high calling received without running; yet by just making a holy profession, and by practising an outward form, a man imagines that the same, result is produced as by seeking the Lord with his whole heart, and believing in the Lord Jesus. If it were so, there would be a fine broad road to heaven, and Satan himself would turn pilgrim. Believe me, dear hearers, this saving of trouble will turn out to be a making of trouble, and, before matters end, the hardest way will turn out to be the easiest way.

This kind of building without foundation has this advantage to back up the temptation, — it enables a man to run up a religion very quickly. He makes splendid progress. While the anxious heart is searching after truth in the inward parts, and begging to be renewed by grace, his exulting friend is as happy as he can be in a peace which he has suddenly obtained without question or examination. This rapid grower never asks, “Has my religion changed my conduct? Is my faith attended by a new nature? Does the Spirit of God dwell in me? Am I really what I profess to be, or am I but a bastard professor after b.31?” No, he puts aside all enquiry as a temptation of the devil. He takes every good thing for granted, and votes that all is gold which glitters. See how fast he goes! The fog is dense, but he steams through it, heedless of danger! He has joined the church: he has commenced work for God: he is boasting of his own attainments: he hints that he is perfect. But is this mushroom building safe? Will it pass muster in the last great survey? Will it stand should a tempest happen? The chimney-shaft is tall, but is it safe? Ay, there’s the rub. This is the question which makes an end of much of the boasting which is all around us. It is better to tremble at God’s word than boldly to presume. It is better to be fearful, lest after all we may be castaways, than to harden one’s forehead with vain confidence. When a man travels upon a wrong road, the faster he runs the further he will go astray. Remember the advice to hasten slowly, and the old proverb which saith, “The more haste the less speed.” If you build quickly because you build without a foundation, your time and toil are thrown away.

How common, how deceptive is this temptation 1 For the young beginner, the man who is just aroused to seek the Lord, will find a great many to help him in his mistake, should he neglect the foundation. Kind, good, Christian friends often, without a thought of doing so, help to mislead seeking souls. “Yes,” they say, “you are converted,” and so perhaps the person would be if all he said was true; but then it is said without feeling; it comes from the lip only, and does not come from the heart; and therefore it is ruinous to encourage him. A kindly assurance from a Christian friend may breed false confidence, if that assurance was mistakenly given. In these days we do not meet with many Christians who err by dealing too severely with converts; the shot strikes the other target. Our forefathers were possibly too suspicions and jealous; but nowadays we nearly all err in the opposite direction: we are so anxious to see everybody brought to Christ, that our wish may tend to delude us into the belief that it is so. We are so willing to cheer and comfort those who seek the Lord, that we may fall into the habit of prophesying smooth things, and thus shun everything which tends to probe and test, lest it should also discourage. Let us beware lest we cry, “Peace, peace,” where there is no peace. It will be a sad thing to breed hypocrites when we were looking for converts. I have heard of one who had been into the Enquiry Room a dozen times, and when on another occasion she was invited to go there she said, “I really do not know why I should go, for I have been told that I was saved twelve times already, and I am not a bit better than before they told me so.” It would be better to send some home weeping rather than rejoicing. Many a wound needs the lancet more than the plaster. You may be comforted by well-meant assurances of tender friends, and yet that comfort may be all a lie. I therefore warn you against any peace except that which comes from doing that which Jesus commands, or in other words, against any confidence except that which rests in Jesus only, and is attended with repentance, faith, and a life of obedience to your Lord.

No doubt many are encouraged in slight building by the fact that so many professors are making a fair show, and yet their building is tvithout foundation. We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that in all churches there are persons who have no depth of spiritual root, and we are afraid no real spiritual life. We cannot root them up, though we fear that they are tares, for we are assured that we should unavoidably root up the wheat with them, and this our Master forbids. There is nothing about their outward conduct which we could lay hold upon as a proof of their being deceivers, and yet a cold chill runs through us when we talk with them, for they have no warmth, and no life, and nothing of the Lord about them. We miss in their conversation that sweet spirituality, that holy unction, that blessed humility, which are sure to be present wtan ’ men are truly familiar with the Lord, and have entered into living ’ union with him. People of this order mix up with us in our holy ’ convocations, and when they come across the newly-awakened ones, they talk of divine things in such an off-hand and flippant manner’

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that they do serious mischief. They speak about conversion as if i( were a mere trifle, a matter as easy as kissing your hand; and so those who are hopeful, and over whom our hearts are yearning, are turned aside by them. Young people are apt to think, “So-and-so is a member of the church, and he is never very precise. If a lukewarm profession satisfies him, why should it not satisfy me!” Ah, my dear friends, buc you would not say so in business. If you knew a man was trading without capital and likely to come to bankruptcy, you would not say, “I may do the same.” If you saw a man venturing into deep water who could not swim, and you felt sure that he would ultimately sink, you would not follow his example and be drowned too. No, no; let these frothy professors be beacons to you. Get away from Mr. Talkative, lest he make you as hollow a drum as himself. Beware of loose professors, who are as wreckers’ lights that lure men upon the rocks. Make sure work for eternity, and bid triflers begone.

Again, there is always at the back of all this an inducement to build without a foundation because it -will not be known, and possibly may not be found out for years. Foundation-work is quite out of sight, and the house can be got up and be very useful in a great many ways, and it may stand a good while without the underground work; for houses without foundations do not tumble down at once; they will stand for years? nobody knows how long they may keep up; perhaps they may evep be inhabited with comfort till the last great flood. Death alone will discover some impostures. Hence, because the ill-founded house will do for the present, and can be used, and may bring immediate com fort, many people consider it economical to leave out the foundation as a needless superfluity. If they are questioned as to their vital godliness they grow angry: —” What business have you to enter into my private business? Why should you meddle with the secrets of my soul?’’ Ah, dear friend, if we were cruel to you, and wished you to be deceived, we would hold our tongues, or speak to you with the voice of flattery; but as we love you, and as we hope to be blessed in years to come through /our true and holy consecration to Christ, we are intensely earnest that you should begin aright. We would have you build that which will not need to be pulled down again, work that will stand when the waters are out and the stream beats vehemently upon it. I dread that any man should perish without religion, but 1 dread far more that any man should perish with it, finding his faith to have been false after all. If you do build, build what is worth building: if you must be builders for your souls, and surely you must, or else be shelterless, then take heed on what foundation you build, and be careful what ye build thereon, lest after all yuu suffer the loss of all your labour in that last tremendous day. How sad it will seem to dwell near the gates of heaven, and spend your lives among those who are to be its future inhabitants, and then for vant of sincerity and truth to be shut out of the celestial city. How »errible to find out by experience that there is a back way to the gates of hell even from the gates of heaven. God grant it be not so with one of us here present. 0 ye builders, care not merely for the present, but build for death, and judgment, and eternity!

This part of our discourse is not only for young people, but for us all — for old as well as young. Depend upon it, there is not one man among us but what has need to search himself, and see whether the foundation of his faith has been truly laid or no.

II. So I advance to the second step, and there we will consider A WISE

PRECAUTION WHICH SAFE BUILDERS NEVER FORGET. They dig deep,

and never rest till they get a good substantial foundation: they are glad to get to the bottom of all the loose earth and to build on the rock. Let me commend this wise precaution to all of you.

Follow the text and learn to see to your sincerity. The Lord Jesus says “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” May the Holy Ghost make you true to the core. Be afraid to say a word more than you feel. Never permit yourself to speak as if you had an experience of which you have only read. Let not your outward worship go a step beyond the inward emotion of your soul. If Christ be truly your Lord you will obey him: if he be not your Lord do not call him so. It is a great point in all your religious thoughts, beliefs, words, and acts to have the heart moving in all. It is an awful thing to make a high profession of sanctity, and yet live in the indulgence of secret vice: such persons will listen to my observation and commend me for my faith fulness, and yet continue in their hypocrisy. This is most painful. These men can speak the Jew’s language, and yet the tongue of Babylon is more natural to them: they follow Christ, but their hearts are with Belial. Ah, me! My soul is sick at the thought of them. Be true! Be true! If truth will carry you no further than despair, better that you stop in despair than gain a hope by a lie. Do not live on fiction, profession, presumption. Eat ye that which is good, and feed only upon the truth. Remember that when you build with the wood, hay, and stubble of mere notion you are only gathering materials for your own funeral pile in that day when the fire shall devour all lovers and makers of a lie. Be true as steel 1 Every wise builder for his soul must mind that.

The next thing is thoroughness. For observe, according to our Lord, the wise builder digged deep. You cannot do a right thing too well. Dig deep if you do dig a foundation. If it be repentance, let it be an intensely earnest repentance, including a vehement hatred of every form of sin. If you make confession before God, confess with your very soul, and not with your lips only: lay bare your spirit before the glance ol Deity. If it be faith that you talk of, believe right up to the hilt. DC not go in for that kind of sceptical believing which is so common nowadays. If thou believest, believe: if thou repentest, repent. In the purging of the soul there is nothing like sweeping out every particle of the old leaven of falsehood; and in bringing in the good things into the heart there is nothing like bringing in everything that Christ prescribes, that of his fulness we may receive, not only grace, but grace for grace, grace upon grace, all the grace that is needed. Be down right in everything. The wise builder dug through the earth, and continued his digging till he reached the rock; and then he dug into the rock, and struck out a trench wherein he might lay his foundation; for he could not be content unless he made sure and thorough work of it. Sincerity and thoroughness are fine building-materials.

Next to that add self-renunciation; for that is in the parable. When a man digs a deep foundation he has much earth to throw out. So h« that builds for eternity has a great deal to get rid of. Self-trust must goat the beginning; love of sin must follow; worldliness, pride, self-seeking, all sorts of iniquity, — these must be cast aside. There is very much rubbish, and the rubbish must go.” You cannot make sure work for eternity without clearing away much which flesh and blood would like to retain. See ye to this, and count the cost.

Then must come solid principle. The man who is determined that if he does build he will build securely, digs down to the rock. He says, “I believe in God, he is my helper. I believe in Christ Jesus, and on his atoning sacrifice and living intercession I build my eternal hopes. I also build on the doctrine of grace, for the Lord hath said it, — By grace are ye saved, through faith. I build on Scripture: nothing but the warrant of the word will do for me.” What God has said is a rock: what man teaches is mere shifting sand. What a blessed thing it is to get down to the eternal principles of divine verity! You that ;pick up your religion from your mothers and fathers; you that follow it because it happened to be in the family; what are you worth in the day of trouble? You are blown down like a booth, or a hut of boughs. But you that know what you believe, and why you believe it, you who, when you put your foot down, knew what you are standing upon, and are persuaded that you have firm rock beneath you; you are the men who will stand fast when mere pretenders are hurled out of their place. Oh, my dear seeking 1’riends, fix upon true principles, and be not content with falsehood.

These truthful principles must be firmly adhered to. Bind your building to the rock. A house will not stand merely because it is on the rock; you must get its foundation into the rock. The house must take a grip of the rock, and the rock must grasp the house. The more you can get the house to be a bit of the rock, and the rock, as it were, to grow up into the house, the more secure you are. It is of no use saying, “Yes, I confide in Christ, in grace, in revelation,” unless your very life enters into these things, and they enter into you. Hypocrites, Job says, are stolen away in the night; so easily are they removed. The inventor of some new notion comes along, cracks up his novel wares, and silly souls are at once taken in by him. Christ may go, grace may go, and the Bible may go, too: their new master has them wholly in his power. We want not such unsubstantial men; we care not for these speculating builders whose carcases are ail around us. We have had enough of castles in the air: we need true men, vrho will stand fast like the mountains while errors, like clouds, blow over them. Remember the huge shaft at Bradford, and how many were slain by its fall, and let it teach you to hold hard to foundation truths, and never depart from them.

The man in the second parable did not build as he should; what may I say of him? I will say three words. First, he was a man who had nothing out of sight: you could see all his house when you looked at it. If you can see all a man’s religion at a glance he has no religion worth having. Godliness lies most in secret prayer, private devotion, and inward grace. The wise builder had the most costly part of his house buried in the ground; but the other man showed all that he had a’rove ground. He is a poor tradesman who has no stock but that whicn he puts into the window. He will not last long who has no capital. He cannot long rtand who has no backbone within. Beware of a religion of show.

Next, this man had nothing to hold to. He built a house, but it stood upon the loose soil: he easily dug into that, and stuck up his house; but his walls had no holdfast. Beware of a religion without holdlasts. But if I get a grip upon a doctrine they call me a bigot. Let them do so. Bigotry is a hateful thing, and yet that which is now abused as bigotry is a great virtue, and greatly needed in these frivolous times. I have been inclined lately to start a new denomination, and call it “the Church of the Bigoted.” Everybody is getting to be so •oily, so plastic, so untrue, that we need a race of hard-shells to teach us how to believe. Those old-fashioned people who in former ages believed something, and thought the opposite of it to be false, were truer folk than the present time-servers. I should like to ask the divines of the broad school whether any doctrine is worth a man’s dying for it. They would have to reply, •’ Well, of course, if a man had to £>o to the stake or change his opinions, the proper way would be to state them with much diffidence, and to be extremely respectful to the opposite school.” But suppose he is required to deny the truth? Well, there is much to be said on each side, and probably the negative may have a measure of truth in it as well as the positive. At any rate, it cannot be a prudent thing to incur the odium of being burned, and so it might be preferable to leave the matter an open question for the time being.” Yes, and as these gentlemen always find it unpleasant to be unpopular, they soften down the hard threatenings of Scripture as to the world to pconie, and put a colour upon every doctrine to which worldly-wise men object. The teachers of doubt are very doubtful teachers. A man must have something to hold to, or he will neither bless himself nor others. Bring all the ships into the pool; but do not moor or anchor one of them; let each one be free! Wait you for a stormy night, and they will dash against each other, and great mischief will come of this freedom. Perfect love and charity will not come through our being all unmoored, but by each having his proper moorings and keeping to them in the name of God. You must have something to hold to; but the builder in the parable had not, and so he perished.

The foolish builder had nothing to resist outward circumstances. On summer days his house was a favourite resort, and was considered to be <quite as good as his neighbour’s in all repects. Frequently he rubbed his hands and said, “I do not see but what my house is quite as good as his, and perhaps a little better the fact is, I had a few pounds to spare which I did not bury in the ground as he did, and with it I have bought many a little ornament, so that my habitation has a finer look than his building.” So it seemed; but when the torrent came raging own the mountain side, his building, having nothing wherewith to resist the violence of the flood, fell down at once, and not a trace of it remained, when the storm had ceased. Thus do men fail because they otter no resistance to forces which drive them into sin; the great current at’ evil finds in them victims, and not opponents.

III. Thirdly, we will now gather from our text A SET OF ARGUMENTS,

tJRGING US TO TAKE CARE OP THE FOUNDATION. I will glance OVCF

these arguments, wishing much that I had time to enforce them. The first is this. “We ought to build with a good foundation at the beginning because otherwise we shall not build well in any other part, of the house. Bad work in the foundation influences all the rest of the courses. la the Kevised Version at the end of the forty-eighth verse instead of, “For it was founded upon a rock,” we read, “Because it had been well builded.” The house was built well at the bottom, and that led the workman to put in good work ail the way up, so that all through “it had been well builded.” The other man built badly underground, and did the same up to the roof. When you get into the habit of slovenly work in secret the tendency is to be slovenly in public too. If the under ground part of our religion is not firmly laid upon Christ, then in the upper part there will be rotten work, half-baked bricks, mud instead of mortar, and a general scamping of everything. When a great Grecian artist was fashioning an image for the temple he was diligently carving the back part of the goddess, and one said to him, “You need not finish that part of the statue, because it is to be built into the wall.” He refilled, “The gods can see in the wall.” He had a right idea of what is due to God. That part of my religion which no man can see should be as perfect as if it were to be observed by all. The day shall declare it. When Christ shall come everything shall be made known, and published before the universe. Therefore see to it that it be fit to be thus made known.

See, again, that we ought to have good foundations when we look at the situation whereon the house is to be built. It is clear from this parable that both these houses were built in places not far from a river,. or where streams might be expected to come. Certain parts of the South of France are marvellously like Palestine, and perhaps at the present moment they are more like what the Holy Land was in Christ’s day than the Holy Land now is. When I reached Cannes last year I found that there had been a flood in the town. This flood did not come by reason of a river being swollen, but through a deluge of rain. A waterspout seems to have burst upon the hill-side tearing up earth,, and rocks, and stones, and then hurrying down to the sea. It rushed across the railway station and poured down the street which led to it, drowning several persons in its progress. When I WHS there a large hotel — I should think five stories high — was shored up with timber, and was evidently doomed; for when this stream rushed down the narrow street it undermined the lower courses of the building, and as there were no foundations at all able to bear such a test the whole erection was rendered unsafe. The Saviour had some such case in his mind’s eye. A torrent of water would come tearing down the side of the mountain, and if a house was built on the mere earth, it would be carried away directly, but if it were fastened into the rock so that it. became part and parcel of it, then the flood might rush all around it, but it would not shake the walls. Beloved builder of a house fervour soul, your house is so situated that one of these days there must come great pressure upon it. “How do you know?” Well, I know that the house wherein my soul lives is pitched just where winds blow, and waves rise, and storms beat. Where is yours? Do you live ia« a snug corner? Yes, but one of these times you will find that the snug corner will be no more shielded than the open riverside; lor God sop orders providence that every man has his test sooner or later. It may ba that yon think yourself past temptation, but the idea is a delusion, as time will show. Perhaps from the very fact that you seem quite out of the way, a peculiar temptation may befall you. Therefore, I do pray you, because of the exposed condition of your life’s building, build upon a good foundation.

The next argument is, build deep, because of the ruin which will result from a bad foundation. The foolish builder’s house was without a foundation. Notice that word, “without a foundation.” Write down the expression, and see whether they apply to you or not. What happened to this house without a foundation? The stream beat vehemently on it. The river’s bed had long been dry, but suddenly it was flooded, and the torrent rolled with tremendous power. Perhaps it was persecution, perhaps it was prosperity, perhaps it was trouble, perhaps it was temptation, perhaps it was prevalent scepticism, perhaps it was death; but, anyhow, the flood beat vehemently upon that house; and now w& read the next word, — “And immediately it fell” It did not stand a prolonged assault, it was captured at once. “Immediately it fell.’* What! in a minute, all that fair profession gone? “Immediately ifc fell.” Why, that is the man I shook hands with the other Sunday, and called him “Brother,” and he has been seen drunk! or he has been in the frivolous assembly, using unhallowed language! or he has be come an utter doubter all on a sudden! It is sorrowful work burying our friends, but it is much more sorrowful work to lose them in this fashion: and yet so they vanish. They are gone: even as Job saith “the east wind carrieth him away and he departeth.” “Immediately” they fall, and yet we thought so highly of them, and they thought so highly of themselves. “Immediately it fell “; their profession could not endure trial, and all because it had no foundation.

Then it is added, “And the ruin of that house was great.” The housecprne down with a crash, and it was the man’s all. The man was an eminent professor, and hence his ruin was all the more notable. It was a great fall because it could never be built up again. When a man dies a hypocrite certainly there is no hope of restitution for him. By the stream the very debris of the ruined house was swept away; nothing was left. Oh, men, if you lose a battle you may fight again and win another; if you fail in business you may start again in trade and realise a fortune; but if you lose your souls the loss is irretrievable. Once lost,, lost for ever. There will be no second opportunity. Do not deceive yourselves about that. Therefore, dig deep, and lay every stone most firmly upon the foundation of rock.

For lastly, and perhaps this will be the best argument, observe the effect of this good, sure building, this deep building. We read that when the flood beat upon the wise man’s house “it could not shake it.” Thafc is very beautiful. Not only could it not carry it away, but “it could not shake it.” I see the man: he lost his money and became poor, but he did not give up his faith: “It could not shake it.” He was ridiculed and slandered, and many of his former friends gave him the cold shoulder; but “It could not shake it.” He went to Jesus under his great trial and he was sustained: “It could not shake it.” He was very sick and his spirit was depressed within him, but still he-

<30 MKTROPOLITAN TABERNACLE PULPIT.

held his confidence in Christ: “It could not shake it.” He was near to -die; he knew that he must soon, depart out of this world, bat all the pains of death and the certainty of dissolution could not shake him. He died as he lived, firm as a rock, rejoicing as much as ever, nay, rejoicing more, because he was nearer to the kingdom and to the fruition of all his hopes. “It could not shake it.” It is a grand thing to have a faith which cannot be shaken. I saw one day a number of beech trees which had formed a wood: they had all fallen to the ground through a storm. The fact was they leaned upon one another to a great -extent, and the thickness of the wood prevented each tree from getting a firm hold of the soil. They kept each other up and also constrained .each other to grow up tall and thin, to the neglect of root-growth. “When the tempest forced down the first few trees the others readily followed one after the other. Close to that same spot I saw another tree in the open, bravely defying the blast, in solitary strength. The hurricane had beaten upon it, but it had endured all its force un sheltered. That lone, brave tree seemed to be better rooted than before the storm. I thought, “Is it not so with professors?” They often hold together, and help each other to grow up, but if they have not firm personal roothold, when a storm arises they fall in rows. A minister dies, or certain leaders are taken away, and over go the members by departure from the faith and from holiness. I would have you be self-contained, growing each man into Christ for himself, rooted and grounded in love and faith and every holy grace. Then when the worse storm that ever blew on mortal man shall come, it will be said of your faith, “It could not shake it.” I beseech you who are now seeking Christ to take care that you build well, that you may stand long in our Zion, steadfast and immovable. God grant it for Christ’s sake. Amen.

fli|oplitmt Sfabrrnade Sulptt

r*

ONE LOST SHEEP.

DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 28Tn, 1889, BY
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINOTON.

“How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and #oeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.” — Matthew xviii. 12, 13.

THIS passage occurs in a discourse of our Saviour against despising one of those little ones that believe in him. He foretells a dreadful doom for those who, in their contempt for the little ones, cause them to stumble; and he forbids that contempt by a variety of forcible arguments, upon which we cannot now dwell. There is a tendency, apparent at this present time, to think little of the conversion of individuals, and to look upon the work of the Holy Spirit upon each separate person as much too slow a business for this progressive age. We hear grand theories of a theocracy of a kind unknown to Holy Scripture: a semi- political dominion of the Lord over masses whexein the individuals are unregenerate. We listen to great swelling words about the uplifting of nations and the advancement of the race; but these lofty ideas do not produce facts, nor have they any moral power. Our “cultured” teachers, weary of the humdrum work of bringing individual souls into light; they pine to do it wholesale, by a far more rapid process than that of personal salvation. They are tired of the units, their great minds dwell upon “the solidarity of the race.” I am bold to assert that if ever we despise the method of individual conversion, we shall get into an unsound order of business altogether, and find ourselves wrecked upon the rocks of hypocrisy. Even in those right glorious times when the gospel shall have the freest course, and shall run the most quickly, and be the most extensively glorified, its progress will still be alter the former manner of the conviction, conversion, and sanctification of individuals, who shall each one believe and be baptized, according to the Word of the Lord.

I fear lest in any of you there should be even the least measure of

despising the one lost sheep, because of the large and philosophical

methods which are now so loudly cried up. I would not hare you

exchange the gold of individual Christianity for the base metal of

No. 2,083. ,37

Christian Socialism. If the wanderers are to be brought in in vast numbers, as I pray they may be, yet must it be accomplished by the bringing of them in one by one. To attempt national regeneration without personal regeneration is to dream of erecting a house without separate bricks. In the vain attempt to work in the gross, we may miss the practical result which would have followed working in detail. Let us settle it in our minds that we cannot do better than obey the example of our Lord Jesus, given us in the text, and go after the one sheep which has gone astray.

Our text warns us that we are not to despise one person, even on account of evil character. The first temptation is to despise one, because only one; the next is to despise one, because that one is sop little; the next, and perhaps the most dangerous, form of the temptation, is to despise one, because that one has gone astray. The individual is not in the right path, not obeying law, nor reflecting credit on the church, but doing much that vexes the spiritual, and grieves the holy; yet we are not, therefore, to despise him. Head the eleventh verse: “The Son of man is come to save that which was lost.” In the Greek, the word “lost” is a very strong word: we may read it,, “that which is destroyed.” It does not mean “that which is non existent,” as you will clearly see; but that which is destroyed as to usefulness to the shepherd, as to happiness to itself, and as to working out the intent for which it was created. If any are so effectually destroyed by sin that their existence is a greater calamity than their non-existence would have been; if they are now dead in trespassesand sins, and even offensive in character, yet must we not despise them. The Son of man did not despise such, since “He has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Many a soul that has been so destroyed as to be lost to itself, lost to God, lost to his people, lost to anything like hope and holiness, the Lord Jesus Christ has saved by his -gracious power. Re values each one; this is the lesson which I would teach this morning to the utmost of my power. May the Holy Spirit teach it also.

In considering the words of our Lord which are now before us, I beg you to notice, first, that the Lord Jesus herein shows peculiar interest in one lost soul; secondly, he puts forth special exertion for the rescue of this lost one; and thirdly, he displays a special rejoicing when the lost one is restored. When we have thought of all this, we shall then observe, fourthly, that he sets us a very striking example, herein teaching us to care for each soul destroyed by sin.

I. First, then, in the words before us, OUR SAVIOUR SHOWS PECULIAB

INTEREST IN ONE LOST SOUL.

Note, in the commencement, that for the sake of those lost ones our Lord assumes a special character. The eleventh verse puts it, “The Son of man is come to save that which was lost.” He was not originally known as “the Son of man,” but as “the Son of God.” Before all worlds, he dwelt in the bosom of the Father, and “thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” But in order to redeem men, the Son of the Highest became “the Son of man.” He was born of the Virgin and by birth inherited the innocent infirmities of our nature, and bor€ the sufferings incident to those infirmities. Then did he also take upo» himself our sin and its penalty, and therefore died upon the cross. He was in all points made like unto his brethren. He could not be the ehepherd of men without becoming like to them, and therefore the Word condescended to be made flesh. Behold the stupendous miracle of incarnation! Nothing can excel this marvel — Iinmanuel, God with us! “Being found in fashion as a man, he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” 0 lost one, conscious of your loss, take heart to-day when the name of Jesus is named in your hearing lie is God, but he is man, and as God-and-man he saves his people from their sins.

Next to this, to show how Jesus values one lost soul, he makes a very wonderful descent. “The Son of man is come.” He was always known as “The Coming One”; but as to the salvation of the lost he has actually come. For judgment he is “the coming one” still; but for salvation we rejoice that our Saviour has already come. Quitting the assemblies of the perfect, he has been here as the Friend of publicans and sinners. From being the Lord of angels, he has stooped to be “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Yes, he has come; and not in vain. Those who preached the coming Saviour had such a joyous message to deliver that their feet were beautiful upon the mountains, and their voices were as heavenly music; but as for ua who preach that he has come, and, coming, has finished the work which he undertook to perform — surely ours is the choicest of messages. Our Lord Jesus has completed the atoning sacrifice, and the justifying righteousness, by which lost men are saved: happy is the preacher of such tidings, and blessed are your ears that hear them! The good Shepherd has performed all that is necessary for the salvation of the flock which his Father has given into his hands. Beloved, let us take heart. Lost as we are, Christ has come to save us. He has come to the place of our ruin and woe. His coming and seeking will not be in vain. Brethren, how greatly ought we to value the souls of men when Jesus for their sake becomes a man, and comes into this sinful world among our guilty race that he may work the salvation of the lost!

Note, here, that he does this for those that are still straying. I have marked, in looking at the Greek text, that it is written, “He seeketh that which ^>eth astray.” The Shepherd seeks while the sheep strays: seeks it because it strays and needs seeking. Full many of the Lord’s redeemed are even now going astray, and even now is the Shepherd going after them. The Saviour seeks those who are even now sinning. That° he should have a love to those who are repenting I can well understand; but that he should care for those who are wilfully going astray is far more gracious. Jesus seeks those whose backs are towards him, who are going further and further away from the fold; herein is grace most free, most full, most sovereign. Indeed it is so. Though thou dost harden thyself against the Lord, though thou dost refuse to turn at his rebuke, yet if thou be his redeemed, his eye of love marks thee; in all thy wilful wanderings he follows thee. He sees thee, he seeks thee; oh that thou mayest yield, and find that he saves thee! 0 ye that are now in the flock, think of the love of •Christ to you when you were outside the fold; when you bad no wiah to return; when, seeing him pursuing you, you only ran the faster to escape his almighty love! Let us sing together,

“Determined to save, he watched o’er my path,
When, Satan’s blind slave, I sported with death.”

Notwithstanding all my rebellion, and all my wilful transgression, he still loved me with his heart, and pursued me with his Word. Oh, how we ought to love sinners, since Jesus loved us, and died for us while we were yet sinners! We must care for drunkards while they still pass round the cup; swearers even while we hear them swear; and profligates while we mourn to see them polluting our midnight streets. We must not wait till we see some better thing in them, but feel an intense interest for them as what they are — straying and lost. When the sheep is torn with the thorns of the waste places, and is sick, and w.orn to skin and bones with long wanderings and hungerings, we must seek its restoration, though we see in it no desire to submit itself to the Shepherd’s care and rule. Such was our Saviour’s love to us: such be our love to lost ones.

The Shepherd takes a peculiar interest in the lost, not only as now strajdng, but as having already gone very far away. Carefully consider these words — “If so be that he find it.” That “if” tells its own tale. The sheep had become so terribly lost that it was not likely to be found again: it had wandered into so dense a thicket, or strayed into so wild a region, that it seemed scarcely within the bounds of hope that it would ever be discovered and brought back. We do not often meet with an “if” in reference to the work of Christ; but here is one — “If so be that he find it.” This does not show weakness in the Shepherd, but the desperate danger of the sheep. I have often heard it said, by those who come to confess Christ, and to acknowledge his love to them, that they are struck with wonder that they, above all others, should be doing any such thing. When we sit at the Lord’s table, the feast is very wonderful; but the greatest wonder is the guest, when I am there. How humbly do we each one sing,

“Why was I made to hear thy voice,

And enter where there’s room,
When thousands make a wretched choice*
And rather starve than come?”

But it is so. The good Shepherd is to-day seeking many whose salvation seems highly improbable, if not utterly impossible. Herein is love that he should go after those whose finding is by no means a certainty, nor even a probability! Yery improbable, almost impossible, is the task he undertakes! Yet in such he takes a deep interest.

Moreover, those toward whom our Lord has these thoughts of love have often sinned so as to have brought themselves into the deadliest danger. “For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.” Saving implies ruin, peril, jeopardy — yea, destruction already in a measure present. Are not many now playing with the fire of hell? For what is that unquenchable fire but sin, in its nature and results? Men are trifling on the brink of eternal woe: * ‘Their foot shall slide in due time.” Playing with edged tools is nothing in danger compared with sporting with your lusts; and many are doing so. Yet, detpite their danger Jesus socks them. See you not those sheep heedlessly feeding n 3ar the den of the wolf? In a little the monster will devour them. They are far away from home, and food, and rest, and safety. They have no desire to return; but they are resolved to roam yet further from the fold. The Lord Jesus conies after such desperately deluded ones. Until you pass the iron gate the gospel will invite you to return. If you be but one inch this side of hell, love will pursue you, and mercy will follow you. Our glorious David, while a lamb still lives, is able to rescue it from the jaw of the lion, and the paw of the bear. Though, like Jonah, a soul may have descended into the deeps, and may lie out of all human reach, yet a word from Jesus can bring it up from the lowest pit. Glory be to the blessed name of the Almighty Saviour, he is able to save to the utter most: his power to save the lost is such that none are too vile for his salvation.

If we rightly consider the parable before us, we shall see that Tie take a a special interest in these stray sheep because they are his own. This man did not go after wild beasts, nor after other men’s sheep; but he had a hundred sheep of his own, and when he had counted them, he missed one. The hireling, whose own the sheep are not, would have said, 1 ‘We have nearly the hundred: we need not be particular about an odd one.” But these hundred sheep belonged to the Shepherd himself; they were his own by choice, by inheritance, by divine gift, by glorious capture, and by costly purchase, and he could not accept ninety and nine for a hundred. “None of them is lost,” saith he. “Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” Jesus could not endure to report a loss upon the flock handed over to him of the Father. Ninety-nine is not a hundred, and the Saviour will not consider it such; for well he knows that “it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” Dear friends, since Jesus takes such an interest even in one stray soul, you must not think it little that you should be called to care for a single soul. Do not think that a little congregation of forty or fifty is too few to be worthy of your best efforts. Should your class, through various circumstances, get down to a very small number, do not, therefore, give it up. No, no. Value one soul more than a world’s purchase. The full company of the redeemed is far from being made up as yet, and the Lord hath much people in this city not yet brought to his feet; therefore, never dream of ceasing your labours. Rest not till the hour shall come,

44 When all the chosen race

Shall meet around the throne;
Shall bless the conduct of his grace,

And make his glories known.”

II. Secondly, may the Spirit of God help me while I remind you that OUR LORD TUT FORTH SPECIAL EXERTION TO SAVE ONE SOLITARY

INDIVIDUAL.

Observe in the parable — for it is a parable, though briefly told — that we see the Shepherd leaving happier cares. He felt himself at homf with, his attached and faithful flock; they had not gone astray, and they gathered about him, and he fed them, and took pleasure in them. There is always a great deal to do with sheep: they have many diseases, many weaknesses, many needs; but when you have an attached, affectionate nock about you, you feel at home with them. So the great Shepherd describes himself as leaving the ninety and nine, his choice flock, the sheep that had fellowship with him, and he with them. Yes, he leaves those in whom he could take pleasure, to seek one that gave him pain. I will not dwell upon how he left the paradise above, and all the joy of his Father’s house, and came to this bleak world; but I pray you remember that he did so. It was a wonderful descent when he came from beyond the stars to dwell on this beclouded globe, to redeem the sons of men. But, remember, he still continually comes by his Spirit. His errands of mercy are perpetual. The Spirit -of God moves his ministers, who are Christ’s representatives, to forego the feeding of the gathered flock, and to seek, in their discourses, the salvation of the wandering ones, in whose character and behaviour there is nothing to cheer us. My Master’s heart is full of care for all that love him; he wears their names engraven on the jewels of his breast-plate; but yet his heart is always going forth afar, after those who have not yet been brought to him; and after those who once were in his fold, but have gone aside, and quitted the flock. He leaves the happy and the holy, and gives his best thoughts to the lost.

Our Lord goes out to seek these. It is not merely a sending forth of thought, it is a marching forth of power. His divine grace is going forth, I trust, this day, beyond the company whom he has called by his grace, to those other sheep, who are not yet of his fold, whom also he must bring in. He would not have his church expend all her care on the flock which he has led into her green pastures, but he would have her go afield after those who are not yet in her blest society.

According to the text, the Shepherd goes into the mountains: among difficulties and dangers. He will do and dare for the saving of the lost: no hardships can daunt his mighty love. You know through what dark ravines he passed in saving men. You have heard what climbing he had after proud souls, and what condescensions for despairing ones. A sheep in the East is more light of foot than our sheep; it will leap like a gazelle, and climb the mountains like a chamois; and so are sinners very swift in transgression, and very daring in presumption. They leap in their iniquities where the children of God would shudder to follow them even in thought. They make nothing of leaps of profanity which would curdle the blood of him that has been taught the fear of God at the feet of Jesus Christ. Yet the Lord Jesus went after these desperadoes. What difficulties he conquered, what sufferings he endured, what mountains he overleaped, that he might seek and save! 0 brethren, the same heart is in him still: he goes forth continually in the preaching of the Word. With many a sigh and many a groan on the part of his chosen ministers, he goes among the mountains to seek that which has gone astray. I pray that he may accept the effort of his unworthy servant this day, and bring some lost one home by means of this sermon

To show his exertion for the lost, our Lord describes himself ai seeking with persevering diligence. He looks this way, but sees nothing. He shades his eyes with his hand, and looks steadily! He thought he saw his sheep. There is surely a living object upon the hill-side He gazes intently. No, it does not stir: it is a white rock! Possibly the lost sheep is in yonder gully! It is a long way to go, but he is so intent on his purpose that he is soon there; but the sheep is not to be seen. Where can it be? He travels on with swift foot, for he does not know what may become of his sheep while he delays. Every now and then he stops: he thinks ho hears a bleating. Surely it is the voice of his sheep! He is mistaken. His love makes his ear the father of sounds which are not sounds at all. He has neither seen nor heard it these long hours; but he will continue seeking till he iinds it. The concentrated omniscience of Christ is set upon a soul that goes astray, looking after it in all its evil desires and evil emotions; watching the growth of anything that looks like repentance; and observing with sorrow the hardening of its heart. This is what our Lord is doing for those redeemed with blood, who as yet have not been carried back to the fold. He puts forth a gracious exertion of eye and mind as well as of foot and hand, towards his wandering sheep.

At the last he saves — completely saves. He has not come to make the salvation of his people possible; but to save them. He has not come to put them in the way of saving themselves, but to save them. He has not come to half save them; but to save them altogether. When my Lord comes forth in the majesty of his sovereign grace to save a soul, he achieves his purpose, despite sin, and death, and hell. The wolf may grind his teeth, but the Shepherd is the wolf’s master. The sheep itself may for a long time have wandered, and at the last may struggle against him; but he grips its feet, and throws the creature on his shoulders, and bears it home; for he is resolved to save it. The sheep is glad to be so borne, for with a touch the Shepherd moulds its will to his more perfect will. His grace is the triumphant energy by which the lost one is restored.

The salvation of a single soul is a mass of miracles. I have heard of a fire which consumed the shop of a jeweller, and a number of costly treasures of gold, and silver, and precious stones, were found among the ruins, caked into a conglomerate of riches. What a salvage! Such is the salvation of a single man, it is a mass of priceless mercies melted into one inestimable ingot, dedicated to the praise of the glory of his groe who makes us to be “accepted in the Beloved,” and “saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation.” When I think of the energy which is put forth by the Lord to save a single lost soul, I feel stirrecl in ray heart, and I desire that your hearts should be stirred also, that we may put forth all our strength to go and find the Lord’s lost ones. Let us co-operate with him in his great labour of seeking that which is lost. Oh, that the Holy Spirit may put such a spirit within us, and keep it there!

III. I am compelled to pass onward somewhat hurriedly. Notice, in the third place, that our Lord FEELS A SPECIAL REJOICING AT TUB OF A WANDEEiNO SHEEP. Do not make a mistake here. Do not suppose that our Lord loves more the one soul that has wandered than the ninety and nine who have been preserved by his grace from going astray. Oh, no! he thinks ninety-nine times more of ninety-nine than of one; for his sheep are each one equally precious to him. We must not suppose that he looks upon any one soul of his redeemed with a tenderness ninety-nine times greater than he gives to another. But you will see the meaning of the passage by an illustration from your own experience. You have a family, and you love all your children alike. But little Johnny is very ill; he has a fever, and is like to die: now you think more of him than of aJl the rest. He recovers, and you bring him downstairs in your arms, and just then he is the dearest child of the whole company. Not that he is really more valued than his brothers and sisters, but the fact that he has been so ill, and was likely to die, has brought him more before your mind, and caused you more anxiety, and therefore you have more joy in him because of his recovery. The great deeps of Christ’s love are the same to all his flock, but on the surface there is sometimes a holy storm of joy when any one of them has been newly restored after wandering.

Learn the occasion of this demonstrative joy. The wandering one has caused great sorrow. We were all grieved that our brother should become a gross backslider, that such an earnest Christian as he seemed to be should disgrace his profession. Our Lord is still more grieved than we are. When the erring one comes back, we feel a new joy in him. In proportion to the sorrow felt over the wanderer, is the joy manifested when he is restored.

Moreover, great apprehensions were aroused; we feared that he was not the Lord’s, and that he would go back unto perdition. We trembled for him. That black dread is all over now: the sheep is safe, the doubtful one is saved and restored to the fold. In proportion to the weight of the apprehension is the intensity of the relief.

The Shepherd had exercised also great labour over the lost one. He went up among the mountains to find his sheep; but now his labour is fully rewarded, for he has found his lost sheep. He remembereth no more his travel and travail for joy that the sheep is safe.

Besides, in this newly-restored one, there are marks of salvation which cause joy. He has been torn with the briars, but he is resting now. See how he lies down in the tender grass! He was weary and worn, and almost dead with his wanderings; but now, how happy he is in the presence of his shepherd! How closely he keeps to his shepherd’s footsteps! All this goes to make the shepherd glad!

Besides, the shepherd rejoiqes when he brings back the lost sheef because he makes that rescue an occasion and opportunity for having a special gala day. He wishes all his sheep to learn his delight in them all b seeing his delight in one. I know it is so in the church. I bless the Lord when he keeps the feet of his saints: I bless him every day for preserving grace; but when some grievous wanderer is restored, the* we bless him more emphatically. Then we have music and dancing. The elder brother wonders what these overflowing joys can mean: but everybody else can see good reason for special mirth when the lost one is found. Shepherds and their flocks cannot have holiday

«very day; but when a lost one has been recovered, they feel such mutual delight in each other, and such a common delight in the saving of the lost, that they seize upon the occasion for rejoicing. I “want you all to recognize that, if you love the church of Christ, you are bound to keep a feast-day when f alien, ones are raised up; and that you may hold that festival, you are bound to put out all your strength to bring in the lost one.

IV. Now we come to the tug-of-war, that is, to look upon our divine Shepherd as HE SETS us A STRIKING EXAMPLE.

We may view this text as our personal missionary warrant. To-day we are called upon to think of missions; and as I think it idle to preach about missions in the big high-flying style, I have purposed to say something common-place, but practical. Brethren, we are all of us to be missionaries for Christ, and the text presents a warrant for each one to work earnestly as a soul-winner.

What shall we do, then, to imitate our Lord? The answer is — Let us go after one soul. I cannot make a selection for you this morning, but I do entreat all who are workers together with God to go after the ones. There is a kind of knack in speaking to individuals — everybody does not possess it; but every believer should labour to acquire it. Seek the souls of men one by one. It is far easier work to me to speak to you all than it would be to take each one apart and speak to him personally of his soul; and yet such speaking to you one by one might be more successful than this sermon to you in the mass. I entreat you, as the great Shepherd goes after one, do not think you will demean yourself by going after one poor man, or woman, or child; but do it now.

Listen again: let that one be somebody that is quite out of the way. Try and think of one who has grievously gone astray; it may be there is one such in your family, or you meet with one such in the course of trade. Think carefully of that one soul, and reflect upon its sin and danger. You would like to pick out a hopeful case, in order that you might feel sure of success. Take another course this time: seek the one which is going astray, and seems hopeless. Follow your Lord’s example, and go after one who is’ the least likely to be found. Will you try this plan? If you do not, you will be quitting the way of your Lord.

“I have a class and a work,” says one. Yes, I want you, for a little, to leave the ninety and nine. I pray that you may feel called to look after some one greatly depraved person, or some utterly neglected child. Keep up your ninety-and-nine class, if you possibly can, but, at all hazards, go after the one. Make an unusual effort; go out of your way; let ordinary service be placed second for the time being. It will be a healthy change for you, and, perhaps, a great relief. Peradventure, you will come back and do more good with the ninety and nine, after you have been away a little while with the straying one. You are getting a little mouldy; and you are just a wee tired of the monotony of your work. Every Sunday the same girls, or the same boys, and the same form of lesson. Well, cut the whole concern for a little, and go after the one sheep that has gone astray. “You are giving us odd advice, Mr. Spurgeon.” If it is not in my text, then do not follow it; but if it is in our dea* Master’s words, I trust you will carry it out bravely.

When you go after that one, have all your wits about you. Go and seek; and that you cannot do, unless you are on the alert. Follow up the straying one. Did you say that you would wait till he called at your house? Is that your notion of seeking lost sheep? Is that the way of sportsmen in the autumn? do they sit in the drawing-room till the pheasants fly by the window? That would be poor sport.

“O come, let us go and find them,
In the paths of death they roam.”

Gkp after them, for so the shepherd did. He braved the moiintain’selippery side. I do not suppose the shepherd had any greater love for mountain tracks than you have; but up the rough tracks he climbed for the sheep’s sake. Go after sinners into their poverty and wretchedness, until you find them.

Here is one thing to cheer you. If you should win such a soul as that, you will have more joy, a great deal, than in saving those for whom you regularly labour — more joy over that lost one than over the ninety and nine hopeful ones. It will be such a support to your faith, such a fillip for your joy, such a bright light to your labour, to have won such a specially guilty one. I should not wonder but what you will talk about it for many a day, and it will be a source of strength to you when things are not quite as you would desire. Such converts are our crown of rejoicing. May I specialty recommend that you make a trial of this extra sheep-seeking ‘{ If you do not succeed, you will have done no harm; for you will have copied your Lord and Master. But you will succeed, for he is with you, and his Spirit works by you.

I would remind you that, even under the old law, you would be bound to do this thing. Turn to the twenty-third chapter of Exodus, and read the fourth and fifth verses. “If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him.” You are bound to do good even to your enemy. Will you not serve your best friend? If your enemy’s ox or ass needed to be taken back to him, you are bound to do it. How much more when the sheep belongs to him whom you love with all your heart! Prove your love to Jesus by labouring to take him back his strays!

Turn to the twenty-second of Deuteronomy, first to fourth verses, and there you will find another bit of the law. “Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother.” Oh, will, you not bring in the stray sheep of your greater Brother, “the first born among many brethren “7 “And if thy brother be not nigh untO’ thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again.” If you cannot get a soul to Christ, at any rate get it to yourself. If you cannot lead it immediately to conversion, show it some hospitality within your own doors, by ministering such comfort as you can. Do what you can to cheer the poor heart

•Sill Christ comes after it. “Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ass orhia ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again.” How easy it is to hide ourselves! that is the expression used by Moses, “thou shalt not hide thyself from them.” When you know that people are very wicked, the usual plan is to wish them well, but keep out of their way. Prudence makes you hide yourself from them. The whole street may swarm with harlots, but then you haye gone to bed, and the door is shut. What has their sin to do with you? There are many drunken men about; but you do not drink to excess, what has their drinking to do with you? That is what is meant by hiding ourselves from them. How easily that can be done! Take an illustration which is worth the telling. A vessel, the other day, was crossing the Atlantic, and it fell in with that disabled emigrant ship, The Danmark. Suppose the captain had kept on his course. He might have looked another way, and resolved not to be detained. He might have argued, “I am “bound to do the best for my owners. It will hinder me greatly if I rgo pottering ab«ut after this vessel. I had better go by, and not see it; or make haste to port and send out help.” It could have been done, and nobody would have been the wiser; for the ship would have gone down soon. The captain of that vessel was a man of a nobler breed. He did not hide himself, nor turn the blind eye towards the vessel in distress. But what did the captain do? All honour to him, he came near, and took the ship in tow. This was not all: he found that she could not keep afloat, and he resolved to take those hundreds of emigrants on board his own ship. But he could not carry them and his cargo too. What then? The decision was greatly to his honour. Overboard goes the cargo! God’s blessing rest on the man! Into the sea went the freight, and the passengers were taken on board, and carried to the nearest port. He could have easily hidden himself, could he not? So can you, you Christian people, as you call yourselves. Can you go through this world and always have a blind eye to the case of lost sinners? Can you come in and out of this Tabernacle and never speak to the strangers who throng these aisles? Will you let them go to hell unwarned and uninstructed? Can you hide yourselves from them! How dare you call yourselves Christians? How will you answer for it at last? Brothers, sisters, let us shake “oil this inhuman indifference, and, deny ourselves rest, ease, credit, that we may save poor sinking souls. Overboard with cargo cheerfully, that you may, in the power of the Holy Ghost, save souls from death. Once more, this text is the great missionary warrant for all the churck of God. We are to go, as the Saviour did, to seek and to save that which was lost; and we are to do this, not on account of the numbers of the heathen, but for one of them. I grant you there is a great power in the argument of numbers — so many hundreds of millions in •China, so many hundreds of millions in India; but if there were only one person left unsaved in any part of the world, it would be worth 4 while for the entire Christian church to go after that one person; for he who is greater than the church, as the Bridegroom is greater than the bride, quitted heaven, ay, and quitted the sweet society of his own beloved, that he might go after the one that had gone astray. Do not care, therefore, about numbers: save the smallest tribes. Have »n eye to the hamlets in England. I believe that the scattered cottages of our land are in a worse condition than the villages. Care for the ones. Your Lord did so, and here ia your warrant for doing the like.

Next, notice, that we ought never to be moved by the supposed superiority of a race. I have heard it said that it would be far better to try and convert the superior races than to consider the more degraded. Is it not better to bring in the educated Brahmins than the wild hill-tribes? “What a fine sort of people these are, thesephilosophical Hindoos! If we could win them they would be worth converting!” That is not at all according to the mind of Christ. The Shepherd sought a lost sheep, and when he had found it, it was no great spoil for him, for it was so worn out as to be nothing but a destroyed sheep. Yet he went after that one poor animal. Let us feel that the degraded Africans, the dwarfs of the woods, the cannibals of New Guinea, and all such, are to be sought quite as much as more advanced races. They are men; that is enough.

Once more, the motive for missionary enterprise must never be the excellence of the character of the individuals. The shepherd did not go after the sheep, because it never went astray, nor because it was docile, but because it did go astray, and was not docile. The sin of men is their claim upon the church of God. The more sin, the morereason for abounding grace. Oh that the church would feel it to be her duty, if not to go to the most degraded first, yet not to leave them to the last! Where you seem least likely to succeed there go at once, for there you will find room for f aitk; and where there is room for faith, and faith fills the room, God will send a blessing.,

Dear friends, as you cannot, all of you, go abroad to the heathen, though some of you ought to do so, I ask you to do what you can do. Contribute to the collection, which is for the support of mission work. Here is a small opportunity; and if you do not avail yourselves of it, you are not likely to do the greater thing to which I have invited you. The Lord bless you! Amen.

rtwpttau

THE PARABLE OF THE LOST SHEEP.

DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 28TH, 1884, BY

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINQTON.

“What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.” — Luke xv. 4 — 7

OUR Lord Jesus Christ while he was here below was continually in the pursuit of lost souls. He was seeking lost men and women, and it was for this reason that he went down among them, even among those who were most evidently lost, that he might find them. He took pains to put himself where he could come into communication with them, and he exhibited such kindliness towards them that in crowds they drew near to hear him. I dare say it was a queer-looking assembly, a disreputable rabble, which made the Lord Jesus its centre. I am not astonished that the Pharisee, when he looked upon the congregation, sneered and said, “He collects around him the pariahs of our community, the wretches who collect taxes for the foreigner of God’s free people; and the fallen women of the towns, and such-like riffraff make up his audiences; and he, instead of repelling them, receives them, welcomes them, looks upon them as a class to whom he has a peculiar relationship. He even eats with them. Did he not go into the house of Zaccheus, and the house of Levi, and partake of the feasts which these low people made for him?” We cannot tell you all the Pharisees thought, it might not be edifying to attempt it; but they thought as badly of the Lord as they possibly could, because of the company which surrounded him. And so, he deigns in this parable to defond himself; not that he cared much about what they might think, but that they might have no excuse for speaking so bitterly of him. He tells them that he wa8 seeking the lost, and where should he be found but among those whom he was seeking? Should a physician shun the sick? Should a shepherd avoid the lost sheep? Was he not exactly in his right position when there “drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him”?

No. 1.801 58

Oar divine Lord defended himself by what is called an argumentum ad hominem, an argument to the men themselves; for he said, “What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not go after that which is lost, until he find it?” No argument tells more powerfully upon men than one which conies close home to their own dally life, and the Saviour put it so. They were silenced, if they were not convinced. It was a peculiarly strong argument, because in their case it was only a sheep that they would go after, but in his case it was something infinitely more precious than all the flocks of sheep that ever fed on Sharon or Carmel; for it was the soul of man which he sought to save. The argument had in it not only the point of peculiar adaptation, but a force at the back of it unusually powerful for driving it home upon every honest mind. It may be opened out in this fashion, — “If you men would each one of you go after a lost sheep, and follow in its track until you found it, how much more may I go after lost souls, and follow them in all their wanderings until I can rescue them?” The going after the sheep is a part of the parable which our Lord meant them to observe: the shepherd pursues a route which he would never think of pursuing if it were only for his own pleasure; his way is not selected for his own ends, but for the sake of the stray sheep. He takes a track up hill and down dale, far into a desert, or into some dark wood, simply because the sheep has gone that way, and he must follow it until he find it. Our Lord Jesus Christ, as a matter of taste and pleasure, would never have been found among the publicans and sinners, nor among any of our guilty race: if he had consulted his own- ease and comfort he would have consorted only with pure and holy angels, and the great Father above; but he was not thinking of himself, his heart was set upon the lost ones, and therefore he went where the lost sheep were; “for the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” The more steadily you look at this parable the more clearly you will see that our Lord’s answer was complete. We need not this morning regard it exclusively as an answer to Pharisees, but we may look at it as an instruction to ourselves; for it is quite as complete in that direction. May the good Spirit instruct us as we muse upon it.

I. In the first place, I call attention to this observation: THE ONE SUBJECT OF THOUGHT to the man who had lost his sheep. This sets forth to us the one thought of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, when he sees a man lost to holiness and happiness by wandering into sin.

The shepherd, on looking over his little flock of one hundred, can only count ninety-nine. He counts them again, and he notices that a certain one has gone: it may be a white-faced sheep with a black mark on its foot: he knows all about it, for “the Lord knoweth them that are his.” The shepherd has a photograph of the wanderer in his mind’s eye, and now he thinks but little of the ninety and nine who are feeding in the pastures of the wilderness, but his mind is in a ferment about the one lost sheep. This one idea possesses him: “a sheep is lost!” This agitates his mind more and more — “a sheep is lost.” It masters his every faculty. He cannot eat bread; he cannot return to his home; he cannot rest while one sheep is lost.

To a tender heart a lost sheep is a painful subject of thought. It is

<i sheep, and therefore utterly defenceless now that it has left its defender. If the wolf should spy it out, or the lion or the bear should come across its track, it would be torn in pieces in an instant. Thus the shepherd asks his heart the question — “What will become of my sheep? Perhaps at this very moment a lion may be ready to spring upon it, and, if so, it cannot help itself!” A sheep is not prepared for fight, and even for flight it has not the swiftness of its enemy. That makes its compassionate owner the more sad as he thinks again — “A sheep is lost, it is in great danger of a cruel death,” A sheep is of all creatures the most senseless. If we have lost a dog, it may find its way home again; possibly a horse might return to its master’s stable; but a sheep will wander on and on, in endless mazes lost. It is too foolish a thing to think of returning to the place of safety. A lost sheep is lost indeed in countries where lands lie unenclosed and the plains are boundless. That fact still seems to ring in the man’s soul — “A sheep is lost, and it will not return, for it is a foolish thing. Where may it not have gone by this time? Weary and worn, it may be fainting; it may be far away from green pastures, and be ready to perish with hunger among the bare rocks or upon the arid sand.” A sheep is shiftless; it knows nothing about providing for itself. The camel can scent water from afar, and a vulture can espy its food from an enormous distance; but the sheep can find nothing for itself. Of all wretched creatures a lost sheep is one of the worst. If anybody had stepped up to the shepherd just then, and said, “Good sir, what aileth you? you seem in great concern”; he would have replied, “And well I may be, for a sheep is lost.” “It is only one, sir; and I see you have ninety-nine left.” “Do you call it nothing to lose one? You are no shepherd jourself, or you would not trifle so. Why, I seem to forget these ninety-nine that are all safe, and my mind only remembers that one which is lost.”

What is it which makes the Great Shepherd lay so much to his heart the loss of one of his flock? What is it that makes him agitated as he reflects upon that supposition — “if he lose one of them”?

I think it is, first, because of his property in it. The parable does not so much speak of a hired shepherd, but of a shepherd proprietor. “What man of you having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them.” Jesus, in another place, speaks of the hireling, whose own the sheep are not, and therefore he flees when the wolf comes. It is the shepherd proprietor who lays down his life for the sheep. It is not a sheep alone, and a lost sheep, but it is one of his own lost sheep that this man cares for. This parable is not written about lost humanity in the bulk — it may be so used if you please — but in its first sense it is written about Christ’s own sheep; as also is the second parable concerning the woman’s own money; and the third, not concerning any prodigal youth, but the father’s own son. Jesus has his own sheep, and some of them are lost: yea, they were all once in the same condition; for “all we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.” The parable refers to the unconverted, whom Jesus has redeemed with his most precious blood, and whom he has undertaken to seek and to save: these are those other sheep whom also he must bring in. “For thus saith the Lord God; Behold I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will [ seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy an<i dark day.” The sheep of Christ are his long before they know it — his even when they wander; and when they are brought into the fold by the effectual working of his grace they become manifestly what they were in covenant from of old. The sheep are Christ’s, first, because he chose them from before the foundations of the world — “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” Kis, next, because the Father gave them to him. How he dwells upon that fact in his great prayer in John xvii.: “Thine they were, and thou gavest them me;” “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.” We are the Lord’s own flock, furthermore, by his purchase of us; he says: “I lay down my life for the sheep.” It is nearly nineteen centuries ago since he paid the ransom price, and bought us to be his own; and we shall be his, for that purchase-money was not paid in- vain. And so the Saviour looks upon his hands, and sees the marks of his purchase; he looks upon his side, and sees the token of the effectual redemption of his own elect unto himself by the pouring out of his own heart’s blood before the living God. This thought, therefore, presses upon him, “One of my sheep is lost.” It is a wonderful supposition, that which is contained in this parable — “if he lose one of them.” What! lose one whom he loved or ever the earth was? It may wander for a time, but he will not have it lost for ever: that he cannot bear. What! lose one whom his Father gave him to be his own? Lose one whom he has bought with his own life? He will not endure the thought. That word — “if he lose one of them” sets his soul on fire. It shall not be. You know how much the Lord has valued each one of his chosen, laying down his life for his redemption. You know how dearly he loves every one of his people: it is no new passion with him, neither can it grow old. He has loved his own and must love them to the end. From eternity that love has endured already, and it must continue throughout the ages, for he changeth not. Will he lose one of those so dearly loved? Never; never. He has eternal possession of them by a covenant of salt, where in the Father hath given them to him: this it is which in great measure stirs his soul so that he thinks of nothing but this fact, — One of niy sheep is lost.

Secondly, he has yet another reason for this all-absorbing thought, namely, his great compassion for his lost sheep. The wandering of a soul causes Jesus deep sorrow; he cannot bear the thought of its perishing. Such is the love and tenderness of his heart that he cannot bear that one of his own should he in jeopardy. He can take no rest as long as a soul for whom he shed his blood still abides under the dominion of Satan and under the power of sin; therefore the Great Shepherd neither night nor day forgetteth his sheep: he must save his flock, and he is straitened till it be accomplished.

He has a deep sympathy with each stray heart. He knows the sorrow that sin brings, the deep pollution and the terrible wounding that comes of transgression, even at the time; and the sore heart and the broken spirit that will come of it before long; and so the sympathetic Saviour grieves over each lost sheep, for he knows the misery which lies in the fact of being lost. If you have ever been in a house with a mother and father, and daughters and sons, when a little child has been lost, you will never forget the agitation of each member of the household. See the father as he goes to the police-station, and calls at every likely house; for he must find his child or break his heart. See the deep oppression and bitter anguish of the mother; she is like one distracted till she has news of her darling. You now begin to understand what Jesus feels for one whom he loves, who is graven on the palms of his hands, whom he looked upon in the glass of his foreknowledge, when he was bleeding his life away upon the tree; he hath no rest in his spirit till his beloved is found. He hath compassion like a God, and that doth transcend all the compassion of parents or of brothers, — the compassion of an infinite heart brimming over with an ocean of love. This one thought moves the pity of the Lord — “if he lose one of them.”

Moreover, the man in the parable had a third relation to the sheep, which made him possessed with the one thought of its being lost, — he was a shepherd to it. It was his own sheep, and he had therefore for that very reason become its shepherd; and he says to himself, “If I lose one of them my shepherd-work will be ill-done.” What dishonour it would be to a shepherd to lose one of his sheep! Either it must be for want of power to keep it, or want of will, or want of watchfulness; but none of these can appertain to the Chief Shepherd. Our Lord Jesus Christ will never have it said of him that he has lost one of his people, for he glories in having preserved them all. “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavesfc me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.” The devil shall never say that Jesus suffered one whom his Father gave him to perish. His work of love cannot in any degree become a failure. His death in vain! No, not in jot or tittle. I can imagine, if it were possible, that the Son-of God should live in vain: but to die in vain! It shall never be. The purpose that he meant to achieve by his passion and death he shall achieve, for he is the Eternal, the Infinite, the Omnipotent; and who shall stay his hand, or baffle his design? He will not have it. “If he lose one of them,” says the passage; imagine the consequence. What scorn would come from Satan! *” What derision would he pour upon the Shepherd! How hell would ring with the news, “He’hath lost one of them.” Suppose it to be the feeblest; then would they cry, “He could keep the strong, who could keep themselves.” Suppose it to be the strongest; then would they cry, “He could not even keep one of the mightiest of them, but must needs let him perish.” This is good argument, for Moses pleaded with God, “What will the Egyptians say?” It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven thai one of these little ones shall perish, neither is it for the glory of Christ that one of his own sheep should be eternally lost.

You see the reason for the Lord’s heart being filled with one burning thought; for first, the sheep is his own; next, he is full of compassion; and then again, it is his office to shepherd the flock.

All this while the sheep is not thinking about the shepherd, or caring for him ip the least degree. Some of you are not thinking at all about

522 METROPOLITAN TABERNAo^E PULPIT.

the Lord Jesus. You have no wish nor will to seek after him! What folly! Oh, the pity of it, that the great heart above should be yearning over you to-day, and should fail to rest because you are in peril, and. you, who will be the greater loser, for you will lose your own soul, are sporting with sin, and making yourself merry with destruction. Ah, me! how far you have wandered! How hopeless would your case be if there were not an Almighty Shepherd to think upon you.

II. Now we come to the second point, and observe THE ONE OBJECT OP SEARCH. This sheep lies on the shepherd’s heart, and he must at once set out to look for it. He leaves the ninety-and-nine in the wilderness, and goes after that which is lost until he find it.

Observe here that it is a definite search. The shepherd goes after the sheep, and after nothing else; and he has the one particular sheep in his mind’s eye. I should have imagined, from the way in which I have seen this text handled, that Christ, the Shepherd, went down into the wilderness to catch anybody’s sheep he could find. Many were running about, and he did not own any one of them more than another, but was content to pick up the one that he could first lay hold upon; or rather, that which first came running after him. Not so is the case depicted in the parable. It is his own sheep that he is seeking, and he goes distinctly after that one. It is his sheep which was lost, — & well-known sheep; well known not only to himself, but even to his friends and neighbours, — for he speaks to them as if it was perfectly understood ,vhich sheep it was that he went to save. Jesus knows all about his redeemed, and he goes definitely after such and such a soul. When I am preaching in the name of the Lord, I delight to think that I am sent to individuals with the message of mercy. I am not going to draw the bow at a venture at all; but when the Divine hands are put on mine to draw the bow, the Lord takes such aim that no arrow misses its mark: into the very centre of the heart the word finds its way; for Jesus goes not forth at a peradventure in his dealings with men. He subdues the will and conquers the heart, making his people willing in the day of his power. He calls individuals and they come. He saith, “Mary,” and the response is, “Rabboni.” I say, the man in the parable sought out a distinct individual, and rested not till he found it; and so doth the Lord Jesus in the movements of his love go forth at no uncertainty: he does not grope about to catch whom he may, as if he played at Blindman’sbuff with salvation, but he seeks and saves the one out of his own sheep which he has his eye upon in its wanderings. Jesus knows what he means to do, and he will perform it to the glory of the Father. Note that this is an all-absorbing search. He is thinking of nothing but his own lost sheep. The ninety-and-nine are left in safety; bus they are left. When we read that he leaves them in the wilderness we are apt to think of some barren place; but that is not intended: it simply means the open pasturage, the steppe, the prairie: he leaves them well provided for, leaves them because he can leave them. For the time being he is carried away with the one thought that he must seek and save the lost one, and therefore he leaves the ninety-and-nine in their pasture. “Shepherd, the way is very rocky!” He does not seem &> know what the way is, his heart is with his lost sheep. “Shepherd, it is a heavy climb up yon mountain side,” He does not note hi» toil; his excitement lends him the feet of the wild goat; he stands securely where at other times his foot would slip. He looks around for his sheep and seems to see neither crag nor chasm. “Shepherd, it is a terrible path by which you must descend into yonder gloomy valley.” It is not terrible to him: his only terror is lest his sheep should perish; he is taken up with that one fear, and nothing else. He leaps into danger, and escapes it by the one strong impulse which bears him on. It is grand to think of the Lord Jesus Christ with his heart set immovably upon the rescue of a soul which at this moment is lost to him.

It is an active search too; for observe, he goes after that which is lost, until he find it; and he does this with a personal search. He does not say to one of his underlings, “Here, hasten after that sheep which was lost, and bring it home.” No, he follows it himself. And if ever there is a soul brought from sin to grace, it is not by us poor ministers working alone, but it is by the Master himself, who goes after his own sheep. It is glorious to think of him still personally tracking sinners, who, though they fly from him with a desperateness of folly, yet are still pursued by him — pursued by the Son of God, by the Eternal Lover of men — pursued by him until he finds them.

For notice the perseverance of the search; “until he find it.” He does not stop till he has done the deed. You and I ought to seek after a soul, how long? Why, until we find it; for such is the model set before us by the Master. The parable says nothing about his not finding it; no hint of failure is given; we dream not that there may be a sheep belonging to him which he will never find. Oh, brethren, there are a great many whom you and I would never find; but when Jesus is after his own lost sheep, depend upon it such is his skill, so clearly doth he see, and so effectually doth he intervene, that he will surely bring them in. A defeated Christ I cannot conceive of. It is a personal search, and a persevering search, and a successful search, until he finds it. Let us praise and bless his name for this.

Observe that when the shepherd does find it, there is a little touch in the parable not often noticed, — he does not appear to put it back into the fold again: I mean, we do not find it so written, as a fact to be noted. I suppose he did so place it ultimately; but for the time being he keeps it with himself rather than with its fellows. The next scene is the shepherd at home, saving, “Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.” It looks as if Jesus did not save a soul so much to the church as to himself, and though the saved are in the flock, the {Greatest joy of all is that the sheep is with the shepherd. This shows you how thoroughly Christ lays himself out that he may save his people. There is nothing in Christ that does not tend towards cne salvation of his redeemed. There are no pull-backs with him, no half-consecrated influences which make him linger. In the pursuit of certain objects we lay out a portion of our faculties: but Jesus lays out all his powers upon the seeking and saving of souls.

The whole Christ seeks after each sinner; and when the Lord finds it, he .gives himself to that one soul as if he had but that one soul to bless. How my heart admires the concentration of all the Godhead and manhood of Christ in his search afcer each sheep of his flock.

III. Now, we must pass on very briefly to notice a third point We have had one subject of thought and one object of search; now we have ONR BURDEN OF LOVE. When the seeking is ended, then the saving appears, — “When he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.” Splendid action this! How beautifully the parable sets forth the whole of salvation. Some of the old writers delight to put it thus: in his incarnation he came after the lost sheep; in his life he continued to seek it; in his death he laid it upon his shoulders; in his resurrection he bore it on its way, and in his ascension he brought it home rejoicing. Our Lord’s career is a course of soul-winning, a life laid out for his people; and in it you may trace the whole process of salvation.

But now, see, the shepherd finds the sheep, and he layeth it on his shoulders. It is an uplifting action, raising the fallen one from the earth whereon he hath strayed. It is as though he took the sheep just as it was, without a word of rebuke, without delay or hesitancy, and lifted it out of the slough or the briers into a place of safety. Do you not remember when the Lord lifted you up from the horrible pit? when he sent from above, and delivered you, and became your strength? I shall never forget that day. What a wonderful lift it was for me when the Great Shepherd lifced me into newness of life. The Lord said of Israel, “I bare you on eagles’ wings;” but it is a dearer emblem still to be borne upon the shoulders of the incarnate Lord.

This laying on the shoulders was an appropriating act. He seemed to say, “You are my sheep, and therefore I lay you on my shoulders.” He did not make his claim in so many words, but by a rapid action he declared it: for a man does not bear away a sheep to which he has no right: this was not a sheep-stealer, but a shepherd-proprietor. He holds fast the sheep by all four of its legs, so that it cannot stir, and then he lays it on his own shoulders, for it is all his own now. He seems to say, “I am a long way from home, and [ am in a weary desert; but I have found my sheep, and these hands shall hold it.” Here are our Lord’s own words, “I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall any pluck them out of my hand.” Hands of such might as those of Jesus will hold fast the found one. Shoulders of such power as those of Jesus will safely bear the found one home. It is all well with that sheep, for it is positively and experimentally the Good Shepherd’s own, just as it always had been his in the eternal purpose of the Father. Do you remember when Jesus said unto you, “Thou art mine”? Then I know you also appropriated him, and began to sing —

“So I my best Beloved’s am,
And he is mine.”

More condescending still is another view of this act: it was a deed of service to the sheep. The sheep is uppermost, the weight of the sheep is upon the shepherd. The sheep rides, the shepherd is the burden-bearer. The sheep rests, the shepherd labours. “I am. among you as he that serveth,” said our Lord long ago. “Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” On that cross he bore the burden of our ein, and what is more, the burden of our very selves. Blessed he his name, “The Lord hath laid on him fhe iniquity of us all,” and he hath laid us on him, too, and he beareth us. Remember that choice Scripture: “In his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” Soul-melting thought, the Son of God became subservient to the sons of man! The Maker of heaven and earth bowed his shoulders to bear the weight of sinners.

It was a rest-giving act, very likely needful to the sheep which could go no further, and was faint and weary. It was a full rest to the poor creature if it could have understood it, to feel itself upon its shepherd’s shoulders, irresistibly carried back to safety. What a rest it is to you and to me t.o know that we are borne along by the eternal power and Godhead of the Lord Jesus Christ! “The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him, and he shall dwell between his shoulders.” The Christ upbears us to-day: we have no need of strength: our weakness is no impediment, for he bears us. Hath not the Lord said, “I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry and will deliver you”? We shall not even stumble, much less fall to ruin: the shepherd’s feet shall traverse all the road in safety. No portion of the way back should cause us fear, for he is able to bear us even to his home above. What a sweet word is that in Deuteronomy: “The Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went, until ye came into this place.” Blessed rest of faith, to give yourself up entirely to those hands and shoulders to keep and carry you even to’ the end! Let us bless and praise the Lord. The shepherd is consecrated to his burden: he bears nothing on his shoulders but his sheep; and the Lord Jesus seemeth to bear no burden but that of his people. He layeth out his omnipotence to save his chosen; having redeemed them first with price of blood, he redeems them still with all his power. “And they shall be mine, saith the Lord, in that day when I make up my jewels.” Oh the glorious grace of our unfailing Saviour, who consecrates himself to our salvation, and concentrates upon that object all that he has and is!

IV. We close by noticing one more matter, which is — THE ONE SOURCE OF JOY. This man who had lost his sheep is filled with joy, but his sheep is the sole source of it. His sheep has so taken up all his thought, and so commanded all his faculties, that as he found all his care centred upon it, so he now finds all his joy flowing from it.

I invite you to notice the first mention of joy we get here: “When he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.” “That is a great load for you, shepherd 1” Joyfully he answers, “I am glad to have it on my shoulders.” The mother does not say when she has found her lost child, “This is a heavy load.” No; she presses it to her bosom. She does not mind how heavy it is; it is a dear burden to her. She is rejoiced to bear it once again. “He layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.’1 Remember that text: “Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.” A great sorrow was on Christ when our load was laid on him; but a greater joy flashed into his mind when he thought that we were thus recovered from our lost estate. He said to himself, “I have taken them up upon my shoulders, and none can hurt them now, neither can they wander to destruction. I am bearing their sin, and they shall ne?er come into condemnation. The penalty of their guilt has been laid n me that it may never be laid on them. I am an effectual and efficient Substitute for them. I am bearing, that they may never bear, ray Father’s righteous ire.” His love to them made it a joy to feel every lash of the scourge of justice; his love to them made it a delight that the nails should pierce his hands and feet, and that his heart should be broken with the absence of his Father, God. Even “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,” when the deeps of its woe have been sounded, will be found to have pearls of joy in its caverns. No shout of triumph can equal that cry of grief, because our Lord joyed to bear even the forsaking of his Father for the sin of his chosen whom he had loved from before the foundation of the world. Oh, you cannot understand it except in a very feeble measure! Let us try to find an earthly miniature likeness. A son is taken ill far away from home. He is laid sick with a fever, and a telegram is sent home. His mother says she must go and nurse him; she is wretched till she can set out upon the journey. It is a dreary place where her boy lies, but for the moment it is the dearest spot on earth to her. She joys to leave the comforts of her home to tarry among strangers for the love of her boy. She feels an intense joy in sacrificing herself; she refuses to retire from the bedside, she will not leave her charge; she watches day and night, and only from utter exhaustion does she fall asleep. You could not have kept her in England, she would have been too wretched. It was a great, deep, solemn pleasure for her to be where she could minister to her own beloved. Soul, remember you have given Jesus great joy in his saving you. He was for ever with the Father, eternally happy, infinitely glorious, as God over all; but yet he must needs come hither out of boundless love, take upon himself our nature, and suffer in our stead to bring us back to holiness and God. “He layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.” That day the shepherd knew but one joy. He had found his sheep, and the very pressure of it upon his shoulders made his heart light, for he knew by that sign that the object of his care was safe beyond all question.

Now he goes home with it, and this joy of his was then so great that it filled his soul to overflowing. The parable speaks nothing as to his joy in getting home again, nor a word concerning the joy of being saluted by his friends and neighbours. No, the joy of having found his sheep eclipsed all other gladness of heart, and dimmed the light of home and friendship. He turns round to friends and neighbours and entreats them to help him to bear the weight of his happiness. He cries, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.” One sinner had repented, and all heaven must make holiday concerning it. Oh, brethren, there is enough joy in the heart of Christ over his saved ones to flood all heaven with delight. The streets of Paradise run knee-deep with the heavenly waters of the Saviour’s joy. They flow out of the very soul of Christ, and angels and glorified spirits bathe in the mighty stream. Let us do the same. We are friends if we are not neighbours. He calls us to-day to come and bring our hearts, like empty vessels, that he may fill them with his own joy, that our joy may be full. Those of us who are saved must enter into the joy of our Lord. When I was trying to think over this test I rejoiced with my Lord in the bringing in of each one of his sheep, for each one makes a heaven full of joy. But, oh to see all the redeemed brought in! Jesus would have no joy if he should lose one: it would seem to spoil it all. If the pur- ;pose of mercy were frustrated in any one instance it were a dreary defeat of the great Saviour. But his purpose shall be carried out in every instance. He “shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.” He shall not fail nor be discouraged. He shall carry out the will of the Father. He shall have the full reward of his passion. Let us joy and rejoice with him this morning!

But the text tells us there was more joy over that one lost sheep than over the ninety-and-nine that went not astray. Who are these just persons that need no repentance? Well, you should never explain a parable so as to make it run on four legs if it was only meant to go on two. There may not be such persons at all, and yet the parable may be strictly accurate. If all of us had been such persons, and had never needed repentance, we should not have given as much joy to the heart of Christ as one sinner does when he repents. But suppose it to mean you and me who have long ago repented — who have, in a certain sense, now no need of repentance, because we are justified men and women — we do not ;give so much joy to the heart of God, for the time being, as a sinner does when he first returns unto God. It is not that it is a good thing to go astray, or a bad thing to be kept from it. You understand how -that is: there are seven children in a family, and six of them are all well; but one dear child is taken seriously ill, and is brought near to the .gates of death. It has recovered, its life is spared, and do you wonder that for the time being it gives more joy to the household than all the healthy ones? There is more expressed delight about it a great deal than over all those that have not been ill at all. This does not show it is a good thing to be ill. No, nothing of the kind; we are only speaking of the joy which comes of recovery from sickness. Take another case: you have a son who has been long away in a far country, and another son at home. You love them both equally, but when the absent son comes home he is for a season most upon your thoughts. Is it not natural that it should be so? Those at home give us joy constantly from day to day, but when the stream of joy has been dammed back by his absence, it pours down in a flood upon his return. Then we have -“high days and holy days’’ and “bonfire nights.”

There are special circumstances about repentance and conversion which produce joy over a restored wanderer. There was a preceding Borrow, and this sets off the joy by contrast. The shepherd was so touched with compassion for the lost sheep, that now his sorrow is inevitably turned into joy. He suffered a dreadful suspense, and that is a killing thing; it is like an acid eating into the soul That suspense which makes one ask, Where is the sheep? Where can it be? is a piercing of the heart. All those weary hours of searching, and seeking, and following are painfully wearing to the heart. You feel as if you would almost sooner know that you never would find it than be in that doubtful state of mind. That suspense when it is ended naturally brings with it a sweet liberty of joy. Moreover, you know that the joy over penitents is so unselfish that you who have been kept by the grace of God for many years do not grieve that there should be more joy over a repenting smner than over you. No, you say to yourself, “There is good cause. I am myself among those who are glad.” You remember that good men made great rejoicing over you when you first came to Jesus; and you heartily unite with them in welcoming new comers. You will not act the elder brother, and say I will not share the joy of my Father. Not a bit of it; but you will enter heartily into the music and dancing, and count it your heaven to see souls saved from hell. I feel a sudden flush and flood of delight when I meet with a poor creature who once lay at hell’s dark door, but is now brought to the gate of heaven. Do not you?

The one thing I want to leave with you is how our gracious Lord seems to give himself up to his own redeemed. How entirely and perfectly every thought of his heart, every action of his power, goes toward “the needy, guilty, lost soul. He spends his all to bring back his banished. Poor souls who believe in him have his whole strength engaged on their behalf. Blessed be his name! Now let all our hearts go forth in love towards him, who gave all his heart to work our redemption. Let us love him. We cannot love him ashe loved us as to measure; but let us do so in like manner. Let uslove him with all our heart and soul. Let us feel as if we saw nothing, knew nothing, loved nothing save Jesus crucified. As we filled all hi» heart let him fill all our hearts!

Oh, poor sinner, here to-day, will you not yield to the Good Shepherd? Will you not stand still as he draws near? “Will you not submit to his mighty grace? Know that your rescue from sin and death must be of him, and of him alone. Breathe a prayer to him, — “Come, Lord, I wait for thy salvation! Save me, for I trust in thee.” If thou dost thus pray, thou hast the mark upon thee of Christ’s sheep, for he eaith, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” Come to him, for he comes to you. Look to him for he looks to you.

3Hcti(aplitan SH

OUE GREAT SHEPHERD FINDING THE SHEEP.

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, JANUARY 2?TH, 1889,

DELIVERED BY

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
On Lords-day Evening, March 25th, 1883.

“Until he find it. ... And when he hath found it. ... And when he coraeth home.” — Luke xv. 4, 5, 6.

THE love of Jesus, the Great Shepherd, is very practical and active. There is a sheep lost, and the Lord regrets it; but his love does not spend itself in regrets; he arises, and goes forth to seek and to save that which was lost. The love of Jesus Christ is love not in word only, but in deed and in truth. The love of Jesus is prevenient. He does not wait until the sheep is willing to return, or until it makes some attempt to come back; but no sooner is its lost estate known to the Shepherd than he starts off, that he may find that which was lost. The love of Jesus to the lost sheep is pre-eminent. He leaves the ninety-and-nine in their pasturage; and for a while forgets them, that all his heart, his eye, his strength may be given to the one that has gone astray. 0 sweet love of Christ, so practical, so pre-eminent, so prevenient! Let us ask for grace that we may imitate it, especially those of us who are called to be shepherds of men.

Among God’s people most of the saints have a charge to watch over. However little the flock may be, even if it be restricted to our own family, or to the little class that gathers about us on the Sabbath, yet we are all our brother’s keeper in some measure. Let us learn the love of Christ, that we may be wise in shepherdry. Let us not talk about our friends, and say we love them; but let us show it by earnest, personal, speedy endeavours to do them good. Let us not wait until we see some goodness in them — until they seek after instruction. But

“Oh, come, let us go and find them,
In the paths of death they roam.”

And long before they have a thought of coming home, let us be on their track, eager to grasp them, if by any means we may save some. Oh, to have in our hearts such love of souls that it engrosses us so that we forget earthly needs, and only remember this yet higher necessity! It is a good house, said St. Bernard, in which Martha has to complain of Mary — where gracious pursuits put other work in the background. It is a choice crime that men should even grow lax about their lower business for a while, that they may devote their chief energy to the saving of the lost sheep.

Let that stand as an introduction. May we see the love of Jesus, as Bernard saw it, and we shall have had sermon enough.

In my text there are three periods to which I call your attention.

I. Christ, the Good Shepherd, first seeks the lost sheep “UNTIL HE FIND IT.’’ Just put a mark under those words. That is our first head — “Until he find it.” It is a long reach “Until he find it.”

I like the expression. The Lord Jesus did not come down to earth to make an attempt to find men, but he came to do it, and he did it. He tarried here, seeking the lost sheep till he found it: he never gave over till his work was done. At this hour, in his work of grace amongst his chosen, he does not make an attempt at their salvation, and suffer defeat; but he keeps at soul-seeking work until he find it.

Look at the seeking shepherd: he is looking for the sheep. Notice his anxious countenance “until he find it.” We read that after he found it he rejoiced; but there is no rejoicing until he find it. He is all excitement, quick of ear to catch the faintest sound, for it may be the bleating of his lost sheep. His eyes are like the eyes of eagles. He saw something stir in the bracken yonder, and he will be there in a bound or two; he is so eager. No: it was a mistake. It was not the sheep; perhaps it was some frightened fox. He climbs a cairn, and from the top of it he looks all around. I was about to say that he looks with ears and eyes together. He puts his whole soul into the organs of watchfulness, if peradventure he may discern the sheep. Is there a smile on his face? Ah, no! not “until he find it.” His whole soul is in his eyes and ears until he find it. This is a faint yet true picture of that Great Shepherd who came here to seek his flock. So the evangelists have drawn him in their pen-and-ink sketches of him — always watchful; spending night and day, in prayers, and tears, and entreaties; never more to have a joy until he find the lost one. Then, when he did find a single sheep, finding his meat and his drink in it, and becoming refreshed from the fact that he has so far accomplished his beloved work. The great Shepherd is all energy, care, and concentration of thought concerning his sheep, “until he find it.”

There is no hesitating with Jesus. The sheep is lost, and the news is brought to the shepherd; he girds his loose robe about him, and is on the way. He knows within a little which way that stray sheep will go, and he is on its track at once, though he knows that he must mark that track with his blood. See the blessed shepherd pressing on: there is no pausing nor resting “until he find it.” He has made up his mind that no sheep of his shall be lost, and he hies over hill and dale after the wanderer until he find it.

If you look into that shepherd’s face, there is no trace of anger there. He does not say, “Oh, that I should be worried with this silly sheep thus going astray!” No thought is there but that of anxious love. It is all love, and nothing else but love, before he finds and until he finds it; and you may be sure that careful tenderness will

OUE GllEAT SHEPHERD FINDING THE SHEEP. 39

bo in full action after he has found it. He is looking with anxious eye of love. “As I live,” saith the Lord, “I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but that he should turn unto me and live.” “Until he find it” there will be no thought of anxiety, but a fulnesa of pitying care for the lost sheep.

And, mark, there is no giving up. That sheep has wandered now for many hours. The sun has risen, and the sun has set; or, at least it is just going down; but as long as the shepherd can see, and the yheep is still alive, he will pursue it “antil he find it.” He has been disappointed a great many times; and when he thought that he should have found it, he has missed it; but still, he will never give it up. He is impelled onward by irresistible love, and he must continue his weary search until he find it. It was precisely so with our Lord Jesus Christ. When he came after you and after me, we ran from him, but he pursued us: we hid from him, but he discovered us: he had almost grasped us, but so long as we eluded him he still pursued with love unwearied until he found us. Oh, if he had given up after the first ten years — if he had ceased to care for some of us after fifty different occasions in which we had choked conscience and quenched the Spirit, then we should have been lost. But he would not be turned away. If he determines to save, he continues to pursue the rambling sheep until he find it. He cannot, he must not, he will not, cease from the work of seeking and of finding til) he find it. I wish to-night that the time were come with some here that it should be said, “The Saviour did pursue such and such a one until he found him — found him in the Tabernacle, and ended all his wanderings there — found him standing in yonder gallery, and ended all his wanderings at the * foot of the cross.’” God grant that it may be so! but whether it be so with you or not, be ye sure of this — that the Lord Jesus has in hundreds and thousands of cases pursued sinners with unflagging mercy, leaping to them over hills of sin, and following them till he has found them. We are now his for ever and ever, for he who has found us will never lose us. Blessed be his name!

Learn this lesson before I pass on. If ever you are seeking the conversion of any man follow him up until you find him. Do not be discouraged. Put up with a great many rebuffs and rebukes: you will have him yet. He is surest to succeed who cannot be put off from his aim. From some it will be necessary to receive a great deal that is most discouraging. Receive it, and say nothing about it; only whisper to yourself, “I might well have put the Great Shepherd off from caring for me, and yet was not so turned aside. If he persevered with me even to the death, I may well persevere as long as I live in seeking and finding a soul. I have heard of wives who have pleaded with God for their husbands twenty years; and yet have seen them converted after all. There are instances in this place in which indefatigable love has followed up ungodly relatives until they have at last been saved by sovereign grace. Persevere with loving entreaties! Till you bury your unsaved ones, do not consider them dead; and do not bury them spiritually till they are dead really. Some are easily baffled. They have written the death-warrant of their friend by ceasing to pray for him, and yet that death-warrant will never be written in the records of heaven, for their friend will be brought to the Saviour’s feet.

“Until he find it.” Now nail your colours to the mast. “Until he find it.” Go out, ye under- shepherds for Christ. Wear this motto on your right hand. “Until I find it.” Live or die, or work or suffer, whether the time be short or long, or the way be smooth or rough, let each one of you be bound to seek a soul “until he find it.” You will find it then, even as Christ found you. There I leave that first point.

II. .And now we come to the second — “AND WHEN HE HATH FOUND IT.’’ When he has found it, what does he do then? Well, first, he takes fast hold. “He layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing.” So when he has found it, the first thing is to get a tight grip of it. See him: he has got close up to the sheep. The poor thing is spent, and yet may have strength enough to get away, therefore the shepherd takes good care that he shall ’ not. He grasps his legs and holds him tight. That is what the Lord Jesus does when at last he gets a man broken down under a sense of sin, spent and worn out as to further resistance of divine mercy. Our Lord gets such a grip of the rebel that he will never get away any more. I remember when he laid hold of me. He has never lost his grasp even to this day. But, oh, it was a grasp! Nothing ever gripped my fickle mind like the hand of Christ. When the divine hand, which fixed the foundations of the earth, had fixed itself on me, my wanderings were ended once for all.

The next thing after the fast hold was the gracious lift. He lifted this poor sheep up and put it on his shoulders, and there it was with all its weight, carried by powerful shoulders. That is what the Saviour does for poor weary sinners. He carries the weight of their sin, nay the weight of themselves. He takes us just as we are, and instead of driving us back by his law, he carries us home by his love. Instead of urging us to go home, he becomes the great burden-bearer of his redeemed, and bears them on his shoulders. And now you have before you one of the loveliest of portraits that ever imagination can sketch — that great crowned Shepherd of the sheep, King of kings and Lord of lords, bearing on his shoulders, as a burden he delights to carry, the sheep that had gone astray. Oh, I pray God that you may lie on those broad shoulders if you never have been so favoured. The shoulders of omnipotence bearing up our weakness — the mighty Saviour bearing us and all our sin and all our care, and our whole being upon the shoulders of his strength — this is a sight for angels.

And as he thus carries the weight, observe that the distance is removed. We read in the next verse, “When he cometh home,” but there is nothing said about the road; for somehow our Master has the knack of being at home at once. The sinner may weary himself by twenty years of sin, but in five minutes that may all be gone. It may have taken you fifty years to make yourself such a hell-deserving sinner as you are, but it will not take Jesus fifty ticks of the clock to wash you and make you whiter than snow, and to get you back into the great Father’s house. Truth to tell, the Shepherd’s redeeming work is done already” How dreadful was the hour, When God our wanderings laid, And did at once his vengeance pour Upon our Shepherd’s head!

•’ How glorious was the grace,
When Christ sustained the stroke!
His life and blood the Shepherd pays,
A ransom for the flock.”

By that redeeming process he brought us near to God.

There is no weary journey back for Shepherd or sheep. He grasps the sheep; he puts it on his shoulders, and they are both back at the fold.

But the particular point I want you to notice is when the great Shepherd gets this burden on his back. We read, “When he hath found it he layeth. it upon his shoulders” — with great anxiety? Look to see whether it is so. Nothing of the sort. But is it not, “He layeth it on his shoulders with great weariness”? No. See! See! “He layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing — rejoicing” He does not remember all the weariness that he has had to suffer. He does not think of the folly of his sheep in having lost good pasture, in having involved itself in so much danger, and in costing him so much labour. Not a word is mentioned of it. “He layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing.” He says to himself, “I am glad to carry this burden: happy to carry my lost sheep home.” And oh! I do love to picture to myself at this moment the joy in the heart of the blessed Christ. “For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame.” And now, whenever he gets a lost sheep to carry back — he rejoices. His heart leaps within him. All anxiety is gone. Fulness of delight is upon him. “He layeth it upon his shoulders rejoicing.” I wonder whether the sheep could see that the Shepherd rejoiced. I do not suppose that it could; but it could feel it. There are two ways, you know, of handling a sheep, and the sheep very soon knows which expresses pleasure on its owner’s part; at any rate, I am sure that a dog knows well enough what your movements mean. If you speak angrily to a sheep, and throw it upon your shoulder with indignation, that is one thing; but if you have not a word to say, except it be, “Poor thing, I am glad I have found you,” and you cast it on your shoulders rejoicing, why, sheep as it is, it knows the difference. At any rate, I know that Christ has a way of saving us: oh, so gently, so lovingly, so gleefully, that he makes us happy in being saved. There is a way of turning a penny into stone or into gold according to the way in which you give it to a poor man. You can fling it at him as if he were a dog, and he will be about as grateful to you as a dog, or not so much. But there is a way in which you can say, “I am sorry for your needs. This is all I can afford you now. Take it, and do what you can with it.” Given with a brotherly look, it will be gratefully received, and made the most of. There is much in the manner, as well as in the matter of a gift. The mannerism of Christ is grandly gracious: he saves us rejoicingly. It is a matter of thanksgiving to him when he gets hold of his lost sheep, and gets it on his shoulders. It makes me glad to think that it is so. We are not saved by a grudging Christ, who seems as if he were weary of us, and must save us out of hand, to get rid of us. He does not act with us as some rude surgeon might do who says, “I will attend to you directly, but I have plenty else to do, and you gratis patients are a trouble.” Nor does he roughly set the bone. No; Jesus comes, and, as with a lady’s dainty hand, he moulds the dislocated joint; and when he sets it, there is bliss even about the method of the setting. We look into his face, and we see that he puts his tenderest sympathy into each movement. You know the different ways which workmen have. Some kind of work a man is soon sick of. The principle of division of labour is a very admirable one for the production of results upon a large scale; but it is a miserable business for the workman to have to do the same thing over and over again, all day long, as if he were an automaton. Get a man at work at a. statue — an artist whose whole soul is in his chisel, who knows that there is a bright spirit within that block of marble, and who means to chip off all that hides the lovely image from his sight. See how he works! No man does a thing well

who does it sorrowfully. The best work that can be, is done by the happy, joyful workman; and so it is with Christ. He does not save souls as of necessity — as though he would rather do something else if he might; but his very heart is in it, he rejoices to do it, and therefore he does it. thoroughly, and he communicates his joy to us in the doing of it.

Now, learn a lesson before I go away to the third point. l ‘When he hath found it.” Suppose that any of you should very soon meet with a poor troubled sinner, anxious to come to Christ. When you. have found him, let me recommend you to imitate the Master’s example: get a tight grip of him. Do not let him slip. Get a hold of him; and then, if he is in trouble, take all that trouble upon yourself. Try whether you cannot get him upon your shoulders. Imitate your Master in that way. Try to bear all his burden for him, as Christ bore yours. Conduct him to the Christ who is the true burden-bearer; and all the while be very happy about it. I do not think we ought to go and talk to young converts in a dreadfully solemn tone, as though it would be something horrible to find a Saviour. They will never come again, you may depend upon it. They will give you a wide berth. But just go, and in a joyful spirit say, “I am so glad to find you caring about your soul.” The best thing that can happen to a soul-seeker is to meet with a troubled conscience ;. show that you think so. “But,” say you, “I have not the time.” Always have time, even in the middle of the night, to see a poor conscience-stricken sinner. But perhaps you are very weary, or not well. If I were weary I should not be weary any longer when I came across a lost sheep; and if I were ill, I would get well on purpose to see after a sin-sick sinner. Talk in that way, with sweet and pleasant encouragement, for this is the way to help your brother sinner to the Saviour.

My time has gone, but just a few words more on this last point.

III. “WHEN HE COMETH HOME.” “When he comethhome, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.”

Some hurried observations. First, heaven is a home. “When he cometh home “; and the next verse says that it is heaven. Heaven is a home. Do you not like to think of it under that aspect? It is the home of Jesus; and if it is the home of Jesus can any other home be equal to it? “When he cometh home.”

Note, next, that lost ones are known in heaven. I give you that thought more from the Greek than from the English here. “When he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep — the lost one.” That is how it should run. It is as if the friends knew that one had been lost, and the loss had been deplored: and the shepherd says, “I have found my sheep: you know -which one — the lost one.” Up there they know which are Christ’s sheep, and which are lost. Heaven is nearer earth than some of us dream. How long does it take to get there?

“One gentle sigh the spirit breaks:
We scarce can say, ‘He’s gone,’
Before the ransomed spirit takes
Its mansion near the throne.”

And there are more communications between earth and heaven than some folk dream; for here it is clear that when the shepherd came home he said to them, “I have found the sheep,” the lost one. So they knew all about it. It is evident, again, that they all knew there that the shepherd had gone after the sheep, for he says, “I have found my sheep which was lost.” They all knew that he had gone on search, and therefore they could all understand his joy when he came back with the sheep. I believe that they know in heaven when Christ is seeking after anyone. It must be a great satisfaction to some up there who die with an unconverted son, or an unconverted girl, to know, after a little while, son or daughter is converted to Christ. I am persuaded they know it. They cannot help knowing it, because they are Christ’s friends and neighbours, and, according to the parable, he tells them, and he says to them, “Rejoice with me “; and if he says, “Rejoice with me,” why, of course, he tells them why. You don’t think that Jesus ever invited a spirit before the throne to rejoice with him, and received for answer, “I cannot do it, for I know no cause for joy.” If I had been converted after my mother’s death, I can fancy that when Jesus said to all of them, “Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep, the lost one,” my mother would say, “My Lord, I can rejoice more than any of them, for that was my boy, and he is saved at last.” Your mother in glory will be twice glorified to-night, John, if you give your heart to Christ; and I pray that you may. Your father, now before the throne, will think that paradise has grown more paradisiac than ever if he hears it whispered down the golden streets that the wanderer has come home.

Notice, next, very briefly, ilioi Jesus Christ loves other people to rejoice with him, so that, when he finds a sinner, he has so much love in his heart that his joy runs over, and he cries to others,” Come, friends, come neighbours, come and help me to be glad, for I have saved.

another soul.” Let us catch the blessed infection. If you have just heard of somebody being saved, be glad about it. Though you do not know the person, yet be glad about it, because Jesus is glad.

Notice, next, that repentance is regarded as coming home. This sheep was not in heaven. No, but as soon as it had been brought into the fold it is described as repenting; and Jesus and the angels begin to rejoice over it. If a man truly repents, and Christ saves him, it is clear that he never will be lost. A certain old proverb forbids us to count our chickens till they are hatched; and I do not think that angels would do so in the case of immortal souls. If they believed that repenting sinners might afterwards be lost, they would not ring the marriage bells just yet, but they would wait a while to see how things went on. If they can yet perish there is not one convert that the angels dare rejoice over; for if any child of God might fall away and perish, why not every one of us? If any one falls from grace, I fear I shall. 0 my brother, do you not fear the same for yourself? “No,” say you, “I don’t think so.” Well, then, you are a proud fellow, and you are the most likely one to desert your Lord. If ever a sheep of Christ’s shall fall away, I shall. I see more of my own tendencies to wander, and more of my own temptations to offend than I do of yours. I would not have the angels rejoice over a man because he repents, if repentance be only a sign of human improvement, and noo a token of heavenly love. I would say, “Stop, ye angels; for thia man may go back, and perish after all, if, according to the modern gospel Christ loves to-day and hates to-morrow, and a child of God may jet be a child of the devil.” I do not believe a word of such doctrine. I believe that where the Lord begins the good work of grace he will carry it on, and perfect it; and when the Lord has once given to a man to know him, he will see that he is preserved in that knowledge for fever. There is a text that clenches it: “I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” Now, if they have eternal life, it cannot come to an end; for eternal life is eternal, evidently; and if they have eternal life, the Shepherd and his friends may justifiably sing when one single possessor of that eternal life is brought to life and salvation. In the penitent man a work is done that never can be undone; and he is put where he never can be lost. Yes,

“I to the end shall endure,

As sure as the earnest is given;
More happy, but not more secure.
Are the glorified spirits in heaven.”

Sing away, angels! There is something to sing about now; and we will join with you in blessing and praising- the unchanging God for <ever and for ever. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON — Luke xv.

HYMNS FROM “OuR OWN HYMN BOOK” — 421, 257, 373.