Startling

And Hazael said, Why weepeth my Lord? And he answered. Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel. And Hazael said, But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?” — II Kings viii. 12, 13.

I SUPPOSE that none of us can doubt that Hazael acted with perfect freedom when he became the murderer of his master. No one, surely, would dare to suggest that any constraint was put upon him. The glittering prospect of wearing the crown of Syria was before his eyes. Nothing stood between him and the kingdom but the life of his master. That master lies sick of a fever. A wet cloth is the usual remedy. He has but to select one that shall be thicker than usual, and take care in spreading it over his face to accommodate it so that the man is suffocated, and lo! he comes to the throne. What wonder is it that Hazael easily puts his master oat of the way, and then mounts the vacant seat? None of us will imagine for a moment that he was under constraint, unless it was Satanic. And yet while he acted as a free agent, is it not quite clear that God foreknew what he would do — that it was absolutely certain he would destroy his master? The prophet speaks not as one who hazarded a conjecture. He foresaw the event with absolute certainty, yet did this man act with perfect freedom when he went and accomplished the prophecy of Elisha. I believe, my brethren, that it is quite as easy to see how God’s predestination and man’s free agency are perfectly compatible, as it is to see how divine foreknowledge and human free agency are consistent with one another. Doth not the very fact of foreknowledge imply a certainty? Is not that which is foreknown certain? Is not the fact sure to be when God foreknows that it will be? How could it be foreknown conditionally? How could it be foretold conditionally? In this instance there was no stipulation or contingency whatever. It was absolutely foretold that Hazael should be king of Syria. The prophet knew the fact right well, and right clearly he descried the means, or else why should he look into his face and weep? God foreknew the mischief that he would do afterwards, when he came to the throne; and yet that foreknowledge did not in the least degree interfere with his free agency. Nor is this an isolated and exceptional case. The facts most surely believed among us, like the doctrines most clearly revealed to us, point all of them to the same inference. The predestination of God does not destroy the free agency of man, or lighten the responsibility of the sinner. It is true, in the matter of salvation, when God comes to save, his free grace prevails over our free agency, and leads the will in glorious captivity to the obedience of faith. But in sin man is free — free in the widest sense of the term, never being compelled to do any evil deed, but being left to follow the turbulent passions of his own corrupt heart, and carry out the prevailing tendencies of his own depraved nature. In reference to this matter of predestination and free will, I have often heard men ask, “How do you make them agree?” I think there is another question just as difficult to solve. “How can you make them differ?” The two may be as easily made to concur as to clash. It seems to me a problem which cannot be stated, and a subject that needs no solution. It is but a difficulty which we surmise, and theoretical dilemmas are always hard to deal with and difficult to disentangle. When we look at the matters of fact, the mist that clouds our understanding vanishes. We see God predestinating and man premeditating; God knowing fully, yet man acting freely; God ordaining every circumstance, yet man manoeuvring to compass his own projects; in short we see man accurately, but unconsciously, fulfilling all which was written in the wisdom of God; and that without any impetus of the Almighty upon his mind constraining or inciting him so to do. You will observe in this chapter three or four distinct instances in which both the foreknowledge

and foreordination of God are distinctly proven, and yet at the same time the free agency of the creature is conspicuously set forth. That point, however, I have merely adverted to by way of introduction. My subject this evening, as more immediately suggested by the words before us, is the common and too often fatal ignorance of men as to the wickedness of their own hearts.

First, let us expose and expound this ignorance, and then let us draw two practical lessons — one of restraint, what it suggests to us that we should not do — the other of counsel, what it suggests to us that we should do.

Our ignorance of the depravity of our own hearts is a startling fact. Hazael did not believe that he was bad enough to do any of the things here anticipated. “Is thy servant a dog that he should do this great thing?” He might have been conscious enough that his heart was none so pure but it might consent to do many an evil thing; yet crimes so flagrant as those the prophet had foretold of him, he thought himself quite incapable to commit. He could not believe that such wanton cruelty lurked in his breast, or that such barbarity towards women and children could be perpetrated with his sanction. Not yet, perhaps, was the ambition that aspired to the throne of Syria, or the treachery that issued in the murder of his master, fully ripe. Ah, my brethren, the ignorance of Hazarel is ours to a greater or less degree. In our natural state we are oblivious of the depravity of our own hearts. How commonly we hear men deny that their hearts are depraved. They tell us that though man be a little injured by the fall he is still a noble creature. His high and glorious instincts make amends, they would persuade us, for his low and beggarly vices. Such foolish conceits we impute to ignorance. Men account crimes revolting when they hear of their comrades being convicted of committing them, but they do not know the innate plague of their own heart. They have not yet learned that their own heart is base and depraved. Hence they challenge the doctrine when we state it — because they are unconscious of the fact. We do not expect a man to accept it as an axiom merely upon our testimony. He had need have some experience himself before he will be able to lay hold upon a truth so humbling, so self-abasing, as that of total depravity. The baseness of our hearts has barely dawned on our apprehensions, though we have a faint gleam of suspicion. Conscience is sensitive enough to let us know that all is not quite right. We feel that we are not pure, that we are not completely perfect. We do admit that we make some mistakes, though we set them down to weakness rather than willfulness; we apologize for our infirmities, and rather excuse than accuse our own hearts. Most of us, however, I trust, have enough light to discern that there was something willfully wrong with our hearts before the Spirit of Christ began to deal with us. We would frankly and freely confess that we were not all that we desired to be our own selves, that there was some radical evil that defied our capacity to search it out. Ah, but how pale was that gleam; it was mere starlight in the soul — not like the sunlight which has since shone in, and shown us the blackness of our nature. We were ignorant, then, of the fact that our nature wa& totally corrupt; we did not know that it was essentially tainted with iniquity; we could not have endorsed that saying of the apostle, “The carnal mind is enmity against God, and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” We could hardly underst-and it, when we heard the Christian minister say that the old nature was positively irreclaimable, and must be crucified with its affections and lusts, and that a new nature must be given us. If we ever heard a preacher speak of the fountains of the great deep of our evil heart being broken up, we thought he exaggerated; at least we said, “Surely this might be true of some notorious criminals or it might be even alleged of some ill-bred people who had seen an ill example from their youth up,” but we could not imagine that this was actually the case with ourselves. Ay, but, my brethren, we were, to a great degree, cured of this our ignorance when the Spirit of God brought us under conviction. Oh, what a view of ourselves he then gave to some of us! I think we could say with Bunyan, we thought the most

loathsome toad in the world to be a better creature than ourselves. We have been led, when under conviction of sin, to sigh and wish we had been made a viper or some reptile that men would tread upon and crush rather than we should have been such base, such vile, hell-deserving sinners as we felt ourselves to be. No disco-urse, then, about human dignity, could have pleased us; it would have been rubbing salt into our sore to have told us that man was by birth a pure and noble creature. In vain might they have attempted to persuade us then that though we were a little awry, a diligent pursuit of some orthodox plan or prescription might easily restore us and lift us up from the position into which we had been cast by Adam and by our sin. No; we felt that divine grace must new-make us, that there must be a supernatural work wrought in such beings as we were, or else surely we never could be fit to stand before the face of God, and see him with joy and greet him with acceptance. Thus, I say, brethren, that much of our ignorance was taken away; but alas I how much remained! We did not know even then how “depraved we were. When Sinai’s lightnings were flashing abroad, and all our hearts seemed lit up with its dread fire, that lurid flame was not bright enough to show to us all our baseness. While we stood trembling there, and the law was thundering over our heads, we bowed to the very dust, but we did not cower then as we ought in penitent humiliation. We were rather awed than melted; for we had only just begun to decipher the black letters of that volume of our total depravity. I think we knew more of our moral obliquity afterwards, when Jesus came to

US, and, by his sweet love, bade us be of good cheer, for our sins, which were many, were all forgiven us. Oh, how we saw the baseness of sin as we had never seen it before; for we now saw it in the light of his countenance. The love of his eyes flashed a brighter light into our hearts than all the lightnings of Mount Paran. Horeb’s burning steep never gave us such illuminations as did Calvary’s hallowed summit. Calvary might be the lesser height, it may not have seemed to stand out with such majesty and awe, but it exerted greater power over us. In its tender flush of mellow light, our eyes could see more clearly than in all the fitful flashes that had scared us hitherto. I think we saw, then, to as full an extent as it was possible for us to bear, how vile, how desperately evil was our nature! When we perceived how great must be the sacrifice which, by its virtue, could atone for sin, how vast that price of our Redeemer’s blood which only could provide a ransom from the fall, we had lessons once for all taught us, never to be forgotten. And yet, since then, methinks we have learnt more of the evil of our own hearts than we could at first apprehend. We said, then, “Surely, now I have come into the innermost chamber of iniquity;” but often, since that day, has the Spirit said to us, “Son of man, I will show thee greater abominations than these,” and we have been led to see, in the light of God’s continual mercies, his perpetual faithfulness, his unfailing love — we have been led to view in that light our continued wanderings, our idolatries of heart, our murmurings, our pride, and our lusts, and we have found ourselves out to be worse than we thought we were. I appeal to you, Christian men and women, if any one had told you that you would have loved your Saviour so little as you have done; if any prophet had told you, in the hour of your conversion, that you would have served him so feebly as you have done, would you have. believed it? I appeal to you from the dew of your youth, from that morning blush of your soul’s unclouded joy, if an angel from heaven had said to you, “You will doubt your God, you will murmur against his providence, you will kick at the dispensations of his grace” — say, would you not have replied, ‘’ Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this evil thing!” Your experience, I am sure, has taught you that you were not aware, when you put on your harness, how dastard was the soldier who then did gird himself for the battle. But mark this, we none of us know, after all, much of the baseness of our hearts. Some of you may have had more drill than others; you may have made proof of it by sad backsliding, your lusts may have outwardly betrayed their inward vigor; you may have been discarded by the Holy Ghost for a little season that the Lord might show you that you were weak as other men, that he might prove to you the hollownessof all your self-confidence, and wean you from all trust in your own integrity; but the most sorely exercised among you have not learnt this lesson fully 3’’et. God only knows the vileness of the huaian heart. There is a depth beneath, a hidden spring, into which we cannot pry. In that lower depth there is a still deeper abyss of positive corruption ► which we need not wish to fathom. God grant that we may know enough of this, to humble us, and keep us ever low before God. Yet hold, Lord, lest we should yield to despair, and absolutely lie down to die under the black thought of our alienation from righteousness, our naturalization in sin, and the deplorable tendency of our heart to rebel more and more against thee, the faithful and true God. Show us not our wretchedness. As for the most of us who cannot talk of this experience, let us not think ourselves doctors of divinity; let us

sit down at once on the lowest form of the divine school. We have only begun to know ourselves in part; albeit we do know something of the Saviour, blessed be his name! That something is exceedingly precious. Yet how much there is to learn! We have hardly begun to sail on that unfathomable sea. We have not dived yet into its depths. We know not all its heights, and depths, and lengths and breadths. I have been startled often — and if any should say, jeeringly, “The preacher speaketh by experience,” they may — I have often been startled when I have found in my heart the possibilities of iniquity of which I thought I never could have been the subject, in reveries by day or in dreams of the night. All at once a blasphemy foul as hell has started up in the very middle of offering a prayer so earnest that my heart never knew more fervor. I had been staggered at myself When God has called us into the pulpit — we thought at one time we never could be proud if God honored us — this has seemed to quicken our step in the black march of our depraved heart. Or when a little cast down and troubled in spirit, we have wished to leave the world altogether, and have been like Jonah, trying to flee to Tarshish that we might not go to this great Nineveh at his bidding. Little did we reck that there was such cowardice in our soul. We have found out another phase in our own nature. Does any man imagine that his heart is not vile? If he be a professing Christian, I much suspect whether he ought not to renounce his profession; for methinks any enlightened man who sincerely looks to himself, and whose experience leads him somewhat to look within, will surely find, not mere foibles, but foulness that literally staggers him. I question the Christianity of that man who doubts whether there are in his soul the remains of such corruption as drown the ungodly in perdition; or whether though a quickened child of God, he hath another law in his members, warring against the law of his mind. What! hath he no such battle within that the things he would do he often doeth not, while the things that he would not do he often doeth? Hath he no need to be in constant prayer to God to deliver him from the evil in his heart that he may be more than a conquerer over it at last? I do assert once more, and 1 think the experience of God’s children beareth me out, that when we shall be most advanced, and when we come, at last, to sit down in God’s kingdom, we shall find that we have not learnt all that there is to be learnt of the foulness of our nature, and the desperateness of the disease. “The whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores.” “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” “Cleanse thou me from secret faults.” “Search me, 0 God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Perhaps if we knew more of this terrible evil it might peril our reason. Hardly could it be possible for us to bear the full discovery and live. Among the wise concealments of God, is that which hides from open view the depravity of our heart, and the corruption of our nature.

But now I turn to the practical use of our subject, looking at it in two ways — what it forbids and what it suggests. The depravity of our nature forbids, first of all, a venturing or presuming to play and toy with temptation. When a Christian asks, “May I go into such a place?” — should he parley thus with himself? “True; temptation is very strong there, but 1 shall not yield. It would be dangerous to another man, but it is safe to me. If I were younger, or less prudent and circumspect, I might be in jeopardy; but I have passed the days of youthful passion. I have learned by experience to be more expert. I think, therefore, that I may venture to plunge, and hope to swim where younger men have been carried away by the tide, and less stable ones have been drowned.” All such talking as this cometh of evil, and gendereth evil. Proud flesh vaunteth its purity and becomes a prey to every vice. This is the conception of iniquity; only let it be nourished and it will soon bring forth in hideous form every development of. sin. He who carries gunpowder about him had better not stand where there are many sparks; he whose limbs being out of joint is in danger of falling every moment, had better not trust himself to walk on the edge of the precipice. Let those who feel themselves to be of a peculiarly sensitive constitution not venture into a place where disease is rife. If I knew my lungs to be weak and liable to congestion, I should shrink from foul air and any vicious atmosphere. If you know that your heart has certain proclivities to sin, why go and tempt the devil to take advantage of you? Satan will surprise you often enough; why then should you borrow fuel from his forge for your own destruction? Why will you go forth to meet him instead of trying with all vigilance to elude his insidious attacks? You have enough temptation. It is an ill thing for God’s people when they leave their quarters and visit the localities where sin abounds. Were you an angel, were you sure you could never fall, then you might pitch your tent in the pestilential swamps securely, or frequent the haunts of sensual attraction, whose house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death, without apprehension of harm. But you are so prone to evil, so susceptible of contagion, that I warn you not to trifle. Were you strong as adamant your duty would still be to keep out of the way of temptation, to keep as far as possible from that forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Howbeit, you are not as strong as adamant, you are a creature whose moral power is weak, whose bias to evil is extreme. I implore thee, therefore, as thou wouldst honor thy God, and as thou wouldst stand in his brightness, go not I beseech thee where the temptation to sin is glaring, and flatter thyself that thou wilt come out guileless. There are some of us such poor soldiers that I think, if we had our choice, we should rather be where there was least danger. It is right for some brave men, when duty calls, to go into the thickest of the ,battle: but every Christian is not meant to be in the front rank. There are some men who have to deal with great sins, who are to seek and pluck sinners as brands from the burning. There are those who, like the physician, must go into the midst of the plague that they may save such as are smitten with it. Some men’s calling necessarily demands that they should be in the midst of sin. Yet they have need to keep a special guard over themselves, lest while they seek to pluck others from the jfire, they be like Nebuchadnezzar’s men, who in going near the furnace, were burned themselves. Let them take heed then to themselves who seek to take care for others. In some of those charitable missions in which you, my dear brethren in the church,

are daily engaged, take care lest you yourselves, exposed to temptation, should so slip and slide, that Satan may have to rejoice, that instead of smiting the lion the lion hath smitten you, and you are lying at his feet. Oh! keep out of temptation’s way, or invade it armed with the entire panoply of God. Not many of us are called to expose ourselves to it. Keep as far off as you can. You had need be watchful.

But, again, knowing how vile we are by nature, knowing indeed that we are bad enough for everything, let us take another caution. Boast not, neither in any wise vaunt yourselves. Presume not to say, “I shall never do this,” “I shall never do that.” Never venture to say with Hazael, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? “My experience has furnished me with many instances that the braggart in morality is not the man to be bound for. I would not like to stand surety for his virtue. He professes to hate drunkenness, he was certain he never could be intoxicated, and yet he has indulged the vicious taste when his companions have lured him on, and stained the character that he vainly aifected. If not that particular sin, yet there has been some other crime more terrible, perhaps, more fatal to the soul, which has smitten that man down to the dust who has dared to vaunt his integrity. He has said,” My mountain standeth firm; I shall never be moved;” and in that very point where he thought his firmness lay, or in some other which was next-of-kin to it, he has proved his weakness. Lo! the mountain tottered to its base, and was cast into the midst of the sea. There are no men who are in such danger as the men who think they are not in any danger. There are none so likely to sin as those who say they cannot sin. I remember a story told me by a dear brother, who is present with us now. A tradesman who held office in the church asked him for a loan of money. Though rather inconvenient he was about to comply, and would have done so had not some such inducement as this been offered — “You know you may safely advance this money to me, for I am incorruptible. I am not young; I am past temptation.” Thereupon my friend promptly declined, as he did not like the security. The result justified his shrewdness. At that very time the borrower knew he was on the verge of bankruptcy, and, ere long, was actually a bankrupt, and yet he could pretend to say he was above temptation. Above all, avoid those men who think themselves immaculate, and never fear a fall. If there be a ship on God’s sea the captain of which declares that nothing can ever sink her, stand clear, get to the first leakyboat to escape, for she will surely founder. Give a ship the flag of humility, and it is well; but they that spread out the red flag of pride, and boast that they are staunch and trim, and shall never sink, they will either strike upon a rock, or founder in the open sea. Pride is the mother of soul ruin; self-confidence is next door to self-destruction. “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Boast not, though thou be never so strong. Boasting becometh. not any mortal. Not the stature nor the strength of Goliath could furnish a pretext for his arrogance. Goliath never seemed so little as when he said, “Come to me, and I will give thy flesh to the fowls of the air.” Leave thy boasting until the battle is done. Do not begin to glory till thou hast trodden all thine enemies beneath thy feet. Wait till thou hast crossed the Jordan, and hast reached the shores of the promised land. Do not begin to sayyet, “I am out of gunshot; I am beyond the reach of sin.” “Oh,” saith one, “I am so grown in grace that I cannot sin.” Brother, I would not have thee think so. Thou hast so grown in grace that thou raayest not slip. “The man after God’s own heart” sinned foully. What if thou be after God’s own heart, why shouldst thou say, “I cannot sin?” Think thou of Lot — -just Lot, vexed with the filthyconversations of the wicked, into what follies he was betrayed. Art thou wise as Solomon? Yet Solomon was an arrant fool. Mayest thou not be in thine old age a fool too? Art thou a believer? So was Peter, and yet Peter denied

his Master. Mayest not thou deny thy Master too? Let the fact that many of God’s saints have fallen where they seemed to be the strongest — Moses the meek failed in his temper, Abraham faltered in his faith, patient Job waxed irritable, and so forth — let their example teach thee to take heed to thyself, lest thou also be tempted, and thou also be cast down.

And let this fact that we do not know our baseness teach us not to be harsh, or too severe, with those of God’s people who have inadvertently fallen into sin. Be severe with their sin; never countenance it; let your actions and your conduct prove that you hate the garment spotted with the flesh, that you abhor the transgression, cannot endure it, and must away with it. Yet ever distinguish between the transgressor and the transgression. Think not that his soul is lost because his feet have slipped. Imagine not that because he has gone astray he cannot be restored. If there must be a church censure passed upon him — yet take care that thou so act that he in penitence of spirit may joyously return. Be thou as John was to Peter. Shut not out thy fallen brother, for the day may come when they shall shut thee out, and when thou mayest need all the pity and all the help which the spiritual guide can give unto thee. Distinguish, I say again, between the sin that thou dost condemn and the sinner whom thou must still love — the child of God over whom thou must still weep. Ah, sirs! there may be some of you here who speak with bitter contempt and scorn of those who, notwithstanding their frailties, are better men than yourselves. God may have suffered some sin to attain a great predominance over them for a season. Perhaps, if all were known of you, you might be proved to be worse than they; — and oh! were the Lord to take his bit from your mouth, and the bridle of his divine providence from your jaws, you might run to greater excesses of riot still. Who maketh thee to differ? What hast thou that thou hast not received? Say in thy soul, “By the grace of God I am what I am;”’ but stand not up with the self-righteousness of the Pharisee — say not, “God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are.”-

Leaving now this point of caution, let us consider, by way of counsel, what positive suggestions may arise. If we be thus depraved, and know not the full extent of our depravity, what then should we do? Surely we should daily mourn before God because of this great sinfulness. Full of sin we are. Let us constantly renew our grief. We have not repented of sin to the full extent, unless we repent of the disposition to sin as well as the actual commission of sin. We should deplore before God, not only what we have done, but that depravity which made us do it. See how David repents. He does not merely mourn for sin, but he says, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” He makes it a part of his confessions, that iniquity was in his inward parts, and that his soul was tainted from the birth. So be it with you: weep over the nature as well as over the development of the nature. Weep not over the fountain merely, but over the deep spring from which this fountain gushes; not merely over the coin of sin which has been minted into outer acts, but over that base bullion of iniquity which lies uncoined in your heart. Every day exposes this, as well as the sins you have committed, before God. Lay before God, not merely thy crutches, but thy lameness; not merely thy ceremonial defilement, but the deep leprosy that is in thy skin and in thy bone. Yea, mourn over it, and beg him by his grace to cleanse thee, that thou mayest enter into his kingdom. And when thou hast thus done, take heed that thou walk every day very near to God, seeking daily supplies of his grace. Brethren, I charge you, and specially do I charge myself here, let us look up to God, let us hourly depend upon him, feeling that yesterday’s grace is of no use whatever to-day; that the grace which saved us seven years ago is not the grace that can save us now, but we must have fresh supplies. Oh, there be many, I think, who sit down and say, “I did once know Christ.” That is not enough, brethren; we must know Christ each day, we must have fresh grace each hour. It is not once to be partaker of the divine nature, but to be daily a partaker of it. Doth the tree bear the fruit by the sap of seven years ago? Is it not the sap of this year which will produce the seed of this year’s fruit? And must it not be so with you? Must you not have daily influxes of the divine influences of the Holy Ghost? Must you not receive from Christ each hour that life without which you must droop and die? Oh, brothers and sisters, let no day pass by without commending yourselves to God; let no hour be spent withojit resting under his wing. Oh, may our daily habit be to cry unto him, “Hold thou me up and 1 shall be safe.” Oh, my dear hearers, there are some of you who think you are not vile. You have never had your eyes open to learn your depravity. Let me tell you this, that you are so depraved that except you be born again you cannot see the kingdom of God. You may reform, you may go and seek to make yourselves better. It will not do. Know the old proverb and consider it: “The dog is turned to his vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” Ay, the nature is so base — the nature itself is so depraved and so vile — that there must be a radical change of the whole self. How then canst thou change thy nature? Canst thou renew thine own heart? God forbid that thou shouldst be so vainly infatuated as to imagine it possible! No arm but the eternal arm can make thee what thou shouldst be. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Canst thou make thyself a new creature in Christ? Thou canst not create a flj or a grain of dust, much less create thyself a new heart. But there is one who can. The Holy Spirit is able, Jesus

Christ is willing. Dost thou say, “Oh, that he would renew my heart to-night?” Methinks he has begun the work; that desire of thine, if sincere, would prove it. Keniember what he bids thee to do is to trust. If thou hast longing desires for him, cast thyself down at his feet and say, “Jesu, salvation is brought nigh to me; 1 trust in thee to make known in me this strange, this God-like grace. Work in me the new heart, the divine life, the new nature; save me, save me, Jesus; put my feet in the narrow way, and then guide me all the days of my pilgrimage and bring me to thyself, that where thou art, in heaven, there I may be with thee.” Sinner, he will do it, he will hear thy cry and answer thy petition, and thou, in the heights of heaven, shall sing of the mercy which received thee when thou wast not worthy to be received, of the love which loved thee when thou wast wholly unlovely, and of all the grace which changed thy nature and made thee meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. God grant that we may not, any of us, be as Hazael, the perpetrators of crimes of which we never suspected ourselves capable; but rather, feeling that we are men and women of the same kith and kin as the vilest sinners that ever trod this earth, may it be our grateful surprise and our lot to be justified freely by God’s grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So shall we be numbered with the saints now and throughout eternity. Amen.

“One thing thou lackesty — Mark x. 21.

nn HOUGH the gospel of Jesus Christ most -*- certainly addresses itself to the vilest of the vile, it is not exclusively to such that the message of salvation is sent. There are, indeed, no characters so far gone in vice that the gospel does not speak to them. However abandoned they may be, still is this inviting voice sent to the very chief of sinners — “Come to Christ and live.” But the gospel, with equal affection, addresses itself to those who are not upon any common estimation to be numbered with the chief of sinners, — to those, forsooth, whose moral integrity has been unimpeachable, whose outward propriety has been scrupulous, whose lives in all their domestic and social relations have been commendable. There are always some such individuals in our congregation. We are very thankful that there are. We have an invitation for them as frank, as honest, and as earnest, as for wanton sinners, heinous transgressors, and hardened criminals, and our sincere desire is that such may be saved; for we believe that they also will make illustrious trophies of divine grace when grace contrains them to decide for Christ.

Amongst us we have a large number of most hopeful people, to whom it may be said — ‘-One thing thou lackest.” Let me address a word of congratulation to you, that you only lack one thing; then, a teaming because you do lack one thing; and after that a few words of instruction to shoiuhow this one lack may he supplied. God grant that his power may rest upon his Word, so that you may lack the one thing no longer.

I. First, then, here is a word of congratulation. Let us take this young man’s case as descriptive of that of many here present. He did not lack morality. He could say, “All these things have I kept from my youth up;” nor did the Saviour tell him that he was uttering a falsehood. He looked upon him and loved him, which he would not have done if he had been a willful liar. No, he had been neither unchaste, nor dishonest, nor profane. He was, we may presume, all that could be desired in these respects. I congratulate you if such is your case. It will save you from a thousand sorrows to have been kept from those grosser sins. You have not formed habits which will lead you in after years into temptation. You have not entangled yourself with evil associations which it will be difficult to break. You have not learned words, and phrases, and sentiments which will defile your memory in after days, even though you should live to hate them. 1 thank God that you have this privilege; that it cannot be said of you that you are lackino- in morality.

Nor was this young man’s lack that of outioard religion. We are elsewhere told — I think it is by Luke — that he was a ruler; that is to say, as we read it, a ruler in the synagogue. He was one who had taken office among his co-religionists, and had even presided in their religious assembhes. He was a young man, recollect, and it is not often that young men attain to such a position, so that he must have been not only scrupulously excellent in his conduct, but he must have been regarded by all who knew him as remarkably religious at heart; indeed, when he knelt down before the Saviour, and addressed him as, ‘’Good Master,” he showed that his outward habits were of a religious cast. And so I congratulate some of you that you love the place where Christians meet, that in their sacred songs you take an interest, that their Holy Book is not altogether unread by you, that you would be grieved if you could not go up to the assembly of God’s people.- I am glad that, as touching these things in your outward regularity, some of you might even put others to shame who are further advanced than you in spiritual things. You do not lack for morality; you do not lack for the outward part of religion.

Nor can I suppose that this young man lacked a becoming respect for whatsoever was pure and lovely and of good report. His addressing our Lord by that remarkable title which was not used by Jews even to their Kabbis, showed how he looked upon the Holy Christ with a profound awe. He did not perceive his deity, but what he did perceive of his matchless goodness he deferred to. And it is so with you, my friend. You never utter an opprobrious word against God’s people. You would be very grieved to hear them evil spoken of. You love the ministers of Christ. There is no company that pleases you better than the company of the people of God. You have religion; you have a respect for that power of godliness which as yet you do not possess. You wish you had it. You envy those who have it, and would wish, though meanest of them all, that you might but have a part amongst them. I congratulate you upon this. I thank God concerning you. Looking upon you, I feel as Jesus did, that my heart loves you, and I fain would that you had the needful supply of that thing which you still lack.

This young man did not lack orthodoxy. He was no doubter, skeptic, or professed infidel. He said: “What must I do that I may inherit eternal life?” He believed in eternal life. He was not one of those Sadducees who say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit. He venerated the grand old truths to which his forefathers heartily subscribed; he was a firm believer in the orthodox faith. And so it is with you. You have never yet dared to doubt the Word of God, and as far as you have learned its meaning, you hold that meaning in the most solemn respect. You would

/ not for the world be accounted a heretic. You would not willfully call in question the existence of God, the deity of Christ, the atonement by blood, or any other of the essentials of our holy faith. As far as your head is concerned you are clear enough about these things. I thank God for this, for it is a grand escape from a pestilent evil. It is hard to get a man’s conscience sound who has gone through the great dismal swamps of infidelity. After once listening to the vile suggestions of unsanctified reason, or reading such infamies as come from the pen of a Tom Paine, or the more refined but not less subtle insinuations of modern cavilers, a man’s soul seems as if it never could get clean of the corruption. It is such pitch; it sticks to one’s hands, and defiles his heart. Though one take to himself niter and much soap, yet shall he scarce clean himself from the pollution. You have not acquired that taint of your moral constitution. Thank God for it. I bless God that, in his abundant mercy, you do not lack for a knowledge of the faith and a degree of belief in it.

Nor yet, my dear friends, did this young man lack sincerity. I have noticed that some expositors speak of him as a hypocrite, but he was as far away from being a hypocrite as the North Pole is from the South. He was transparent in all he said. Even that little bit that looks like boasting — “All these have I kept from my youth up,” shows how ingenuous the young fellow was. A man who was not sincere would have minced a little, and kept back an expression so complimentary to himself. He was the mirror of candor. So are some of yon. You have not learned the ways of craft. You do not assume to be what you are not. Though you mix with God’s people, you have not ventured to present yourself for baptism without faith, nor do you dare come to the communion table because you fear you have not fellowship with Christ. You prove your sincerity in many ways, and upon this again I congratulate you, and thank the God of mercy.

This young ruler, moreover, did not lack/or zeoH, The way in which he came to Christ showed bis ardor. He came to him running, and fell down before him saying, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” You, too, have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. If the Holy Spirit shall but teach you what the one thing is that you are lacking, I believe you will seek after it. I trust you will. At any rate, up to the measure of your light you have been hitherto quick, and zealous, and willing to do what you could.

This young man also loas exceedingly thoughtful. Half the battle with many men is to make them think, even though they think wrongly. It is almost better for them to think in the most crooked manner than not to think at all. The people most hard to reach, and so least likely to be saved, are those who pursue their business or their pleasures till their hours of labor and leisure are so filled up that they have no time for thought. To them the sweets and the solace of solitude and reflection are all unknown. But there was a thoughtful man. He had studied the law, and had tried to keep it. He was now something more than thoughtful; he was anxious. “What lack I yet?” as if he felt there was something he did not know, and he would fain know what it was. He was not so self-righteous as some had fancied he was. He had a self-righteous head, but he had a seeking heart. His head made him think that he had kept the law, but his heart told him that he had not, for he said, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” This he would never have said if he had believed that he had religion enough to inherit it. His exclamation — “What lack I yet?” would never have escaped his lips, had he not known that he did lack something, though he knew not what. I am thankful, — I am again thankful to God, and I congratulate you, my dear hearers, if you are something in the same position, if you can honestly say, “I have tried to do what I can; I have sought to do as far as my light guides me; I do not believe I am saved, but I wish I were; what is it — what is that secret something which can fill the aching void within my heart? What is that which can give me the rest which as yet I do not possess?” Once more, this young man did not lack for tmllingness; at least lie thougid he did not. He believed himself willing to do anything, to give anything, to suffer anything, if he might but be saved. So also do some of you. You would stand up in the congregation to-night and say, “The Lord knows there is nothing within my reach that I would not do, there is nothing under heaven that I would not bear, if I might but inherit eternal life.” But perhaps, like this young man, you do not know your own heart, and were Christ to try you with some searching precept, you might, like him, go away sorrowing. But, at any rate, as far as you know, you are willing, and I am glad of this and thankful that all these points are in you. Though you do lack, yet you do not lack any of these, it is in something else you are lacking.

The fact is, this young man lacked Jcnoivledge. He did not know the spirituality of the law. He had never been taught that the law of God takes account of the veriest fictions of the brain, our thoughts, and our imaginations. He supposed he had kept the law because he had not committed any act of adultery, or of theft; nor had he spoken the thing that was not true. He did not know that an unchaste glance, or a causeless hatred, or a covetous desire, breaks the law of God, and betrays the sin that lurks in the breast. He was never startled by a dream that betrayed the sin which lurked in his breast. He did not know the corruptness of his own nature, and perhaps some of you do not know it. Oh, that you may be led to know it. May God not only make you know it as a matter of knowledge, but understand it as a matter of conviction deeply written in the conscience. And he did not know the plan of salvation. The question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” showed that he did not know-that salvation is not by doing, but by believing; not by our works, but by a simple trust in Jesus. This was a great deficiency; though he was a model of uprightness in a hundred interesting points which we cannot now stay to discuss, he was wanting in a matter of vital interest to his moral welfare. In that he was just like many of you. With looks of love and pity, with feelings of tender regard, but deep anxiety, we turn to you therefore with this reflection,” One thing thou lackest.’’

II. And now we shall change the note. This

TEXT HAS k WORD OF WARNING.

“One thing thou lackest.” What was the one thing that this young man lacked? It luas tJiefuU surrender of Ms heart to God in Christ He had not done that. Our Saviour gave him, therefore, a command which tested him. He bade him go, sell all he had, and distribute it to the poor. This is not a command which he gives to all men, but he gave that particular command to that particular young man, according to his particular circumstances, because he saw that he was not the man that could endure to be poor. He saw, too, that he had made his riches his idol. He was a gentleman; he was a man of great possessions. He does not seem to have been a niggard; he could hardly have been a ruler of a synagogue, one would think, if he had been. But still he had a great liking for position. He was a gentleman, and there are a great many people who would sooner be gentlemen than they would be saints, and sooner be thought to belong to the upper and respectable circles of society, than they would be thought to be devout and holy. This young man would have liked to have been both, but the Saviour, seeing that his wealth was in his heart, and that he loved it better than he did his God, said to him, “Part with your wealth; for if you are decided for God, and your heart is wholly his, you will prove it by the readiness of your obedience.” Here, then, was the thing he lacked — he lacked the full surrender of his heart to God’s will, and so he went away sorrowing, for he had great possessions.

This lack of the full surrender of his heart to God’s will made him shun the reproach of being a follower of Christ. Hence, though he would call Christ “Good Master,” he would not turn and follow him and learn of him. So the Master said, after he had bidden him sell his goods, “Take up thy cross;” that is to say, “Come out and confess me; having done as I bid thee, then come and say, ‘I am a disciple of that Man who is despised and rejected; 1 will follow him to prison and to death, and I will preach his word though I be put to death for it; I will take up my cross.’”

Christ knew that the one thing he lacked was the full giving up of his heart to God, and therefore he said,” Follow me, for if you really do love the Eternal Father, you will follow his well-beloved

Son; if your heart is fully given to God, you will be willing to be obedient to Christ, to take him for your Leader, Master, Saviour, Guide, Friend and Counselor.” Now, in this the young man failed. He could not so give himself up wholly to God; he could not, at that time at any rate, vso give himself up as to be completely Christ’s servant. Now, no man who fails in this respect can enter heaven. Christ will save you, but a part of the agreement on your part must be this: “Ye are not your own, but are bought with a price.” If you would have Christ’s blood to redeem you, you must give up to Christ your self, — your body, your soul, your spirit, your substance, your talents, your time, your all. You must from this day be Christ’s servant, come what may. If persecution should arise, you must be willing to part with all that you possess, with your liberty, with your life itself, for Christ, or you cannot be his disciple. It may be, he will never call you literally to sell your goods and distribute all, but he does call you to own that your goods are not your own, but his; that you are only a steward, and must be willing therefore to give to the poor and to dedicate to the honor of his kingdom such part as shall be meet and right of all that you have, not as though you were bestowing anything of your own, but only as yielding up to God what belongs to him. He claims that you do now make over, if you would be saved, yourself and everything you have by an indefeasible title-deed to the great Lord of all, whose you must be. If you would be saved by the blood of Jesus, you are not from this day to choose your own pleasures, nor your own ways, nor your own thoughts, nor to serve yourselves, nor live for yourselves or for your own aggrandizement. If you k would be saved, you must believe what he tells you, do what he bids you, and live only to serve and honor him. I am ashamed to have to say that a great many Christian professors seem to be false to this their agreement, but, as my Lord will take no less from you, I dare ask no less of you. It seems to me all too little. He has bought us, not with silver and gold, but with his own precious blood. Surely, then, we should be quite willing to say, —

*’’Tis done, the great transaction’s done
I am my Lord’s, and he is mine.”

What you keep to yourselves you shall lose, but what you give to him you save and gain. Your treasure on earth the moth shall eat, and the rust corrupt, but your treasure in his keeping no moth shall ever fret, nor canker ever devour. All is safe which is given up to Christ; that which is kept back from him, whatever it may be, shall prove a curse to you. Say, then my dear young friend, with all your excellencies, do you lack the giving up of your heart, the full giving up of yourself to Christ? Oh, I am grieved that you should lack it; I am indeed grieved that you should lack it! I would like my Lord to have such a bright gem as you to glitter in his crown. I would like the Good Shepherd to have so dear a lamb to carry in his bosom. What, shall so fair a flower shed its fragrance for his enemies? Let the Saviour take it and wear it in his bosom; he is willing; may his grace take it to-night. One cannot bear that you, that you, having so much, should lack but one thing. If you lacked all that was needful it would be grievous, but lacking only one thing, it seems all the more pitiable. Oh, why should not that lack be made up V God grant it at once. To miss heaven! I cannot bear to think that you should, when you really are so sincerely anxious about it. To have such desires, and to be so fervent too, and yet not to give your whole heart to my Lord! Poor things are desires if they get no farther. Desire will not quench thirst, neither will it stay hunger. Thou must take Christ and live on him, or thou shalt die. To think, dear friends, that some of you should miss heaven through your wealth! Why need it be? And yet often it is so. The rich will not go to hear the gospel as the poor will; and when they hear it, there is often so much care about their extensive business, or, on the other hand, there is so much attraction in that circle of gay and thoughtless friends, that it is hard for them to be saved. Oh, what a pity that the mercies of God should lead you to hell, and that riches here should all but involve you, or altogether involve you in eternal poverty hereafter! God of his mercy prevent it, that you may yet be saved.

The sad thing to remember is, that you who lack one thing, in lacking that one thing lack all; for though I congratulated you that you had morality, that is poor stuff when it has no foundation in love to God. Your sincerity, methinks I must suspect that it is exhausted, if after having been told the way, which is simply to believe in Christ and give yourselves up to him, you now refuse. Yes, and all the good things which I have strung together with words of congratulation are but as the colors of a bubble that shall pass away, except you have this one thing. The one thing is like the unit set before many ciphers which will make them into a great amount; but without the one figure first, all those ciphers will stand for nothing, many as they are. If by the grace of God in your heart, and the exercise of a living faith in the dying Saviour, you give yourself wholly up to God, then every good thing and lovely thing, and thing of good repute, shall be embalmed and preserved; but without this they shall be like faded flowers, fit only to be cast behind the wall, or to perish on the dunghill.

III. Thirdly, we shall give you — a word of

DIRECTION.

If thou wouldest inherit eternal life Christ’s direction is — “Sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor.” Now, what did he mean by that? We shall read it three ways, and very quickly. He meant in the young man’s case —” Give icp tlnne icJoV His was wealth. He means the same kind of trial for yoti. Give up your idol. What is it? I pause. You may look; but 1 am sure that if you are not loving God you are loving something else. Whatever it is that you love better than God is your idol, and you are an idolater. That idol of yours must fall to the ground if Jesus is to be all in all. You cannot serve two masters, and whatever your present master is he must turn out that Christ may come in.

“Sell all that thou hast.” Well, that means another thing, as I read it — that is, consecrate your qH to God. How can you expect, if you withhold and you keep back part of the price from God, that he should accept you, and save you by Jesus Christ. Nay, come, poor guilty sinner, and wash in the purple stream that flows from Jesu’s heart, and then say in return — *’ My Lord, since thou hast thus redeemed me —

All that I am, and all I have,

Shall be forever thine,
Whate’er my duty bids me give,
My cheerful hands resign;

* And if I could make some reserve.

And duty did not call,
I love my God with zeal so great
That I must give him all.’”

A third reading of this passage will be — give up your hindrance. This young man’s hindrance was his possessions, and it was better that he should relinquish his possessions and be saved, than be hindered by his wealth. What, my dear friend, is your hindrance? Give it up; give it up; give it up! Oh, I know some of you that are hindered by bad company. You are often impressed; but it is all blown away by those merry men whose merriment is tinged with lasciviousness. Give them up. Will you give them up, or give Christ up? Which shall it be? You remember in John Bunyan’s Life he says that one Sunday, when he was playing on the village green at a game of cat, he was just about to strike the cat when a voice came to him from heaven, and said, “Wilt thou have thy sins and go to hell, or leave thy sins and go to heaven?” And he stood there in the midst of his companions and paused, and they could not think what ailed the tinker while he was disputing in his mind which it should be, Christ and heaven, or his sins and hell. Now, whatever your hindrance is — be it money, be it worldly ambition, or be it any fond passion of the flesh — whatever it is, give it up. If it be thy right hand, thou hadst better cut it off, and cast it from thee, than keeping it seal thine endless doom. If it be thy right eye, ‘twere better for thee to pluck it out, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. That is the cry of the text; down with your idols; give up your all; cast away your hindrances, and come to Christ and trust him. That is the first word of instruction.

Another instructive word is this — “Take up thy cross.’’ That means, profess Christ You have a notion, perhaps, some of you, that you will sneak into heaven as secret Christians. Talie care that you do not find yourselves at another gate than the gate of pearl, if you try that. Christ came not to save those cowardly souls who vill not own him. His own words are, “He that denieth me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” Ashamed of Jesus! Ah! then, remember those words, “The fearful and unbelieving!” The fearful — that is, those who are afraid to own Christ as their Master — “shall have their portion in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” I pray you, then, if you are Christ’s, confess him, own him. Confess that you are his; take up your cross. Take up the cross — that is, endure his reproach. You would not like to be called a canting Methodist, or a stolid Presbyterian, or some other ugly name. Ah! but my dear friend, if thou wouldest have Christ’s crown thou must have Christ’s cross; and he that is not willing to be sneered at with Christ, cannot reign with Christ. And what if they do sneer at thee? If that be thy cross, take it up. What higher honor can a man want on this side heaven than to be called a fool for Christ? I wot the day shall come when angels shall envy the men that were permitted to have the privilege of suffering for Christ. You know the old story of Henry the Fifth, when, in view of a battle, it was said he wanted more men, and he replied that he did not wish for more men, for

•’ The fewer men the greater share of honor;” and he pictured the day when

“Gentlemen in England, now a-bed, Shall think themselves accurs’dthey were not here.”

Truly, if you could escape rebuke and persecution, you might well be grieved to think that you went to heaven by so mean a way. Be willing, then, like a brave spirit, to take up the cross and carry it, counting the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. Take up your cross — that is, trust in the cross, grasp it as your only hope; let the atonement which Jesus made by his death be the delight of your soul, and ever from this day boast therein.

The last word of direction was, “Folloio we.” Christ said, “Follow me.” He meant, did he not, confide in me? As a confiding sheep follows its shepherd, so follow me. He meant “Obey me; as the servant follows where the master leads, so track my footsteps, and let my example be your rule.” In like manner Jesus says to you also — “Persevere in following me; never cease so doing; follow me right up to my throne, and there rest with me.”

Listen, then, each of you here present, who have only one thing that you lack. Will you now — may his holy Spirit make you — give up the world and all its fair prospects, give up sin and all its fascinations, give up your fleshly self, with all its peculiar inclinations, and close in with God in Christ, and give your whole heart to him? Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! There is a valley of decision to us all, when we are either left to our own wills and decide for evil, or led by the grace of God to decide for Christ. The cry is heard in this house to-night, “Didde, divide.” Those who shall say “aye” within their hearts take their place with Christ; but those who are of the “noes” — those who give the negative to the command of Christ — let them, at least, know what they are doing; and if they will go the downward road, let it be with their eyes open, fully aware where they go. But, oh! say not “No!” Oh I Spirit of God, let them not say “No!” Yield thee, man, yield to the gentle impulse which now bids thee say, “I will take his yoke upon me, for it is easy; I will follow him.”

Yield to his love who round you now
The hands of a man would cast — The cords of his love who was given for you,
To his altar binding you fast. ’

Pray this prayert “Lord, bind the sacrifice with cords, even with cords to the horns of the altar; let me be thine now, and thine hereafter when thou com est in thy glory!”

There is a question that has often been asked, with feelings of curiosity, which I cannot answer. It is this. Did the young man inherit eternal life after all? I think he did; I think he did; because Jesus loved him. I like his character throughout, as the Saviour evidently did, and he did not love because of outward appearances; he looked at the heart. I am not altogether displeased at his going away. It was a deal better than stopping, if he did not feel disposed to follow the good Master, who had eternal life at his disposal. He would do it honestly or not at all. I even look hopefully at his pausing awhile before complying, if such was the issue, for the man that flings all away in a moment may want it back again to-morrow. It was a great deal he had to part from, and he went away, but he did not go away careless. I should be heartily glad if all my hearers went away sorrowing when they were not converted; I should think it was a hopeful sign. He went away sorrowing, and though the Saviour drew from that the moral that it was hard for a rich man to be saved, yet he said it was possible with God, and why, then, was it not possible with that young man? I do not know. There are some things to be said on either side, and where Scripture is silent we must not give a positive verdict.

But there is another question that I think is vastly more important, and to me far more interesting, but to each one of you it is charged with the most momentous consequence. It is this — will that young man that I have been talking to to-night be saved? And the young woman that I tried to describe just now, will she ultimately inherit eternal life? Oh! may God grant that the answer may be in each case — “Yea, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I trust thee, that 1 love thee; and whatever thou callest me to give up, or to be or to do for thy name’s sake, even all things, I will do it.” Then your decision shall furnish an unerring clue to your destiny. The Lord bless you. Cheer up. He has blessed you, and you shall be blessed. You are saved, and you shall be his in the day of his appearing. Amen.