Lines of Circumvallation
“A troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last.” — Genesis xlix., 19.
MY text speaks of a tribe who were often discomfited in battle, yet were at last victorious. But the words may be used as graphically descriptive of the defeat of Christ, to be followed by his successes.
When Christ’s chin dropped upon his breast in death, the world shouted in triumph. Driven as he has been from the heart, from the social circle, from literature, from places of influence, the world gazes now upon what seems to be a vanquished Redeemer. But he shall yet rally his forces, and, though now overcome by other troops, he shall overcome at the last.
When a city is about to be besieged, lines of circumvallation are run out; in half circles the fortifications sweep around: the first line fifteen miles out; the second, ten miles; the next, five; the next, one mile out. The attacking host first takes the outworks, then a line nearer, coming on up until the embankment nearest the city is captured.
Now, the human heart is defending itself against Christ, and it has run out four or five lines of cir cumvallation, and they must one by one be taken,, so that Christ may overcome at the last and the heart surrender. You know how men fight when they contend in battle for their wives and children. There are lightnings in their eye, and every finger is a spear, and their shout is like the voice of a whirlwind. You know how men fight when they contend for their country. The men of O’Brien, sick and wounded in the hospitals, as the battle came on, asked that they might be brought out, that stakes might be driven in the ground, and that they might be lashed fast to the stakes, so that with their one free arm they might contend for their country. And so it was done; though unable to stand alone, they were lashed fast to stakes, and fought to the death.
But the fiercest battle ever fought is between the un¬ regenerated heart and Christ. Before I get through with the sermon I will illustrate my meaning.
Forward, ye troops of God, and take the line of fortification farthest out, which is — prejudice against ministers and churches. There are men who, for various reasons, do not believe in these things, and from that outward intrenchment contend against Christ. My reply to this is, seek out a church and a minister that you do like. That is the religious advantage that men have in large towns that they have nowhere else; they may have their pick — high churches and low churches, rich churches and poor churches, aristocratic churches and democratic churches, pew -renting churches and free churches, Calvinistic churches and Arminian churches, ministers white and black, learned and ignorant, fantastic and plain, old and young, manuscript-reading. and extemporaneous, some wearing fine gowns and others a very poor coat, ministers argumentative or figurative, ministers statistical or poetical.
Look over the whole list of churches and clergymen, and I think that you will find one good enough for your.
soul. Keep, if you will, your prejudice against all other institutions, but love that one. To some of you I commend the Episcopalian liturgy as the best; to others, the informal worship of the Methodists. Some of you had better be sprinkled, and others had better go down to be dipped in the flood. To some of you I commend a church where the music is led by a precentor, and all the people join in the singing; to others, a church where four persons stand in the loft and conduct the music, and during the dull passages in prayer and sermon write sentimental notes or eat philopenas. Amid all the denominations there must be one place where your soul will be blessed. This very church, to some of you, shall be the way to heaven, and through this one break in the long fortification of your prejudice I press through with the battle-cry of the Cross, feeling that, though these prejudices have been the troop that overcame Christ, he shall overcome at the last!
Forward, ye troops of God, to the next intrenchment! It is a circumvallation of social influences. There are hundreds of people here to-night whose surroundings in the world are adverse to the Christian religion. The first step that yonder man makes toward heaven will call forth a volley of criticism and caricature. Many of their friends in the world would as soon be shot as be seen on their knees praying. The whole atmosphere is as uncongenial to religion as a northern clime is to pine-apples and bananas. If that y7oung man should become a Christian and go back to the store, they would accost him with, “John, how is your soul? Come, now, give us a prayer. Suppose you will have nothing to do with such sinners as we.‘ What is. the news from heaven? What!
LINES OF CIIiCUMVALLATION. getting red in the face? Not mad, I hope? Christians ought not to get mad. What a saint you are! I suppose you are almost ready for translation!” Sunday nights your friends play cards, drink wine, and smoke cigars, and in all the round of your associates the name of God is never used save in profanity.
The long, high, mighty breastwork of social influences — how shall grace ever take it? For which one of these ungodly friends will you send when you are dying? They could sit up with you, and pour out the medicines, and shake up your hot pillow, but could they ad¬ minister any comfort for the soul? As the waves of the Jordan begin to lick your feet, will they be able to say any thing to strengthen? If, in some awful spasm of physical suffering, you should ask them to pray, do you think they would know how to do it? Will they crowd the room, and keep out the last enemy? What single thing can they do for you when heart and flesh shall fail? When the trumpet sounds, do you want to rise with them in their resurrection? Do you think they will put on the coronations of heaven? If not, do not let them hinder you now. If they do nothing for you in death, judgment, or eternity, it is high time you look¬ ed for help in some other direction. Howland Hill, one night, on his way to church, found two men at a lamp-post, talking. One said to the other, “Let us go down to-night and hear old Howland Hill, and we will have some fine sport.” Howland Hill took his place in the pulpit, and the two men he had heard talking on the street came into the gallery and sat quite near to the pul¬ pit. Howland Hill went on to describe the horrors of a sinner’s death-bed, and then turned around to these men
in the gallery and said, “That will be fine sport for you.” He then spoke of the judgment day — the day for which all others were made — of how some would come up rejoicing, and others wailing; and then turned around to these men in the gallery and said, “That will be fine sport for you.” He then spoke of the long eternity, ages on ages rolling — the eternity of the destroyed — no light, no promise, no hope; then turned to the men in the gallery and said, “That will be fine sport for you.” The two had been leading each other on in sin. Where one went, the other went. If your most intimate friend goes to heaven, you will probably go to heaven; if your most intimate friend goes to hell, you probably will go to hell.
Evil companionship has destroyed innumerable men. Through this high battlement no human force can break, but oh! that the Lord Jesus might storm it to-night. Give up your scoffing associates, or give up God and heaven. These friends may get you into perdition, but they can not get you out. Christ never entered a man’s soul who was not willing to give up unsanctified companionship. If five hundred of you are unsaved, it will be because of your wrong surroundings. The artillery of God comes thundering on: will you surrender? This second fortress must be taken. Lord Jesus, now scale the wTall! He mounts the steep! He who has been so often overcome has overcome at the last!
Forward, ye troops of God, to the third line of intrenchment, namely, the intellectual difficulties about religion. A hundred perplexities about the parables; a hundred questions about the ninth chapter of Romans; passage set against passage in seeming contradiction.
You pile up a battlement of Colenso on the Pentateuch, and Tom Paine’s Age of Reason, and Renan’s Life of Christ; and some parts of the wall are so high that it would be folly to attempt to take them. But there is a hole in the wall of fortification, and through that hole in the wall I put my right hand, and take your own, and say, “My brother, do you want to be saved?” And you say “Yes.” “Well; Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which is lost. Wilt thou let him in — the bruised One of the Cross? He will take away all thy sins and all thy sorrows. In one half hour he will give thee more peace than thou hast had in all the twenty years of thy questioning and doubting!” Let the great guns of Colenso and Renan blaze away. Christ comes not to the gate of your head, but to the door of your heart, and, tapping gently against it, he says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Whosoever will open to me, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me.”
Skepticism seems to do quite wTell in prosperity, but it fails in adversity. A celebrated infidel, on shipboard, in the sunshine, caricatured the Christian religion, and scoffed at its professors. But the sea arose, and the waves dashed across the hurricane-deck, and the man cried out, “O my God, what shall I do? what shall I do?” A father went down to see his dying son in a Southern hospital during the war. Finding that the boy was dying, he went to the chaplain and said, “I wish you would go and see my boy, and get him prepared for the future.” “Why,” said the chaplain, “I thought you did not believe in religion!” “Well,” said he, “I don’t, but his mother does; and I would a
great deal rather the boy would follow his mother. Go and get him prepared.” Skepticism does tolerably well to live by, but it is a poor thing to die by. The fortification of your soul this hour gives way; and the Christ, who seemed to have been overcome by argument, and by profound questions, and elaborate analysis, now, by the force of love, overcomes at the last!
Forward, ye troops of light, to the next circumvallation of the heart, namely, pernicious habit. I do not believe that it is necessary to be a teetotaler in order to be a Christian (although I wish all were teetotalers), but I do say that a man who is excessive in the use of strong drink can not love Christ. He will not dispute with you the supremacy of the bottle. The appetite is to-day the mightiest barrier against God. There are men who would rather brave eternity, unpardoned, than give up their bondage. They have been throwing up this embankment of evil habit for five, ten, or twenty years, until it is very high and very great. Temperance societies, grand as they are, will not capture it. Christ, the Son of God, alone can take the fortification. This night he beats mightily against it. Some years ago, when the cholera was raging in Hew Orleans, a steamer near nightfall put out from the city, laden with passengers escaping from the pestilence. The steamer had been but a little while out when the engineer fell at his post with cholera. The captain, in despair, went up and down among the passengers, asking if there were any one there who could act as engineer. A man stepped out, and said that he was an engineer, and could take the position. In the night the captain was awakened by a violent motion of the steamer, and he knew that there was
LINES OF Clli CUMVALLA TION. great peril ahead. He went up, and found that the engineer was a maniac; that he had fastened down the safety-valves; and he told the captain that he was the emissary of Satan, commissioned to drive that steamer to hell. By some strategy, the man was got down in time to save the steamer. There are men engineered by maniac passions, sworn to drive them to temporal and everlasting destruction. Every part of their nature trembles under the high pressure. Nothing but the grace of Almighty God can bring down those passions, and chain them. A little while longer in this course, and all is lost.
Whatever be the form of evil habit, Christ is able fully and finally to deliver that man. Though he be eaten up with dissipations; though he be sunk to the lowest depths of shame; though every physical, mental, and spiritual force be crippled, Christ will make him a whole man, and lift him to usefulness and respectability here, and to glory hereafter.
I have heard men spoken of as so far gone that they could not be rescued. I denounce the horrible infidel¬ ity. The Lord’s arm is omnipotent, and the worst wretch that ever crawled into the ditch would no more puzzle or confound God than the case of the most elegant and polished sinner that ever came to him.
Lay hold of that Almighty arm, oh ye dying captives! Notwithstanding all your past misdoings, there is no need that you miss heaven; there is grace enough to save * every one of you; not merely letting you escape by the skin of your teeth, but giving you an abundant entrance into the kingdom of our Lord. The feet of God’s host are already at the foot of the wall. They come on with the blood-stained flag of the cross. They mount the
steep. Under their drawn sword thy evil passions go down. Where sin abounded, grace does much more abound. Victory over thy sin! Victory through the Lord Jesus Christ! Through many a long year thy appetites overcame him, but he has overcome at the last!
Forward, ye troops of light, to the last and the mightiest line of fortification — thejpride and the rebellion of the natural heart. This intrenchment must be taken, or all the rest of the contest is lost. This is the crisis of the battle.
Sometimes the besieging army, finding the intrenchments high and strong, swing around in the rear, escape the fortifications, and flank the city, taking it with but little resistance. So God’s grace, leaving all the long embankments of prejudice, and social influence, and intellectual perplexities, and bad habits, comes around and falls upon the heart first, and that captured by a flank movement, all the fortifications surrender. Your heart taken for Christ, your bad habits fall, your mental difficulties fly, and in one struggle your entire nature is redeemed. To-night God’s grace goes around all the other embankments, and for the present lets them stand, and with its stout fist pounds against your heart’s castle. You say that the locks have been so long fast, and the bolts are so rusty, and the hinges so unused that you can not open the door. Then stand back for a moment, * while, taking the Cross for a battering-ram, We try with it to drive down the door and let Christ come in.
Oh! yours is a sinning heart, and Christ alone can cleanse it. Yours is a proud heart, and Christ alone can humble it. Yours is a rebellious heart, and Christ alone can subdue it.
The Captain of our salvation calls up before your soul all his troops of mercy and grace. Hold out no longer against the forces that would take thee in the name of thy King. By thy hard-heartedness, and rebellion, and sin, .thou hast ten thousand times overcome thy best Friend, but shall it not be told in heaven to-night that he has overcome at the last f
Throw open every door, and ward, and closet of your heart to the conquering Jesus. Be not like Hiram, the king, who contributed toward the building of the Temple of God at Jerusalem, while at the same time he was help¬ ing to construct the temples of Hercules. Your heart swept clean of the last idol, let Christ have full possession. Charge upon this most important fortress, oh ye troops of God; Let the Holy Spirit push against it with heaviest warnings! Let Sinai open its cannonade of thunders! Beat against the door with shouts of heaven and groans of hell! Let all the memories of a Christian father’s prayer and a pious mother’s love put their shoulders against the panel! Back with the door! It must go in! Open, oh long-closed heart! It must finally sur¬ render or fall under the ten thousand booming batteries of judgment and eternity.
But the day of thy grace is almost past. The sun is dipping below the mountains. The fiery sky foretells the storm. The chill in the air prophesies a night of blackness and darkness. What you do you had better do quickly.
A gentleman, wandering along on the beach of Scot¬ land, where the high rocks came near the sea, was un¬ mindful of the fact that the tide was rising, which would cut off his retreat. A man on the top of the rocks shout-LINES OF CIRCUMYALLATION.
ed “Hallo! the tide is rising, and this is the last place through which you can make your escape; you had better climb up on to the rocks.” The man laughed at the warning and went on. After a while he thought it was time to return; he came back and found retreat cut off. He tried to scale the rocks; he clambered half way up — could get no farther. The wave came to his feet — came to his waist — came to his chin, and with a wild shriek for help he perished.
The tides of eternity are rising. Those only will be saved who get on to the Hock of Ages; yet men saunter along in their sin and play in the sand. We come out and shout, “Hallo! hallo! the tide is rising.” They laugh at our excitement, and say that there is no danger. After a while they resolve to return, but it is too late. The waters of eternal destruction gather about their feet; they try to climb, but get no farther than the foot of the rock, and, with eyes rolling in horror, and hands flung up, and a shriek of despair that rolls among the mountains of death with long-reverberating echo, they drop forever.
Lord God, keep us from such a catastrophe!
A surgeon, wounded at Gettysburg, told me that he lay helpless upon the heights, looking down upon the battle. He saw the fate of the nation wavering back¬ ward and forward — now one army seeming to conquer, now the other. The scene was grand and overwhelming.
I stand on the heights of Zion to-night, and I see your eternal destinies being decided in battle. Some of you have charged upon Christ with all the sins and prejudices of your lifetime. He is falling back and falling back; you have wounded him in the brow; you have wounded him in the hands; you have wounded him in the feet; you have wounded him in the heart.. He falls in his own blood, -while your iniquities stamp upon him and cry, “We will not have this man to reign over us!” In the words of the text, you have overcome him. But now I see him rising up. In the strength of his almighty love he comes at you. Armed by memories of Bethlehem and Golgotha, he passes on toward you. With weapons of sacrifice and invitations of glory he attacks thy soul, and it falls back and falls back until, able to retreat no longer, it throws out its arms to receive him, and all the spectators on the sky battlements clap their hands and rejoice that Jesus, who was before overcome by a troop, has overcome at the last!