Compel Them to Come In

The worst and vilest may be saved. Miglitj awakenings do not stop short of the leprous and abandoned sinner. “When the Master of the house was angry, because all his invited guests began to make excuse, and refused to come to the Great Supper, though all things were ready, he thus gave orders to his servant: ‘’ Gro out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.” As this was not enough, he gave a second order: “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come IN, that my house may be filled.“ “Who are these but the extremest outcast sinners? Such abound in our city, and perish for want of Christ.

‘Luke 14: 23.

COMPEL THEir TO COME IN.

There is in grace a wonderful power of growth, which, under Grod, is our hope in regard to society. It is salt, it is leaven, it is seed, it is light; these are Scriptural figures, all importing diffusion. In revivals of religion we observe this very remarkably exemplified. From one individual, we see the spark kindling upon a whole family, and from one family, reaching a church or neighborhood. But what we desire to witness, and what we should pray for, is, that Christianity in its vital power should reach far and deeply into the worst layers of society. 0 brethren I what must become of these self-destroying masses, unless they receive the truth!

“When the Lord Jesus was engaged in his ministry on earth, he did not limit his regards to those who call themselves the better classes. “The common people heard him gladly.” Remark was often made upon his tolerance of the wicked: “This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.” He was a ‘friend of publicans and sinners.” Of the multitudes who went out after him, thousands were doubtless poor, and thousands were blind and vicious. Sons of affliction and daughters of infamy heard his gracious words. People of 185

COMPEL TilEM TO COME IN.

til is sort have not only sense of misery but consciousness of guilt. They are often stung and lashed by remorse. In a sort of desperation they sometimes cry to God. They are frequently more ready to be impressed by the glad tidings than church-going formalists. Jesus spake to their hearts, and his gospel is still suited to such. In the great awakenings under Wesley and “Whitefield, there was nothing more, remarkable than the degree in which the Gospel was carried home with power to the souls of the very lowest. “My rule,” said John Wesley, “is to go not only to those who need me, but to those who need me most.” The wretchedness which drove people to Christ was not altogether spiritual in the first instance, though in the Divine providence it had spiritual consequences. He who came for loaves and fishes found the bread of life; she who brought her vessel to the well of Sychar, received living water. So now, the sullen anguish of poverty, discontent, and disease, in cellars, garrets, and over-crowded and pestilential tenements, engenders longings which only the Gospel can gratify. Alas! alas! how slender are the means as yet employed for carrying the Gospel to these exisa treme points I Yet to these very points the Gospel may be carried with the best hopes of success. It were a dangerous error to presume that the inmates even of the odious resorts, noted and watched by the police, are necessarily devoid of thoughts about religion, and gnawing though vague consciousness of sin. Could we unroof dense portions of this great city, and look into the dens of drink, and play, and debauchery, we should behold the undeniable signs of wounded spirits, without hope, without God. The Gospel is made for such, and has saved such. Amidst the reiterated and increasing prayers which go up for the outpouring of the Spirit, surely there ought to be importunate supplicatioti for influences to penetrate these lowest strata. Awakening is incomplete unless it go deeper, far deeper down, than our well-dressedthrongs. Blessed be God, that these have the privilege; but oh! we crave it for the abject and abandoned. ISTor will the victorious progress be complete till it reach the felon, the drunkard, and the ’ strange woman.’ In regard to these dangerous and desperate classes, a voice seems to issue from the holy place:

“Whom shall we send, and who will go for lis?”

Although places of instruction and worship are greatly needed for the miserable and vicious, and although all wealthy Christians should feel guilty until such be established, it is not enough to provide these means. Experience proves that good houses may remain empty, and able preachers unheard. We need a shock, to rouse these benumbed souls; an impulse, to urge them toward inquiry; a mighty drawing, to bring them to the Word. Their chief want is that of interest, awakening, motive; something to make them go to church, and care for their own souls. Popular reformations, under the truth, have this effect in some measure. Indeed we can think of nothing more likely to compel the attention of base, violent, and blasphemous men and women, than a mighty tide of revival, pressing its repeated waves into their miserable homes and hearts. Bad influences are propagated thus, why not good influences? All throuQjh the “electric circle of a certain class,^ one hour will suffice to thrill the morbid passionate excitement of a prize-fight, a murder, or a rising mob; why should not the same human conductors bear such, impulses as have driven multitudes to hear a Luther, a “Whitefield, or a Spurgeon? Would to God that we could see the day in which the messages of salvation and the meeting for prayer should be crowded by the very class who now fill drinking-shops, dance-houses, caverns of lawless pleasure, and jails! Nothing will effect this but great unexampled awakening; and for this we are to pray. If we carefully read what our blessed Lord spake in parable concerning the two sons, we shall see that these are the people who not only need the truth, but who are accessible to its power. “Jesus saith unto them, Yerily I say unto you. That the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you”^

When in so remarkable a manner God is displaying his readiness to convert great numbers to himself, all who fear his name and love the souls of men, ought to be prostrate before him, in beseeching cries, that he would vouchsafe to urge the work of grace more widely and profoundly through the depraved multitude. As certainly as faith and love

iMalt. 21: 28-32. 180 beget prayer, so certainly will prayer beget action; and means will be used to evangelize the lowest and vilest. Means are already attempted, but they will be better sustained. The blind and vicious, from whose ranks the levies are made for riots and prisons, will not flock to the preached “Word, until some fresh and irresistible influence, affecting the whole population, find its way to the very scenes of their nocturnal orgies. Prayer for such an influence is clearly laid before us as a duty. While we pray we must work. These children of the wicked one will not come to the light; it must be carried to them. By territorial division; by canton of labor not too large to be manageable; by turning on a force of godly men and women large enough to visit with frequency; by making the effort in concert and exhaustively, so as to leave no nook or corner untouched; and by giving to the miserable some tidings of that rich gospel feast which awaits their acceptance, we shall instrumentally “compel them to come in.” Unbelief as to the power and willingness of God to do this, is at the bottom of all our neglect and wrong action in this matter. If for a moment we fancy such an event as the conversion of our degraded and dangerous classes, the incredulous principle replies: “Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be?“^ An awakening which should shake the dry bones in all the lowest populations, rousing them from filth and drunkenness, and raising up an exceeding great army to fight the good fight of faith, is more than we dare ask of God. And yet, brethren, it is not more than we may reasonably expect on Scriptural grounds, nor more than the eyes of the Church shall joyfully see, in the day when, by the Spirit, she shall rise to the height of faith and entreaty. Such a glory will be like that in respect to which the Lord comforts Zion in prediction: ‘’Light up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together and come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord; thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornapient, and bind them on thee, as a bride doth.”^

1 2 Kiii-s ‘7:2. 2 jgaiah 49: 18.

THE PENITENT’S HYMN TO CHRIST.

My Saviour, canst thou welcome back
A wanderer gone so far astray —

Whose heart ten thousand terrors rack, Ten thousand sins to wrath betray?

Fain would I come, fain would I fly

To lay my burden at thy feet;
And in abasement ever lie

Tearful before thy mercy-seat.

But feebleness and guilt and shame
Restrain me, and I sink oppressed:

There is no favor I can claim.
No place in Jesus’ spotless breast.

Thus do I tremble, yet once more
My flowing eye looks up and sees

The griefs thy sacred body bore,
Thy scars, and blood, and agonies.

“Ah! not for me, these pains were borne!’*

Such is the guilty spirit’s cry: “Ah! not for me /” the soul forlorn

Reiterates with many a sigh.

For thee! lost sinner, yes, for thee!

Such answer from that marred face: For thee, though sunken in guilt’s sea,

This sacrifice hath purchased grace.

All crimsoned over with thy sin,
Welcome, lost sinner, welcome now;

These arms were spread to take thee in, This head for thee in death did bow

Melted by love, by pity won,
I yield me. Saviour, to thy love,

The streams that from thy heart have run Shall every spot of guilt remove.