Covenant Blessings

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

This verso occurs in one of the Psalms, the Hallelujah, commencing with “Praise ye the Lord.” We often find the Psalmist praising and extolling God. Let us imitate his example. Let us do so, because we shall find it very pleasant and profitable, and because, also, it is our bounden duty. One of the highest exercises of the new life is praising God. Our doubts and fears may sometimes be indications of life; and doubtless they are, for the dead man neither doubteth nor feareth. But our songs of praise are far higher demonstrations of the life within, and are more worthy fruits of a soil which has been the subject of God’s husbandry, which has been ploughed by the agonies of the Saviour, and made fertile through his precious blood. My brethren, our life should be one continued psalm, with here and there a note which descends deep. Yet, for the most part, we should always seek to sing as we live. The stars sing as they shine, and they sing by shining. Let us sing whilst we live, and live by singing; and let our life be singing one great psalm of life perpetually. There are many ways of praising God. We should do it with the lip; and grateful is the voice of song in the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth. We should do it by our daily conversation; leb our acts be acts of praise, as well as our words words of praise. We should do it even by the very look of our eyes, and by the appearance of our countenance; let not thy face be sad, let thy be joyous. Sing where thou goest; yea, when thou art laden with trouble, let not man see it. Thou, when thou fastest, appear not unto man to fast; anoint thy head and wash thy face that man may not perceive thy sorrows. Be thou ever glad, for it is God’s commandment — “Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say. Rejoice.” And yet once more, he saith, “Rejoice evermore.” That we may have themes of song, David has in this psalm afforded us many subjects. Let us attend to the subjects of the text — the subject, I might have said, for it is all one. This verse is the voice of experience. It is not the voice of hope, saying, “He will give;” but the voice of experience, “He hath given meat unto them that fear him;” and the voice of faith, “He will ever be mindful of his covenant.”

We shall notice, first of all, the gift — “He hath given meat unto them that fear him;” then we shall notice the covenant; then the character here spoken of — “He hath given meat unto them that fear him.”

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

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

“He who has made our heaven secure
Will here all good provide.”

And the covenant is not merely the covenant of the great and marvellous things that we need spiritually, but it is a covenant which promises in the catalogue of its gifts mercies that are food for the body, mercies for our immediate and pressing wants — “He hath given meat unto them that fear him.” God has never suffered his people to starve. “The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that wait upon the Loid shall not want any good thing.” The promise is as true under the new covenant as under the old — “Bread shall be given you, and your water shall be sure.” The Lord who feeds the ravens will not be less careful of his people; he who supplies every insect with its food, and feeds the prowling lion in his majesty, will not suffer his own home-borne ones, those who are nearest his heart, to perish for lack of nutriment. “The cattle on a thousand hills are his;” he will not suffer his children to lack for their meat. “He it is to whom the earth belongeth, and the fulness thereof;” he will not, then, suffer his children to go without necessary supplies. “He hath given meat unto them that fear him.” Some of us are not qualified to speak from experience upon this point. We may say, indeed, that God has ever given us our meat; we have not lacked any thing. Hitherto, the road has been to us like that of Israel when they came to the camp of the Syrians, strewn with gold, and silver, and garments. God has provided for our wants even before they have come; he has anticipated our necessities. But there are others of you that have been brought so low by poverty and affliction that you are qualified to speak. You have sometimes been to an empty cupboard with an empty stomach; you have sometimes wondered where your supplies should come from; you have been even houseless and homeless. But, ah, children of the living God, has he ever failed you utterly? Has he not, after all, though he has reduced you very low, so that the last morsel was eaten from the wallet, has he not ultimately supplied you, and that, too, by means not miraculous, but almost so 1 Has he not in providence sent you things which you needed, and which you scarcely expected to receive? In answer to prayer has he not heard you in your deepest tribulations? And when you were well nigh famished, has he not spread your board with plenty when you have bent your knees before him 1 Yes, ye tried ones, ye have tried this promise and have proved it true. Ye sons of poverty and toil, ye have had to rest the whole weight of your daily maintenance on the promise, without any thing to look to save that; and have you ever found him fail 1 No; you will unanimously bear witness that this is a great truth — “He hath given meat unto them that fear him.”

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

2. But we are to understand this chiefly in a spiritual sense. God’s people are a people to need spiritual meat. I was talking to a minister the other day, who certainly was not noted for his great soundness. He was making a joke to me about certain people in his congregation, who said they could not feed under him. “There is Mrs, So-and-so,” says he, “who tells me that she cannot get a bit of food out of my ministry. I do not know how it is,” continued he, jocularly, “for I do not think you say half as many good things as I do; but yet the old woman cannot feed well enough.” He laughed at the idea of feeding under a ministry. But there is a good deal more in the expression than many think; there is a good deal meant by it that cannot be expressed by any other word. It is only the Christian that can understand it. He hears a very eloquent discourse delivered; “but,” says he, “I have got no food out of it — I like the eloquence.” Or he hears a very learned discourse; “but,” he says, “I do not feed under that.” There is a peculiar style of preaching, and a peculiar style of hearing, which can only be described as a “feeding preaching,” and a “feeding hearing;” for the child of God feels that though he may have learned little that is fresh, yet still his soul has been receiving spiritual food, and he goes on his way rejoicing. And, my brethren, the ministry is one of the places where God feeds his people; and those to whom God has committed the solemn work of the ministry should be very careful that there is something in what they say that the child of God can feed on. What on earth is the use of a man going into a pulpit and firing away for an hour and a half with thundering eloquence, but with nothing to feed upon 1 I have read sermons lately — can get them by hundreds — that are, from beginning to end, the unmitigated and undiluted essence of nothing; grand dedescriptions of nonentity, floAvery and beautiful delineations of things that cannot exist. You read of comets of which it is said that a thousand square miles of their tails might be compressed into one solid inch. Many of these sermons are of the same sort, consisting of a long display of words; but as for any thing tangible to lay hold of and to remember, there is nothing of the sort in them. They are a finely, gloriously polished nothing. You can discover no matter in them; very finely dished up, but containing nothing whereon my soul could feed. The child of God can never feed under a ministry unless he hears the doctrines of grace, and listens to the things of the kingdom. “Our minister preached a fine metaphysical sermon the other day,” says one; “I never heard such a clear distinction as he made between that point and the other point.” But the child of God goes out and says, “Well, I don’t want any of his metaphysics; there was no food for my soul. 1 went there to hear about the Lord Jesus Christ; I went to hear something about my soul’s welfare; something about the heaven that is to come, or the hell that is to be shunned: I wanted to hear something about communion with Christ, something about the eternal covenant.” Sermons need to be instructive; there should be a teaching in them of the things of the kingdom. “Why,” said a good writer once, “if you were to hear six lectures by a geologist, he would be the poorest geologist in the world who would not give you some opinions of geology. But you may hear sixty sermons from many preachers without getting any notion of their system of divinity.” It is the glory of the men of the age that they have not systems of divinity; they have cast creeds to the wind; they have no forms of stating their truths systematically. The reason is because they have nothing to state. No man will avoid having a

system when he has got principles. It is impossible for a man to believe the things in God’s Word without insensibly to himself forming a creed of some sort or other. It is the fashion to talk about giving up creeds. Creeds are only the orderly way of laying out things. If we have the things we shall always have the way of laying them out in some fashion, and communicating our knowledge to others. So that in a given number of discourses our hearers will be pretty tolerably acquainted with our ideas of the truth of God. “He giveth meat to them that fear him” under the ministry. Sometimes God gives your minister a gift of such utterance that if he were to preach for a week you would listen to him. There are periods when your own minister gives no food to you, though he does to others, because he has food for different members of God’s family. But there are other periods when God seems to have given him such gifts, when he has let fall handfuls to be gathered, as did the man Boaz, scattering sheaves of corn from both his hands, and you pick them up and feast thereon and are satisfied.

There is another way in which God gives food unto his children — that is, in the Bible. This precious volume is the grand granary of spiritual food for God’s people. Would to God ye read it more! With your magazines, and newspapers, and tracts in this, that, and the other, ye have too much covered up this ancient Bible, this old Book, this emporium of all wisdom, this sum of all knowledge. Aye, Christians, if you want meat, study a chapter of God’s Word. If you want to have food for your souls, give up for a little while reading the works of even

23C COVENANT BLESSINGS.

the best of men, and take a psalm for your study — or if not a whole psalm, take one verse of it; take it for your daily meditation; masticate and digest it all day long, and so you will find meat for “them that fear him.” Let me just say a word to you on this point. When you read the Bible, do not think you will get meat simply by reading. I know some people who make a point of reading two chapters of the Bible in a day. They do so as a manual exercise; they simply run their eyes down the page, and, after all, do not know a word they have been reading. I have heard many a time in our churches and chapels, a minister read a very long chapter, that none of his hearers knew any thing about, nor himself either; and if he had read a chapter in double Dutch the people would have been just as much fed. That is not the way to feed upon God’s Word. We cannot feed except we understand and know the thing we read about. In reading the Scripture do as Luther advised. He says, “When I get a promise I treat it as a tree in my garden. I know there is rich fruit on it. If I cannot get it, I shake it backwards and forwards by prayer and meditation, until at last the fruit drops into my hand.” Do you the same. Read a short portion of Scripture; turn it over and over again in your meditation all day long. And then, if you cannot get any thing out of it, I will tell you a way whereby you will effectually get something. Go down on your knees before the passage and say, “O Lord, open this passage to me; give me something out of it; teach me to understand it” — and you will not be long before God refreshes you with dainty bits from the tables of paradise, and make your soul glad with choice morsels of royal dainties, wherewith he feeds his own chosen ones. “He giveth meat to them that fear him.”

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

“Plunged in his Godhead’s deepest sea,
And lost in his immensity?”

Yes, there are some such precious seasons; and these are like days of heaven upon earth — the seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. I was much struck the other evening at a prayer-meeting, by the prayer of one of our brethren, which came home to my heart. When he prayed, he said,” O Lord, give me Mary’s place —

* Oh! that I might, with Mary sit
For ever at my Master’s feet,
And learn of him.’”

He prayed that he might have her part, and i’ =” ‘^^ ^^ou6. be

of Jesus. But, by and by, the good man kind’^^^^ condition, as it

and said, “No, my Master, I have not ask is no more pos-Mary’s place is too low for me, if I may hav^^’ ^^^’^^^

up higher, Lord; give me John’s place. P’^^«^« ^““^ ^^”’

jd. The covenant of

‘Oh! that I might, with favoreon our part whatever,

For ever lean my head upor or any fiishion. The

Then again he pleaded for that hi-her i’’’’^’ conditions tween the soul and Christ. “Surely,” “ere are none left for us. asked enough.” But, suddenly risinc suffer — he has suffered; wings of communion, like the eagle ^^’ ^^“^5 skies, he said,” No, Lord, John’s place doth not suffice me. Thou hast lifted me from thy feet to thy bosom — now from thy bosom to thy lips.” Then, quoting the words of the spouse — “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for thy love is better than vine ‘■’ — he sweetly paraphrased it thus, “Let the lip of my petitioning meet the lip of thy benediction; let the lip of my praise meet the lip of thy acceptance; so shall the kiss be consummated and my joy be complete.” Aye, and when we are favored to go through these stages of fellowship; to go from the foot to the bosom, from the bosom to the lip; to go from the mere learner, and to be a friend and companion; and then to go higher still — to be lifted up and to feel our fellowship with Christ, by standing as high as he does, and being on his lip; it is there the child of God, insensibly almost, receives strength, and, like Elijah smitten by the angel, he rises up and finds his meat baked upon the coals, and eats thereof, and lives upon it for forty days to come. Precious mode of feeding this!

But, somehow or other, God doth give meat unto his children, and will never leave them to be famished. You have noticed, I dare say, when one means of feeding fails for God’s children, the other become better. You are sick, and cannot be fed by a ministry; you cannot go out to hear the Word; then, generally, God’s Word becomes more precious. Or, you have nobody to read to you, and your sight has failed; generally, then, communion becomes more precious. One way or other God will understand’ -i^T^ ^-^d.

you with dainty bitonsider the Covenant. “He will be ever soul glad with choant.”

feeds his ovn choseiiy covenants at divers times, and none of him.” ,e ever broken. For one moment let me

But there is anothovenants. There was the covenant with not got the Bible w“’ works —” Obey me, and thou shalt live; them that fear him,” bjt die.” That covenant he did not break, without the use of then to pain or misery until he had first munion. You know, bes covenant, and so became the inevitable feeds upon is Jesus Chriso, a covenant with Noah that the waters they did not eat the tongs -earth; and the rainbow, the sign of garments of the priests, and sky ever since at various intervals, and the earth has not been drowned with a flood a second. time. He made a covenant with David, that his seed should sit upon his throne; and that covenant he kept. He made a covenant with Abraham, that he would give the land of Canaan to be the heritage of his seed for ever; and that covenant hath he kept. Neither hath he altered the thing that went out of his lips.

But the covenant here referred to is a better covenant than all these. It is the covenant of grace. It is a sweet subject to preach upon. Suffer me to go back to the time when this covenant was nnade. It is older than the oldest things that man has ever seen; •jhQ covenant of grace is coeval with the everlasting hills. It was made by God with Christ for us from before all worlds. Man was a sinner, God had foreseen that he would sin. Jesus Christ and his Father were determined to save him, a covenant was made between them. God the Son, on his part, stipulated that he would suffer all the punishment of all the elect, that he would offer perfect righteousness on their behalf, and pay all the demands of God’s justice. God the Father, on his part, covenanted that all the elect, being redeemed by the blood of Christ, should most certainly be accepted and saved. That is the covenant of which God is ever mindful. Some people believe in a rickety kind of covenant, which I never could find in the Bible, a covenant that has conditions in it which you and I are to fulfil. If there was such a covenant as that, it would not be a covenant of grace but of works. If the covenant of grace were made with men, those that should be saved, on condition of believing, it would be as impossible for any man to be saved on that condition, as it would be on the condition of obeying, since faith is no more possible to unaided man than is perfect obedience. Faith in Christ is as difficult a thing, to a man dead in trespasses and sin, as is perfect obedience to every command of God. The covenant of grace is a covenant without any conditions on our part whatever, of any sort, in any shape, in any form, or any fashion. The covenant, in fact, is not made between us and God; it is made between God and Christ, our representative. All the conditions of that covenant are answered, so that there are none left for us. The conditions were that Christ should suffer — he has sufiered; that Christ should obey — he has obeyed. All that is done; and all that is now standin’g is the unconditional covenant, that God will give to all his elect, though dead in sin, power to live; that he will give to them, though black, a washing in the fountain; that he will give to them, though naked, a clothing of perfect righteousness; that he will ultimately accept them to dwell with him for ever in glory everlasting. This covenant, on which our hopes are built, this glorious covenant,

“Signed, and sealed, and ratified,
In all things ordered well,”

Will God ever forget 1 No, “he will be ever mindful of his covenant.” He will be ever mindful of it, in every thing and towards every person. Christ will be mindful of his covenant in every thing. God will not suffer one single promise to be unfulfilled, nor one smgle blessing of the covenant to be kept back. Every iota, and jot, and tittle of the covenanted purpose of God shall be fulfilled, and every thing which he has promised to his people in the covenant, and which Christ hath bought for his people through the covenant, shall most infallibly be received by his people. As for the persons interested therein not one of them shall be forgotten. If in the covenant they shall most assuredly be saved, despite every attack of the devil, and of their own wickedness, and any casualty, so called, of providence, or whatsoever may happen, all that are in the covenant must and shall be gathered in. The Arminian says there are some in the covenant who tumble out of it; that God has chosen some men — that he justifies, that he accepts them, then turns them out of his family. The Arminian holds the unnatural, cruel, barbarous idea, that a man may be God’s child, and then God may unchild him because he does not behave himself. The idea is revolting even to human sensibility. If our children sin, they are our children still; though chastened and vexed sore, yet never do they cease to be remembered amongst our family. There are many of God’s children that have gone astray and been chastened for it; but it were an idea too barbarous to suppose that God would unchild his child for any sin he doth commit. He keepeth fast his covenant; he loveth them, sinners though they be. He keepeth them from running into the riot of sin; and when, sometimes, they go astray, as the best of them will, still his loving heart towards them is unchangeably the same. I do not serve the God of the Arminians at all; I have nothing to do with him, and I do not bow down before the Baal they have set up; he is not my God, nor shall he ever be; I fear him not, nor tremble at his presence. A mutable God may be the God for them; he is not the God for me. My Jehovah changeth not. The God that saith to-day and denieth to-morrow, that justifieth to-day and condemns the next, the God that hath children of his own one day and lets them be the children of the devil the next, is no relation to my God in the least degree. He may be the relation of Ashtaroth or Baal, but Jehovah never was or can be his name. Jehovah changeth not; he knoweth no shadow of turning. If he hath set his heart upon a man, he will love him to the end. If he hath chosen him, he hath not chosen him for any merit of his own; therefore he will never cast him away for any demerit of his own. If he hath begotten him unto a lively hope, he will not suffer him to fall away and perish. That were a breaking of every promise, and abrogation of the covenant. If one dear child might fall away, then might all. If one of them for wdiom the Saviour died might be damned, then might the Saviour’s blood be utterly void and vain. If one of those whom he hath called according to his purpose might perish, then were his purpose null and void. But, child of God, lay your head upon the covenant —

“Let the earth’s old pillar shake,
And all the wheels of nature break,
Thy steadfast soul need fear no more
Than solid rocks when billows roar,”

Let the covenant be thy song in the house of thy pilgrimage. Let the covenant be thy refuge in distress. Let the covenant be thy watchword at the gates of death. Keep the covenant in mind. Remember again that it is “signed, and sealed, and ratified;” that oaths and blood have made it all secure. When thou doubtest, think not the covenant is shaken. When thou tremblest, think not the covenant is removed. It abideth still, fast and firm. And though thou hast backslidden, go thou back to Jesus — His heart is still the same, “Thy soul through many changes goes: His love no yariation knows.”

He abideth still, fast and firm; nor will he finally leave one of his own people whom he hath foreknown and fore-ordained. And now we close up by noticing —

III. The Character Referred to. — “Them that fear him.” Them that fear him are in the covenant. Saith the young convert oftentimes to the minister, “Sir, how can I know that I am elect ]” And the usual answer is, “You have nothing to do with that; you may think of that by-and-bye.” Begging the gentleman’s pardon, that is not true. A sinner has every thing to do with it. Instead of having nothing to do with election, he has every thing in the world to do with it. But it is said he need not trouble his mind about it. Perhaps he should not; but he will, and it is no way of comfort to tell him that he ought not. If I have a toothache, it is poor comfort for a physician to tell me that I ought not to have it. So, when a sinner is troubled about election, it is poor comfort to tell him he ought not to be troubled. The best way is to go fairly through with it. Do you fear the Lord 1 Then so sure as you are a living man you are elect. You have the fear of the Lord before your eyes? Then you need have no doubt but that your names are in the covenant. None have feared the Lord who were not first loved by the Lord. Never one did come and cast himself at the feet of Jesus because he feared the penalty of sin; and none ever came to embrace the loving skirts of the Redeemer because he feared lest he should go astray, without having been first called and chosen and made faithful. No, the fear of God in the heart is the proof of being God’s elect one. If we fear him we may believe that he will ever give meat unto us; that he will always keep his covenant towards us which he has made for us in Christ Jesus our Lord. “But,” says one, “how am I to know whether I am elect 1” Beloved, thou canst not know it by any outward professions. Thou mayest be of any church in the world, or of no church, and yet be one of God’s elect. Nor canst thou know it even by the sentiments which thou receivest as being true, for thou mayest know truth and yet not have truth in thy soul; thou mayest be orthodox in thy head and heterodox in thy heart; thou mayest believe every thing, and yet be east away at last. The only way whereby thou canst judge thyself is this: Dost thou fear the Lord ] Dost thou reverence his name and his Sabbath 1 Hast thou trembled at his feet? Hast thou cast away thy self righteousness at his command 1 And hast thou come to him and taken Christ to be thy all in all? I do not ask thee whether thou fearest hell — many fear hell that fear not God. Dost thou fear to offend a loving Father. Dost thou fear lest thou shouldst go astray from God’s commandments 1 Dost thou cry to him,

“Saviour, keep me lest I wander?”

Dost thou ask him to preserve theel And canst thou honestly say that if thou couldst be perfect thou wouldst be; that thou desirest to be free from sin; that thou hatest every false way 1 And is it thy daily groaning to be set free from guilt, and to be surrendered to the Crucified?

Lastly, canst thou say this after me,

“A guilty, weak, and helpless worm
On Christ’s kind arms I fall;
He is my strength and righteousness,
My Jesus and my all?”

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

Now, what shall I say in conclusion? There are some of you that fear not God. Alas! for you, my brethren, that you should be in a state so utterly miserable and pitiable, without the fear of God before your eyes. Oh that God would help you to fear him! Oh that he would break your hearts! and so would make you feel your ruined state, as to bring you to his feet to receive the perfect righteousness of Christ; then would you fear him, and then might you rejoice that he would give you meat and keep you in his covenant. Methinks I hear one say, “I am a sinner, I am in the front rank of the army of guilt. I have verily transgressed, and gone astray from the Most High. Tell me, did Jesus die for me 1 Did he die — not as some say he died, for all men — but in that special sense which ensures salvation 1” I will answer thee. Canst thou say, “I am a sinner,” not as a kind of idle compliment that most men pass when they say they are sinners, and do not mean what the word implies, for they no more mean that they are sinners than that they are horses. But do you really believe that you are sinners deserving God’s wrath, and the fire of hell for ever? Then the Lord Jesus died for you; and “this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” If the word is to be understood in the sense in which Hart uses it, when he says, — “A sinner is a sacred thing; the Holy Ghost hath made him so” — if you feel you are a sinner in that sense, Christ died for you. But you say, “I wish he had set my name down in the book, that I might read it.” Why, my friend, if he had done so, you would believe it was intended for somebody else. If the book contained the name of Smith, in such a street, Smith would declare that there were so many Smiths that it could not be him; and if you could read your name, you would still doubt that it could by any possibility, be a description of you, since another person might bear the same title. But since it says, “sinners,” Satan himself cannot beat you out of that. God has taught you what “sinner” means, and Satan cannot unteach you that. Are you, then, a sinner, fully ,wholly, in all the black sense of the word? Then Christ died for you. Cast yourself upon that — Christ died for sinners. But, say you, “Sir, if I were a little better, I might believe that he died for me.” I should not; he died for sinners. Or you say, “If I were a saint, I might believe that he died for me.” I should not; he died for sinners. Only prove thyself a sinner, and thou hast proved that Christ died for thee; only be thou sure that thou art a sinner, that thou hast revolted, and that thou knowesu it, only confess with thine heart thy transgressions, and take this title to thyself, and thou mayest believe that Jesus died for thee.

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

“Kot the righteous,
Sinners Jesus came to save.”

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

Just one sentence more to Christians desirous of following the way of God’s Word, and ever growing in grace. I met the other day with a piece of one of Christmas Evans’s sermons — it struck me forcibly, and I determined to repeat it — “The enemy is ever after our souls; let us keep our hearts with all diligence; let us store our hearts with texts of Scripture, in the things given, that we may be kept out of the way.” Then he gives this parable —” Once upon a time the devil determined to do a mighty business. Seeking whom he may devour, he went through the land, determined to devour some souls. He came upon a ploughboy standing there, and he said within himself, ‘I will tempt the hoy to rob his master; then he will get into prison; t’will bring him into bad company, so that he will get worse, and be transported, and ultimately get to the gallows, and I shall have his soul for ever.’ The devil strode .across the moor, and, as he approached the ploughboy, he heard him singing —

* My God, the spring of all my joys.
The life of my delights,
The glory of my brightest days,
And comfort of my nights.’

‘Ah!’ said the devil, ’ he won’t answer my purpose,’ and off he went. There was no room for him there; it was a dry place. So, flying over hill and d<ale, he came to a quiet nook in a valley between two high mountains, where there was a sweet little cottage overgrown with ivy, with its porch covered with eglantine. There sat beneath the porch a maiden knitting. ‘I will entice her,’’ said he, ’ away to the big town, and lead her into ways of folly, and sin, and shame. She shall perish in an infirmary, and her soul will be mine for ever.’ He stooped to whisper in her ear some temptation, but he heard her singing —

* Jesus, I love thy charming name,
‘Tis music to mine ear;
Fain would I sound it out so loud
That earth and heaven should hear.’

‘That won’t answer,’ said he; and he went his way, saying, ‘I should have done better to have been with old Williams all day; I could have tormented the old fellow: I will be off to him now.’ So he flew away, and at nightfall alighted in a village. All the lamps were out save one, in a cottage, where he saw the light glimmering in an upper room. It seemed to be a rushlight dying in the socket. ‘Here,’ said ho, ’ old “Williams lives. He has served God these fifty years, and if I could get him now, what a trophy he would be! it would pay me for all my disappointments if I could get old Williams after all his professions.* He stepped up stairs, and ther Williams lay dying. * Now,’ said lie, ‘I will make him doubt, and die in despair, and perish!’ The crisis was just come; his friends were gathering round his bed, expecting his departure. Satan stepped lightly across the room, to get at the dying man’s ear; and as he came close to him, Williams stretched out his hand, and said, ‘Yea, though I pass through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil; for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me!” Thou hast prepared a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.’ Satan shrank back abashed, and went away howling. He did no more that day, and never had he done such a sorry day’s work before. He was wholly beaten, entirely overcome, because the minds of the people whom he wished to attack had been pre-occupied, and they were feeding on God’s Word.”

And now, my brother, go thy way; plead this promise at the throne, and he will give meat to them that fear him. Get your meat, feed upon it all day long, and you may defy all your enemies to lead you astray.