BEARING THE REPROACH

I remember when I was quite young spiritually, and I had to take a stand, and it was very hard. I felt the reproach, and I felt it keenly, and the bitterness of it. All my companions were going out, and I had to refuse to go with them. I was in Rochdale that day, and I was going quite close to John Kershaw's chapel, when this word came:

"Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt."
(Hebrews 11:25-26)

You children, you young people, there will be that reproach that you will have to bear.

By B.A. Ramsbottom

WHAT IS GOD?

A king of the ancient kingdom of Syracuse once asked one of his wisest men, Simondes, the question: "What is God?"

He asked for a day to think over his answer. But the next day he returned and asked for an extension of two more days, and then four more days and eventually eight more days!

The king was getting rather exasperated and impatiently asked why he needed so much time: to which the wise man replied: "The more I think of God, the more I realise how little I know of Him."

Perhaps this man knew what Job said:

"Lo these are parts of His ways: but how little a portion is heard of Him?"
(Job 26:14)

By Gerald D. Buss

LYING SLANDER

Lying slander is one of the foulest sins on earth, seeking as it does to destroy man's character, injure his usefulness to others, separate him from his friends and crush him beneath an unjust burden.

CONQUERING GRACE

Some while ago, a gamekeeper was walking through part of the estate for which he was responsible, when he heard the moaning of a dog. He turned aside and found a dog with its leg trapped in a snare. When he first tried to approach the dog to free it, he was met with snarls and vicious growls. But notwithstanding the hostile dog, he managed at length to release its leg, whereupon the dog turned and licked his face appreciatively and followed him as if it was his own dog.

What a picture is this of the effects of grace!

When the Lord begins to call a sinner by His grace, the natural heart of that sinner is totally opposed to God and godliness. This is seen when the sinner says: "We will not have this Man to reign over us." But grace conquers this in the end, and by love changes the heart, renews the will, and turns the feet to Zion's hill.

By Gerald D. Buss

JESUS AFFIRMED SCRIPTURE!

Jesus affirmed the reality (historicity) of the following people and events, often the targets of most sceptical and liberal mockery:

Matthew 19:3-6, Mark 10:5-9 - God created Adam and Eve as the first man and woman, "from the beginning of the creation;" and this was the basis for marriage.

Luke 11:51 - Abel.

Matthew 24:37-39; Luke 17:26-27 - Noah and the Flood.

John 8:56-58 - Abraham.

Matthew 10:15; Matthew 11:23-24; Luke 10:12 - Sodom and Gomorrah.

Luke 17. 28-32 - Lot and his wife.

Matthew 8:11; Luke 13:28 - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

John 6:31, John 6:49, John 6:58 - Manna from heaven.

John 3:14 - Moses and the brazen serpent.

Matthew 12:39-41 - Jonah and the whale.

Matthew 12:42 - Queen of Sheba.

Luke 16:31 and John 5:46-47 - Moses as inspired author of the Pentateuch.

Matthew 24:15 - Daniel the Prophet as author of the Book of Daniel (citing Daniel 9:27).

THE BLESSEDNESS OF DIVINE CHASTENING

Preached at Providence Chapel, London, on Tuesday Evening, July 24, 1849, by J. C. Philpot

"Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, and teachest him out of thy law;
That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked."
(Psalm 94:12-13)

What a different estimate men form of blessedness and happiness, from that which God has declared in his word to be such! If we listen to the opinions of men about happiness, would not their language be something like this– 'Happiness consists in health and strength--in an abundance of the comforts, luxuries, and pleasures of life; in an amiable and affectionate partner; in children healthy, obedient, and well-provided for in the world; in a long and successful life, closed by an easy and tranquil death.' I think a natural man would, if he did not use the very words, express his ideas of happiness pretty much in the substance of what I have just sketched out.

But when we come to what the Lord God Almighty has declared to be happiness; when we turn aside from the opinions of men, to the expressed words and revealed ways of the Lord, what do we find 'blessedness' to consist in? Who are the people that the unerring God of truth has pronounced to be blessed? "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted; blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth; blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled; blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy; blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Matthew 5:3-11 And again, in the words of our text, "Blessed is the man whom you chasten, O Lord, and teach him out of your law." These are the unerring words of God; and by his words man will be tried. It is not the fleeting, fluctuating opinions of worms of the earth; but it is the unerring declaration of the only true God by which these matters are to be decided.

In attempting, then, this evening to unfold what the Lord has here declared to be real "blessedness," I shall,
1. First, endeavor to show in what this blessedness consists; "Blessed is the man whom you chasten, and teach out of your law."
2. Secondly, why the man thus chastened and thus taught is really blessed; "That you may give him rest from the days of adversity."
3. Thirdly, what is in preparation in the meantime for the ungodly. "Until the pit be dug for the wicked."


I. In what does this blessedness consists? Let us endeavor to look at the spiritual meaning of the words--"Blessed is the man whom you chasten, and teach out of your law." WHO IS THIS MAN? He is one whom God has taken in hand; one to whom the Lord has special purposes of mercy; a true-born child of his heavenly Parent; for "If you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers" (there is no exception), "then are you illegitimate children, and not sons." Heb 12:8 If a man, therefore, be exempt from divine chastening, his character is drawn as with a ray of light. He may congratulate himself on exemption from trouble; he may say, 'there has no evil touched me.' But his very exemption is only a proof that he is an illegitimate child. If he were a true-born child, he would come under the rod; but not being such, he escapes these proofs of God's eternal adoption.

We may observe this naturally. The children who are at this moment disturbing us by their noise in the street, we do not chastise; they are not ours. But if you, as a parent, were to see your child making a noise in the street, or otherwise misconducting himself, you would bring him in and chastise him. He is your child; you are interested in him; you cannot let him act as vagrant children do, because he is your flesh and blood. And therefore, while you pass the rest by, as having no concern in them, you bring your own children under especial chastening because they are your own. It is so spiritually. The wild vagrants, to whom the Lord has no regard, the children of Satan, who are filling up the measure of their iniquity, have no rod of chastisement; they are left, like these poor ragged children, to their own ways. But the heirs of promise, the children of the living God, those whom he is training to be with him forever in bliss and glory, he will not allow to go on in their own ways; for them he has a rod of correction.

But, we may observe in the words before us, that the Lord puts chastening before teaching. Is there not something remarkable in this? Why should chastening precede teaching? For this reason. We have no ear to hear except so far as we are chastened. Take the case I have alluded to. Your child does something wrong. Do you instruct him first, or do you chasten him first? You chasten him first. And then, when by means of the chastisement you have brought him to submission, to a proper state of mind, you tell him how wrongly he has acted. The rod smites the body before the instruction drops into the ear. So it is spiritually. In God's dealings with his children, he chastises first; and when by his chastisement they have received an ear to hear, a conscience to feel, and a heart to embrace the truth revealed to them, he drops his instruction into their soul.

The Lord has various ways of chastising his people; but he generally selects such chastisement as is peculiarly adapted to the individual whom he chastens. What would be a very great chastisement for you, might not be so to me; and what on the other hand might be a very severe stroke to me might not be so to you. Our dispositions, our constitutions, and our experiences may all differ; and therefore that chastening is selected which is suitable to the individual. It is as though the Lord has suspended in his heavenly closet a number of rods of different sizes; and he takes out that very rod which is just adapted to the very child whom he intends to chastise, inflicting it in such a measure, at a time, and in such a way as is exactly fitted to the individual to be chastised. And here is the wisdom of God signally displayed.

1. The Lord, for instance, sees fit to chasten some in body. We find this in the Scriptures. In the book of Job especially it is mentioned--"Or a man may be chastened on a bed of pain with constant distress in his bones, so that his very being finds food repulsive and his soul loathes the choicest meal. His flesh wastes away to nothing, and his bones, once hidden, now stick out." Job 33:19-21. There we have an instance of an individual laid upon a sick bed, in pain of body, distress of mind, and chastened by his gracious Lord for his good. So we find the Apostle Paul speaking to the Corinthians, who had misbehaved themselves at the Lord's supper; "For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." 1Co 11:30 It was their unbecoming conduct at the Lord's supper which had brought on them bodily sickness. The Lord chastened their body for the misconduct of their soul.

So in the case of Hezekiah, we find the Lord took similar measures. The prophet was sent to him with this message in his mouth, "Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live." 2Ki 20:1 Sickness took hold of him, and he was stretched upon the bed of death. But see how it worked in him! "He turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the Lord." He turned away from all human help, and fixed his eyes wholly and solely on him who is able to save. It is in sickness and affliction, oftentimes, that the Lord is pleased to manifest himself to our souls, bless us with his presence, and stir up in us a spirit of prayer. I myself am a living witness of it; the greatest blessings I have ever had, the sweetest manifestations of the Lord to my soul have been upon a sick bed. Illness is often very profitable. Bodily afflictions separate us from the world, set our hearts upon heavenly things, draw our affections from the things of time and sense, when the Lord is pleased to manifest himself in them. And yet there are other times and seasons when we are laid upon a bed of sickness, and yet no blessing is given. I remember once, after the Lord had blessed my soul upon a bed of sickness, when I got a little better, and the blessing had worn off, this thought crossed me, 'O, your spiritual state of mind was not the effect of grace; you were sick and afflicted; it was that, and not anything specially from God that brought those feelings.' Soon after, I was laid upon a bed of sickness again; had I then the same blessed feelings, the same views of Christ, the same spiritual-mindedness in my soul? Quite the contrary; all was hard, dark, dead, and barren. Then I saw that it was not the sickness that could make Christ known, loved, or precious; but the power of God made manifest in it. And thus, sometimes, we learn from our very barrenness, hardness, and deadness, profitable lessons, and are convinced thereby that we are utterly unable to raise up one spiritual feeling in our souls.

2. Others the Lord chastens in their families. Our children are very near and dear to us; they are our own flesh and blood, and touch our tenderest feelings. Now the Lord sometimes may pass by ourselves personally, and 'afflict us in our children or our partners in life'. We find this in the Scriptures. We see how Jacob suffered from his children, by losing one for a time, and others proving thorns in his side, and a grief to his soul. We see this also in David, when he wept out his soul with such bitter sorrow, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom; would to God I had died for you, O Absalom, my son, my son!" 2Sa 18:33 We see it in the case of Amnon and Tamar. 2Sa 13 What misery was produced by his children in his own household! We see it also in the taking away of the child which he had by the wife of Uriah the Hittite; which though it cut him to the very soul, yet he saw as the chastising hand of God for his fearful transgression.

3. Others again are chastened in their worldly circumstances. We see this in the Scriptures also. Look at Job; a man who in riches exceeded all the men of the East. But how in a moment all was struck away; his flocks, his herds, and all his possessions taken away at a stroke. Ungodly people do not see the hand of God in these things; it is all 'a chance' with them, or an 'unfortunate speculation, which did not succeed.' But when the children of God enter into speculations, or embark their money in enterprises which are not consistent; when a reverse comes, the speculation turns out to be a failure, and the money is lost, it is their blessing to receive it as a stroke from God and as a mark of divine chastisement. Their eyes are then anointed with eye-salve to see that it is a justly deserved stroke; and though it cuts them all the more deeply, yet they receive it as from the Lord, and submit to it as a dispensation of mercy, not of wrath.

4. Others I may say all in their measure, the Lord afflicts spiritually, in their souls. What I have hitherto been treating upon are mere EXTERNAL afflictions--afflictions of the body, in the family, and in circumstances. All these are the dispensations of God, and ought to be viewed as such; and when so viewed, they work together in the soul for good. They must not be put aside; we must not say, 'The hand of God is not in them; it is all a chance.'

Nothing comes to a child of God as a matter of accident or chance; it all proceeds from God, and all is dealt out in measure and for certain purposes. If the Lord touches our bodies, it is for our spiritual good; if he brings affliction through our children, it is for our spiritual good; if he afflicts us in our circumstances, it is for our spiritual good. When the eye is opened to see, the ear to hear, the heart to believe, and the conscience made tender to feel, we know and confess that these things are sent from God. Here is the difference between a believer and an unbeliever. Infidelity says 'it is a chance;' for unbelief sees the hand of God in nothing--faith says, 'it is the Lord;' for faith sees the hand of God in everything.

Now though a few may escape these outward troubles, yet there are spiritual afflictions which we cannot and must not escape. If we do escape them, woe be to us; we are only signing our death-warrant; only proclaiming aloud, 'We are illegitimate children.' If we are God's children, we shall have spiritual afflictions; and these will consist, proportionately to light and life in the conscience, in painful convictions of guilt; in deep repentance and grief of soul on account of our backslidings; in a discovery of our evil ways and crooked actions; in sorrow for the many things we have done which conscience bears witness against as sinful. The denial of answers to our prayers; the shutting up of the throne of grace to our cries; the darkness of mind that we labor under; the trying thoughts we may have at times concerning our state, or the dealings of God with our souls; the inability to raise up faith, hope, and love, in our hearts– these all are to be viewed as chastisements.

Is it not so naturally? Your child has done something wrong, and displeased you. Do you look upon him now as kindly as at other times? No! You keep him at a distance; you do not let him dine with you today; you abridge him perhaps a part of his food; you make him go to bed early and in the dark; and if you do not visit him with positive stripes, you manifest by your reserved countenance and serious look that you are displeased; you will not take him upon your knee, nor embrace him like his brothers and sisters, but send him to bed without a kiss. What are all these but marks to the child of your displeasure? These are chastisements; and if the child is tender-hearted, he will go sobbing to bed because his parent is displeased with him; for he knows he has brought this displeasure upon himself. It is so spiritually.

The Lord deals with us as a parent does with his children; he does not smile upon us, does not give us a kiss, will not speak kindly to us, or look upon us as in times past with looks of favor and love, and will not, as it seems, hear us when we call. You teach your child by similar means your displeasure. When you are reserved, and keep him at a distance, he knows the reason, and he feels the reserve as a mark of your displeasure. So it is with God. When he denies answers to our prayers; shuts up his manifested mercy; leaves us to wretched, desponding, and gloomy feelings, these are all chastisements, and are to be received as such; and when they are so received, they work good effects in the soul, for they produce submission, resignation, quietness, meekness, and humility.

In these, and other various ways, of which time will not suffice to mention the tenth part, God chastens his people. The Lord chastens those whom he loves; and "blessed is the man whom he chastens." There are many afflicted, but only few chastened--many have abundance of worldly trouble; but only God's people are really chastened, so as to see and feel the hand of God in the rod, and submit to it as such. Here is all the difference between a believer and an unbeliever, between a child of God and an infidel.

We pass on to consider the second part of the blessedness of the man whom God chastens. "And teaches him out of your law." We have just hinted at the reason why chastening precedes teaching. We have no ear for instruction until we feel the stroke of God upon us. It was so with the prodigal. Until he was brought to his right mind by strokes of hunger, he did not think of his father's house; he had no heart to return; but a mighty famine sent him home. So it is with God's children; as long as they are allowed to wander in their backslidings, they have no heart to return. But let the rod come--let them be driven home with stripes; then they have an ear to listen, while God teaches them to profit, instructs them by his blessed Spirit, and speaks into their heart those lessons which are for their eternal good.

"And teaches him out of your law." We would, I think, much err from the mind of the Spirit, if we confined the meaning of the word "law," as some do, to the law strictly and properly so called. "The law" in the Scriptures has a very wide signification; it means, in the original, instruction. The word is Torah, which signifies 'teaching' or 'direction.' And as the law given by Moses was the grand instruction that God gave to the children of Israel into his holiness and purity, the word Torah, or instruction, became fixed in a definite manner to the law as given at Sinai. But the word in itself has a far higher meaning, signifying instruction generally; and thus we find, in the New Testament, that the word "law" is not confined to the law of Moses given in thunder and lightning upon Mount Sinai. For instance, we read of "the law of the Spirit of life" in Christ Jesus, which has "made me free from the law of sin and death." Romans 8:2 The "law of the Spirit of life" there mentioned does not mean the law given on Mount Sinai. Again, "Whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." Jas 1:25 "The perfect law of liberty," does not, cannot mean the law given at Mount Sinai; it is the gospel of Jesus Christ; the instruction, the Torah, which the Spirit has given of the Lord Jesus, and therefore called "the perfect law of liberty."

So, in the Old Testament, "O how I love your law; it is my meditation all the day." Psalm 119:97 David was not meditating all the day upon the words given upon Mount Sinai; he was not utterly consumed with terrors by meditating upon the strictness and holiness of God as revealed in that law; but he was looking into the gospel, and in that law he delighted all the day, as beholding in it the glories of the Lamb.

And thus, in our text, when it says, "Blessed is the man whom you chasten, O Lord, and teach him out of your law," it does mean, I grant, in the first instance, the law strictly speaking as revealing the purity, holiness, and perfection of God; but we must not limit it, as some do, to the law definitely so called. A man, then, is blessed whom God teaches out of his law--that is, brings near those things which the law reveals, and seals them upon his heart. The law is a manifestation of God's purity, holiness, justice, majesty, greatness, and glory; and was given upon Mount Sinai in thunderings, lightnings, and earthquakes, to show forth the majesty of God. Now the Lord, in the first instance, teaches his people by showing to them out of the law his purity, holiness, majesty, the perfection of his character, his indignation against sin, and his wrath against sinners. And every feeling of guilt produced by a manifestation of God's purity, affection, uprightness, justice, wrath, indignation against sin, and direful vengeance that burns to the lowest hell-every such conviction, and every such feeling is a teaching out of his law. But there are some living souls whom God has taught, and is teaching out of his law, who because some definite words of the law have not been applied to their heart, are full of fear that they never had the sentence of the law written in their conscience.

But there is one mark, if not more, whereby we may know whether we have ever had the application of the law strictly speaking to our conscience. What is this? The law "brings bondage," that is, it generates or produces bondage in the soul. Now there may be some here this evening, who may say, 'I do not know that I ever had definite words applied to my conscience, such as, "Cursed is every one who continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." But let us see whether by bringing your experience to the word of God, you cannot find that you have experienced what sometimes you do not fear have not. Have you never felt bondage? Has your soul never been shut up, and unable to come forth? Have you had no slavish fear of God? Have you never been as it were bound in fetters of iron, and felt that nothing but the mighty power of God coming into your soul could set you free? Have you had no slavish fears of death? We read, that there were some who "all their life-time" were subject to this fear. Have you had no fear of death when the cholera is going about? Have you had no dread lest that dreadful scourge might enter your door, and you might be stricken with the fearful malady? Has no groan or sigh gone up to God through the dread of it? What is this but bondage? And what brings bondage but the law?

Not the letter, but the spirit of the law--because it brings, that is, generates, as a father, in the soul, what the dead lifeless letter cannot possibly do, a spirit of bondage. If you have felt this bondage, this fear, these doubts, these manacles and chains, which your sins have wreathed round your neck, then you have been taught "out of the law;" aye, you have felt the law; for it has produced a spirit of bondage in your soul.

Let us see whether we cannot find another mark. It is this; "By the law is the knowledge of sin." Have you any knowledge of sin? Have the sins of your evil heart ever been felt? Have you ever seen the purity and perfection of Jehovah; and felt the justice of God in his holy law? Do you ever feel that had God sentenced your soul to eternal damnation, he would be just; that you had deserved it all, and brought it on your own head? Can you say, that he would be just in condemning you to the lowest hell? If you have felt this, you have been taught out of God's law; for "by the law is the knowledge of sin."

But we pass on to consider "the law," in a different point of view. The "law," as I have already noticed, signifies not merely "the law," strictly speaking as the sentence of condemnation; but it includes also the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ--"the perfect law of liberty; the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus;" that law which was in the heart of the Redeemer, when he said, "I come to do your will, O God; yes, your law is within my heart."

Now, as the Lord teaches his children "out of the law," strictly so called, so he teaches them "out of" the gospel; and to my mind there is something exceedingly sweet and expressive in the words "out of the law." It seems to convey to my mind, not only that the law is a treasure-house of wrath, but that the gospel also is a treasure-house of mercy. And as those who know most of the law are only taught "out of the law," and not the whole of the law, only a few drops as it were, out of the inexhaustible wrath of God; so out of the heavenly treasure-house of the gospel, "the perfect law of liberty," it is but a little of grace and mercy that in this life can be known. As Christ said to his disciples in promising the Spirit; "He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." John 16:15 He cannot take "all," and show it unto them; for none could live under the sight.

The Spirit, therefore, takes of the things of Christ, and shows here a little and there a little; some little blessedness here, and some little blessedness there; a suitable promise, a gracious testimony, a comforting text, an encouraging word, a sight of atoning blood, a smile of his countenance, a view of his Person, a discovery of his righteousness, or a glimpse of his love. This is taking of the things of Christ and revealing them to the soul. And thus, the man whom the Lord takes in hand, he teaches "out of" the gospel by making Christ experimentally known, and revealing his dying love. And thus he teaches each and all "out of his law"--both the law from Sinai, and the law from Zion.

But, observe the connection between chastening and teaching. This is what I am wishing to impress upon you. Suppose you are in a carnal state of mind; say you are a man of business, have done a good stroke today, have got something which has wonderfully pleased your covetous heart, have been carried away by some worldly project. But you have come to chapel this evening. Are you in a fit state to hear the word of God? Is the Lord about to teach you now out of the gospel? You are not the man, nor is your soul in a fit state to receive it. But suppose it otherwise. Say, the Lord has been severely chastening you of late; you are just recovering from a painful sickness; have lost a child; had an affliction in your family; something trying has happened today, yesterday, or the last week in your worldly circumstances; or the Lord has set to his hand, and wrought more powerfully upon your soul than he has for months past; you have been cut up with convictions, felt your backslidings, and could scarcely bear to creep to chapel, lest you should hear your own condemnation.

You are the very person whom God is chastening that he may teach out of his law. You were not in a fit state before to hear; you were thinking how tedious the minister was, and wondering when he would finish the sermon; your mind was full of wandering thoughts, or you were caviling at all you heard. But now you have an ear to hear; a sigh and a cry in your heart, and lips when you come to chapel; and in groaning out your petition before you come, you say, 'O Lord, will you speak one word to my soul tonight? Will you kindly look upon a poor vile backslider? O do manifest yourself to me!' This is teaching following chastening. You must have chastening first; you must first be brought to your senses, have a heart given you to feel; have many stripes laid upon you to bring your wandering feet back to the paths of righteousness; and then the gospel is for you.

The promises of mercy, the sweet invitations, the forgivenesses with God, and all the blessings which the gospel is filled with, are for those whom the Lord brings down and chastens. And therefore, there are very few people who are really in a state fit to hear the gospel, the precious love of God as revealed in the Person of Christ. This is the reason why we have so many hardened antinomians in our day; so many dry, doctrinal professors, whose lives, conduct, and conversation are disgraceful to the name they profess. It is because they are not chastened. And this makes them the bitterest enemies to real experimental truth, and to the men who speak out of the fullness of a believing, exercised heart. There is a connection, therefore, between being chastened, afflicted, exercised, and being taught "out of the law." God does not teach, and afterwards chasten for disobedience--but he first brings down the heart with labor, and then sows in it the seeds of instruction.


II. But we pass on to our second branch, which is, the reason why the Lord chastens and teaches his children--"that he may give them rest from days of adversity." There are "days of adversity" coming; and these may be more serious than any one at present expects. We may have days of great adversity and troublous times as regards the country generally. We may have persecutions. We may have calamitous times as regards business, trade, and worldly circumstances; and these things affect all men. We are so linked together, so dependent upon each other, that whatever touches one touches all. If troublous times come, they will touch the church as well as the world. What a blessing, then, for God's people, if they have a rest from the "days of adversity;" if they have a God to go to, a Jesus to lean on, a lap to be dandled in, and a bosom to pillow their aching heads.

But, supposing the political horizon is not overshadowed; supposing worldly matters are peaceable and quiet, there may be "days of adversity" of another character. You may have a long and painful sickness, be brought into very trying circumstances; you that are now in comparative comfort may be brought down to poverty; you may have a very heavy affliction in your family; and see little else but "days of adversity." These will come, and we cannot prevent them. We can no more say "the day of adversity" shall not come, than we can say, tomorrow will not be a rainy day, or that the shadow will not attend tomorrow's sunshine. The Lord, then, knowing the "days of adversity" which are in store; knowing that sickness and death are coming, has prepared a rest beforehand; "Come, my people," he says, "enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by." Isaiah 26:20

But how do we get this "rest?" By being chastened and by being taught. Until we are chastened, we make the world our home; and a very pleasant paradise it is. Our children, our friendships, our pursuits, our worldly ease, the many airy castles that we build up, are all very pleasant to us until strokes of chastisement come, and the Lord begins to afflict us in body, in family, or in soul. Yet how kind it is, and all the kinder for being painful, for the Lord to chasten us back to our true home. Our child may perhaps be away from home; there is a storm gathering; the thunder is ready to break forth; and he is about to be exposed to the lightning's flash. If he loiters, are you dealing unkindly with him if you whip him home? Is not every stroke a kindness that brings him out of the thunderstorm? It is so spiritually. The Lord sees that there is a thunderstorm gathering; the lightnings are about to flash; the rain to pour; the hail to strike. Is not every stroke a kind stroke, a stroke of love that brings the wanderer home to find shelter under God's wing until this storm be overpast? We might be wandering abroad in the world with our heads exposed to the lightning stroke; we might hear the warning peal, and be yet too far from home to get there in time; but the Lord foreseeing "the days of adversity," comes with strokes and drives us home. He will not let us lie down in the green fields and flowery meadows, and sleep under the trees.

His strokes are strokes dipped in love; and, however cutting to the flesh, if blessed by the Spirit, they are made instrumental in driving us home, bringing us to our right mind, and showing us where true rest is only to be found--in Christ, in his Person, love, blood, grace, and suitability; in all that he is and all that he has. What a wise and kind parent, then, he is to chasten us, though painful at the time, and to teach us out of his law and gospel, that he may give us rest from "the days of adversity."


III. But we come to our third point; what the Lord is preparing in the meanwhile for the ungodly. There is no chastening for them; no teaching for them; no preparing a rest for them; or preparing them for rest. What, then, is awaiting them? What a striking figure here the Lord makes use of! "Until the pit be dug for the wicked." What is the figure? Is it not this? In Eastern countries, the ordinary mode of catching wild beasts is to dig a pit, and fix sharp spears in the bottom--and when the pit has been dug sufficiently deep, it is covered over with branches of trees, earth, and leaves, until all appearances of the pitfall are entirely concealed. What is the object? That the wild beast intent upon bloodshed-the tiger lying in wait for the deer, the wolf roaming after the sheep, the lion prowling for the antelope, or the elephant breaking through the jungle, not seeing the pitfall, but rushing on and over it, may not see their doom until they break through and fall upon the spears at the bottom.

What a striking figure is this! Here are the ungodly, all intent upon their purposes; prowling after evil, as the wolf after the sheep, or the tiger after the deer, thinking only of some worldly profit, some covetous plan, some lustful scheme, something the carnal mind delights in; but on they go, not seeing any danger until the moment comes when, as Job says, "they go down to the bars of the pit." The Lord has been pleased to hide their doom from them; the pit is all covered over with leaves of trees, grass, and earth. The very appearance of the pit was hidden from the wild beasts; they never knew it until they fell into it, and were transfixed. So it is with the wicked; both with the professors and the profane. There is no fear of God, no taking heed to their steps, no cry to be directed, no prayer to be shown the way; no pausing, no turning back--on they go, on they go; heedlessly, thoughtlessly, recklessly; pursuing some beloved object--on they go, on they go; until in a moment they are plunged eternally and irrevocably into the pit!

There are many such both in the professing church as well as in the ungodly world. The Lord sees what they are, and where they are; he knows where the pit is; in what part of the wood; how situated in the jungle. God knows their steps; he sees them hurrying on, hurrying on, hurrying on. All is prepared for them. The Lord gives them no forewarning, no notice of their danger; no teachings, no chastenings, remonstrances, no frowns, no stripes; they are left to themselves to fill up the measure of their iniquity, until they approach the pit that has been dug for them, and then down they sink to the bottom!

This will never be the case with the righteous. They are forewarned; they take heed to their ways; the Lord chastens them before times; he teaches them out of his law; he gives them right and deep views of his purity and holiness; and shows them also the refuge which he has prepared for them in the love and blood of the Lamb. Thus, in "the days of adversity," they have a solemn resting-place in the bosom of God, in his covenant faithfulness and love.

Now do you lay these things to heart? How have you come to chapel this evening? What has God done for your soul? Has curiosity or some other motive brought you here? Or do you come hoping to hear that which will do you good, and be spiritually and lastingly profitable? Have you found anything spoken this evening suitable to your case and state? Can you find, looking back on the dealings of God with you in providence or grace, that he has been chastening you? Do fix your eyes, you who desire to fear God, on this mark– say to yourselves, 'Lord, have I been chastened of you? Can I see in my various afflictions the hand of God? Have they done my soul good? Have they been a voice speaking to my heart? Have they brought forth in me the fruits of holiness? Can I say, Lord, "Blessed is the man whom you chasten;" and I am that man?' If so, you are not the wicked. God is not digging a pit for you; he is chastening you before times that he may "give you rest from the days of adversity;" you have a God to go to, and a blessed bosom to lean upon when "the days of adversity" come, and the wicked fall headlong into the pit.

THE BITTER WATERS SWEETENED

Preached at Providence Chapel, London, on July 28, 1850, by J. C. Philpot

"And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah.
And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?
And he cried unto the LORD; and the LORD shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them,"
(Exodus 15:23-25)

The children of Israel, after the flesh, were a 'typical' people; and therefore the dealings of God with them were typical and figurative of His dealings with the spiritual Israel. When we see this, and read the Old Testament Scriptures with an enlightened eye, what beauty does it add to the sacred page! We read these records then, not as so many historical documents, but as descriptive of the children of God, and of His mercy, love and grace towards them. And thus their experience becomes brought home to our own heart and our own bosom. We can see in them our own features, and read in the dealings of God with them the dealings of God with our own souls now.

I need not run through the history of the children of Israel to prove this. Every step they took is, more or less, a proof that the Lord dealt with them outwardly as He deals with his spiritual Israel inwardly. Their state, for instance, in Egypt typified the death and darkness of the people of God before they are quickened by the blessed Spirit. The Paschal Lamb of which they partook, and the blood sprinkled upon the lintel and sideposts, showed forth the redemption of Christ, and the application of His precious blood to the conscience. The passing through the Red Sea signifies the baptism with which they are baptized, when the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit; and their seeing their enemies dead upon the seashore, signifies the rejoicing of a child of God at finding his sins cast into the sea, and overthrown into dead carcasses by the mighty power of Christ.

But we come now to a strange passage in their history. They little expected, as we should little expect, that so heavy a trial would come immediately upon the back of this astonishing deliverance. And what was this trial? "They went three days in the wilderness, and found no water." In this humid climate, we can scarcely conceive what a privation this must have been. But we would not like even in this wet climate, and at this dripping season, to be without water for three days. No water to drink, no water to wash with! But look at this vast multitude, amounting to two million, wandering in a barren desert, with a scorching sun above and parched sands beneath; men, women, children, cattle, languishing, and all but for dying of thirst! And this for three days!

One can scarcely conceive what a privation, what a scene of horror it must have been. But, at the end of three days, water is discovered. They catch a glimpse of palm trees in the wilderness, and perhaps see the glimmering of streams beneath them. You may well conceive what joy would fill the camp. We may well imagine what a universal shout of exultation there would be. What hurrying on to partake of the waters that glistened before their eye in the distance? But alas! when they came there, a further disappointment awaited them. "They came to Marah, and they could not drink of the waters of Marah." Though for three days they had been without water and were dying from thirst, yet when they came to these waters, they were so bitter and brackish, that absolutely they could not drink! What a blow! what a stroke upon stroke! This was indeed striking the dying dead. This was indeed adding grief to their sorrow and heaping calamity upon calamity.

Well, what did they do? What you and I no doubt would have done. They murmured and rebelled, and cried out against Moses for bringing them out of Egypt, with its beautiful Nile, and leading them into this wilderness, where for three days they had no water; and when they came to water, it was so bitter they could not drink. And what did Moses do? Did he join with them? Did he encourage their murmuring, or take part in their rebellion? No; he did what he ever did, and what every child of God must sooner or later do--he "cried unto the Lord." And did he "cry" in vain? Was the Lord a "God afar off, and not at hand?" Was His hand shortened that it could not save, or His ear heavy that it could not hear? No! The same almighty arm that had brought them through the Red Sea found a way of escape. "The Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet."

Now, upon this foundation I shall, with God's blessing, endeavor to raise a spiritual building. Four things seem to strike my mind as connected with, and flowing out of our text:
I. The bitter waters of Marah.
II. The murmuring of the people.
III. The cry of Moses.
IV. The healing of the waters.
May the Lord enable me to speak this morning in such a way as He shall condescend to bless to our souls.


I. The bitter waters of Marah.

In looking at these waters of Marah, it seems that we have to consider two things respecting them--first, what these waters spiritually and typically represented. Secondly, what is intimated by the bitterness of these waters.

We cannot understand by these waters the water of life. There is nothing analogous in the waters of Marah to the streams that gushed out of the rock when smitten by the rod of Moses; for those waters were and ever must be intrinsically sweet. Nor do they resemble the waters seen by the prophet Ezekiel that flowed out of the temple, which when they went into the salt sea healed its bitterness. Eze 47:1-9 These waters, then, cannot be the waters of life, the streams that flow out of the bleeding side of the Redeemer.

What then are they? Why, they seem to my mind to denote things in themselves perfectly suitable and adapted to our natural constitution, and yet embittered by sin; because by the bitterness that is in the waters, I mainly understand sin, and as its necessary consequence and never-failing attendant, sorrow.

When God created the world He pronounced it "very good;" the waters then were sweet. Man, in his primitive innocency, was adapted to the world in its original purity; but "sin entered into the world, and death by sin." Satan was allowed to cast bitterness into these waters; and ever since, sin and sorrow have embittered all circumstances, states and conditions, in a word, everything that would have been otherwise sweet and adapted to our present state of existence.

Let me illustrate this by a few particulars, and show how sin, and its consequence sorrow, have embittered all the streams that otherwise would have been sweet and innocent, healthful and pure.

A. First, look at the world generally. It is a fair world, even in ruins. There is a natural beauty in it, though shattered by the fall. Yet, though outwardly lovely, sin has marred all. We might, in traveling, see a beautiful prospect; a village, for instance, nestling in a valley, by some picturesque mountainside in Switzerland, or lake in the North of England, and say, "Beauty is here; and with beauty, there must be happiness and innocence." But, if we penetrated beneath the surface of this external beauty, what would we see but sin? This beautiful village is probably but a den of drunkenness and profligacy. Thus these waters, which naturally were adapted to the constitution of man, made suitable to him, and he suitable to them, have all been polluted, defiled and embittered by sin cast into them. So, wherever we go, we find sin embittering everything. There is not a country, not a town, not a village, not a family, not a bosom, in which sin is not, and which sin has not embittered--embittered by alienating it from the source of all true, real happiness.

B. Again. There is your lawful occupation in life; your business, your shop, your counting-house, your farm; the calling that God has appointed for you to gain your daily bread by. These are streams of water necessary to your actual existence. You could no more live without them than you could exist without the bread and water that perish. And yet, sin and sorrow embitter all; disappointment, vexation, temptation flow out of and mingle with everything you set your hand to. So that when you would satiate your thirst at these streams they are "waters of Marah" which you cannot drink. If not actual sin, yet disappointment will attend them. I do not believe that you can carry on your lawful calling without sin being intermingled with it. I do not mean open, allowed sin. But sin will interfere, will intrude, will creep in, will work. You can scarcely attend to your lawful calling without in some way partaking of the evil mingled with it. And if not sin, yet there will be sorrow and disappointment. If there be nothing in conscience against you in carrying on your daily business and concerns, yet there will be losses, crosses, bad debts, disappointments and vexations from others. Thus when you would take a sweet and luscious draught from the occupations of life, the cup is dashed from your lips by the bitterness of its contents.

C. Look again at the social relations of life. All are embittered. Let us picture for a few moments a young couple. How roseate is the hue which invests their life! how happy they are going to be, never dreaming of sorrow and trouble! All is bright sunshine. Let them live a few years; let them have children; let them get into middle life, and the cares of a family come upon them; and then see whether their young visions have been realized--whether all has been of a rosy color, whether dark clouds have not hovered over those domestic scenes from which they once thought to drink so much happiness. How often children grow up to be their parents' disappointment and misery! Wives and husbands, instead of being mutual sources of happiness and comfort, prove mutual plagues. Friends, who once seemed so true, turn into enemies; relations, from whom we would expect every kindness and help, grow cold or hostile. How all these domestic relations in various instances are marred and embittered by sin or sorrow! So that, when like the children of Israel, we would gladly stoop down, and drink at these sources of happiness, and they would be sources of happiness but for the marred state of the world, and the sin in men's hearts, we cannot drink the waters; they are embittered; they are "Marah."

D. And so with the human body. God made the body healthy, as He made the soul pure--but when sin entered into the soul, sickness came into the body. How many of God's people have their lives embittered through ill health, and all their pleasing prospects disappointed, broken up, crushed, and thrown down by a load of illness and bodily infirmities.

Now here are the waters of "Marah"--sorrow, vexation, bitterness, disappointment marring everything; so that we cannot drink of the otherwise sweet streams of life. And it is a mercy that we cannot. Could we drink of them we would want no other waters. Could we assuage our thirst at these earthly rills, we would want no streams of that river which "makes glad the city of God." If we could take our fill of earthly comfort and worldly happiness, we would never want to have the consolations of the blessed Spirit, or to drink out of the fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But this is very disappointing. To have bitterness in everything, and bitterness in those things most from which you would gladly derive most pleasure; that directly you are looking forward to some worldly happiness, as the children of Israel hurried onward to the waters glimmering under the palm trees, yet no sooner do you come to that scene of anticipated pleasure, than you find it embittered; some disappointment, some sorrow, some vexation, some sin mars all. Is this very pleasing? Is this what nature loves? Does this go down very smoothly? Not while man is what he is. Did the children of Israel like it? No; they "murmured."


II. The murmuring of the people.

And this brings us to our second point, which is– the murmuring of the rebellious flesh against these dispensations. When the Lord is not present to bless and smile upon the soul, is it not very hard work to have so many trials, vexations and disappointments; to find everything here embittered; that God will not let you have a gourd to rejoice in; that you cannot sit down and say, "Come, now I am going to be comfortable; here is at last a little rest?" Is it not very vexatious, very disappointing, very contrary to every feeling of our natural heart, that the Lord will never let us take comfort in anything but Himself? that when we would gladly stretch forth our arm and embrace an earthly joy, there is a hand that dashes it from our lips? when we would stoop, and drink the waters that glimmer in the desert, they are so salty, brackish, and bitter, that we cannot slake our thirst at them?

1. Now, say that you have many disappointments in business. Are they pleasing? When the postman brings you a letter, for instance, full of bad news--that someone has failed who owes you a large sum of money; do you feel very comfortable under it? Is it not much against the grain? And does not this raise up in your carnal mind murmuring and fretfulness, and a rebellious feeling that you should be so hardly dealt with? You can look abroad, perhaps, and see how others get on in the world– men whom you have known in poverty riding in their carriages--and you always crossed, disappointed, ground down and everything going against you. This is not very pleasant to flesh and blood; this is contrary to nature; and therefore nature murmurs, frets, repines, rebels against these dispensations.

2. Or, you have ill health, and cannot do things as others do them--exertion is a pain to you; your nerves are shattered and your whole frame disorganized from constitutional debility; everything is wearisome--the "grasshopper a burden." You look round, and see people walking about in such health and strength, and you perhaps racked with pain, or your frame altogether shattered, and constitution gone. Why, this will raise up in the mind, at times, some very unpleasant feelings. There will be murmuring, rebellion and fretfulness against God when you see others dealt with so favorably, and you dealt with, as you think, in a way so contrary.

3. Your own family, perhaps your sons and daughters, are not what you wish them to be. You look abroad and see the sons of others steady; their daughters doing well, married and settled comfortably in life; while, as regards yourself, things are just the contrary--everything is opposed to what your nature wants, and what your carnal mind loves. And, instead of sitting down quietly, and bearing these afflictions and sorrows, there is a heaving up of the carnal mind against them, a working of rebellion, a repining, a murmuring, as though the Lord dealt with you very harshly, and nobody ever had such a weight to carry as yourself.

4. Or again, you have a continual cross, and feel a body of sin and death always plaguing you; so as never to be let alone, but are vexed and tried day after day. There is some temptation, and you entangled in it; some bait, and you entrapped; some discovery of evil in your heart which you had never seen before. And you think there never was anybody like you; so harassed, so exercised, so tried, so tempted, so cast down; having withal so little grace, so little spirituality, and finding so little in your heart of which you can say, "Thank God, I have some real religion now." Now, when the mind is thus exercised, tried and cast down with a thousand things, unless God be present, and His grace intervene, there will be much of this fretfulness, repining and murmuring in the carnal mind.

But is this all? Would it do to leave you thus? Can a living soul stand here? No! There must be something more than this. It is sad work to have nothing but bitterness and murmuring; and therefore, we will pass on to our third point; which is what a living soul sooner or later must do and does.


III. The cry of Moses.

"Moses cried unto the Lord." And this is what we do when we have no one else to go to. When we come to the waters of Marah, and find we cannot drink; when there is nothing but bitterness and disappointment, then there is at first a struggle, a murmuring, a rebelling, which only makes matters worse than before. But, in tender mercy, the Lord is pleased to raise up a sigh and a cry in the soul, and to cause supplications to go up out of the heart. But this is hard work, because it seems as though we ought to have done this before. Conscience begins to say, "Why, you only pray to God when you need Him; you ought not to have murmured and repined; you ought not to have rebelled and fretted as you have done. How can you expect God to hear you now? You have tried all you could to creep out of it, and get the yoke off your neck; and not being able to do it, then you come to the Lord."

Yet this is what we are obliged to do; and I may add, what grace enables us to do, because trials in themselves will not raise up prayer; they rather crush it. We might be in the very belly of hell, and have no prayer except God put it there into our souls. We might have blow upon blow, stroke upon stroke, but no prayer. Afflictions without the grace of God only stupefy, harden and deaden. People think sometimes, "O, when I grow old, or get ill, then I shall pray, and seek, and serve God." Why, you would find your very illness and age would only stupefy the mind; and if you were in pain, you would have little to think of but pain. Your very sufferings would only harden your heart, and stop prayer instead of encouraging it. Therefore, it is not all the afflictions we go through, which can raise up one prayer to God; they only make us fight against Him; they only make us murmur, rebel and despair. It must be 'grace in sweet operation' that softens the heart in these trials, and the Lord's pouring out upon the soul "the Spirit of grace and supplication." The two go together, enabling us to "cry."

And what a mercy it is, that in all our rebellion, and in spite of all our rebellion, there is a God to go to; that though our rebellions do and will bring a cloud upon the throne, yet they do not push Jesus off the throne. Whatever darkness, whatever confusion, rebellion may bring upon our mind, Christ is still there. It is like a London fog. When you Londoners in November are wrapped up in fog and smoke, we that live in the country are perhaps enjoying the sunshine. All your fog does not blot the blessed sun out of the sky; he is shining upon others, if he is not shining upon you. So spiritually. When we get into a fog, we think sometimes that the sun will never shine again. We judge by our feelings, and the exercises of our minds; as though now there were no Christ; as though all He had promised were false, all His mercy had failed, and there was no longer anything for the soul to rest upon.

But how blessed it is in these seasons to find a little submission and prayer; a sighing, looking, longing, hungering, thirsting, waiting upon the Lord! This is what we must do; and what we shall do, if grace be in our hearts; for without it, we cannot expect any relief.

The Lord works generally thus. He brings afflictions, and lets us feel what we are in our carnal mind under the cross, to humble us and prove us. He then raises up and draws forth a spirit of prayer in the soul; and then He answers and blesses. The very power to pray is a gleam of light upon the soul; the very pouring out of the heart brings a relief; the very sight of Christ upon his throne dispels the rebellion that works in the carnal mind. The very coming to Him as filled with all grace; the very looking unto Him, interceding for us as our Advocate with the Father, seems to drive away the clouds of darkness and rebellion. It may not be, indeed it is not a complete deliverance, but it is deliverance from rebellion and murmuring. To pour out the heart before God brings a measure of relief, as Hannah and Hezekiah found. If it does not fill the soul with joy and peace, at least it brings it out of that stupefied state in which it was sunk through rebellion; it softens the heart which before was hard; it thaws the spirit which before was frozen; it communicates contrition where before there was little else but hardness and desperation. And thus, the very power given to the soul to seek, supplicate, cry, beg and pray, though it may not bring deliverance from the trial itself, yet is a help and encouragement enabling it to bear up. A praying soul will in due time be a praising soul. He that seeks shall find; he that asks shall receive. "To him that knocks, it shall be opened." The Lord has given many sweet promises to those who seek His face.

It is not only a mercy to have a God to go to, but to have a heart to go to Him. It is an inestimable favor not only to have a throne of grace, but to have grace to go to the throne. It is not only a blessing that there is a mercy seat, but that there is mercy reaching the heart to bring us there. And when there is this real heartfelt cry, then in due time comes a blessed, gracious answer; which brings us to our fourth and last point; and that is, the healing of the waters.


IV. The healing of the waters.

Now, in the healing of the waters, we may observe certain marked steps. "The Lord," we read, "showed Moses a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet."

1. The first thing to consider is, "the tree." I need not say what this signifies. Your hearts have pronounced it already. It is the tree of life--the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the tree; for "Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree." "He bore our sins in His own body on the tree." This is the tree--the tree of life; the cross of Jesus; salvation through blood; pardon through the atonement which He made upon Calvary's tree; reconciliation through the offering which He there once offered; for "by one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified."

2. But this tree was shown to Moses. It was there before; but Moses knew it not. It needed to be revealed to his eyes and heart. The tree was standing there before Moses saw it. So with us. The cross of Christ is the same, whether hidden from our eyes or not. If we are God's children, we are even now reconciled, pardoned, accepted, saved. Our salvation is already accomplished; the work is finished; everlasting righteousness has been brought in; Christ has saved us from the wrath to come. "Who has saved us, and called us."

But what we need is a discovery of this tree to our soul. It does not say that God created the tree for the first time; but that he "showed" it to Moses. He took the veil off Moses' eyes and heart, and showed him the tree. And what is this but a blessed revelation to the soul of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ; seeing Him by the eye of faith as the Lamb of God slain from before the foundation of the world; a viewing Him by the eye of faith suspended as it were between earth and heaven, accomplishing our salvation by His own precious blood?

Now in all our murmuring, rebellion and fretfulness we do not see this. It is hidden from our eyes; and we have no union, no communion then, with a suffering Lord. If we could go to the cross, clasp it in our embrace, lay hold of a crucified Jesus, feel sweet communion with Him, gaze upon His sufferings, and see that face which was marred more than the sons of men, it would thaw away the rebellion, it would remove the murmuring, it would melt the heart down into contrition, brokenness, and love.

But we cannot see it; we only see our disappointments, our vexations, losses, crosses and sorrows. The mind is so wrapped up in darkness; there is such a fog over the soul that we can only "grope for the wall like the blind." We think ourselves harshly dealt with, wonder that God should be so unkind, and have no eyes or heart to look beyond all these things, and to see the Lord Jesus Christ reconciling us to God, and bearing our sins and sorrows in His own body on the tree. And therefore, we need it to be shown to us; we need the blessed Spirit to take of the things of Christ, and reveal them to our soul; to bring into our hearts a sight and sense of the bleeding Lamb, of the suffering "Man of Sorrows," of the crucified Immanuel.

3. But there is another step. It was not sufficient that there should be a tree, nor enough to show Moses the tree. The tree must be cast into the waters. The boughs of the tree might overshadow the streams; that did not heal them. Those too that stood on the banks of the stream might gaze upon the tree; that did not heal the waters. A further process was necessary. There was another step to be taken; and that was, the tree was to be cast into the waters. And does this not signify spiritually the bringing in of the cross of Christ into the soul; the revelation of a crucified Savior to the heart; the manifestation of Jesus in His sufferings and blood to the conscience; and this, by bringing the cross of Christ into the soul, as the tree was cast into the waters? Now nothing but this can heal the waters. But when the tree was cast into the waters, when it sank, and the waters covered in, then they were made sweet; their bitterness was taken away, and they could be safely drunk.

Let us APPLY this. I have endeavored to show you what these waters are, and how they were made bitter; and I must therefore just cast my mind's eye a little back, to show you how they are made sweet.

1. Now there are many things that are vexatious and disappointing in our daily calling. You have many things in business very plaguing, very trying. You cannot, therefore, take that pleasure in it which worldly men can; or if it much occupies your mind, you find guilt resting upon your conscience; you cannot take, as it were, a good draught of your worldly occupation, drink it down and enjoy it; but there is some disappointment, or some guilt of conscience connected with it, that when you would gladly take pleasure in it, you cannot succeed. Well, how is this to be sweetened? If there be some discovery to your soul of a precious Jesus, and you be indulged with some knowledge of, and communion with a suffering Immanuel, does not that sweeten to you your daily occupation? Does it not sanctify the lowest employment? Yes--sanctify it! Why, a man may be a garbage-collector, a chimney sweep, a nightman, and if he have the grace of God in his heart, the visitations of the Lord's presence and the bedewings of His love and favor will make this calling a holy calling, aye, much more a holy calling than many a bishop preaching in lawn sleeves, or a priest bowing before the altar. Aye, a poor old washerwoman, rubbing her stockings over her tub, may be worshiping God in spirit and in truth, and have her soul filled with happiness and holiness, when choristers and priests are mocking him with lies and hearts full of uncleanness. Thus, washing stockings may be a holier employment than chanting psalms. It is not church or chapel that makes us holy, but the blessed Spirit making our bodies His temple.

2. Or you may almost constantly have bad health, which may be your daily cross; and when the Lord does not favor you with His presence, a very hard cross it is to carry. But suppose the Lord is pleased to bless your soul, lead you to Jesus, give you communion with Him, show you the sufferings of "the Man of Sorrows," and that you have a saving interest in His precious blood and love--is not the bitter water sweetened? Can you not then bear your aches, pains and infirmities? Do you even see good springing out of your afflicted body; and would sooner have sanctified illness than unsanctified health?

3. Or your "house," like David's, does not "grow" as you wish. You have rebellious children, dissolute sons, carnal daughters, servants that plague your life out; with other domestic things that try your mind; and it seems as though you were always grieved and vexed. Well now, if your soul were blessed, watered, sanctified with some of the manifestations of the dying love and atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, do you think it would sweeten even these waters? If you felt Jesus to be your brother, and God your father, would you not be so swallowed up in this spiritual relationship, that you could say, "As to my worldly relatives, my earthly ties, compared with all this, what are they? Jesus is more precious to me than all worldly things--than husband, wife, or children." Is not this sweetening the bitter waters?

4. Or, if sin has marred everything in your soul, made you a wretch, given you a daily cross continually, troubles your mind, and subjects you, as it does all the children of God, to a constant exercise from the workings of evil in your carnal heart, and your spirit is plagued with it day and night, what then is to sweeten these bitter waters--these waters of Marah--but the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ? Pardoning love, atoning blood, a sight of Jesus, an embracing of Him as our all in all, when felt, is a casting of the tree of life into the bitter waters; and when the tree is cast into the bitter waters, they are healed. Now you can drink; you can attend to your lawful calling; you may go about your daily duties; you can enjoy your family and home relationships; aye, and have sweetness in your soul amid all your sins and sorrows, when you realize anything of this grace of the Lord Jesus Christ as sweetening every bitter draught.

5. But there is one draught to come, which in bitterness exceeds all, and that is, the bitter draught of death. How is that bitter water to be sweetened? Die you must, and none know how soon. We know not the circumstances of our death--what long illness, what pain, langour, or suffering may attend it; or what the state of our minds may be when death seems to draw near and hold us in his grasp. This is a bitter draught, and how is it to be sweetened? By looking back to a well-spent life? By thinking of the duties you have discharged, the very religious part you have played, your being a member of a Christian church, having attended a certain chapel, prayed and read, and so on? Why all these things, if only these, would but embitter the draught more, because you would say, "I have been all this, and done all this, and where is my poor soul now?" Nothing but the casting in of the tree of life, the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ into these bitter waters can sweeten them.

Many saints--all saints, I may say in their degree--have found these bitter waters sweetened; and though they shrank from the draught, yet when it touched their lips it went down like honey; it was sweetened by the manifestations of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the shedding abroad in their soul of His dying love.

Now, do you not see how needful it is, to find the waters bitter, that you may have them sweetened? Suppose you were to go through life with no bitterness, no sorrows, no disappointments, no vexations, no temptations, no exercises--might you not drink of these waters until you burst?

There might have been even a temporal mercy to the children of Israel in finding these waters bitter. If, after wandering three days in the wilderness, they had found them sweet, they might have drunk of them so immoderately as to have injured them, and perhaps fatally; there might therefore have been a mercy even in the embittering of the waters before they were sweetened. The water having being bitter, they would drink cautiously for fear of the bitterness returning. Well, so spiritually. If you were to have your own way, your own will, and enjoy what your nature cleaves to, what would you be? What sort of a Christian would you be? Where would be the love of God in your soul? Where would there be any experience either of mercy or judgment? Where any sighs or cries? Where any praises or blessings? You would live and die without God. But when everything is embittered by sin or sorrow, and the Lord does not let us do what we would, but mars all sources of earthly happiness, then we gladly turn to Him. And when He is pleased to drop a little measure of His grace and mercy into the soul, then these bitter waters are sweetened and healed; and you may drink safely of them.

And there is no other way. You may try a thousand ways; you may attempt to doctor the waters; put sugar or honey into them; you may try your best. These waters cannot be sweetened by sugar or honey--they can be sweetened only by the tree of life, the cross of Jesus, the manifestation of dying love, the application of atoning blood. Nothing short of this--nothing but this, can ever heal the bitterness; and to disguise the taste will only eventually make the bitter taste more bitter still.

Then, it is your mercy to have your daily draught of bitter things; to find life embittered, health embittered, family embittered, business embittered, your own soul embittered; so as to lead you to say, "Call me not Naomi, but Marah; for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me."

It is your mercy to be a "Marah." It is a mercy to weep bitter tears, to have bitterness of soul, and many griefs and exercises, when they lead us to see and feel that there is only one thing which can sweeten our trials, the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, under the teaching of God, to embrace and cleave to that, and not be satisfied without its sweet enjoyment and blessed manifestation.

WHAT ABOUT GOOD WORKS?

Good works are works of obedience done by true believers. Such works are good, not because they are perfect, for even our “good works” fall short of God's perfect holiness and righteousness. They are good, not because they make up any part of the righteousness by which we are justified before God. This is only by the work of Christ on the cross. They are good for the following reasons:

(1) Strictly speaking, they are not OUR works at all but GOD’S WORKS in and through us as they are the fruit of the Holy Spirit who indwells us and works in us to bring forth fruit unto God (John 3:21; Romans 7:4-6; Galatians 2:20; Galatians 5:22-26; Ephesians 2:10).

(2) They are done by those who have been justified by the grace of God in Christ, therefore, not only are our persons washed in the blood of Christ, but also our works (1 John 3:12).

(3) They are the evidence of saving faith by which we look to and rest in Christ for all salvation. All who truly believe in Christ repent of ever thinking that our works could save us or earn God’s favor and blessings for us (Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5).

(4) They are motivated by grace, love, and gratitude to God for all salvation freely given to us in and by Christ. Faith works by love, not seeking salvation or any part of it based on our works, but motivated by God’s grace and our gratitude for all He has freely given us in and by Christ (2 Corinthians 5:14).

(5) They are aimed toward God’s glory, to show forth His praises in our salvation by grace in and through the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 5:16). Good works are not done to draw attention to ourselves but lead men to Christ for salvation.

By Bill Parker

TWO RELIGIONS

The religion of men

With only one exception, every religion that has ever existed in this world maintains that the way to salvation is through good works. Their view of what constitutes salvation may differ (some may see it as a right relationship with God; or attaining to ones "higher self;" or a positive relationship with the universe; or access to heaven and bliss); however, the underlying way in which they all aim to obtain salvation is always the same – through their own dead works.

These religions all maintain that the exercise of the will; the performance of good works; the abstention from evil deeds; the improvement of character, thought and conduct; and/or the performance of certain religious rituals, observances, and other duties are all necessary factors in initiating their salvation, and often, in preserving their salvation.

The specific works at issue will vary from religion to religion, as will their opinions on what constitutes necessary moral reform, religious observance and duty, etc. However, if you strip away the specifics of these things, the core foundation is always the will and work of man. Likewise, the books they deem holy will vary; as will the names of their religious "holy men;" and even the names of their god or gods. Nonetheless, the works they have in view; their "holy" books and men; and their false gods will always point them back to self – and what they must think, say, or do to get right with the divine.

As a result, we see:

Talmudists (modern-day followers of the Jewish religion) attempting to keep the Old Testament law and otherwise working and exercising their fallen will in an attempt to get saved;

Arminians, Romanists, and all other so-called "free-will christians" going about "making a decision for Christ;" "accepting Jesus into their heart," "saying the sinners prayer," and otherwise working and exercising their fallen will in an attempt to get saved;

Muslims keeping the Islamic/Sharia law, performing the Hajj, praying towards Mecca, and otherwise working and exercising their fallen will in an attempt to get saved;

Hindus/Buddhist/Taoist etc., performing various rituals, observances, acts of self-denial, acts of obedience to their moral codes, and the exercising of their fallen will to reach their desired religious ends; and

Every other religionist likewise implementing their own rules, belief systems, acts of obedience, and manifestations of will-worship, that they deem necessary to reach their desired religious end.

The Religion of God

As stated above, there is one exception and that exception is Christianity. True, biblical, Christianity is the only religion that states that your best efforts at moral reform and religious observance, if aimed at forming the basis of your salvation, serves only to further distance you from God. God's word declares that exercises of the will and moral and religious activity (collectively known as works of the law) only serve to bring you closer to the pit of hell if you believe that these things can do anything to initiate, preserve, or improve upon salvation. The true Gospel (as opposed to the free-will counterfeits that abound in our day) declares that the Lord Jesus Christ completed all that was necessary for the salvation of His people. He performed all the work required to satisfy the divine law, justice, and wrath of God. He left nothing undone, no aspect of a sinner's salvation depends on something that they must do (as if to make up for something that the Lord Jesus Christ could not, would not, or otherwise did not do to obtain full pardon for His people).

True Christianity is not an "Ivory Soap" religion; it isn't 99.44% God's work, and 0.56% percent our own. Salvation is either all of God, as in one-hundred percent, or it is a damnable lie that cannot save anyone. Thus, any attempt to add ones own works into God's plan of salvation (whether the works be mental, verbal, or physical), is tantamount to attempting to steal the glory due to Christ and Him alone. It is tantamount to declaring Christ's blood common, impotent, and insufficient for the cause. Finally, it is tantamount to declaring the Lord Jesus Christ a liar, and declaring that the work wasn't really finished when Jesus declared "It is Finished."

By Curt Wildy

DEFENDING THE TRUTH

In these days of boasted liberality, it may appear critical and contentious to oppose with zeal the errors of men who have acquired a name in the Christian world. The mantle of charity, it will be said, ought to be thrown over mis­takes that have resulted from a free and impartial investigation of truth, and if not wholly overlooked, they should be noticed only with a slight expression of disapprov­al. Such, however, was not the conduct of the Apostle Paul.

He spared neither churches nor indi­viduals, when the doctrines they main­tained tended to the subversion of the Gos­pel; and the zeal with which he resisted their errors was not inferior to that with which he en­countered the open enemies of Christianity. He affirms that the doctrine introduced into the Galatian churches was "another gospel," and twice pronounced a curse against all by whom it was preached.

Instead of compliment­ing the authors of this corruption of the Gospel as only abusing in a slight degree the liberty of free examina­tion, he decides that they should be cut off as troublers of the churches. Let not be­lievers be more court­eous in expressing their views of the guilt and danger of cor­rupting the Gospel, than faithful and compas­sionate to the people of Christ who may be injured by false doc­trine. It is highly sinful to ex­change com­pliments at the expense of truth.

The awful responsibility of being acces­sory to the promotion of error is strongly expressed by the Apostle John also. "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doc­trine, receive him not into your house, nei­ther bid him God-speed; for he that bid­deth him God-speed is partaker of his evil deeds."

By Robert Haldane

THE FULL AND SIMPLE GOSPEL OF CHRIST

"And I am sure that, when I come unto you, I shall come in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ."
(Romans 15:29)

The "fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ" is the fullness of salvation in Him and by Him as the crucified, resurrected Redeemer, the one Mediator between God and men.

This "fullness" is a comfort to God's people. It binds us together in the simplicity of Christ. God the Holy Spirit will never take any truth of Scripture and use it to divide or confuse brethren in the church. He is the Comforter who continually convicts us of sin and continually drives us to the crucified, risen Christ for all comfort, peace, and unity. The plain and simple preaching of the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit will always inspire unity, peace, and growth in the church. Divisions and confusion are the workings of sinful, proud men, not God. Men will constantly raise issues to add on to the simplicity that is in Christ. They will confuse and complicate matters, but the simple Gospel remains the same. It never changes. It is the revelation of the glorious Person and finished work of Christ on the cross to save His people from their sins. It is the revelation of the "righteousness of God" which is Christ's obedience unto death, the shedding of His precious blood to satisfy God's justice and fully pay our sin-debt. It is the truth that God is just to justify the ungodly based solely upon the righteousness of Christ imputed (charged) to the accounts of His people. God the Holy Spirit proceeds forth from the Father and the Son to impart the resurrected, spiritual life of Christ to His people in the new birth. He teaches us of our utter depravity and impotence to save ourselves by our best works. He slays us by the law of God as He shows us that the law can only condemn us based on our best efforts to obey. He drives us to Christ and Him alone, to plead His righteousness alone, for our whole eternal salvation. We see by His invincible power that if we are to be saved it is totally of God's free and sovereign grace and mercy in Christ.

What a simple but glorious message this is!

By Bill Parker

THREE REASONS WHY IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE THAT CHRIST SHOULD KNOW SIN

For He hath made Him to be Sin for us; who knew no Sin: That we might be made the Righteousness of God in Him.
(2 Corinthians 5:21)

1. His miraculous Conception in the Womb of the Blessed Virgin. Christ not being conceived in a natural, but supernatural Manner, he did not partake of our natural Corruption. It was impossible he should, because he was the supernatural Production of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the Power of the Highest shall over-shadow thee: Therefore also, that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee (Luke 1:35). This was an absolutely new Thing, the like was never before, nor ever will be. Behold a new Thing do I create, a woman shall compass a Man, i.e. a male Child by Conception, through the Agency of the divine Spirit. To us a Child is born, to us a Son is given. This was plainly a new Creation. The human Nature of our Lord being produced by the Exertion of the Power of the Spirit of God, no moral Taint or Impunity could attend it. For, the Holy Spirit could not give Subsistence unto an unholy Nature.

2. The human Nature of Christ was replete with all the Gifts and Graces of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of the Lord God was upon him (Isaiah 61:1). And the Father gave not the Spirit by measure unto him. The Superaddition of the Gifts and Graces of the Spirit unto the Purity of Christ's Nature, rendered it impossible that he should know sin. He having all the Gifts and Graces of the holy Spirit in their utmost Plenitude and Perfection, superadded unto the Purity of his Nature, nothing of Evil could possibly take Place in him: Such as the holy Spirit formed him, in the Virgin's Womb, such he infallibly preferred him, by his continual Presence with him, in the fullness of all his Gifts and Graces.

3. The human nature of Christ hath its Subsistence in his Divine Person. That Nature which was miraculously produced by the Power of the Holy Ghost, the Son of God took into a personal Union with himself. He assumed it to be his own in a peculiar manner that it might be at his disposal, and always under the direction of his divine Will. The human Will, and the divine Will of our Saviour are, and eternally will be distinct; but his Will as Man is in absolute Subjection to, and in all Instances, acts under the Direction of his divine Will. And, therefore, it is not possible that he should ever know Sin. Moral evil can never take place in a Nature which is ineffably united with the Person of the Son of God.

By John Brine - 1756

TREASURE IN EARTHEN VESSELS

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels."
(2 Corinthians 4:7)

Do not be surprised if you feel that in yourself you are but an earthen vessel-if you are made deeply and daily sensible of your frail body. Do not be surprised if your clay house is often tottering-if sickness sometimes assails your mortal tabernacle-if in your flesh there dwells no good thing; if your soul often cleaves to the dust-and if you are unable to retain a sweet sense of God's goodness and love. Do not be surprised nor startled at the corruptions of your depraved nature-at the depth of sin in your carnal mind-at the vile abominations which lurk and work in your deceitful and desperately wicked heart.

Bear in mind that it is the will of God that this heavenly treasure which makes you rich for eternity, should be lodged in an earthen vessel. We have ever to feel our native weakness-and that without Christ we can do nothing-that we may be clothed with humility, and feel ourselves the chief of sinners, and less than the least of all saints.

We thus learn to prize the heights, breadths, lengths, and depths of the love of Christ, who stooped so low to raise us up so high!

By J.C. Philpot

A SHORT STUDY OF ROMANS 12:1

Romans 12:1
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

It is certainly not unreasonable to expect a sinner, who has been freely and unconditionally pardoned, redeemed, forgiven, justified, sanctified, who has been given the fulness of righteousness, the whole inheritance of grace, the complete privilege of fellowship with God, (and all through the substitutionary obedience and death of the Lord Jesus Christ), to love, serve, and worship the God who granted all this out of His sovereign will.

By Bill Parker

PATIENCE AND HER PERFECT WORK

Preached at North Street Chapel, Stamford, Jan. 9, 1850, by J. C. Philpot

"My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."
(James 1:2-4)

A singular race of men lived in the middle ages called Alchemists--a name still retained in the words "chemist" and "chemistry"--who spent their money, broke their spirits, and wasted their lives in a most unwearied search after three things--First, a medicine that would cure all diseases, which they termed a "panacea;" secondly, a tincture, or, to use their language, an "elixir vitac," that would prolong life to an indefinite period; and thirdly, a powder, styled the "philosopher's stone," which would transmute lead and other base metals into gold. I need not tell you that all their laborious researches, which they pursued for several centuries, were utterly fruitless, and that as far as any satisfactory result was obtained, they might as well have tried to spin ropes out of sand, weave stockings out of gossamer threads, or twist clouds into ladders to reach the moon. Had they even succeeded, the results would have been full of vexation and disappointment. If they could have found a medicine to cure all diseases, would that have staved off old age and its attendant infirmities? If they could have prolonged life to an indefinite period, would not the grave sooner or later have closed over its victim? And if they could have changed tons of lead into gold, either the expense of the process would have swallowed up all the profits, or the abundance obtained by a cheap manufacture would of itself have destroyed its value when made.

But what they could not find in chemistry, is to be found in the gospel. Nature, however tortured in the furnace, could work no such miracle as they sought to wrest from her bosom; but grace freely and without constraint has worked and still daily works them. There is a medicine which in the hands of Jehovah-rophi, the great Physician Ex 15:26, cures all diseases and dispels all complaints. As David speaks--"Who heals all your diseases," Ps 103:3 And what is this "panacea?" The precious blood of Christ, which "cleanses from all sin." Is not sin a disease? And if this precious blood cleanse from all sin, must it not be a universal medicine, and all the more valuable as curing soul disease, which must be infinitely more deadly and destructive than any bodily malady? Disease struck down the alchemist amid his extracts and essences, and with all the more deadly stroke from his sacrificing his own health in the vain attempt to cure other's sickness. But our blessed Physician has not only revealed and brought to light an infallible medicine, but himself applies it with his own hands and makes it effectual to a perfect cure. And is there not in the same blessed Jesus the true miraculous panacea of life? What did he say to the woman of Samaria? "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life." Joh 4:14.

The alchemist only sought to add a few more years to human life; but Jesus gives life for evermore. And is not his grace the true "philosopher's stone," transmuting by miraculous agency leaden afflictions into golden consolations, earthly miseries into heavenly mercies, legal curses into gospel blessings, and vile sinners into precious saints? Thus the delusive dreams of the alchemists have become solid realities, and as far exceeding what they toiled and toiled in vain to find, as eternity excels time, and heaven surpasses earth.

One of these miracles of grace we find in our text--"My brethren," says James, "count it all joy when you fall into temptations." What a miracle must that be when a man can take into his hands a load of temptations and trials, and, by an act of faith, transmute them into joy! If you could take up a piece of lead, and by putting a powder upon it and holding it for a few minutes in a furnace, change it into a solid lump of gold, would that be a greater miracle than turning light afflictions into an eternal weight of glory? How this is done we shall, I hope, with God's blessing, see from the words of our text, in opening up which I shall direct your minds to four leading features which seem to me stamped upon them:

I. First, the "diverse temptations" into which the people of God "fall."

II. Secondly, the effect of falling into diverse temptations--that it tries faith, and that "the trying of faith works patience."

III. Thirdly, the apostolic counsel, "Let patience have her perfect work," that the saint of God "may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing."

IV. Fourthly, the transmuting effect of grace enabling the tried and tempted family of God to "count it all joy" when they fall into diverse temptations.


I. The "diverse trials and temptations" into which the people of God "fall."

I must, however, with God's blessings, before I plunge into my subject, attempt to explain as plainly and as concisely as I can the precise meaning of several words in our text, that we may have a clearer view of the mind and meaning of the Holy Spirit in the passage before us.

The word translated "temptations," embraces in the original a wider field of experience than the English term conveys. We must, therefore, enlarge the idea so as to embrace "trials" also; for the original word means not merely "temptations," but includes also what we understand by the term "trials." We must also further enlarge the meaning of the word "diverse;" for the term in the original means not only diversified, various, of different kinds, but also many in number. So that we may thus enlarge our text, in perfect consistency with the mind of the Holy Spirit--"Count it all joy when you fall into many and various trials and temptations." Thus we see that the words in this enlarged sense comprehend all the trials and all the temptations, however numerous, however diversified, that the saints of God may fall into. Were it otherwise, were the text at all restricted, it would not apply to all the living family of God. Unless, for instance, it comprehended every trial, it might not comprehend your trial; unless it included every kind of temptation, it might not include your peculiar temptation; and thus you as well as many who are deeply tried and peculiarly tempted, might be shut out of all the benefit and blessing contained in it.

I must also drop a word of explanation on the expression "fall into," for there is something very significant in the idea conveyed by it. The idea is of a sudden fall into an unexpected danger, as, for instance, of a traveler falling into an ambush of robbers; for the Lord uses exactly the same word when he speaks in the parable of the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and "fell among thieves." Lu 10:30. He was journeying onward, as he thought, safely; but all of a sudden, he fell into an ambush of thieves, who surrounded him, stripped him, wounded him, and left him half dead. Or the expression may refer to the idea of a ship steering its onward course with apparent safety, and suddenly striking on a reef of rocks, or caught in a whirlpool, for we have the same exact word used of the ship which conveyed Paul to Italy; "And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground." Ac 27:41. Thus the word "fall into" diverse temptations has a peculiar significance, as expressing to the very life the way in which the saints of God often most suddenly and unexpectedly fall into the numerous and various temptation and trials which lie as if in the ambush as so many robbers, or lurk unseen as rocks and quicksands in the voyage of life. For you will bear in mind that the saint of God is both a traveler and a voyager. He has a way to tread, a road to travel in--the strait and narrow way, that leads to eternal life; and he has a voyage to make, for--"The Christian navigates a sea, Where various forms of death appear;" and it is "those that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in deep waters, who see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep." Ps 107:23-24. The road in itself is rough and rugged, and the sea stormy and boisterous; but it is the perils of the way--"The rocks and quicksands deep. That through the passage lie"--in other words, the trials and temptations spread through the course, which make the journey and the voyage so difficult and so dangerous.

But let us look at some of these dangers and perils, these "diverse TRIALS" into which the family of God fall. Well may they be called "diverse," or many and various, as we have explained the word, for they spring from such numerous and different sources; but I shall only name four.

1. From above;

2. from beneath;

3. from without;

4. from within.

1. Some are from ABOVE. "The Lord," we are expressly told, "tries the righteous." "Search me, O God, and know my heart," says the Psalmist; "try me, and know my thoughts." The trials with which God himself tries his people are not only numerous and various, but for the most part of a very painful and perplexing nature, yet all precisely adapted to the nature of the case and exactly suited to the state of the person tried, as being planned by unerring wisdom, and weighed, measured, and timed by infinite love. Thus, as the God of providence, as the Maker of our bodies as well as the Creator of our souls, as the God of our families who gives and takes at will the fruit of the womb, some of his children he tries with poverty, others with sickness, others with taking away the desire of their eyes at a stroke, or cutting off the tender olive plants which have sprung up round about their table and twined round every fiber of their heart.

How sudden also, how unexpected the trials! Heavy losses in business, deprivation of a situation, a sweeping away of the little all--the savings of a life--by some fraud or failure, trick or treachery, riches making themselves wings and flying away, and poverty and need coming in as an armed man to plunder the wreck; how suddenly do such strokes come! Sickness, also, and disease, how swift their attack! We are at present in a very sickly season. Illness surrounds us on every side. New complaints, such as the fearful disease diphtheria, or revived maladies as small pox, are spreading far and wide, and making all tremble for themselves or their families; Both these diseases were then very prevalent, and as the saints of God are not exempt from their share in these afflictions, many who fear his great name are either themselves stretched on beds of languishing and pain, or are watching by the side of afflicted relatives and dying children. How suddenly, also, trials of various kind come! In one day Job, "the greatest of all the men of east," lost all the substance which God had given; and the father in the morning of ten living children sat in the evening in his lonely house childless and desolate. How labor pangs fell suddenly on Rachel, and the impatient mother who had cried out "Give me children or else I die," expired under the load of her coveted burden!

But these and all other temporal trials, though at times very severe to the flesh--though they need much grace to endure them with patience and submission--though often aggravated by our own fretfulness, and used as weapons by unbelief and Satan acutely to distress the mind; yet are they of little real significance when compared with SPIRITUAL TRIALS which sink deep into a man's very soul. These, then, are the sharpest trials among those which come from above. And among them we may place as the keenest of all the hidings of God's face, as a mark of his displeasure. How David, Heman, Jeremiah, Jonah, and other Bible saints mourned and lamented under these hidings of the Lord's countenance--"You hid your face and I was troubled." Ps 30:7. "Lord, why do you cast off my soul? why do you hide your face from me?" Ps 88:14. To a saint of God, who has ever experienced the lifting up of the light of the Lord's countenance, nothing is more painful and trying than the Lord hiding his face; for then all his comfort withers--his very evidence appear gone--the former tokens for good are surrounded with a dark cloud, and the felt displeasure of the Lord seems more than he can bear. But the blessed Lord himself drank of this bitter cup when he cried out--"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And we must suffer with him if we are to be glorified together.

But the Lord also "tries the righteous" by laying bare, and thus discovering to them the secret iniquities of the heart. It was so with Hezekiah, of whom we read--"Howbeit in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, God left him to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart." 2Ch 32:31. So the Lord, to strip us of our own pride--to crush our vain confidence--to show us that all our strength is weakness, and that grace must freely sanctify as well as fully save, subdue sin as well as pardon it--often leaves us to the discovery of what we are in the Adam-fall. This is "searching Jerusalem with candles" Zep 2:12; for "the spirit of man," that is the new man of grace, "is the candle or lamp of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the heart." Pr 20:27. "I the Lord search the heart; I try the reins." Jer 17:10.

As, then, "in his light we see light," and "all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light" Ps 36:9 Eph 5:13, sin after sin becomes discovered; and the teaching of the Spirit making the heart soft and the conscience tender, the soul is painfully and acutely tried by seeing and feeling these inward abominations. How markedly we see this in Job! "When he has tried me," said he, "I shall come forth as gold" Job 23:10; but in the furnace what a discovery was made of the corruptions of his heart, which before were to himself unsuspected and unknown! They had not escaped the searching eye of Omniscience; but they had much escaped the eye of the most perfect and upright man, according to God's own testimony, who then dwelt upon the earth. When, however this eminent saint of God was tried by afflictions and desertions, pain of body and agony of mind, then the deep and foul corruptions of his heart become manifest, and the most rebellious and unbecoming expressions found vent through his lips. You may think harshly of Job; but the greatest saint, the most highly favored Christian put into the same furnace, would behave no better than he. If the Lord lay "his left hand under the head," the sharpest temporal trials can be patiently, even gladly borne. All afflictions become light if "his right hand embrace" the soul. So 2:6. But if he withdraw his presence, shut out prayer, withhold the light of his countenance, and leave us to the workings of our corrupt heart, what can be the outcome but fretfulness and rebellion, murmuring thoughts, unbelief, and self-pity?

2. Other trials of God's saints are from BENEATH. We cannot explain the deep mystery why the Lord should allow Satan to retain such power after Jesus bruised his head so effectually upon the cross, after he led captivity captive, and spoiled principalities and powers, casting them down from their seat of eminence, and making a show of them openly. That Satan should still be allowed to exercise such sway in this lower world, and even exercise his power against the saints who are dear to Christ as the apple of his eye--surely, this is a mystery we cannot now fathom. But we know the fact from the authority of Scripture, the testimony of the saints, and our own personal experience, that the Lord does, for his own wise purposes, permit Satan very much to harass and distress the soul's of God's people. There is also this peculiarity in the temptations of Satan, that as he works by them on our carnal mind, we cannot often distinguish them from the sins of our own heart. We see this in Satan's tempting David to number the people, and as strikingly in the passionate exclamations of Job. These good men did not see the tempter, though his hot breath inflamed their mind. As in a forge or foundry, the blazing coals or molten iron are seen, but not the hidden tube through whose sustained blast "the melting fire burns;" so many a vile thought, infidel suggestion, or horrible idea blaze up in the heart, blown into a flame through the black tube of the Prince of darkness.

3. Other trials, again, arise from WITHOUT. There are few saints of God who in their passage through life have not had to suffer much from outward foes. Open persecution assails some; secret slander and misrepresentation attack the character and wound the mind of others. Their best friends, as they once thought them, have sometimes proved the most cruel enemies. Where they expected nothing but sympathy and kindness, they have met with little but harshness and neglect. How acutely Job felt this when he complained, "To him that is afflicted pity should be showed from his friend." But instead of pity, his "brethren dealt deceitfully as a brook" dried up by the summer sun, to which "the troops of Tema looked" for supply, but it had "vanished what time it had waxed warm" Job 6:14-20. David had a Saul, a Doeg, and an Ahithophel; and a greater than David a Judas who kissed but to betray. Micah warns us against our fellow men; "The best of them is as a briar; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge." "Trust not in a friend; put not confidence in a guide." Mic 7:4-5. And Jeremiah says--"Cursed be the man that trusts in man and makes flesh his arm." Jer 17:5. In the face of such testimonies need we wonder that false friends are often greater trials than open foes? "Save me from my friends!" has been the bitter cry from many a heart.

4. But after all, our acutest trials are from WITHIN. Many who in the providence of God are comparatively exempt from severe outward trials, suffer an internal martyrdom. A heavy storm may be raging in the air; sleet, and snow, and hail, driven by a keen east wind, may darken the sky; and you in your warm room may see some poor traveler pelted by the pitiless storm. But you, though under shelter, may be racked with bodily pain, or be dying of slow disease, or be inwardly crushed by mental grief and sorrow. What is his trial compared with yours? What are fingers chilled with cold, compared to hands burning with fever?

What is a sprinkling of snow on the clothes to a load of ice on the heart; or floods of rain without to a flood of passionate grief within? Thus outward trials are severe to the eye, but inward trials are severe to the heart. Poverty, sickness, bereavements, persecutions, do not crush and break the heart like guilt and remorse, the terrors of the Almighty, and the pangs of hell.

But let us now take a glance at the "diverse TEMPTATIONS" into which the people of God fall, as distinct from the trials which lie in their path. There are many saints of God whose life is a series of outward trials; and there are others who know less of external trial, but more of internal temptation. The Lord arranges every lot, for though it seems casually "cast into the lap, yet the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." Pr 15:33. He appoints to every one of his children the peculiar path which he has to tread, and the number and weight of the burdens which he has to carry. Whatever trial, therefore, or temptation comes, it is of the Lord--either indirectly by permission, or directly by visitation. Many appear to pass through life without any deep acquaintance with temptations. Job's friends, though good men, seem to have had little or no experience of them; while Job, Heman, Asaph, Jeremiah, and Jonah were distracted by them. The same difference exists now.

Viewing, then, "temptations" as distinct from "trials" we may divide them into two leading branches--temptations which distress, and temptations which allure. The former are the more painful, but the later are the more perilous.

1. Temptations which DISTRESS.

You might have walked for some time in the ways of the Lord without any deep experience of the infidelity, blasphemy, rebelliousness, enmity, and horrid wickedness of your fallen nature. This being the case, you were secretly lifted up with pride and self-righteousness. You had not yet had that deep discovery of yourself which was needful to humble you in the dust. You did, it is true, look in some measure to the Lord Jesus Christ, for salvation, but not knowing your utter ruin and the desperate wickedness of your heart, you looked with but half a glance; though you took hold of him, it was but with one hand; and though you walked with him, it was but with a limping foot. The reason was that temptation had not yet shorn your locks, bound you with fetters of brass, and put you to grind in the prison house.

But you suddenly fell into one of these "diverse temptations." I will merely name two as specimens of their nature. Infidelity assailed your mind all in a moment as with a cloud of the thickest, densest darkness. A veil was at once cast over the Scriptures, for you could not even believe them to be true. Objection after objection started up, and you shuddered with horror lest you should live and die a confirmed infidel. O what a trial was this! I have been here, and know what work it makes. "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" We reject the thought with horror, fly back to past experiences, muster up all our evidences, think of the faith and hope of departed saints, cry to God for help to believe; but still the poisoned arrow is rankling in the heart.

Or you may have been tempted to open blasphemy--even to that dreadful crime of blaspheming God. Job and Jeremiah were thus tempted, and many a child of God has been pursued night and day with the same horrible temptation. But what an evidence it is of the deep corruption of the human mind and the power of Satan that people, say tender females, who hedged in by the restraints of society, education, and morality, have never dropped an unbecoming expression from their lips, or scarcely heard one uttered by others, may yet be assailed, when called by grace, by the most horrid temptations to blasphemy, from the very thought of which their natural feelings revolt, and of which they would have deemed themselves utterly incapable. I have known such cases, and therefore name them, that if any here present are passing through this "fiery trail," they may not be utterly cast down as though some strange thing has happened to them. 1Pe 4:12. Many object to such things being even spoken of; but their very mention as experienced by those who fear God has sometimes put the temptation to flight, or abated its power.

But what a proof of the corruption of man--what an evidence of the power of Satan! I have stood by the sea shore and seen it spread out as calm as a mirror; and I have sailed on its bosom when not a breeze ruffled its face. But I have seen it in a storm when its billows rolled in full of foam and fury; and I have sailed over it when wave after wave dashed over the deck. But it was the same sea both in calm and storm. So the mind of man may be as calm as a slumbering sea, or raging as the stormy wave; but it is the same heart still. The breath of temptation, like the ocean wind, makes all the difference between calm, and storm.

But let me ask, do you not fear, reverence, and adore that great and glorious name which Satan has been tempting you to blaspheme? Is not this, then, a proof that from him these suggestions come? Of all Satan's temptations this seems to be the most infernal; of all his threats, this the most deadly. If Satan could but prevail upon you to speak the word, he would triumph over you as a lost soul. Therefore he does all he can to drive you into the very pitfalls of hell. But he shall not succeed, for the "the weapons formed against you shall not prosper." His is the sin and his shall be the punishment.

2. Temptations which ALLURE.

But there are temptations not so distressing and yet more perilous. These I have just been hinting at are seen; but there are those which are unseen. The enemy can hardly disguise his plotting hand in the former; he spreads the snare, but does not show himself in the latter. In the one he is a lion from the swelling of Jordan, in the other a trailing serpent hidden in the grass. There are temptations so thoroughly adapted to our fallen nature--snares so suited to our lusts, and Satan has such a way of seducing his victim little by little into the trap until it falls down upon him, that none can escape but by the power of God. I am well convinced that none can deliver the soul from these snares of the fowler, except that the mighty hand which brings up out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay! Time, however, will not permit me to enter into all the diversified trials and temptations with which the Lord exercises his saints.

II. I therefore pass on to show what is the EFFECT of falling into these diverse temptations; for that is the source of the joy which we are bidden to count them. There is no profit or pleasure in temptations and trials viewed by themselves, for "no chastening for the present seems to be joyous but grievous." Heb 12:11. It is the effect they produce by which we are to calculate our gains. And this effect is two-fold as here pointed out by the pen of the Holy Spirit. One is that it tries faith; the other that it works patience.

1. The trial of faith. Whenever God communicates faith, he tries it. Why? That it may be proved to be genuine. Look at this in the case of Abraham. Abraham is a pattern to believers; he is therefore called "the father of all those who believe" Ro 4:11--his faith being so eminent, and of a character so spiritual and gracious. But see how it was tried. For twenty-five years did the Lord try the faith he had planted in Abraham's bosom. Year after year, month after month, week after week, day after day, was the Lord trying Abraham's faith. Sarah's petulance, eager craving for a child, jealousy of Hagar and then oppressing her until she fled out of the house, and their increasing years and delayed prospects, must all have deeply tried the patriarch's faith. But against hope he believed in hope, was "strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able to perform." Ro 4:18-21. Look, too, at David's case. How he was hunted like a partridge on the mountains, and was in continual apprehension of losing his life by the hand of Saul, so that he said, "There is but a step between me and death." View those two eminent saints of God; where their faith was tried to the uttermost!

In fact, the stronger your faith is, the greater trials it will have to endure. The reality, the genuineness, as well as the strength of your faith are only to be evidenced by the amount of trial which it will stand. When for instance, you have been walking for some months in a smooth and easy path, and have scarcely experienced any trials from without or within, you have hardly known the strength, or indeed even the reality, of your own faith. You have been induced to take things very much for granted. You have not looked to the Lord as you should look to him; nor trusted to his strength as you should trust to it. You have been secretly leaning upon your own wisdom, resting upon a consistent profession, and mistaking ease in Zion for assurance of faith. But a trial comes. Where is your faith now? It sinks out of sight; you seem to have none; at least, none that you can make use of, or that does you any good. "O," you say, "I thought I could trust the Lord; but how can I trust him now that he does not appear? He hides his face; the heavens are as brass; he shuts out my cry. Why is this trial come upon me? O that I could believe! What shall I do if God does not appear? I am a lost man without him. O that he would manifest himself in mercy to my soul!"

The Lord is now trying your faith--whether you can trust to him in the dark as well as in the light--whether you can look to Jesus at the right hand of the Father with a single eye--whether you can rest the whole weight of your soul upon his blood and righteousness; or whether you lack something in yourself to win the favor of God and recommend you to his notice. Thus the Lord tries your faith by putting a strain upon it. It is like the mode in which the strength of cannon is tested; the guns are doubly or trebly charged, and if they do not then burst, they are considered equal to anything that may be afterwards required of them. Or as cables are tried in the Queen's service; they are subjected to a strain very much greater than any they will be called upon to endure in actual use, and if they stand that heavy strain they are deemed fit for sea. In fact, not a sword or musket is entrusted to the soldier which has not been submitted to the most severe trial; or what would be the consequence? They might fail in the day of battle. Thus when the Lord calls a man to be a soldier and puts faith into his hand, he gives him a faith which he himself has tried, according to his own word--"I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich." He will not put into the hand of his soldier a sword that will break to pieces when he meets the enemy, or a weapon that shatters in the hand at the first onset, but one with which he shall be able to fight, and with which he shall come off more than conqueror; and that is, tried faith, his own gift and work.

I extend the word to all your temptations as well as your trials. You will one day see, if not now, how every one has worked to this end; to try your faith, of what sort it is--whether your heart is right with God--whether you are sincere before the heart-searching Jehovah--whether you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with a faith of a divine operation, or whether your faith and hope are merely of nature's manufacture, put into your hand by self and Satan, to ruin you under a guise of religion.

2. The working of patience. Another effect of trial is pointed out by the Holy Spirit--it "works patience." By "patience" we are not altogether to understand the word in its usual signification. The word "patience" in Scripture means rather endurance. It does not so much signify that quietness of soul--that calm and silent, that uncomplaining, unrepining submission to God's will which we understand by the word "patience"--as that firm and lasting endurance of all that God may see fit to lay upon us. It is a solder's virtue rather than a hermit's; a stout man's fortitude under pain rather than a quiet woman's passive submission under suffering. "You have heard," says James, "of the patience of Job." Look at the context. "Behold we count them happy who endure." What follows? "You have heard of the patience of Job." Now it is just the same word in both expressions in the original, and should therefore have been rendered the "endurance" of Job; for not all his trials and temptations made him give up faith and hope.

Faith, then, viewed as the gift of God, and as proved by all the trials and temptations that he sends to exercise it, "works" the soldier-like endurance of which our text speaks. For how is a soldier made? Send him to the Crimea or to India; that will make him a soldier. He does not learn the stern duties of his calling by being paraded upon Aldershot heath or by going through his drill upon Southsea common. He must go into actual war; he must hear the cannon roar and see the sabers flash in his face; give and take cut and thrust; lie all night upon the battlefield; rush up the steep breach amid the groans of the wounded, and press on determined to conquer or die. The battle alone makes the soldier--the experience, not the theory of war.

How is the Christian soldier made? By going to chapel--by reading the Bible--by singing hymns--by talking about religion? Just as much as the veteran warrior is made at Aldershot or Southsea. He must go into the battle and fight hand to hand with Satan and the flesh; he must endure cruel wounds given by both outward and inward foes; he must lie upon the cold ground of desolation and desertion; he must rush up the breach when called to storm the castles of sin and evil, and never "yield or leave the field," but press on determined to win the day or die. In these battles of the Lord, in due time he learns how to handle his weapons--how to call upon God in supplication and prayer, to trust in Jesus Christ with all his heart, to beat back Satan, to crucify self, and live a life of faith in the Son of God. Religion is not a matter of theory or of doctrine; it is to be in the thick of the battle, fighting with the enemy hand to hand, foot to foot, shoulder to shoulder. This actual--not sham warfare--makes the Christian soldier hardy--strengthens the muscles of his arm--gives him skill to wield his weapons, and power sometimes to put his enemies to flight. Thus it "works endurance,"--makes him a veteran, so that he is no longer a raw recruit, but one able to fight the Lord's battles and "to endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."

What then have been your best friends? Your trials. Where have you learned your best lessons? In the school of temptation. What has made you look to Jesus? A sense of your sin and misery. Why have you hung upon the word of promise? Because you had nothing else to hang upon. Thus, could you look at the results, you would see this--that trials and temptations produced upon your spirit the two effects of which the text speaks; that they tried your faith, and that sometimes to the uttermost, so that in the trial it seemed as if all your faith were gone; and yet they have wrought patience--they have made you endure.

Why have you not long ago given up all religion? Have your trials made you disposed to give it up? They have made you hold all the faster by it. Have your temptations induced you to let it go as a matter of little consequence? Why, you never had more real religion than when you were tried whether you had any; and never held faith with a tighter grasp than when Satan was pulling it all away. The strongest believers are not the men of doctrine, but the men of experience; not the boasters but the fighters; not the 'parade officers' in all the millinery of spotless regimentals, but the tattered, soiled, wounded, half-dead soldiers that give and take no quarter from sin or Satan.

But the word has another meaning, one in more strict accordance with the word "patience;" that is submission to God's will. When the Lord puts us in the furnace, we go in kicking and rebelling. Our coward flesh shrinks from the flame. But when we have been some time in the furnace and find that we cannot kick ourselves out, and that our very struggling only makes the coals burn more fiercely--at last, by the grace of God working in us, we begin to lie still. It was so with Job. How he fought against God! How his carnal mind was stirred up in self-justification and rebellion until the Lord himself appeared and spoke to his heart from heaven. Then he came to this point--"I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear; but now my eyes sees you. Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." Then the Lord accepted him and delivered him; turned his captivity, pardoned, and blessed him. So with Abraham, when he submitted to sacrifice Isaac, God appeared to deliver him. So with David, when he submitted to the Lord's chastening hand, he brought him back to Jerusalem. But this will be more evident in our next point, to which I now hasten.

III. The apostolic counsel, "Let patience have her perfect work," that the saint of God "may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing."

There is a work for patience to perform. Every grace of the Spirit has a certain work to do. As in a large factory, every hand knows his place and the work he has to do, so in the wonderful piece of divine machinery--the work of God upon the soul, every grace of the Spirit has its separate work to perform. Faith does not do the work of love, nor hope that of faith, nor love that of patience. Each different grace, like separate wheels in some beautiful machine, has its own place and its own work. Patience then has its work; and what is that? Twofold, according to my explanation of the word.

1. To ENDURE all trials, live through all temptations, bear all crosses, carry all loads, fight all battles, toil through all difficulties, and overcome all enemies.

2. To SUBMIT to the will of God--to own that he is Lord and King--to have no will or way of its own, no scheme or plan to please the flesh, avoid the cross, or escape the rod; but to submit simply to God's righteous dealings, both in providence and grace, believing that he does all things well, that he is a sovereign "and works all things according to the counsel of his own will." Eph 1:11.

Now until the soul is brought to this point, the work of patience is not perfect; it may be going on, but it is not consummated. You may be in the furnace of temptation now, passing through the fiery trial. Are you rebellious or submissive? If still rebellious, you must abide in the furnace until you are brought to submission; and not only so, but it must be thorough submission, or else patience has not its perfect work. The dross of rebellion must be scummed off, and the pure metal flow down. It is all of God's grace to feel this for a single moment.

But are there not, and have there not been, times and seasons in your soul, when you could be still and know that he is God? when you could submit to his will, believing that he is too wise to err--too good to be unkind? When this submission is felt, patience has its perfect work. Look at Jesus, our great example; see him in the gloomy garden, with the cross in prospect before him on the coming morn. How he could say--"Not my will, but yours be done!" There was the perfect work of patience in the perfect soul of the Redeemer.

Now you and I must have a work in our soul corresponding to this, or else we are not conformed to the suffering image of our crucified Lord. Patience in us must have its perfect work; and God will take care that it shall be so. As in a beautiful piece of machinery, if the engineer sees a cog loose or a wheel out of gear, he must adjust the defective part, that it may work easily and properly, and in harmony with the whole machine; so if the God of all our salvation sees a particular grace not in operation, or not properly performing its appointed work, he by his Spirit so influences the heart that it is again brought to work as he designed it should do.

Measure your faith and patience by this standard; but do not take in conjunction, or confound with them the workings of your carnal mind. Here we often mistake; we may be submissive as regards our spirit--meek and patient, quiet and resigned, in the inward man, yet feel many uprisings and rebellings of the flesh; and thus patience may not seem to have her perfect work. But to look for perfect submission in the flesh, is to look for perfection in the flesh, which was never promised and is never given. Look to what the Spirit is working in you--not to the carnal mind, which is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, and therefore knows neither subjection nor submission. Look at that inward principality of which the Prince of peace is Lord and Ruler, and see whether in the still depths of your soul, and where he lives and reigns, there is submission to the will of God.

But it adds, "that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing." The word "perfect" in the Scripture does not mean, as applied to a saint of God, anything approaching to the usual idea of perfection, as implying spotless, sinless holiness--but one who is matured and ripened in the life of God--no longer a child but a grown man. As a tree grown to its full stature is said to have attained perfection; so when the Lord the Spirit has brought forth the work of patience in your soul, as far as regards that work you are perfect, for it is God's work in you; and so far you are "entire," that is, possessing all which that grace gives, and "lacking nothing" which that grace can communicate.

To submit wholly to the will of God, and be lost and swallowed up in conformity to it, is the height of Christian maturity here below; and he that has that, lacks nothing, for he has all things in Christ. What, then, is the greatest height of grace to which the soul can arrive? Where did grace shine forth so conspicuously as in the Lord Jesus Christ? and where did grace manifest itself more than in the gloomy garden and on the suffering cross? Was not the human nature of Jesus more manifestly filled with the Spirit, and did not every grace shine forth in him more conspicuously in Gethsemane and on Calvary than when enraptured upon the Mount of Transfiguration? So there is more manifested grace in the heart of a saint of God who, under trial and temptation, can say, "Your will be done," and submit himself to the chastening rod of his Heavenly Father, than when he is basking in the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness. How often we are mistaken in this matter--longing for enjoyment, instead of seeing the true grace makes us submit to the will of God, whether in the valley or upon the mount!

IV. The transmuting effect of grace enabling the tried and tempted family of God to "count it all joy" when they fall into diverse temptations.

This is the grand key of the whole, and on which I need not tarry long, as I have already anticipated it. We are to "count it all joy" when we fall into diverse temptations. I have been setting before you a problem in arithmetic--a sum in compound addition; add it up or down, and look at the sum total--"Joy." Take all your trials and mark them down; next add all the temptations with which your mind has been exercised; now add them up, and what is the full amount? A word of three letters--a sum more valuable than if it were three figures, and each figure a nine--"Joy." That is the sum total, according to the calculation of the Holy Spirit, of all your trials and all your temptations. You are to "count it all joy."

What mysterious arithmetic! How unlike the addition taught in schools! How different from the sums and problems set on slates and copybooks! How different, also, a result does the Lord the Spirit bring out from your own calculations when you looked at them one by one, without adding up the whole sum! Then "count it all joy" when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing that their effect is to wean you from the world--to endear Christ--to render his truth precious, and to make you fit for the inheritance of the saints in light.

Are you satisfied with the solution of the problem? Can you write down your own name at the bottom of the sum and say, "it is proved; I carry the proof in my own bosom?"

PHILPOT'S LETTER OF RESIGNATION FROM THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Philpot's letter of resignation from the Church of England, March 28, 1835.

Mr. Provost:
I beg leave to resign the Fellowship of Worcester College, to which I was elected in the year 1826. This step I am compelled to take because I can no longer with a good conscience continue a Minister or a Member of the Established Church.

After great and numerous trials of mind, I am, as I trust, led by the hand of God thus to separate myself from that corrupt and worldly system, called the Church of England. Her errors and corruptions, as well as her utter contrariety to a Gospel Church as revealed in the New Testament, have been for two or three years gradually opening upon my mind. But though I have thus slowly and by degrees obtained light from above to see the Established Church somewhat in her true colors, it is, I confess, only but very lately that the sin of remaining in her has been forcibly laid upon my conscience. I have felt of late that, by continuing one of her ministers, I was upholding what in the sight of the holy Jehovah is hateful and loathsome.

I have felt that, by standing up in her pulpit, I was sanctioning a system in principle and practice, in root and branches, corrupt before God. I have felt that I was keeping those children of God who sat under my ministry in total darkness as to the nature of a true Gospel Church. I have felt that both I myself, and the spiritual people that attended my ministry, were, in principle and system, mixed up with--the ungodly, the Pharisee, the formalist, the worldling, and the hypocrite. And thus, while I remained in the Church of England, my principles and my practice, my profession and my conduct, my preaching and my acting, were inconsistent with each other. I was building up with the right hand what I was pulling down with the left.

I was contending for the 'power'--while the Church of England was maintaining the 'form'. I was, by my preaching, separating the people of God from 'the world lying in wickedness'--and the Church of England, in her Liturgy and Offices, was huddling together the spiritual and the carnal, the regenerate and the unregenerate, the sheep and the goats. I was contending for regeneration as a supernatural act wrought upon the souls of the elect alone by the Eternal Spirit--and the Church of England was thanking God for regenerating every child that was sprinkled with a little water. True prayer I was representing as the Spirit's work upon the soul, as the groanings of a burdened heart, as the pouring out of a broken spirit, as the cry of a child to his heavenly Father, as the hungering and thirsting of a soul that panted after God. The Church of England tied me down to cold, hackneyed, wearisome forms, in which I prayed for the Royal Family, the Parliament, the Bishops, and all sorts and conditions of men, with scarcely one petition that the Spirit would rule in a regenerate heart.

My soul was pained and burdened within me at hearing the wicked and the careless take into their lips the sweet petitions of David in the Psalms. I heard around me those who I knew from their life and conversation had never for a moment spiritually felt the pangs of a wounded conscience, say, 'I stick fast in the deep mire where no ground is; I am come into deep waters, so that the floods run over me'. I heard those who never desired or longed after anything but the gratification of their own lusts and covetousness, repeat aloud, 'Like as the deer desires the water-brooks, so longs my soul after you, O God'. Those that were dressed up in all the colors of the rainbow, I heard saying, 'As for me, I am poor and needy'. Graceless men who had never felt a drop of the Spirit's teachings, and who outside of the Church swore, jeered, and scoffed, would cry in my hearing, 'Take not your Holy Spirit from me'. Adulterers and adulteresses repeated aloud, 'I will wash my hands in innocency, and so will I go to Your altar'. While the self-righteous Pharisee would sound in my ears, 'I will go forth in the strength of the Lord God, and will make mention of Your righteousness only'.

Thus the gracious and blessed experience of God's saints was mocked and trampled upon, and the fervent prayers and breathings of the Spirit in contrite souls were profaned by the ungodly taking them into their unhallowed lips. And all this I was conscious was not a casual occurrence, or such as arose from the unsuggested will of individuals, but was the deliberate principle and system of the Church of England. I saw it was so by her teaching every child to say he was made in his baptism 'a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven'. I saw it was so by that system of responses which she enjoins upon all the congregation to make, and again and again has my soul been burdened at hearing the wicked little children around me mock God by shouting out the responses, as they had been systematically trained to do by ignorant ministers, parents, school-masters and school mistresses.

Being for the last three years a hearer and not a reader of the Liturgy, I have been compelled at times to close my ears with both my hands, that I might not hear the mechanical cries of the children, one of whose responses they always thus worded, 'We have left undone those things which we ought not to have done'. I have groaned within me at hearing the ungodly around me thus mock God, and so far was I from joining in the dead and spiritless forms of the Prayer Book, that I could only secretly pray, 'Lord, deliver me from this worldly and unholy system'.

Every dull and dry prayer seemed to lay a fresh lump of ice on my heart, and when I got into the pulpit, nothing but the hand of God, to whom I cried for help, could take off that deadness and barrenness which these wearisome forms had, in a great measure, laid upon me. At times, too, when I viewed the gettings up and sittings down, the bowings, the turnings to the East, the kneeling in this place and standing in that, and the whole routine of that 'bodily service' with which the blessed Jehovah was mocked, I could not but look on the whole as a few degrees only removed from the mummery of a Popish mass-house.

But though I felt, and at times could groan beneath the wretched formality of the Church of England, I was from two motives chiefly kept within her. One was, that I desired to be useful to the children of God in a dark neighborhood, with whom I had been connected for nearly seven years, and of whom some professed to derive profit from my ministry. The other was altogether carnal, and, though hiding itself in the secret recesses of my heart and therefore unperceived, was doubtless of much weight with me. This was the desire of retaining that comfortable competence which my Fellowship secured. My heart, I freely confess, has often sunk within me at the prospect of my already weak health terminating in confirmed illness, with poverty and need staring me in the face. I was also praying for an opening from the Lord to show me my path clearly, as, though I was determined neither to accept preferment, nor take another curacy, I was unwilling to throw up my ministry until the 'death of the very aged incumbent.' Lately, however, I have been brought to see 'that I must not do evil that good may come', and that if my conscience was fully convinced of the sin of remaining in the Church of England, no clearer or more direct intimation of the will of God was needed.

Thus have I laid open the inward workings of my heart, and the experience through which I have been led, in order to show that the resignation of my Fellowship and Curacy, and secession from the Church of England, is no sudden and hasty step, but the gradual and deliberate conviction of my soul.

But besides these particular evils under which I especially 'groaned, being burdened', as being brought into continual contact with them, I have felt that by continuing in the Establishment I sanction and uphold every other corruption that is mixed up with so worldly a system.

Thus I must sanction--the union of Church and State; the putting of the King in the place of Christ as Head of the Church; the luxury and pomp of the bishops; the giving away of livings for electioneering purposes; the heaping of office by ungodly parents on ungodly children; the system of tithes (I cannot but wonder how men who profess spiritual religion, and call themselves Evangelical ministers, can take tithes from carnal and ungodly farmers; no, as I have known some do, screw them up to the highest pitch, and even employ legal means to enforce their payment; while others of the same name and pretension exact tithes from gardens watered by the sweat of the laborer, and enforce burial and similar fees from the poor, when they themselves ride about in their carriages and phaetons. Of this I am confident, that they are not taught thus to act by the Blessed Spirit, who guides the regenerate into all truth, makes the conscience tender, and gives compassion towards the poor and needy. The New Testament authorizes no other payment to ministers but free and voluntary offerings; and thus all tithes, fees, and dues are part of that 'mystery of iniquity' of which Babylon, the mother of harlots, is the head); the principle and practice of Ecclesiastical Courts; the manufacturing of ministers by the gross at the Bishops' ordinations, and all that mass of evil which has sprung out of a worldly and wealthy Establishment. When Christ has bidden me 'call no man Father on earth', and not to be called myself 'Rabbi', and 'Master', and consequently by no title distinctive of priesthood or ministerial office, I must sanction the decking out of His professed ministers with the trappings of Antichrist, such proud titles, I mean, as Reverend, Very Reverend, Right Reverend, Most Reverend, Father in God, My Lord, Your Grace, and the like.

As a minister of the Establishment I must also sanction that abominable traffic in livings whereby 'the souls of men' are bought and 'sold' (an especial mark of Babylon, Rev. 18:13), and knocked down to the highest bidder by the auctioneer's hammer. Thus the whole system, in its root, stem, and branches, manifests itself to a renewed and spiritual mind as part and parcel of that Antichrist and Babylon which the Lord foreshowed His servants should arise, and from which He calls them to come out and be separate.

As a member, too, of the University, and Fellow of the College, I am unavoidably and necessarily mixed up with many evils, which I am convinced are equally hateful to God. Thus, in this capacity, I must sanction the whole principle of a University, as needful to qualify men to become ministers of Jesus Christ. But who that knows experimentally the sovereignty of Jehovah in choosing His ministers will not feel it to be dreadful presumption thus to train up unregenerate men to stand forth in His holy name?

The call to the ministry is as sovereign as the call by grace. And Jehovah will take the tinker from his barrow, and the cobbler from his stall, and send them to preach His Word, as he took Elisha from the plough, and Amos from 'gathering sycamore fruit'. By continuing, therefore, a member of the University I tacitly set aside the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, which can alone qualify a man for the ministry, and substitute a knowledge of Latin and Greek, and such mere 'letter-learning' as is called Divinity. But by doing this I necessarily reject as ministers some of God's most eminent and deeply-taught servants, as Bunyan, Deer, and Huntington; and exalt in their room unregenerate men, who were never taught a single truth by the Eternal Spirit.

And as, by continuing a member of the University, I sanction its principle, so in some measure do I sanction its practice. What that practice is, let those testify who have passed through the various stages of Undergraduate, Bachelor, and Master of Arts. But where in all that practice do I see the marks of Christ, or 'the footsteps of His flock'? Can they be traced in the drawing rooms and dining rooms of the Heads of Houses? in the Common-rooms of the Fellows? in the breakfasts, wine-parties, and suppers of the Undergraduates? What, I would ask, is usually heard in the latter but shouting, and singing of unclean songs, or conversation on the boat-race, the steeple-chase, or the fox-hunt? And what is commonly heard in the former but the news and politics of the day, and all such trifling, and sometimes even unseemly conversation, as is the mark of the soul that is 'dead in sins'? Where among all these, either professed ministers of Jesus Christ or such as are training to be so, is the name of the Savior, or the voice of prayer heard? If anywhere, it is among a few despised undergraduates, who have enough religion to see the open evils around them, but not enough grace or faith to separate from the system altogether.

And who that knows the University will not allow the following to be a faint sketch of the course run by most of her children? Initiated in boyhood in wickedness at one of the public schools, those dens of iniquity, or at a private school, in some cases but a shade better and in others worse, the youthful aspirant to the ministry removes to College, where, having run a career of vanity and sin for three years, he obtains his degree. Fortified with this, and his College testimonials, procured without difficulty except by the very notoriously immoral, and those who have shown some symptoms of spiritual religion, he presents himself to the Bishop for ordination. Examined by the Bishop's Chaplain on a few commonplace topics of divinity, and approved, he is ordained amid a heap of other candidates, without one question of a spiritual nature, one inquiry as to his own conversion to God, or one serious admonition as to his motives and qualifications for so dreadful a work. The cold heartlessness and technical formality usually displayed by Bishop, Chaplain, Archdeacon, and Registrar, with the carelessness and levity of most of the candidates, can never be forgotten by one whose heart God has touched, and who has witnessed the solemn mockery of a semi-annual ordination.

But further, as a Fellow of a College, I am connected with a body of men, who, however amiable and learned they may be (and if I forget the kindness of some of them I would be ungrateful indeed), are yet ignorant of Jesus Christ. Their acts as a body I am a party to, and indirectly, if not directly, sanction. Thus I help to give away college livings to unregenerate men, though I may know in my own conscience that they are not even called by grace, much less to the work of the ministry. I am a party also to giving testimonials indiscriminately of good life and conduct to be presented to the Bishop by the candidates for ordination (the document requiring the college seal), as well as to the electing of Fellows and Scholars for their classical attainments, and thus thrusting them into the ministry, and, in a word, to the whole system of education pursued, which, as a means of qualifying men to be ministers, I believe to be hateful to God.

In short, I am mixed up with a society of men whose life and conduct, however amiable, moral, and honorable, are not those of 'the poor and afflicted' family of God. No other way, then, have I to escape these evils, to 'keep myself pure, and not to be partaker of other men's sins,' than by fleeing out of Babylon.

Lastly, I secede from the Church of England because I can find in her scarcely one mark of a true church. She tramples upon one ordinance of Christ by sprinkling infants, and calling it regeneration (the Word of God allowing no other than the baptism of believers, and that by immersion); and profanes the Lord's Table by permitting the ungodly to participate. The true Church is despised; but she is honored. The true Church is persecuted; but she is a persecutor. The true Church is chosen out of the world; but she is part and parcel of it. The true Church consists only of the regenerate; but she embraces in her universal arms all the drunkards, liars, thieves, and immoral characters of the land. She christens them, she confirms them, she marries them, she buries them. And she pronounces of all for whom she executes these offices, that they are regenerate, that 'all their sins are forgiven them', that they are 'the servants of God'.

If perhaps on a dying bed any doubts and convictions should arise that all is not right for eternity, she sends her minister to visit them, and 'to absolve them from all their sins'. And having thus lulled their fears, and deluded them to die in peace, she quiets the rising doubts of their friends at the mouth of the grave, by assuring those who 'this our brother is delivered out of the miseries of this sinful world', and is 'committed to the dust in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life'

Oh! could the dreadful veil that hides eternity be for a moment lifted up, we would see that thousands, whom the Church of England is blessing, God is cursing; and that tens of thousands whom she is asserting to be 'in joy and felicity', are at that moment 'lifting up their eyes in hell, being in torment'. And while she thus speaks peace and comfort to all that will call her 'Mother', although unregenerate and dead in sins, she in her canons excommunicates and pronounces 'guilty of wicked error' all that are enlightened of the Spirit to declare she is not a true church, and separate from her communion. What is this but to remove the ancient landmarks of truth and error; 'to call evil good, and good evil; to put darkness for light, and light for darkness, bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter'?

At the same time, she shuts up and seals the mouth of all her ministers, and ties them down to say what she says, and to deny what she denies, by compelling them to 'give their sincere assent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in and by the Common Prayer Book, and to promise that they will 'conform to the Liturgy as by law established'. And if any of them are haply taught of God the things of Christ in their own souls, and having grace and faithfulness to preach what they have tasted, felt, and handled; contradict in the pulpit what they assert in the desk, they are frowned on by Bishops, despised by the clergy around them, and hated by all the worldly part of their parish, until at length the powerful convictions of an enlightened conscience force them to deliver their souls by fleeing out of Babylon.

But I am told that the Church of England is the only true church; that she derives her sacraments and ministers in a direct, uninterrupted line from the apostles, and that to secede from her is to be guilty of schism. But where are the outward marks of this only true church? Where are the 'signs' of these successors of the apostles, as 'wrought among us in all patience, in signs and wonders, and mighty deeds'? (2 Cor. 12:12). Are they to be found in lordly Bishops, proud and pampered dignitaries, fox-hunting, shooting, dancing, and card-playing clergy? Or are they to be discovered in those mere moral and outwardly decent ministers, who, after their solemn vow 'to lay aside the study of the world and the flesh', busy themselves in classics, mathematics, history, modern languages, natural philosophy, divinity, and everything and anything but to know Christ in their own souls?

Where are the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit visible in men, who, not being able to utter a word but what is written down, either copy their sermons from books, or forge out of their own heads a weekly lecture on stale morality? Where are the seals of their commission, whereby they 'approve themselves as ministers of God, by pureness, by knowledge, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left'? (2 Cor. 6 : 6, 7).

But, perhaps, these outward marks of the successors of the apostles may be discovered in the Evangelical clergy, by some esteemed so highly. What are these, however, as a body, now generally doing but making common cause with the worldly clergy, whom in their hearts they consider to be neither Christians nor ministers, to uphold an unholy system? They are for the most part compounding their sermons out of Simeon's dry and marrowless 'Outlines', looking out for preferment, buying and selling livings, training up their unregenerate sons for the ministry, and 'putting them into the priest's office that they may eat a piece of bread'.

Who among them can give a clear and decisive account of his call by grace, or of his call to the ministry? What description can they give of the entrance of the law into their conscience, bringing with it guilt, condemnation, and death, and of a deliverance by the inward revelation of Christ and the application of the 'blood of sprinkling'? The greater part are violently opposed to the fundamental doctrines of unconditional election, particular redemption, imputed righteousness, and man's helplessness. And those who do set forth the doctrines of free and sovereign grace preach them with such dryness and deadness as clearly show that they were never wrought into their experience by the blessed Spirit. Under their ministry the 'spiritual children' of God will not sit; for knowing little or nothing of the work of regeneration, and the trials, temptations, or consolations of the people of Christ, they cannot approve themselves to the consciences of the spiritual, either as called by grace or as sent to preach the gospel.

Thus, with perhaps a few and rare exceptions, the Clergy of the Church of England, whether Orthodox or Evangelical, correspond to that description given by the Holy Spirit, Micah 3: 11: "Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money. Yet they lean upon the Lord and say--Is not the Lord among us? No disaster will come upon us."

And need we wonder if, as is the priest, so is the people? The congregation of the High church, or Orthodox clergy, as they proudly call themselves, consists, with possibly a few exceptions, of none but open sinners, self-righteous pharisees, and dead formalists. In this 'congregation of the dead' the blind lead the blind, and all their weekly confessions, absolutions, prayers, praises, services, and sacraments are, as they will one day find, but one continual mockery of the blessed God, who requires of His worshipers that they 'should worship Him in spirit and in truth'.

Of those who sit under the ministry of the Evangelical clergy, the greater part in no wise differ from 'the congregation of the dead' described above, being attracted there by the superstitious charm of the Parish Church. Of the remaining part, there may be a few seeking souls who range over these barren heaths, until fairly driven from them by starvation, or brought off by tasting the green pastures and still waters of gospel grace under an experimental minister. The rest are mere formalists, with an evangelical creed in their heads, but without any grace in their hearts; or, if the minister be a high Calvinist, such 'twice dead' doctrinal professors as never felt the plague of their own hearts, never had their consciences ploughed up by the law, never loathed themselves in their own sight, and were never 'plunged in the ditch until their own clothes abhorred them'.

Humble, lowly, contrite souls, who are deeply acquainted with the workings of grace and of corruption, whose consciences have been made tender, and who have landmarks of the dealings of God with them, cannot long continue where they have fellowship with neither minister nor people. And, indeed, so opposed is the whole principle and practice of the Church of England to the work of grace upon the souls of the elect, and 'to simplicity and godly sincerity', that a minister, who is not a hypocrite or a formalist, must, when he has reached a certain point in Christian experience, either flee out of her or awfully sin against the convictions of his own conscience. He may remain in her as a presumptuous dead Calvinist; he may take the highest tone of doctrine, and preach Sunday after Sunday about assurance of personal salvation; but if once he describes the work of the Spirit on the soul he must, at a certain point, either come out of her or, by remaining contentedly within her pale, manifest himself a hypocrite in experience, of all hypocrites and of all hypocrisies the most deceiving and the most dreadful.

Can a man, for instance, who has known the work of regeneration in his own soul, and whose conscience is made tender by the blessed Spirit, go on long to lie unto God by thanking Him for regenerating infants? Can he who has been sprinkled with the blood of Christ, and been fed with His flesh, continue long to give the elements of His body and blood to the unbeliever, the self righteous, and the ungodly? Can he who has tasted the covenant of grace, and experimentally entered into the everlasting distinction between the sheep and the goats, go on long to mock God by declaring at the grave's mouth of every departed unbeliever, swearer, and drunkard, that he is a 'brother', and is 'taken to be with God'?

Notions in the head, however correct, doctrines, however high, a presumptuous confidence of salvation, however loud and lofty, may allow a man thus to trifle with the living JEHOVAH. But a tender conscience, a godly fear, and a trembling sense of God's holiness and majesty, such as the blessed Spirit works in the soul, must sooner or later bring a man out of this dreadful mockery.

From this worldly and unholy system I now SECEDE; and blessed be the name of God Most High, who has poured light on my eyes to see these abominations, and given me, I trust, a small portion of that faith of Moses whereby 'he was willing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season'. For sooner far would I die in a workhouse, under the sweet shinings-in of the eternal Comforter, and His testimony to my conscience that I am born of God, than live and die in ease and independence, without following Jesus in that path of trial and suffering which alone leads to eternal life.

But my long relationship with yourself, as Head of Worcester College, and with my brother Fellows, will not allow me thus to dissolve my connection with you without faithfully WARNING both you and them of your present state before God. What marks, then, are there in you, or them, of that new birth, without which none can enter the kingdom of heaven? What signs have you, or they, of a broken and contrite spirit? What marks of 'the faith of God's elect'? What inward discoveries have you, or they, had of the blood and righteousness of Christ? What testimony of the blessed Spirit to the pardon of your sins, and to your adoption into the family of God? 'If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His', though a sound classic, an acute mathematician, or a learned divine. And to have been professed ministers of Jesus Christ will only add to your condemnation, if you and they live and die in your present state of unbelief and unregeneracy.

I am weak and ignorant, full of sin and compassed with infirmity, but I bless God that He has in some measure shown me the power of eternal things, and by free and sovereign grace stopped me in that career of vanity and sin in which, to all outward appearance, I was fast hurrying down to the chambers of death.

With all due respect to you as Provost of Worcester College,

Yours faithfully,
J. C. Philpot

THE LAW OF MOSES

Imagine that you are ignorant of the gospel and of God's way of preventing evil and of bringing about good– and were called upon to design some plan whereby a man might be most effectually restrained from the commission of sin, and made obedient to the law of God. Now, what plan would you adopt? Most probably you would lay down strict rules of life; you would appoint certain seasons of prayer and meditation; you would call upon a man to withdraw himself from all worldly society, and prescribe to him a certain path of religious exercise in which he is to walk all the days of his life, that by fasting, self-denial, and continual mortification of the flesh, he may tame and subdue his rebellious lusts and attain unto perfection and holiness.

Well, in laying down all these plans and schemes, you would be doing what Popery has ever done, and what is the main foundation of all the monasteries and nunneries that are now everywhere springing up in this country.

So you see, that you have been already envisioned in your plans and projects; and that hundreds of years before you were born, only what the 'wisdom of man', such as it is, had labored hard to restrain men from evil, and to bring forth in them that which is good. And how have all these attempts succeeded? Is there less crime in the country? Do severe laws deter men from the commission of theft, violence, and even murder? Has not sin always proved too strong for every restraint which human laws have put upon it?

And the very law of God itself, which threatens a solemn curse against all who are found guilty under it, revealing the wrath of God against all transgression and all transgressors– has it ever restrained men from evil? Has it ever subdued and tamed the carnal mind? Has it ever produced obedience acceptable to God, or brought forth any one good word or work? No! on the contrary, has it not rather, as the Apostle speaks, put fresh life into sin, "for without the law sin was dead," and thus sin, taking occasion by the commandment, works in us all manner of evil? We thus find that no law, whether the law of the land, or the law of MOSES, can restrain or subdue sin, or bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness.

But now, I will assume that you know something, spiritually and experimentally, of the gospel; that you have been led to see, that what is called the moral law never has been able to subdue sin, for the carnal mind is not subject to it, neither indeed can be; that though holy in itself, for the law is "holy, just, and good," it has never produced any inward sanctification of soul and spirit; that all its works are dead works, and that though the soul is naturally wedded to it, it has never yielded thereby a living offspring, or brought forth fruit acceptable to God. You may have tried to keep it– have set it daily before your eyes as your guiding rule– have endeavored to obey it and conform your life to it; and yet after all your labors you have never been able to satisfy the breadth of its demands, or render to it an obedience which could pacify your own guilty conscience.

All that you reaped from it was hard bondage, guilt, doubt and fear. You never obtained by it one gleam of mercy, one answer to prayer, one breaking in of the light of God's countenance, one visitation of the presence of Jesus, one testimony that you were in the right way, or one evidence that the Lord was at work upon your soul. If ever, amid all your hard bondage, any beam of light and life, any ray of hope, any prospect of mercy, any intimation that you should not perish, came into your soul, it was from a different quarter; it was through some beams of the gospel which broke in through the mist and fog of your legal bondage.

I will assume, then, that you have tasted, felt, and handled something of the sweetness and power of the gospel. Now you set another way to work, and you are able to show, from your own experience of its power, the effect which it has had both upon your heart and upon your life; and this has wrought a change not only in your views of what the gospel is as the power of God unto salvation, and what the Gospel can do, as influencing both heart and life, but has also put a new speech into your lips and turned you to speak the pure language of Canaan.

You do not now urge the law as a binding rule upon those who have believed through grace, and make Moses their husband instead of Christ. You know from your own experience that the law never made you fruitful in any one good word or work, and that nothing ever attended it but darkness, bondage, guilt, barrenness, and death. You cannot, therefore, urge that as a guiding rule upon others, which in your own case you found so ineffectual either to guide or rule you; and therefore when you would endeavor to persuade those who fear God to live to his glory, you would set before them not the law with its curses, but the gospel with its blessings. You would set before them the exceeding love of God in the gift of his dear Son, the surpassing grace, mercy, and condescension of Jesus in dying for a guilty race. You would point to his sufferings in the garden, and to his agonies on the cross, and show that there is no other sacrifice for sin but his precious blood shedding and death; and that every poor, guilty, self-condemned wretch who comes unto him, casts himself upon his free mercy and grace, and looks to him and to him alone as his all-sufficient Savior and complete salvation, will not be cast out, but sooner or later will obtain pardon and peace.

You would further tell him, that when he feels the bleeding, dying love of the Lord Jesus Christ in his soul, it will constrain him by every sweet constraint henceforth not to live unto himself, but unto him who died for him and rose again. And as you set these things before his eyes and speak of the influence which they have produced upon your own heart and life, you bind him, as it were, by every gospel motive to live to God's praise and to walk in his fear.

Now such a mode of persuading to obedience would be right, would be consistent with the promises and precepts of the gospel, would be in harmony with the preaching and teaching of the apostles and prophets of the New Testament, would be more or less accompanied with the testimony of the blessed Spirit and the approbation of God, and so far as owned and blessed of him, would make itself manifest in the hearts and lives of those among whom it was preached.

THE FAREWELL

Preached at Zoar Chapel, London, on Thursday Evening, August 10, 1843, by J. C. Philpot

"Brethren, farewell."
(2 Corinthians 13:11)

I cannot say that 'Anniversary', 'Funeral', or 'Farewell' Sermons are much to my taste; and whenever I have attempted to preach with a view to such occasions, it is but rarely that I have had any liberty of soul or of speech. I learned a lesson on this subject not very long before I left the Establishment, which has much prevented me from even making the attempt. The circumstance I allude to was this. What men call Easter Sunday was drawing near; which is, as you know, in the Church of England, the Anniversary of the resurrection of Christ. On the Saturday evening immediately preceding it, I took a walk, as I was accustomed to do; and was led to meditate on the coming Lord's Day, when these words fell with some weight upon my mind– "The power of his resurrection." I thought the words were very suitable for the occasion, and I seemed led into a train of sweet and comfortable meditation upon them; so that I fully expected I had a text for the following day, from which I could speak with some liberty and feeling. But when the morrow came, the text was entirely taken away; in fact, scarcely a single idea upon it remained, so that I was obliged to speak from some other words. A few Lord's days afterwards the text returned to my mind, and I was then enabled to speak from it with some sweetness. From this occurrence I gathered that it was not the will of the Lord that I should preach sermons suited to 'particular occasions'; and from that time to this, I have very rarely attempted it. But after the great attraction with which you have heard me, and the full assemblies which have gathered together, during my visit in this place, I think I should be lacking in right feeling, if I left you without expressing in some way or other my wishes and desires in bidding you "farewell."

My text is a very short one, as it contains only two words; but in speaking from it, I mean to make it shorter still, and take only one word; but in so doing, I feel if the Lord shall lead me into the experimental meaning of that one word, "Farewell," we shall have enough to occupy us during the time we are assembled together this evening.

Though it is but one word to which I have restricted myself, yet in fact, it is composed of two, "fare" and "well." To fare well, spiritually understood, is to have everything that God can make us happy in. The simple, or I should rather say, the compound word "fare-well," if indeed it is a spiritual faring well, comprehends all that we can desire for time or for eternity.

But while there is a faring well, there is such a thing also as faring ill. And as oftentimes we see truth better by contrast, we will, with God's blessing, speak first a little of what it is to fare ill; and then of what it is to fare well.


I. What is it, then, to fare ILL? In examining what it is to fare ill, we shall look at it in two points of view.

First. At the characters who fare ill throughout; and secondly, at the children of God, who at certain times and seasons are in the same predicament, and appear to fare ill.

A. We will look at the characters who fare ill THROUGHOUT. Who are they? We may describe them in one word, as the enemies of God. For whatever worldly prosperity may attend them; whatever their carnal hearts may enjoy of pleasure, and so-called amusement; whatever riches they may heap up to themselves, or whatever they may gain of this world's applause, being the enemies of God, they must fare ill. But let us come to particulars. Who are these enemies of God?

1. They are all those who are "dead in trespasses and sins;" that is, all who live and die in that state, and who will ultimately descend into the gulf of eternal perdition. They are all those whose hearts are altogether buried in the world, whose whole mind, soul, and affections are occupied with the things of time and sense. These universally may be said to fare ill, for they have not a single thing in them of which God approves, nothing whatever that can take them safely out of time into eternity; but, on the contrary, they have everything in them against which God has proclaimed his eternal displeasure, and everything which will one day hang like a millstone round their necks, to sink them into a dreadful eternity.

2. Again; All who are attempting to establish their own righteousness; all who are looking to anything in self to recommend them to the favor of God; all who are despising the blood of the Redeemer, and scorning Christ's imputed righteousness– all of these, however high they may stand in a profession of religion, will surely fare ill; for they mock the only true God, reject the only way of salvation, and have not fled to the only refuge and hiding-place set forth in the gospel.

3. Again; All professors of doctrinal truth, who have never spiritually felt the power of truth upon their hearts, fare ill; and they will fare ill to all eternity, unless God is pleased to work a change in them. There is nothing so deceitful as having "a form of godliness," while the "power" of it is denied; nothing so delusive as having a name to live, while the soul is dead before God. If there is one hypocritical character more than another, whom the man of God should point out, it is he who, with a profession, is destitute of vital godliness; that has the form of doctrinal truth in the judgment, but who never has experienced the power of that truth in his soul, humbling him in the dust, and raising him up to a spiritual knowledge of Jesus Christ.

4. Again; All who profess the truth, but live ungodly; all that with a seared conscience walk in fleshly lusts, and through their misconduct bring a reproach upon the name and cause of Jesus Christ, fare ill, for they clearly manifest that they know nothing of "the grace of God," which teaches us, that "denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." (Titus 2:12.)

B. But secondly. The children of God, though they cannot fare ill as to their eternal safety; though they are secure in Christ Jesus, and bound up in "the bundle of life" with the Lord the Lamb, yet may and frequently do in this time-state fare ill. And when do they fare ill?

1. Sometimes they fare ill thus. Their hearts get buried in the things of time and sense; the world comes in with its charms or its business, and draws away their thoughts and affections from better things. Instead of their souls going after the Lord, in unutterable pantings, to enjoy a sense of his love and blood, their carnal mind goes after created things, madly seeking to derive some pleasure or profit from them.

My friends, many a tree outwardly flourishing has rot and touchwood inside; and so, many a child of God, though he may not have deviated from the outward observance of things that he once knew in power, and may seem to occupy his original position; yet he has lost the sweetness, unction, and savor of them in his heart. His affections are not now in heaven; the world has laid a secret hold on him; and instead of the life and power of God's word being felt in his soul, the dust of carnality, idolatry, and earthliness occupy his heart.

But directly we lose the power and savor of divine things in the soul, we fare ill– nothing can make up for the unction and savor of divine truth in the heart. The clearest experience, the soundest creed, the most consistent conduct, the most regular attendance on the means, will never make up for the life, feeling, power, and presence of God in the soul. So, however a man (a child of God I am speaking of) may not appear outwardly to have backslidden from God, yet if his heart is secretly going out after idols; if he has lost the unction and power of the blessed Spirit on him, he fares ill, though none but God and his own conscience, or a discerning soul here and there, may perceive the difference.

2. Again. The people of God fare ill, when they substitute a sound doctrinal creed for the experimental teachings of the Spirit in their hearts. And this is a very possible case– it is not confined to those who are dead in a profession, but it is an evil that even God's people may be drawn into. They have had sufficient experience to separate themselves from those who are dead in a doctrinal profession; but having lost the savor and sweetness of that experience out of their heart, and not being able to go back into the world, or herd with dead professors, they have been led to substitute the doctrine of truth for the power of truth, and walk in the outward light of the word instead of coming to the inward light of God's countenance, to live under his smiles, or breathe their souls out after his manifested favor.

In a word, God's people fare ill whenever they do not experience the power or presence of the Lord in their hearts. They fare ill, when anything religious or irreligious, inward or outward, in the church or in the world, affords pleasure or satisfaction short of and independent of the Lord. Directly they sit down or take rest anywhere, or in anything but at the feet of Jesus, and in his blood and love, they evidence a loss of spiritual health, and fall sick of that lethargy or paralysis which is the disease of those that are at "ease in Zion."


II. But we pass on to consider the other branch of the subject, and to show what it is to "fare WELL." All God's people will eventually fare well. They all stand complete in Christ– nothing can touch their eternal safety; for they are all complete in him, "without spot, or blemish, or any such thing." In this point of view, they must all in the end and forever fare well.

But when we come to the matter of experience, we often find that those very times when God's people think they are faring ill, are the seasons when they are really faring well; and again, at other times, when they think they are faring well, then they are really faring ill.

1. For instance, when their souls are bowed down with trouble, it often seems to them that they are faring ill. God's hand appears gone out against them– he has hidden his face from them; they can find no access to a throne of grace; they have no sweet testimonies from the Lord that the path in which he is leading them is one of his choosing, and that all things will end well with them. This they think is indeed faring ill; and yet perhaps they never fare better than when under these circumstances of trouble, sorrow, and affliction. These things wean them from the world. If their heart and affections were going out after idols, they instrumentally bring them back. If they were hewing out broken cisterns, they dash them all to pieces. If they were setting up, and bowing down to idols in the chambers of imagery, affliction and trouble smite them to pieces before their eyes, take away their gods, and leave them no refuge but the Lord God almighty.

If you can only look back, you will often see that your greatest sweets have sprung out of your greatest bitters, and the greatest blessings have flowed from the greatest miseries, and what at the time you thought your greatest sorrows you will find that the brightest light has sprung up in the blackest darkness, and that the Lord never made himself so precious as at the time when you were sunk lowest, so as to be without human help, wisdom, or strength. So that when a child of God thinks he is faring very ill, because burdened with sorrows, temptations, and afflictions, he is never faring so well.

2. Again. A child of God fares well when he is enabled, in whatever circumstances and under whatever trials of mind he may be, to carry his case to the Lord, and spread it out at his footstool. We know, from painful experience, that the spring of prayer seems at times well near dried up in our hearts. We feel at times as though we never knew what it was to possess "a spirit of grace and of supplications," or to have access to God; as though we never knew what it was to pour out our hearts before him, or tell him our trouble. Whenever, therefore, we are enabled to take our case to the Lord, and spread it out (whatever it may be) at his footstool; not to resort to any unlawful means; not to go down to Egypt, or lean upon Assyria; not to trust to an arm of flesh; but under all circumstances, to lay our case simply and perseveringly before the Lord, looking to him alone to appear, we fare well. The darkest clouds in due time will break, the most puzzling enigmas will sooner or later be unriddled by the blessed Spirit interpreting them, and the darkest providences cleared up; and we shall see that God is in them all, leading and guiding us "by the right way, that we may go to a city of habitation." (Ps. 107:7.)

3. The children of God fare well when they have a SPIRITUAL APPETITE AND RELISH FOR DIVINE TRUTH, when they are really in earnest for divine things, and "As the deer pants after the waterbrooks," so their souls pant after the Lord. When they experience these hungerings and thirstings after the Lord's presence and manifested favor to their souls, they fare well. But we know that many times it is otherwise with us. We have often no more appetite or relish for the truths of the gospel than if we had never tasted anything of their sweetness, nor felt anything of their power. How often the Bible is to us a sealed book, and the truths of the gospel veiled in the thickest darkness! How often the testimony of the word concerning Jesus and the way of salvation are as completely hidden from our view as though there were no God, no Jesus, no heaven to desire, no hell to fear!

So that when eternal things are really present to the mind, and we feel their solemn weight and power in the conscience; when the world is under our feet; the presence of God earnestly sought; the Bible opened up with some sweetness and power, and the blessed truths of the gospel relished with a keen appetite, we may then indeed be said to fare well. And thus the Lord's family, who have traveled long in the wilderness, and know by painful experience what a parched desert it is, when they come to some stream, bubbling unexpectedly forth, find that their long and wearisome journey only makes the water dearer and sweeter to their taste.

4. We fare well when in all things we can RESIGN OURSELVES INTO THE HANDS OF GOD. There are many times when we cannot so resign ourselves; when we have a will of our own, some darling idol to grasp, some beloved plan to accomplish, some object in view which is contrary to God's will and word. But when we are enabled to yield ourselves up into the hands of the Lord that he may work his will in us, when we are brought solemnly to say, "Not my will, but yours be done;" and resign ourselves as clay into the hands of the Potter, desiring to feel his heavenly fingers molding us, so that we may be vessels of honor fit for the Master's use, we then fare well; for this is to walk in the footsteps of Christ, and follow his blessed example, when he said, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me," yet bowed his head to the will of his Father, and said, "Nevertheless not as I will, but as you will." (Matt. 26:39.)

5. We fare well when we are DEAD TO THE WORLD, and the world is dead to us; when it loses its hold upon our affections; when the perishing objects of time and sense do not interweave and intertwine themselves around every thread of our heart; when we can look on the world, and say in the expressive language of the apostle, "By whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." (Gal. 6:14.) What a picture is this! That the world had no more charms for him than it would have for a person on the cross, expiring in agony; and as we would naturally turn away our eyes with loathing from a malefactor writhing on a cross, so he spiritually turned away his eyes from a perishing world. But who of us can come up to this experience? How rarely are we even in this state, to find our hearts really separated from the world, and drawn away not merely from its company, but also from its wretched spirit. But when we feel ourselves in some measure drawn away from it, and our heart and affections fixed where Jesus sits at the right hand of God, we may then be said to fare well.

6. When we are enabled in any degree to WALK IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST; when, instead of returning railing for railing, we contrariwise return blessing; when one cheek is smitten, to turn the other; when we can bear injuries and insults, and instead of resenting them, we feel our hearts drawn out to forgive them; then indeed we may be said to fare well. But, alas! we find, on the contrary, so much of that other spirit in us, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth;" blow for blow, word for word, look for look; as though we could not bear the slightest measure of reproach, or anything approaching to contempt. Yet how sweet it is, when instead of this miserable spirit, we have the least measure of the mind of Christ; when instead of envy, jealousy, wrath, and every cursed and devilish working, even against the people of God, our hearts are so melted down into love and affection to them, that we can bear with those things that most cut our flesh, and are most contrary to our natural feelings.

7. We fare well when FAITH is in exercise; and this we learn by knowing the power of unbelief. When unbelief is powerfully at work, then indeed we fare ill; we can overcome no temptation, resist no sin, forgive no injury, bear not a straw to lie across our path, nor the weight of a thread upon our mind. But when the soul is favored with a living faith, and the Author of that faith is pleased to draw it out into blessed exercise, that indeed is a faring well. This blessed faith overcomes the world, purifies the heart, brings a sweet sense of heavenly realities into the soul, and draws upwards, all the affections of the soul.

8. We fare well also, when HOPE, that sister grace with faith and love, is in spiritual exercise; when gloom and despondency do not possess the mind; when the clouds of darkness and doubt, which hovered over the soul are dissipated, and some blessed gleams of life, light and love shine out of the Mediator's fullness into the heart. The mariner would fare ill did he go out to sea without his anchor; for when the storm came, and blew on a lee-shore, he would have nothing to hold his ship from running aground. But if he had cast anchor, as long as that held fast in the ground, he would fare well, whatever storms might rise, or winds blow. So, with the soul that is enabled to cast anchor on Christ, to rest on his covenant engagements, love, blood, and glorious righteousness, as long as the anchor holds, it will ride out every storm.

9. Again. When LOVE is spiritually felt; when it flows out toward the blessed Lord, and is fixed upon him, then indeed the soul may be said to fare well. When instead of having the heart divided, and so found faulty; instead of having a thousand roving imaginations, and oftentimes base lusts, hovering over us like birds of prey, and snatching off in their talons every spiritual feeling, these vultures are driven away.

10. And when, too, in spite of all the darkness that may have abounded in the mind, all the difficulties of the narrow path, all the backslidings committed, and all the snares in which the feet have been entangled, the soul feels all right for eternity, then indeed it may be said to fare well; for it is bound for a blessed eternity, for a land where tears shall be forever wiped away from all faces.

The Apostle's short and simple prayer to God for those to whom he was writing was, that they might "fare well." It was the desire of his heart, that they might enjoy those rich spiritual blessings that God alone could communicate; and in uttering this parting word, he breathed out with it the genuine wish of his soul. And its being couched in the form of a petition and not an exhortation, shows that there is not anything in us that can cause us to fare well; that it is not to be produced by any good deeds or good words of ours, not to be brought about by our own prayers, not merited by our own exertions; but that it is wholly and solely the gift of God, for he only can make us, under every circumstance, and in every time and place, really to fare well.

The living family, then, will not be attempting to cause themselves to fare well; but will be continually looking up to the Lord to make it fare well with them; they will be seeking his blessed face, and casting themselves from time to time at his footstool, that he would cause all things to work together for their spiritual good, that it may fare well here and hereafter with their souls.

But what different views people have of faring ill and faring well! If I were to go into the street, and ask the first man I met with what it was to fare well, he would tell me, no doubt, that to enjoy health of body, to have riches and respectability, and be surrounded with worldly comforts, would be to fare well; while at the same time he is, in the sight of a holy God, only filling up the measure of his iniquity, and will at last, if grace prevent not, sink into an awful eternity.

But were I to go to some poor child of God, who is depressed by poverty, suffering under ill health, afflicted with grievous trials, exercised with sore temptations, harassed by the devil, and continually plagued and perplexed by his own corrupt heart; and ask him, "What it is to fare well?" he, I believe, would answer, "To fare well would be to enjoy the life, light and love of God in my soul; to have testimonies from the Lord that I am his; to find Satan put under my feet; to experience the blood of sprinkling on my conscience; to taste a sense of pardoning love; to walk in the light of God's countenance; to find the Lord with me in all my sufferings; to feel that I am safe in his hand, and that at last he will land me safe in a blessed eternity."

Now these two people would give a very different answer to the question; and yet perhaps to the eye of sense, one of them might be enjoying the height of prosperity, while the other might be in the depths of adversity; the one possessing health, and all that the world could offer, yes, as the Psalmist says, "His eyes standing out with fatness, and having more than heart could wish;" while the other might be pitied as the most miserable wretch alive; and yet really be the man whom princes might envy, and kings delight to honor, and a jewel that shall one day shine brightly in the kingdom of God.

But suppose the Lord himself were to put the question to your hearts (instead of my putting it) in some solemn manifestation, as he came to Solomon by night, and ask you, "What you most desired?" if he were to come to us spiritually in that manner, and say, "I will answer your petition and your request, what is it your soul most desires? Your body perhaps is afflicted with disease; shall it be health? You are distressed with poverty; shall it be riches? You are despised and scorned; shall it be honor? If ignorant and uneducated; shall it be learning? Is everything in providence against you; shall it be everything in providence for you? Shall all these things be given to you, and all summed up and concentrated as an answer to your petition?"

If God has touched your heart with his finger, you would answer, "No, Lord; I cannot be satisfied with these. Rather give me poverty and affliction with your blessing– only give me a sufficiency to carry my poor body through life, and I am contented, whatever else you deny me. But do not deny me spiritual blessings; give me a manifestation of your presence; deny me not the guidance and leading of your hand; deny me not a sense of your love and of your power; deny me not a testimony that you are leading me safely through the waste howling wilderness, and will present me faultless before your face forever."

You may say, when I thus put the question, "These are my desires, these are the objects which my heart is really fixed upon, and the things which I sincerely feel I want to have." But let me now put another question, and that is, "If so, are these things what you breathe out from time to time into the bosom of God?" It is very well, when the question is put, to answer, "These are my desires:" but you know we read, "The sluggard desires, and has not." Whenever God implants them in the soul, you will not be content with merely expressing a few desires; but there will be solemn pantings and breathings of your heart into the bosom of God that he would lead you effectually into the experience of the truth; there will be in your conscience from time to time "a spirit of grace and supplication;" and you will be restless, discontented, and dissatisfied with everything short of God's manifested presence. There will be a turning from the creature, and all that the creature can present, and a cry and a sigh rising up into the ears of the Lord, telling him that nothing but himself will content your soul; that his favor in providence will not content you; that you must have Himself, and that nothing but himself can really satisfy your heart. If a man is here, he is faring well, whatever may be his exercises, temptations, or distresses, for the Lord is guiding him in the footsteps of the flock, and opening his heart to receive the truth in the love and power of it.

But when the Lord is really leading our souls in this path, everything seems to be against us. True religion is such a mystery. When we think we are faring well, we are often faring ill; when we think we are faring ill, we are often faring well; when we think that now we have got into an easy, smooth, and comfortable path, it is then leading us wrong; and when we say, 'The path is so rugged and intricate; we are so perplexed, and so little able to see the way that we fear we are out of the track altogether,' that is the very time when the Lord is leading us in the right way.

Sometimes when we say, 'Now the Lord will appear,' the Lord does not appear at all; and when we are saying, 'The path is so dark that we can scarcely hope the Lord can appear;' in a moment he will take away the cloud, and make his appearance. When we are ready to say, 'The case is so desperate, we can hardly expect a remedy,' that is the very time for the remedy to come. When we may say, 'This is just the eve of a deliverance,' the deliverance is put farther back, and the soul sinks deeper into a sense of guilt and misery; and when we may say, 'We are so black and polluted, such awful sinners, such horrible creatures, that the Lord cannot look on us,' that is the very moment when he may smile into the heart. When we may think we are getting on at a rapid pace in spirituality and holiness, making wonderful advances in the divine life, and getting almost to the pinnacle of creature perfection, we discover through some terrible inward slip, that we are on the wrong path, and have been drawn aside by self-righteousness and pharisaical pride.

So that at last we seem brought to this point, to have no wisdom of our own to see the way, and to have no strength to walk in the way when seen, but that we must be guided every step by the Lord himself; and thus we sink down into creature nothingness and creature emptiness, and feel no more merit in our heart, lip, or life, why God should save us, than there is in Satan himself; and thus we sink so low that none but God himself can lift us up. And this is the very time when God usually appears, and most singularly displays his mercy, love, and grace.

Now, it is by walking in this trying path that we learn our utter ruin, and learn to prize God's salvation. The power of saving truth is only prized by those whom God is thus teaching. Others are satisfied with shadows, but those that are deeply exercised in their mind, must have the substance. Those who have had their false refuges destroyed, their lying hopes broken, and a thousand difficulties and perplexities surrounding them, as the Lord opens the eyes, and brings his truth before them, want the power and application of this truth to their heart. Nothing suits or satisfies them but the unction of the Spirit, and the dew of God's power and presence resting on and felt in their souls. They can no longer be satisfied with the mere form, no longer rest for salvation on a few notions, no longer hang their eternal all upon the good opinion of the creature.

And thus, by this painful work in their souls, they learn that they have no more religion than God works in them; that they can only know what God teaches them; that they can only have what he communicates to them; and that they are wholly and solely dependent upon him to guide and keep them every moment of their lives. Worldly men indeed despise them, mere professors hate them, the devil harasses them, their names are generally cast out as evil, and universal charity, which has a good opinion of all, has not a single, good word for them. That they are such a mystery to others is no wonder, when they are such a mystery to themselves. How they hold on they cannot tell; but they find they cannot move unless God moves them. How they pray is a mystery, yet at times they feel the spirit of prayer alive in their bosoms. How their souls are kept pleading and waiting for the Lord at the footstool of his mercy is a mystery, yet they cannot deny that this is the experience of their hearts. So that when they come to look at the way in which the Lord has led them, from first to last, it is all an unfathomable mystery.

Why God should have chosen them in Christ is a mystery; why he should have quickened their souls when "dead in trespasses and sins," is a mystery; why he should have wrought a sense of contrition in their hearts is a mystery; why he should have given a sense of his love to them is a mystery; why he should have preserved them from error, while thousands have been entangled in it, is a mystery; and why he should keep them day by day, and hour by hour, without suffering them to disgrace his cause, deny his truth, turn their back on God, or go into the world, is a mystery. And yet they find that they have and are all these things; so that the greatest mystery of all is, that they are what they are.

Thus, do they fare well, because God takes care they shall fare well; he manages all their concerns, he watches over them by night and by day– he waters them continually, and he guides and leads them until he brings them to his heavenly kingdom.

But, in the full sense of the word, they will never entirely fare well, until they drop their mortal bodies into the dust, until the "old man" is completely annihilated, the root of sin forever perished, and their immortal souls united with their glorified bodies before the throne of the Lamb, shall sing to all eternity the high praises of their God. Then they will fare well, because they will have nothing then to make them fare ill; sin, which is now their burden, will be known no more; all their sorrows and pains will be turned into joy; and the tears, which now often run down their cheeks, will then be all wiped away. They will then fare well, because they will see him as he is in whom their hearts are fixed, and will be swallowed up in the eternal enjoyment of his bliss and glory.

With what better word, then, can I conclude than "Farewell!" And in uttering that word, I desire to breathe it from my heart, "Brethren, fare well!" May your hearts be kept alive to divine things; may you never wander from the truth; never seek for happiness from the things of time and sense; never lean on an arm of flesh; never trust to your own righteousness; never get into an openly backsliding state, and go after idols; never be entangled by secret lusts and besetting sins; and never bring a disgrace upon the cause of God and truth.

May you, then, fare well; I will not add the word "finally," in the words of the text, "finally, brethren, fare well." I will not then say "finally," though the Lord only knows whether we shall ever see each other again in the flesh. But I simply breathe forth the desires of my heart for your temporal and spiritual welfare; and conclude with the words of the Apostle, "Brethren, farewell."

DEATH AND RESURRECTION, OR SPIRITUAL CONVICTIONS AND HEAVENLY AFFECTIONS

Preached at North Street Chapel, Stamford, on June 27, 1858, by J. C. Philpot

"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."
(Colossians 3:1-3)

Until the eyes of our understanding are spiritually enlightened, and our heart touched by regenerating grace, we see, we know, we feel nothing savingly or experimentally of the power of God in the salvation of the soul. We may be religious, very religious; serious, extremely serious; pious, decidedly pious; we may attend church or go to chapel, receive the sacrament or sit down to the ordinance, say our prayers or pray extempore, read the Scriptures and good books; and comparing our religious life with the profane conduct of many by whom we are surrounded, may please ourselves with the deceptive illusion that we are recommending ourselves to the favor of God, and when death shall close the scene, shall be rewarded with eternal life. And yet all this time we may be as destitute of the power of God in saving the soul, as ignorant of law and gospel, of condemnation or salvation, of what we are as sinners or what the Lord Jesus is to those who believe in his name, as the very beasts that perish. True religion must be wrought in the soul by the power of God. We are not saved because we are religious; but we are religious because we are saved.

"Who has saved us, and called us" (2 Tim. 1:9)– saved before called, and called because saved. The grace that wrote our names in the Lamb's book of life, that gave our persons to the Son of God, that he might redeem us through the cross by his sufferings, blood shedding, and death; the grace that is now in the heart of Jesus as sitting at the right hand of the Father in glory and majesty– this same grace quickens our soul into spiritual life, convinces us of sin, gives us repentance, brings us to the foot of the cross, reveals in us a precious Savior, and raises up a faith and hope and love in his name which both save and sanctify us unto eternal life. Thus we are not saved by anything of a religious nature which we can communicate to ourselves, or others communicate to us; but we are saved by the grace of God, and by the grace of God alone. "By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." (Eph. 2:8.) If, then, that grace never visits our heart with its regenerating power and its sanctifying influences, we may have all the religion that the flesh can be possessed of, in all its high doctrine or all its low doctrine; in all its strictness or all its laxness; in all its Churchism or all its Dissent; in all its Pharisaism or all its Antinomianism; and yet die under the wrath of God and have our portion with the damned.

Compare this fleshly religion in which thousands are nursed and wrapped up, and in which thousands contentedly live and die– compare, I say, this external service, this mere bodily exercise, without life or power; without faith or repentance, without love or hope, without divine teaching or heavenly testimony, with such language as I have just read from the inspired word, and which is now all but sounding in your ears. Ask people, aye, very strict and religious people, what they know about being dead and their life being hidden with Christ in God; about being risen with Christ, and seeking those things which are above; about setting their affection on things above and not on things on the earth; and what answer can they give? What do they know for themselves of a heartfelt, experimental, and divine religion like this? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Which, then, are we to accept as true religion– that which bears the stamp of man, or that which bears the stamp of God? that which unenlightened, unregenerated men, and even ministers, would impress on our minds and impose on our consciences, or that which the Holy Spirit has written down in the inspired word as a guide to the saints of God? I need not tell you which we should believe– whether we are to follow the true light which shines in the inspired page and guides the soul to heaven and God; or that false light which issues out of the corrupt heart of man, which leads us into, and drowns us in the bog of superstition, error, and self-righteousness.

I seem to see four things in the words before us, which I shall endeavor to bring before you as they are commended to my understanding, my heart, and my conscience.

First, Death– "You are dead."

Secondly, Resurrection– "If you are risen with Christ."

Thirdly, Ascension and Session– "Your life is hid with Christ in God."

Fourthly, Affection– "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth."


I. DEATH. The spring and fountain of all true religion, of all vital godliness is union with Christ. He is the head of the body, the Church; therefore, from him, and from him alone, all spiritual life comes into his mystical members. "I have come that they might have life." (John 10:10.) "I am the resurrection and the life." (John 11:25.) If, therefore, we have union with Christ– and without union with Christ we have no saving, sanctifying, or experimental religion– we shall have union with him, not only in what he is now at the right hand of the Father, but in all that he was while he was here below. As, then, the path of the Lord Jesus Christ to the right hand of the Father in glory was a path of suffering, sorrow, and death, and as in his case the cross went before the crown, so it must be with us. If we have any hope in our soul of being with Christ in the realms of eternal day; if we have any expectation of reigning with him in the life to come, and enjoying those pleasures which are at God's right hand for evermore; if we have any sweet persuasion that we shall be glorified with him and see him as he is face to face, which we never shall enjoy without vital union with him– we must first be conformed to his image as manifested here below.

I need hardly tell you that all those whom God foreknew are predestinated to the image, that is, the likeness of Christ, as the apostle so clearly testifies– "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." (Rom. 8:29.) This conformity begins below, but is completed above– "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Cor. 3:18.) This image or likeness of Christ is twofold–

1. His suffering image, as seen here below when he was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief."

2. His glorified image, in which he now appears at the right hand of the Father. "Ought not Christ," he himself said, "to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?" (Luke 24:26.) As, then, with Christ the Head, suffering and glory were firmly bound together by the will and decree of the Father, so it is with the members. "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him." (2 Tim. 2:12.) "If so be we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together." (Rom. 8:17.)

A. But as this is an important subject let me endeavor to open it a little more fully and clearly. Look, then, at these two points–
1. First the ground on which our conformity to the image of Christ rests.
2. Secondly the nature of that conformity.

1. The predestinating purposes of God are the GROUND on which our conformity to the image of Christ rests. It was the eternal purpose of God to glorify his dear Son by making him the Head of a people whose nature he should assume into union with his divine Person. This is the foundation of their conformity to him, as it is also of that union with him whereby we become "members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." (Eph. 5:30.)

2. But this shows us also the NATURE of that conformity– that he was made to resemble us by partaking of our nature, and we made to resemble him by partaking of his Spirit. As this conformity, then, to his image is a spiritual conformity– a likeness in soul, though there will be hereafter a bodily conformity, for "as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly," both in soul and body (1 Cor. 15:49), it begins at regeneration, in the implantation of the life of God in the heart. Until then, we are conformed to this world, we bear the image of Adam the first, Adam the fallen, the Adam who "begat a son in his own likeness after his image" (Gen. 5:3), the carnal image which God despises when he awakes to execute judgment upon those who bear it. (Psalm. 73:20.)

I have shown you that the image of Christ to which we are to be conformed is twofold– 1, First, the suffering image in which he appeared upon earth, and 2, the glorified image which he now wears in heaven. As, then, we are to be conformed hereafter to his glorified image above, for "when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2), so we must be now conformed to his suffering image below.

I may seem to you perhaps wandering from my text. But not so; for this conformity to the suffering image of Christ is intimated by the words of the apostle in it– "You are dead;" for every step of the Lord Jesus Christ from the manger to the cross was, if I may use the expression, a step of death, a step in death, and a step to death. He came to die– that was his errand. There was no mortality naturally in his flesh; but he took a nature which could die, and a life that he could lay down. Had his pure humanity been naturally mortal, it would have been a fallen, corrupt, and sinful nature, subject to corruption; but God's Holy One saw no corruption. (Psalm. 16:10.) And did not he himself say? "Therefore does my Father love me because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." (John 10:17, 18.) But he came to die. "I lay down my life for the sheep." (John 10:15.) As, then, he took that life that he might lay it down, his path, from the first assumption of that life in the womb of the virgin to the laying of it down upon the cross, with every breath, word, and act of his pure humanity, was, so to speak, an act of death, because an act of suffering; for his sufferings ended in death. Therefore every act of his blessed Majesty when here below, being an act of suffering, was so far an act of death, as leading to it, terminating in it, and to us an example of it. He died to the world, for he was not of it, and by his death judged and condemned it; he died under the law, for he bore its curse and endured its penalty; he died under the wrath of God due to us that it might be appeased and put away. He died daily under poverty, shame, persecution, and temptation, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps. And his daily death ended in his actual death, closing a scene of meritorious suffering with the oblation of his body and soul on the cross, in the sacrifice which he offered up as the only propitiation for sin.

B. The beginning of this conformity to the suffering image of Christ is as I have already intimated at regeneration, when the first line of the image of Christ is traced on the soul; and this line is the line of death. For we never live until we die, and we never die until we live. So Paul found it– "For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." (Rom. 7:9.) "You are dead." But when did you begin to die? When your soul was made alive unto God by his regenerating grace.

1. Our first death is, I believe, generally to the world. Conviction of sin, trouble of mind, distress of soul, guilt of conscience bring us out of it. The wounded deer cannot run with the herd. It lies down in the shade among the ferns to bleed and die, when the antlered group bound merrily on. So a wounded conscience drops and falls, or slinks away into the shade out of the company and out of the sight of the cheerful youths and mirthful maidens, among whom once perhaps the now stricken man ran first and foremost. The new life of God in the soul, the rising fear of his great name, the budding tenderness of conscience, opening like a green leaf in spring, all shrink from the chill breath, the defiling contact of the world, wherever our lot be cast, whatever be our station in life, even where neither immorality nor profanity makes itself openly manifest.

These first strokes of conviction, this strange sense of uneasiness and unhappiness, may not only come on unexpectedly, but their cause be at the time unknown to the sufferer; and yet, like the beginning of consumption, be the beginning of death. The commencement of a work of grace is often very gradual; but it always goes on until the patient dies.

2. This is being brought under the law, for "by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Rom. 3:20.) To Christ's suffering image we are to be conformed; this death then we must die; for we must have vital union with the Lord Jesus in his dying life, if we have union with him in his risen life at the right hand of the Father. As Jesus died under the law, and by dying under the law died to the law, so we must die the same death that we may be dead with him. The law must kill us as it killed him; must curse us as it cursed him; bring condemnation and guilt into our conscience as it brought condemnation visibly and manifestly upon him as he bore our sins in his own body on the tree. Not that we can suffer to the same extent, or for the same purpose as he suffered. He could say, "Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, with which the Lord has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger." (Lamen. 1:12.) He could say, in the language of the Psalmist, "Your arrows stick fast in me, and your hand presses me sore." The law did not spare him; it exacted the uttermost farthing; nor did he give up his parting breath until he could say, "It is finished."

So if we are to know anything vitally of dying with Christ, we must know something of dying as he died. And observe it was by crucifixion, a painful and lingering death, though in the Lord's case prematurely shortened; for when the work was done, why need he suffer more? Thus under the law you die a lingering death; gradually your strength and spirit decline and fade; weaker and weaker does the flesh become until at last you die away as to all hope and help. This is dying under the law.

3. But again, Christ died under the manifested, visible anger of God. Not but what his blessed Majesty had a gleam of light in seeing his Father's countenance beaming in upon him with ineffable complacency when the cloud of wrath had passed away, for how else could he have said with such sweet filial confidence, "Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit?" (Luke 23:46.) But in appearance, in the eyes of man, of his enemies and murderers, he died under the wrath of God, for he died an accursed death according to the very language of the Law, for he was literally and truly "hanged upon a tree." His cruel foes knew nothing of those divine purposes of which they were the unconscious executors; nor did they see that when "they derided him, saying, he saved others, let him save himself," he was then offering his body and soul to his Father as a sin-atoning sacrifice.

So we in a sense must die in our experience under the wrath of God. We must feel what a holy and majestic God we have to deal with, and that we are justly doomed to die; that by our sins we have deserved eternal condemnation; and that unless he extends mercy to us, except he saves us by his grace, we never can be delivered from the wrath to come. As we thus feel or fear the terrors of the Almighty, we die to all legal hope; we are killed to our righteousness, and expire before God, sometimes in an agony of distress. When your soul was brought down within you by a sense of God's anger due to your sins; when guilt lay hard and heavy upon your conscience, you have fallen down, sometimes bodily, flat before God, feeling there was nothing in you to save you from the lowest hell, and that if God were to hurl a mighty thunderbolt from the innermost recess of heaven and launch you into the bottomless pit, you only had your desert, and must say justice had its due. This was to die under the wrath of God; this was to expire under a sense of guilt and condemnation in your conscience. Have you never felt this?

C. But death, naturally and literally, is not in all cases a rapid or instantaneous process. There is the lingering consumption and slowly advancing dropsy, as well as the rapid fever and quick-destroying inflammation. How varied in name and nature, in beginning and progress, are the diseases which thin the ranks of the living and fill the cemetery with the dead. But the end in all is the same. Long or short may be the road, but they all terminate in the same place– our last home. As in death natural, so is it in death spiritual. The apostle says, "I am crucified with Christ;" and again, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." (Gal. 6:14.) Crucifixion, we know, was a lingering death; it did not take life away instantaneously, for, with a refinement of cruelty, it avoided injuring the vital organs, that the criminal might, as a Roman emperor said of one of his enemies, "feel himself die." Instances are therefore recorded of men living as long as three days upon the cross; but they slowly got weaker and weaker, and their bodily powers suffered gradual diminishing, until pain and hunger and thirst closed the scene. So it is in grace. It is not all the people of God who, like Heman, suffer his terrors until they are in desperation; nor do all tremble over the open mouth of hell with unspeakable fear lest they be plunged headlong into it. But they die a slow and lingering death, becoming weaker and weaker until all their strength is wasted away and gone, and they die in their feelings, helpless and hopeless to save themselves. Thus they die as completely, if not so rapidly or violently, as those who fall down slain under the terrors of the law, and feel the outstretched sword of justice more pointedly and more powerfully in their very vitals.

D. Now it is by this death that we die unto the things of time and sense; to all that charms the natural mind of man; to the pleasures and pursuits of life; to that busy, restless world which once held us so fast and firm in its embrace, and whirled us round and round within its giddy dance. Let us look back. We were not always a set of poor mopes, as the world calls us. We were once as merry and as gay as the merriest and gayest of them. But what were we really and truly with all our mirth? Dead to God, alive to sin; dead to everything holy and divine, alive to everything vain and foolish, light and trifling, carnal and sensual, if not exactly vile and abominable. Our natural life was with all of us a life of gratifying our senses; with some of us, perhaps, chiefly of pleasure and worldly happiness; with others a life of covetousness, or ambition, or self-righteousness.

Men's pursuits and pleasures differ as widely as their station or disposition; but a life of selfish gratification reigns and rules in all. Now by dying with Christ, we die unto those things in which our natural life consists, for they live in us as long as we live in them; and that they may die in us we must die to them. Thus the apostle speaks of his own double crucifixion– "Whereby the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." The world, then, can only be crucified unto us as we are crucified unto it. Paul therefore says– "And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." (Gal. 5:24.) Many have tried to crucify the flesh, but never could do it because they were not first crucified themselves. Now thus to crucify us is to bring a death as to earthly things into the soul. Thus under the conviction of sin we die to the world; for when suffering under the pangs of a guilty conscience, what is the world to us? What relief can it afford to a bleeding wound? What balm to a troubled mind? What salvation from death and hell? Therefore we die to the world from its inability to do us any good, as the world, the things of time and sense, the charms of nature and art, the spectators of his misery would all pass before the eyes of a man dying on a cross– he dead to them, they dead to him. So it is or should be in the crucifixion of the soul. "O, world," it says, as it hangs on the cross, "you have deceived me long enough. Where now are your promised pleasures, your mirth, your amusements, your schemes of profit and advancement? What can they all do for me a poor dying sinner? I have spent days and years greedily looking for the offered enjoyment, and what have I found but guilt and condemnation? Let me die to you and live unto God."

Similarly we die unto sin. Sin once put forth its intense power and overcame all our resolutions; sin allured us, and we followed like the fool to the stocks. Sin charmed, and we listened to its seductive wiles. Sin held out its bait, and we too greedily, too heedlessly swallowed the hook. But now we see and feel what guilt and condemnation it has brought into our conscience to have been so drawn aside, entangled, and overcome. We find and feel that the pleasures of sin are but for a season, and that it is an evil and a bitter thing to sin against the Lord. When, too, we are favored to view by faith what suffering and sorrow sin cost the Lord to put it away that we might not sink forever under its load, there is a dying to it– at least to its reigning power and dominion.

So with our own righteousness, wisdom, strength, and all the goodness of the creature. There was a time when we highly prized them all, and, like Job, "would not let them go." But by degrees, as the law, the justice, and holiness of God, the nature and evil of sin, and our own helplessness to do the things that we would, were opened up in our consciences, we died as to the power which we once thought we had in ourselves to believe, repent, and obey. Our boasted knowledge we saw to be ignorance and the worst of ignorance, as puffing us up with pride when really destitute of all true knowledge of God and his dear Son. Our once vaunted strength we found to be weakness, for it never enabled us to truly repent of sin nor savingly believe in the Lord Jesus, or kept us from the power of evil. And thus we died to them and they to us. We might call upon them to help us in the hour of need; but it was like calling to the dead to help the living.

But when a better righteousness, wisdom and strength were revealed to us in a crucified Christ, then we gladly, as well as feelingly and experimentally, died to all our own, that we might find them all in him. Thus there is a blessedness in dying with Christ, for by this death we only lose what we may well part with, and get in its stead what makes us rich forever and ever. To part with the world is to part with its condemnation; and to die to self is the very germ and beginning of not only the death of our worst enemy, but of living to Christ. Thus death becomes the basis of all vital godliness, the grand preliminary to everything holy and happy, blessed and peaceable for time and for eternity.

"You are dead." Do you not find it so by vital experience? When does religion most flourish in your heart? When have the things of time and sense least influence on your soul? When pressed down with sin and sorrow, do you not seem to be more dead to the world than when levity and frivolity possess your mind? And if ever you are favored with a glimpse of a suffering Jesus in the gloomy garden, or expiring on the ignominious cross, does it not seem, at least while the impression lasts, to put a death on everything which at other times occupies or charms your mind, while it raises up a good hope through grace in your soul?

As, then, we look to Jesus by faith, dying that we might live, the virtue of his death flowing into the soul kills us to the things of time and sense. We thus find that the more we close our arms round the Person of Jesus as crucified for us, and the more we embrace the mystery of his atoning blood and dying love, the more the power of sin, worldliness, self-righteousness, creature strength and wisdom, die in the soul. But O, the difficulty of parting with these idols! It is killing work. And yet when we are in some measure killed to them, what a deliverance it is from the miserable bondage of sin, and the hardly less miserable bondage of the world and self.


II. We have seen what death is. We have fairly looked at him in the face, and we have seen that though he is so terrible to the flesh, he is after all the Christian's friend, not his enemy. Now, then, we pass on to view his companion and successor, RESURRECTION, which was to be our second point of consideration this morning.

"If you then be risen with Christ." We thus see that there is a rising with Christ as there is a dying with him. The Resurrection of our blessed Lord has various aspects, all which bear upon the experience of the saints of God.

1. Christ rose from the dead for himself triumphant over death and hell. But he rose not only for himself that he might sit on his throne of glory according to the promise of the Father, but as the head of the Church, of that countless multitude, which when gathered together will not only exceed the stars in number, but outshine them in glory. Now as all these died with Christ when he died upon the accursed tree, and were mystically buried with him when he lay in the sepulcher; so when the mighty Jesus rose from the dead and issued from that gloomy tomb in which he had lain for three days and three nights, they at the same moment rose with him. We read therefore that God "has quickened us together with Christ, and has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." (Eph. 2:5, 6.) We here see the connection that there is between Christ's resurrection and our regeneration. "Has quickened us," that is, made us alive, "together with Christ." When, then, life entered into the dead body of Christ in the tomb, it was the mystical quickening of all the members of his body, the sure and earnest pledge of their regeneration. Peter, therefore, says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." (1 Pet. 1:3.) As but for the death of Christ there could have been no atonement for sin, so but for his resurrection there could have been neither justification nor regeneration; for as "he was delivered for our offences, so he was raised again for our justification." (Rom. 4:25.)

Regeneration, then, is the resurrection of the soul as the prelude to the resurrection of the body and soul together in the great day; and it is to be known in vital experience in the same way as death is made known. For as we die spiritually and experimentally with Christ under and by the law, so we rise spiritually and experimentally with him under and by the gospel. When Christ rose from the dead, the law had no more power over him. The law did all it could do in killing him. When he was upon the cross, the law discharged all its thunders and curses upon his devoted head. It condemned and slew him, and then the law could do no more; for it is with the law of God as with the law of man– when once it has inflicted its penalty and the criminal has died under that penalty, the law has done its office. It dies in killing. A criminal cannot be twice executed. Thus it was with Christ, and thus it was with the people of Christ– when the law had killed Christ, it was dead as regarding him, and never could touch him again. So when he rose from the dead, he rose free from all law charges, demands, and exactions; he rose as completely discharged from the penalties of the law as a criminal who goes out of prison when the Queen has signed his free pardon.

2. But how is this to be made experimentally known? By some manifestation or discovery of a risen Christ to the soul. We read, "Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord." (John 20:20.) Why? Because they saw in him their Lord and their God, as Thomas saw and confessed. Their doubts and fears, their unbelief and infidelity were all gone, and they rejoiced in him with joy unspeakable and full of glory. So when the soul is blessed with any manifestation of Jesus as risen from the dead, and with a sweet testimony of its saving interest in his death and resurrection, and the conscience is purged in any measure by the application of atoning blood so as to deliver it from the guilt of sin and the curse of the law, and bring it into the liberty with which Christ makes his people free, it rises experimentally with him; that is to say, it rises out of and from under the condemnation of the law and conscience, and enters into the blessedness of salvation by free grace and by free grace alone.

3. But not only does it rise from under all law charges and condemnation, but it rises out of the world by rising above the world. How many there are even of those who desire to fear God, who are kept down by the world, and to whom it has not lost its attractive power; who are held fast, at least for a time, by worldly business, or entangled by worldly people or worldly engagements. Their partners in business or their partners in life; their carnal relatives or their worldly children; their numerous connections or their social habits; their strong passions or their deep-rooted prejudices, all bind and fetter them down to earth. There they grovel and lie amid, what Milton terms, "the smoke and stir of this dim spot, which men call earth," and so bound are they with the cords of their sins that they scarcely seek deliverance from them, or even desire to rise beyond the mists and fogs of this dim spot into a purer air, so as to breathe a heavenly atmosphere, and rise up with Jesus from the grave of their corruptions.

But if, as members of his mystical body, they are already risen with Christ, as it was not possible for the Head to be held by death when God loosed the pains thereof (Acts 2:24), so neither shall they ever be buried in the grave of carnality and worldliness. They must rise spiritually if they rose mystically. If savingly interested in the reality of Christ's resurrection, they must know the power of Christ's resurrection.

But how blessed it is to know a little of this power; to rise, in our feelings and affections, from the grave of carnality in which we are so often fast held; from that death and bondage, legality and self-righteousness, which so press us down. And not only so, but to rise above the smiles and frowns of the creature, above the distracting cares of daily occupation and business, far away from the company of ungodly men and dead professors. Thus to mount up is a fulfilling of the promise– "Though you have laid among the pots, yet shall you be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold." (Psalm 68:13.) O to get away from the dust and dirt of the pots; from the clay and rubbish of the potter's yard; where all foul vermin breed among the broken potsherds; and to be a dove soaring on its silver wings and golden feathers up to heaven's gate! Do we not know sometimes what it is thus to mount up in affectionate desires after living union and communion with the Lord Jesus? This is being risen with Christ.

But how many who, with all their faults and failings, we still hope fear God, seem more like Lazarus in the tomb, "bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face bound about with a napkin," than like Lazarus after the word had been spoken, "Loose him, and let him go." Alas! too many members even of Christian churches, who have made an open profession of faith in a risen and ascended Jesus, seem much more concerned about the prosperity of their shop or farm, and more anxious about their wives and families, and the poor perishing things of time and sense generally, than about the prosperity of their soul. But while thus held down in and by their grave clothes, they find it as impossible to disentangle themselves from them as Lazarus was to loosen his own bands of death. Nothing short of the same voice of love and power which called forth the sleeping Lazarus can bring them out of the tomb to see the face of a risen Christ.

You that are dead and yet alive, buried and yet risen, can you trace in your souls anything of these two points which this morning I have endeavored to open up? Can you find anything like death, and anything like resurrection? Have you ever sunk under the terrors of a broken law, under guilt of conscience, under a sense of condemnation, under fears of eternally perishing, under a solemn conviction that by no exertion of your own you could save your soul from the wrath of God; and thus have died to all your own strength, wisdom, and goodness? Can you look back to any special season when such an experience of death was wrought in your soul? Or if you cannot lay your hand upon any particular time or special season, yet can you trace that, for a longer or shorter period, you have had convictions of sin, and that they have been of such a nature, reality, and depth as to bring your heart down with labor, and make you feel that unless Christ be revealed to your soul, you must sink into eternal misery?

Though painful at the time, and though perhaps we were then quite ignorant what the Lord was doing with and in us, yet how good it is, how strengthening and encouraging to faith to be able to look back to a season when the Lord laid judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet, so as to disannul our covenant with death and to tread down our agreement with hell. Convictions are not consolations; the law is not the gospel; bondage and imprisonment are not deliverance and liberty; but they precede them, prepare for them, and are indispensable unto them.

But has the Lord gone a step further in your soul's experience? Has the Spirit of God wrought upon your heart in any way of mercy and goodness by revealing salvation through sovereign, super-abounding grace? Has he ever given you to see the beauty and blessedness, grace and glory of the Person of a risen Christ, and thus brought into your heart a sweet acquaintance with his love and blood and salvation, as so suited to your case, as so adapted to all your wants and woes, as so meeting in every point the extremity of your desperate state by nature and practice? Has the Lord the Spirit thus raised up in your soul any measure of faith in the Son of God, any faith of adherence, if not faith of assurance, so that, as the Scripture speaks, you cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart (Acts 11:23); that is a firm resolve and fixed resolution, in his grace and strength, to hold on and out unto the end, and sooner die than part with a good hope in him?

Now this is resurrection, for this is a rising up out of the ruins of self to embrace a risen Christ! And wherever there has been death there will be this resurrection. The wicked die in their sins, but not so the righteous. Many die in the convictions of their natural conscience, as Saul, Ahithophel, and Judas. But the saint of God never dies under the weight and burden of spiritual convictions; for in them there is a heavenly life which can never die. Being risen with Christ, as a member of his mystical body, he will never die in despair nor under the wrath of God. He may fear again and again lest he should so die; and through fear of death and what comes after death may all his life-time be subject to bondage; but liberty and deliverance, however long delayed, will come at last. The resurrection of Christ is the sure pledge of this; for as Jesus must rise from the tomb and could not lie there longer than the appointed time, so the saint of God will not ever lie under a sense of wrath; will not ever groan and sigh under terror and apprehension; will not ever be in the tomb of darkness and gloom. The Lord will bring him forth and manifest his risen power in his own time and way to his soul; and then he will have in his conscience a blessed testimony of Christ's resurrection by knowing the power of it in his own heart.


III. But we come now to our third point– ASCENSION, and its consequence– SESSION, or sitting at the right hand of God.

A. ASCENSION. Jesus did not tarry upon earth long after he had risen from the dead. Forty days he spent here below to be seen of his disciples, to whom "he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs" (Acts 1:3), to leave indisputable testimony that he was the same Jesus who was crucified at Calvary. But he did not tarry longer than was necessary for this purpose, and to establish their wavering faith. At the end of the forty days, he ascended from Mount Olivet in the open sight of his eleven disciples, in whose presence "he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight." (Acts. 1:9.) Thus there was a visible departure of our gracious Lord; and this was performed in the presence and sight of all the eleven apostles to confirm them in the reality and certainty of his going up on high; for, though they did not see him when he rose, they saw him when he ascended. Eye-witnesses, as has been observed by learned divines, were not necessary unto the act of Christ's resurrection, but were necessary unto the act of his ascension; for to see him when risen was a sufficient proof of his resurrection, but he must be seen ascending for proof of his ascension. I have insisted upon this point, because I wish to lay a firm basis on which our faith may stand. But we will now consider the ascension of our gracious Lord experimentally.

As then we have union with Christ in death and in resurrection, so we have union with him in ascension. We therefore read in a passage which I have before quoted, "and has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." (Eph. 2:6.) There were certain steps from the cross to the crown taken by our blessed Lord, in which we have union and fellowship with him–
1st—death
2nd—burial
3rd—quickening
4th—resurrection
5th—ascension
6th—session, that is sitting down at God's right hand.

In all these points and steps the Church has union and communion with Christ. We have seen death, burial, quickening, resurrection, and now we come to ascension. We have not literally ascended any more than we have literally risen; but we ascend spiritually as we arise from the dead spiritually. Our bodies are here below, but our souls, we trust, are risen and ascended with Christ. What this ascension is experimentally we shall see more particularly when we come to our last point, for it is contained in the precept, "Set your affection on things above." Have you not every now and then heavenly affections, spiritual desires, earnest breathings, actings of faith and hope and love– those living tenants of the soul, which pant and flutter like so many imprisoned birds in their cage? It is these affections that ascend with Christ to where he is at God's right hand, when the Spirit opens the cage and the young eagles mount on high.

Bear this, then, in mind, that when Christ ascended, he ascended not only for himself, but as the great Head of the Church. "I go to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." He ascended as the Head of his mystical body, and thus took the whole of the body into heaven with him. As upon the cross all the elect of God died with him; as in the tomb they were all buried with him; as when he rose they all rose with him; so when Christ ascended into heaven they all ascended with him. He therefore said, "I go to prepare a place for you." He prepared a place by taking possession in his own Person, that where he is there his people may be also. Thus when the Lord Jesus Christ ascended up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of the Father, when all the angels sounded their golden harps and the courts of heaven were filled with glorious harmony, as the principalities and powers in heavenly places and the spirits of just men made perfect beheld the Son of God sitting down upon his throne of glory, the Church of God virtually ascended with him, and sat down with him at the right hand of the Majesty on high. This mystical sitting down in heavenly places with Christ is the foundation of our spiritual ascension; for as those divine realities are handed down into our soul by the power of God, and their sweetness and blessedness made experimentally manifest in our hearts, our affections rise and ascend until they all center in Jesus at the right hand of the Father.

Do you not thus know the ascension of Christ not only in doctrine but in experience? Have you never had a view of Christ at the right hand of God? When you thus saw him by the eye of faith your heart went up toward him, and your affections flowed out where your heart was gone, for you saw him at the right hand of the Father, as having ascended and led captivity captive. I hope I know something of this in soul experience or I could not describe it to you. O that you and I knew more of it, and that our affections were more set upon things above, and less upon things of the earth.

B. SESSION. Consequent upon the ascension of Christ is his Session, that is, in the language of our text, sitting "on the right hand of God."

Now this Session of Christ at God's right hand implies several things; first, Acceptance, that is, the approbation of his heavenly Father, and his acceptance of him as the God-man Mediator, which was manifested by his placing him at his own right hand; secondly, Exaltation to regal dignity and power; thirdly, Intercession, for he was "to sit as a priest upon his throne" (Zech, 6:13); and fourthly, Mediation, as the Church's living Head, for our life in the text is declared to "be hid with Christ in God."

But we shall find that this session with Christ is full of heavenly fruit, and like the tree which John saw in vision, its fruit and leaves are for the healing of the nations. These fruits must be experimentally known that they may be handled, tasted, and enjoyed. Thus every precious promise which was ever applied to your soul, every mark of grace, every sweet whisper, every look of love, every glimpse of the King in his beauty, are all so many testimonies that Jesus is at God's right hand. Why? Because they are so many fruits of his intercession.

Do you not find your need of a Mediator when you approach the throne of grace? Where do you direct your prayers? Do they not all ascend to where Jesus sits? And must they not be perfumed with the incense of his intercession in order that they may enter the ears of the Lord of sabbath? Do you know anything of spiritual communion with the Lord Jesus Christ? To whom do you unbosom your sorrows? Before whose face do you lay your woes? To whom do you resort in times of temptation and distress. Who can support you under them, or deliver you out of them? Are you not looking for a manifestation of the love and blood and grace of Jesus? Does not this show that your hope is anchored within the veil where the forerunner is for us already entered? (Heb. 6:20.)

C. But I just intimated that one of the fruits of the Session of Christ at the right hand of God, and to which I must now confine myself, is that he might be a living Head over all things to the Church. For this end, as Paul tells us, God "set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places." (Eph. 1:20-23.) The apostle, therefore, in our text, says, "your life is hid with Christ in God." Thus Jesus as risen, as ascended, as sitting at the right hand of the Father, is "our life." We have no other; for he is "the way, the truth, and the life." But this life is "hid with Christ in God." By the word "HID" we may understand mainly two things; 1st, that this life is concealed from the world. The spiritual life of a child of God is altogether hidden from the carnal eye. Secondly, it signifies that this life is stored up in him, deposited in his hands, and laid up safely and securely in his bosom. Out of him then, as our life, come all our daily supplies of faith and love and every grace. From him comes all my power to preach, all your power to hear. From him comes every sensation of contrition and brokenness, every feeling of humility, simplicity, and godly sincerity; from him, as "of God made unto us sanctification," is derived that "holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord."

What a bearing then has the resurrection, ascension, and session of Christ upon the experience of a Christian! Take these divine realities away or hide them out of sight, and what is there but carnality and death? It is from lack of an experimental knowledge of these divine truths that so little is known of spiritual religion. But nothing else is of any real value. An earthly religion may content a Pharisee; a carnal, formal worship may satisfy a dead professor; but it is living union with a living Lord at the right hand of God, and receiving communications out of his fullness which alone can satisfy a living soul. Can you live without Christ? If you are a real believer in the Son of God, you can no more live without Christ than without food; without prayer than without water; without faith and hope than without daily nourishment. I fully grant that we have our cold and dead seasons, and these many and long; but I am speaking now of a believer's feelings when the life of God is warm in his heart.

Now all these supplies of life and power, of grace and strength, are communicated out of the fullness of Jesus at the right hand of God, for in him it has pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell; and they are sent down by him to keep alive our dying souls, for our life is "hid with Christ in God." It is the breathings, movements, and actings of this hidden life in the soul which distinguish a real Christian from a dead professor. A dead professor is satisfied with an earthly religion, with a round of forms, with external ordinances, with the flattering applause of dying creatures like himself. But the child of God, in whose heart the Spirit dwells and whom he teaches by his own heavenly grace, is from time to time looking up unto Jesus to receive out of his fullness. His life is hid with Christ in God. In the bosom of Christ he pours out his sorrows; from that bosom he receives his joys. This is the ascension of a believing soul to where Jesus sits enthroned on high, able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him.

Do not be deceived; do not think that a mere external religion or a profession of the truth, without an experience of its life and power, will ever save you. It is the hidden life, and that hidden with Christ in the very bosom of God, that makes and manifests a living soul. If we have not this, we have nothing. I tell you plainly and faithfully that if you have not this inward and hidden life of God in your bosom you know nothing aright, you have nothing to save or sanctify your soul. Search, therefore, and see, you who desire to fear God, what you can find in your bosom of this union with Christ to death, resurrection, ascension, and sitting together with him in heavenly places. True religion is a heavenly religion. It comes down from God and ascends up to God; and be assured if you are partakers of this heavenly religion that your glorified bodies will hereafter ascend with your immortal souls; for "when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory." (Col. 3:4.)


IV. From our union with Christ in these points follows the apostle's exhortation, which I proposed to consider in the last place under the head, AFFECTION. "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth."

The apostle assumes that the Colossian believers to whom he was writing were partakers of these vital realities– that they were dead, risen, ascended, and sitting with Christ in heavenly places. He, therefore, earnestly exhorts them to the performance of those living acts which manifest the reality of grace in the heart.

We may divide his exhortation into two main points– first, negative; secondly, positive; that is, first what they should not do, secondly what they should do.

1. What believers should NOT do. He bids them, then, not to "set their affection on things on the earth." Now naturally we have no affection for anything else. There is no such thing as a spiritual desire or a heavenly affection in our soul when we are in a state of unregeneracy. So fallen are we that we love, and cannot but love the world and the things of the world. We have no heart for anything but the things of time and sense; no, rather, as our carnal mind is enmity against God, we hate everything which is spiritual, heavenly, and holy. One main part, therefore, of the work of God upon the soul is to take off our affections from these earthly things, and to fix them upon Jesus where he sits enthroned above, that we may love and hate those things which he loves and hates.

But how broad, how expressive is the exhortation, "not to set our affection on things on the earth." There is not a thing on the earth, then, according to this direction, on which we should set our affections. We love our wives, our children, our relatives; and we should do so– for husbands are bidden to love their wives even as themselves (Eph. 5:25, 33.) But we must not love them in preference to God, or inconsistently with our love and obedience to him; nor must we love them as we love him who died to save us from the wrath to come. Our affections are not to be set upon things on the earth. Business, worldly cares, the interests of our family, the things of time and sense, in whatever form they come, whatever shape they may assume, must not so entwine themselves round our affections as to bind them down to the ground. We may use them as God's creatures for the support and sustentation of our life, but we must not abuse them. We cannot in our present time-state be utterly divorced from the things of time and sense; for most of us have to gain our living by the sweat of our brow, or the harder sweat of our brain; but we are not to set our affections on them. Houses, gardens, land, property, friends, family– all these earthly things we are not to love, even if we possess them or some of them, nor set our affections on them so that they should become idols.

A main purpose of God in his rod and by a daily cross, is to wean, loosen, and divorce our heart from these natural idols, for we cannot embrace them without defilement. James speaks of one main element of pure and undefiled religion as consisting in keeping ourselves "unspotted from the world." (James 1:27.) Thus we may compare a child of God to a person dressed in clean clothes, say a very neatly appareled female who has to tread her way through some dirty alley– through one of the miserable slums of London. How carefully must she tread, how closely must she keep her garments to preserve herself from defilement.

So it is in grace– we have to walk in this world as a spotless female would walk through a narrow passage, where on every side there was nothing but filth and foulness. You cannot think perhaps that this fair and beautiful world, as it appears to our eye, can be as loathsome or as filthy as a London alley. But it is so, for everything here is defiled with the filth of sin. Thus any lovely object may be foul, because turned to an idol. It may be but a flower, and yet be an idol; it may be a darling child whom everybody admires for its beauty and attractiveness; yet it may be a defiling idol. A cherished scheme, a favorite speculation, may be an idol. A crop of wheat, a flock of sheep, a good farm, a thriving business, universal respect, may all be defiling idols; for all these things, when eagerly pursued and loved, draw the soul away from God, and by drawing it insensibly from him, bring pollution and guilt into the conscience.

2. What believers should do. Now we are, or by grace in due time shall be, through trials and afflictions and the dealings of God upon our soul, weaned and divorced from earth with all its charms and pleasures and all its polluting idols. And if we are favored with a faith's view of an ascended Jesus, and he is pleased to endear himself to our soul by some discovery of his love and grace, it will draw up our heart and affections to himself. We shall thus be enabled to perform the positive part of the precept, which is to seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God, and set our affections there. If we thus learn to love him, we shall love other things less; and if he is pleased to keep us near to himself, we shall endeavor, as John bids us, to keep ourselves from idols, which can only bring confusing guilt into our conscience.

I am indeed well aware that all this must be wrought in our soul by the power of God. I am not laying down or enforcing these precepts as legal duties to perform, but blessed privileges which are wrought by God in the heart. I know what a wicked heart I carry in my bosom, how soon I am drawn aside and entangled by the snares of sin and Satan. But my desire is to be ever looking up to the Lord of life and glory, that he would send down the communications of his grace, that I may experience the power of his resurrection in my heart, and thus be weaned from these things of time and sense, and have my affections more singly fixed on his blessed Majesty. And I know that true religion must ever have this effect. It must purify the heart and draw out the affections. Whether you know it or not, you may depend upon it that there is a vital reality in true religion, a living power in the grace of God; and that where God works by his Spirit, something must be done, yes, and something will be done, to make a separation between us and those who are living to themselves, and setting all their affections on the earth.

May the Lord, in his infinite mercy, lay these things with greater weight and power upon our conscience; make us to feel more and more their solemn importance, and lead us more vitally and experimentally into those heavenly truths which bear upon earth such precious fruit, and which shall be "crowned with praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ," to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be ascribed equal and eternal glory!

LIFE GIVEN FOR A PREY

A sermon by J. C. Philpot preached on August 22nd 1841, at Salem Strict Baptist Chapel, Portsmouth.

Jeremiah 45:1-5. The prophet Jeremiah gave a message to Baruch son of Neriah in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, after Baruch had written down everything Jeremiah had dictated to him. He said, "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to you, Baruch: You have said, 'I am overwhelmed with trouble! Haven't I had enough pain already? And now the Lord has added more! I am weary of my own sighing and can find no rest.' "Baruch, this is what the Lord says: I will destroy this nation that I built. I will uproot what I planted. Are you seeking great things for yourself? Don't do it! But don't be discouraged. I will bring great disaster upon all these people, but I will protect you wherever you go. I, the Lord, have spoken!"

"And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the LORD: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest."
(Jeremiah 45:5)

These words were spoken by Jeremiah the prophet to Baruch the son of Neriah; and they were addressed to him under particular circumstances. It was at the time when the Lord was accomplishing his purpose of carrying his people Judah into captivity; when, according to his righteous judgments, the Levitical sacrifices were for a time to cease, the temple to be destroyed, and the people to be uprooted from their own city and country, and taken into the land of Babylon. These were times, doubtless, of great temporal affliction. The presence of the invading army must have carried with it all those desolations which that terrible scourge of God invariably brings; and the righteous as well as the wicked must have alike suffered in this general calamity. Sword, pestilence, and famine came alike upon all, upon him that swore, as upon him that feared an oath (Eccl. 9:2).

But in the case of the "remnant according to the election of grace," (Rom. 11:5) there were superadded to the weight of their temporal calamities the heavy burdens of spiritual affliction. The severe judgments of God upon the land were so many visible testimonies of his displeasure. And it seems as if the experience of God's people in that day was of a character similar to the general gloom. The dark lowering cloud that hung over Jerusalem cast its shadow over the souls of the living family.

We thus see a connection between Jeremiah's experience in the Lamentations and the temporal afflictions of Judah; and the same cause may account for the lamentation that Baruch poured out in the words preceding the text, and of which the Lord takes this special notice: "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, unto you, O Baruch; You did say, Woe is me now, for the Lord has added grief to my sorrow; I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest," (verses 2,3).

"Grief added to sorrow"--spiritual trials added to temporal trials, soul affliction following upon natural affliction, wave calling to wave, and burden heaped upon burden; and both together so depressing his spirits, so weighing him down, that he "fainted in (his) sighing, and could find no rest."

The Lord doubtless saw in Baruch's heart that which Baruch did not see himself; he saw lurking there a secret craving after things which God has never promised to bestow upon his people. He discerned through the thick veil spread over his heart that there were immoderate desires working in his bosom, and that he was aiming at things quite inconsistent with the purposes of God, the character of the times, and what was really profitable for his own soul. Viewing, then, with his heart-searching eye what was thus secretly going on in "the chambers of imagery," (Ezek. 8:12) the Lord addressed himself to the very circumstances of the case: "Do you seek you great things for yourself? seek them not; for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, says the Lord: but your life will I give unto you for a prey in all places where you go."

There seems to have been in Baruch's mind a secret hope that the Lord would not bring down upon Judah the judgments denounced; at any rate, he appears to have cherished a lurking expectation that he himself would not be involved in them. Amid all his grief and sorrow, his fainting and sighing, ambition was not dead within; and there was a restless aiming at things inconsistent with the afflictions to fall upon his country, and with his own character as a prophet of the Lord. Now who of us can plead, "Not guilty!" to a similar charge?

In considering, then, these words, I shall take them as applicable to a child of God, and as describing some of the inward workings of his heart; and I shall endeavor at the same time, with God's blessing, to trace out the Lord's method of dealing with his family as intimated in the text.

I. The evil, then, that lurked in Baruch's carnal mind lurks in ours. His heart resembled yours and mine, being made from the same material, and derived from the same corrupt source.

1. Thus, led aside by the powerful workings of this corrupt nature, we are often seeking great things TEMPORALLY. Riches, worldly comforts, respectability, to be honored, admired, and esteemed by men, are the objects most passionately sought after by the world; and so far as the children of God are under the influence of a worldly principle, do they secretly desire similar things.

Nor does this ambition depend upon station in life. All are more or less deeply infected with it, until delivered by the grace of God. The poorest man in these towns has a secret desire in his soul after "great things," and a secret plotting in his mind how he may obtain them. But the Lord is determined that his people shall not have great things. He has purposed to pour contempt upon all the pride of man. He therefore nips all their hopes in the bud, crushes their flattering prospects, and makes them for the most part, even in this world, poor, needy, and despised.

It may seem strange, but I know from experience it is true, that even those who profess truth, and are fully aware that such a profession draws down upon them hatred and contempt, yet feel at times the workings of a secret ambition to be esteemed even by those whom in their right mind, they know to be enemies of God and truth. But the Lord will never let his dear people be esteemed and admired by a world dead in sin, or dead in profession. "You shall be hated of all men for my name's sake," (Matt. 10:22). And however consistently and uprightly he may act, however he may be enabled in all things to walk agreeably to the precepts of the gospel, yet everyone that contends for the power of vital godliness, and manifests that he has the mind of Christ, will find himself hated, despised, and slandered, not only by the ungodly world, but by those who stand high in a profession of religion, while they inwardly deny the power thereof.

The express testimony of God himself is that "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution," (2 Tim.3:12). From persecution, therefore, none of Christ's true followers can be exempt. And even with respect to what are termed "prospects in life," in the case of God's children they are almost invariably broken to pieces. Whatever schemes or projects the Lord's people may devise that they may prosper and get on in the world, he rarely allows their plans to thrive. He knows well to what consequences it would lead--that this ivy creeping round the stem would, as it were, suffocate and strangle the tree. The more that worldly goods increase the more the heart is fixed upon them, and the more the affections are set upon idols, the more is the heart drawn away from the Lord. He will not allow his people to have their portion here below. He has in store for them a better city, that is a heavenly one, and therefore will not allow them to build and plant below the skies. I have often said that the same axe which laid the first blow to me spiritually, cut up all my earthly prospects naturally; and though the Lord has beyond my expectation taken care of me in providence, yet it has been in a way quite contrary to my former prospects and natural expectations.

2. But also, there is a seeking after great things in RELIGION as well as in providence; and God's people, especially in early days, are often led astray by seeking great things religiously. I use the expression religiously in opposition to spiritually; for there is a great deal of religion current in which there is no spirituality. There are for instance, gifts, which by no means prove the existence of grace in their possessor; and as these gifts often draw forth admiration, they are very pleasing to the carnal mind.

Many of God's people are seeking great things for themselves in this way, and are mortified and disappointed when they are withheld. Thus some private Christians are very anxious for a gift in prayer, others for a good memory, others for a talent in conversation or writing. They are galled and mortified because in these things others outshine them. So ministers are often desirous of a greater gift in preaching, a readier utterance, a more abundant variety, a more striking delivery than they possess. And this, be it remarked, both in minister and people, not for the glory of God, but for the glory of the creature; not that praise may be given to the Author and Finisher of faith, but that pride, cursed pride, may be gratified; that they may be admired of men.

These gifts being for the edification of the Church, they are granted, comparatively speaking, to but few; and when God imparts them to his children, he usually takes good care that they shall not glory in them. If a minister has a gift for preaching, God sometimes so stops his mouth, so shuts him up in barrenness and darkness, brings such a veil over his eyes, and so hides the power and savor of truth from his soul, that he is obliged feelingly to confess that he gropes for the wall like the blind, and gropes as if he had no eyes, (Isa. 59:10).

If he is a private Christian, and has a gift in prayer, and is elated by it, the Lord will sometimes so shut him up before the people, and put such a temporary extinguisher upon his gift as shall abundantly convince him that even if he has a gift, the exercise of it is not at his own command, and that thoughts, feelings, and words must be communicated to him from time to time by the Father of lights. Or if the Lord does not often thus shut his mouth, yet he shall have such powerful temptations, such desponding feelings, shall be so assailed with the fiery darts of Satan, and sink so low in doubts and fears, shall find so little access to the Lord in private, and enjoy so little secret communion with him, that his very gift shall be one of his greatest trials, and he shall perhaps often view himself as a wretched hypocrite, who will one day be manifested as a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. If he be a minister, he will have to bury his head in the pulpit cushion, after he has finished his sermon, with shame and confusion of face, as I have often done, and beg pardon of the Lord for the base hypocrisy and presumption, that in spite of himself have so awfully mingled themselves with all that he has uttered in God's name.

3. Others of God's people are desirous of a great knowledge of gospel mysteries; and the seeking after great things in this way is, perhaps, a temptation most powerfully felt in our early days. We are often then aspiring after a great knowledge of truth in the letter, instead of thirsting after the savor, power, and unction of truth in the soul. And thus by reading many books, hearing various ministers, and going into the company of the children of God, we often heap up imaginary riches, not knowing that the wind of the Lord is coming to blow upon them, and to make these fancied treasures like "the chaff of the summer threshing floors," (Dan. 2:35).

4. Others of God's ambitious ones are seeking to stand always in an unwavering assurance of faith. They read in the Scriptures of rejoicing "with joy unspeakable, and full of glory;" (1 Pet. 1:8) they see it written, that "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and peace," (Gal. 5:22) and they hear the apostolic precept, "Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice," (Phil. 4:4). But not having been humbled, nor brought low, not having been taught the depths of their fallen nature, and the fountains of the great deep not having been spiritually broken up in their heart, they receive these passages into their judgment without the unctuous experience of them, or their being divinely applied to their soul.

The sons of Kohath might bear the ark (Num. 3:31); but that was no reason why Uzzah should touch it. What was faith in them was presumption in him. Thus many touch with the hand of presumption what they see in the Scriptures, as Uzzah saw and touched the ark, without a divine warrant, and because joy and peace are spoken of in the Word of God, they lay claim to them without their being shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, as heavenly cordials for a fainting spirit.

5. Others of God's people, without contending for unceasing joy consider that it is a believer's privilege to walk always in the liberty of the gospel. The liberty of the gospel is a most blessed thing, but like all other spiritual blessings it must be first brought into the conscience, and then maintained there, by the power of God the Holy Spirit. All other liberty is licentiousness. The liberty of the gospel is often prated about by those who never knew the bondage of the law; and were they asked whence they derived their liberty, all they could do would be to point out some text of Scripture, such as, "Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty with which Christ has made us free," (Gal.5: 1). And what seems more surprising still, I believe there are among God's quickened family those who, with little else but bondage in their own soul, are contending doctrinally for the liberty of the gospel, and would be very angry if they were told they were not in the enjoyment of it.

Such are some of the great things, religiously, that pride and ambition often lead the people of God to seek. Baruch, perhaps, was fired with ambition to possess Jeremiah's gifts, though, perhaps little reckoning to have with them Jeremiah's trials. The Lord then speaks to him, "Do you seek you great things for yourself? Seek them not;" as if he had said to him, "Baruch, these things which you call great are not worth your seeking; I see the deceitfulness of your heart, and the ambition of your carnal mind; you are seeking great things; seek them not!" This was the counsel that God gave to Baruch; and this is the counsel that he now gives to his living family: "Are you seeking great things for yourself? Seek them not!"

But some may say, "If we are not to seek great things, what are we to seek? Are we not commanded to 'covet earnestly the best gifts'?" The great things that Baruch was seeking were little things in the sight of God; as those things which are great in the eyes of God are little in the eyes of professors. God and man have very different ideas on this subject, for God's thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are his ways our ways (Isa. 55:8).

Does the Lord say, "Do not seek great things?" What then shall we seek? "Seek real things." Mark the difference. Great things may suit the carnal mind, but real things will alone suit the spiritual mind. "Oh that you would bless me indeed!" (1 Chron. 4:10) cried one whose inmost soul was panting for realities; and with his prayer do I, in my right mind, join heart and soul. Realities are what my soul, when the Lord is pleased to bedew me with his Spirit, is breathing after; not great things of the world, but real things. By real things I mean those spiritual blessings that are dropped into the soul by the mouth of God--the solemn verities of the kingdom of God made known by the Holy Spirit--such as the smiles of God's countenance, the testimonies of his mercy, atoning blood sprinkled upon the conscience, Christ's righteousness imputed and revealed to the soul, visits from Jesus, soft whispers of his love, blessed intimations of his favor, communion with him, a broken heart, a tender conscience, a contrite spirit, godly fear in exercise.

Now these are real things. They are not what dead professors desire. Such never want power, unction, savor, dew, to be felt in their souls. There is in them no sighing after the smiles of God's countenance, or the manifestations of his covenant love. The great bulk of what is called "the religious world" despise these things; they are not in their book, their Sunday school does not teach them; the gown and bands of their pulpits does not preach them. They would rather hunt after that will-o'-the-wisp called "decided piety," or self-righteousness new christened "holiness," or missionary zeal, or tract dispersing.

Having no faith to realize unseen things, they want something visible to sense, something intelligible to reason, something tangible, something within the grasp of the natural mind. But to be poor and needy, tempted and tried, with no hope but that which God gives, no faith but that which God communicates, no love but that which God sheds abroad, no peace but what he speaks, no religion but what he breathes into the soul, is as much beyond their understanding as their desire. Nor until a man has come to the end of all the 'religion of the creature', and been divinely initiated into the spiritual knowledge of the only true God, has he any understanding of, or appetite for, those real things in which the very sum and substance of vital godliness, the very marrow and essence of true religion consists.

There is a desire in many to be religious, but they utterly mistake what true religion is. To live a good life, to abstain from sin, "to cultivate," as it is called, grace, to be holy, to do good to their fellow-creatures, to exert themselves for the conversion of others--in these and similar things do most consider religion to consist. But a man may do, and be all this in the flesh, "which profits nothing," (John 6:63), and thus come short of eternal life.

I solemnly assure you that these things will never speak peace to your souls--I mean "the peace of God which passes all understanding" (Phil. 4:7)--in a dying, hour. These things have been possessed by hundreds who have perished in their sins. They were, perhaps, highly esteemed professors in their day; were pointed out as examples to others, died in a false peace, and in funeral sermons were sent triumphantly to heaven; when, could their souls' miserable flight have been followed, they would have been seen to sink into the lowest hell. These things, if God has touched your conscience with his finger, you know from experience are delusive and vain; and, therefore, what your soul is panting after in those secret moments when God's eye is looking into your heart, is to feel the savor, the power, the unction of heavenly things, and to have the blessed visitations of God's love, and the manifestations of his grace and mercy.

II. But the Lord graciously condescends to give Baruch a reason why he was not to seek great things. "For behold," he says, "I will bring evil upon all flesh; but your life will I give unto you for a prey in all places where you go." ("For I will bring disaster on all people, declares the Lord, but wherever you go I will let you escape with your life.")

1. The "evil" which God threatens in the text, "to bring upon all flesh," is not moral evil. Some ungodly men have preached the dreadful doctrine that "God is the author of sin." Far from my soul be that horrid blasphemy! God is not the author of sin; that holy, pure, and spotless being could not, cannot, create that which is evil. Far, far from my soul be such a horrid thought!

There is, indeed, a passage in Scripture in which God is said to "create evil" (Isa. 45:7); and another, in which we read "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord has not done it?" (Amos 3:6). But in neither of these passages is moral evil, that is, sin, intended, but "calamity, trouble," as the context shows, and as the word in the original sometimes signifies, as Gen. 19:19, "Lest some evil"--that is, calamity--"take me, and I die." "I make peace and create evil." The one is the opposite of the other; but moral evil is not the opposite to "peace." "Trouble, distress, war," are the opposites of "peace;" "moral evil" is the opposite of "good." So the evil in a city, which the Lord does, (Amos 3:6) is not sin; but God asks a question, whether such calamities as war, pestilence, or famine can take place without his bringing them upon it.

The evil spoken of in the text is of the same kind, and means trouble, distress, calamity. This evil the Lord brought literally upon all flesh, when he brought the armies of Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem, when he gave up the holy city into the hands of the Chaldees, allowed the temple to be destroyed by profane hands, and the people to be carried into captivity. This "bringing evil upon all flesh" (that is, in this restricted sense, "upon all the inhabitants of Judea and Jerusalem") was indeed battering down all Baruch's carnal ambition. Seventy years' captivity and desolation would effectually mar all his fond hopes of worldly advancement.

But viewing Baruch as a spiritual man, we may extend the meaning of the words, and take them in a spiritual acceptation as referring to God's work upon a man's heart. In this sense the Lord may be said to bring evil upon all flesh, as far as his saints are concerned; not, however, by introducing sin into their mind, or by infusing moral evil into their hearts, but by bringing those troubles upon them, that to the eye of the flesh appear evils, and yet often are productive of the greatest good.

For instance, a child of God may be secretly aiming at great things--such as respectability, bettering his condition in life, rising step by step in the scale of society. But the Lord will usually disappoint these plans, defeat these projects, wither these gourds, and blight these prospects. But in doing this, he brings no moral evil upon his afflicted child. He may reduce him to poverty, as he did Job; smite him with sickness, as he did Lazarus and Hezekiah; take away wife and children, as in the case of Ezekiel and Jacob; or he may bring trouble and distress into his mind by shooting an arrow out of his unerring bow into the conscience.

He has a certain purpose to effect by bringing this trouble, and that is to pull him down from "seeking great things." For what is the secret root of this ambition? Is it not the pride of the heart? When the Lord, then, would lay this ambition low, he makes a blow at the root. If great things naturally have been sought after, the blow falls there; if great things religiously, the blow is usually made in that direction. Thus when the Lord brings cutting convictions into the conscience; when he strips away fancied hopes, and breaks down rotten props, the great things (so through ignorance esteemed) in religion, sought for previously, and perhaps obtained, fall to pieces in this day of visitation.

Some here perhaps, myself among the number, may have fallen into the snare of which Deer speaks when he says, "he hastened to make himself a Christian by mere doctrine;" and in the day of visitation, when the Lord searched Jerusalem with candles (Zeph. 1:12), found how wretchedly we were deceived by seeking great things instead of real--aiming at gifts more than grace, and the glittering and the showy, rather than the solid and the substantial.

The Lord may be said spiritually to "bring evil upon all flesh," when he lays trouble and calamity upon the flesh, and upon all that the flesh loves. The blow falls upon the fruits of the flesh, when it cuts down fleshly religion, and roots up false hopes, vain confidence, and self-dependence. The effect of these strokes is to lay the soul poor and needy at the footstool of mercy; and as the Holy Spirit enlightens the eyes to see, quickens the soul to feel, and raises up power to ask, there is now a seeking after real things--substance as opposed to shadows. Thus pardon, mercy, the testimony of God in the soul, the lifting up of the light of his countenance, the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus upon the conscience, with all the other spiritual blessings revealed in the gospel, are sought after, valued, and prized.

It is not enough now that they are heard from a minister, assented to in the judgment, or received on the testimony of others. They are only now so far enjoyed as they are tasted, felt, and handled in the depths of the heart. I believe I can say for myself, until evil came upon me in this way, chiefly through a long illness (though if I have life now, I had it before that visitation), yet until trouble came, and I was brought low in body and soul, I was never seeking as I have done since, the visitations and manifestations of the Lord's favor. Deceived by Satan and my own heart, I was seeking rather to make myself wise in the letter of the Scriptures, than to feel the power of vital godliness in my soul.

But ever since then, amid many discouragements, and with many alterations and changes, I have felt led, as I never knew before, or at least not from the same pressing sense of need, to seek after the visitations and manifestations of the Lord's favor--the dew of his Spirit, the application of his atoning blood, and the inward testimonies of his love and grace. Nor can I rest for salvation upon anything else. I am not, therefore, speaking at a peradventure. I know the ground, for I have traveled it; I have lined it with laborious footsteps; and therefore having tracked it out, I speak, in my measure, that which I know, and testify that which I feel.

When the Lord, then, thus brings evil upon our flesh, it is not to sweep away any real religion that we may possess. It is to sweep away our false religion. This winnowing fan is to fan away the chaff, and leave the pure grain. This keen knife of the heavenly Anatomist is only to cut away the diseased excrescences, and unhealthy tumors, and leave the sound parts uninjured. When the Lord brings distress into the soul, it is not to destroy any one grace that has been communicated by the blessed Spirit, but to fulfill that word, "Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted, shall be rooted up," (Matt. 15:13). He puts his "vessels of gold and silver," (2 Tim. 2:20) into the furnace to take away their dross, that they may be "sanctified, and fit for the master's use," (2 Tim. 2:21). For he has chosen his Zion in the furnace of affliction (Isa. 48:10); and "he sits as a refiner and purifier of silver, that he may purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness," (Mal. 3:3).

2. But we pass on to consider the promise of special preservation which the Lord gave Baruch in the midst of this calamity. "But your life will I give unto you for a prey in all places where you go." ("But wherever you go I will let you escape with your life.")

In its literal sense, it gave Baruch a promise of temporal preservation. In the midst of all the calamities that would befall Jerusalem, his life should be untouched. But I believe the words contain a deeper sense, and admit of a spiritual and experimental interpretation.

There is a life given to the elect when the blessed Spirit quickens their souls--a life eternal, communicated to them out of the fullness of the Son of God. This life is a personal, individual life; and thus there seems to be a sweetness contained in the expression, "your life." "Your life will I give unto you for a prey." This life which is treasured up in the fullness of Christ is breathed into the soul in the appointed time by the Holy Spirit, is kept alive there by his Almighty power, and will burn brighter and brighter in the realms of endless day.

This life was given unto Baruch; and it is the sovereign gift of God to all his elect. It is not earned by free will, nor merited by creature righteousness; it is not nature transmuted into grace, nor youthful piety which by due and diligent cultivation, through some gradual and imperceptible process, has grown up into spirit. This divine and supernatural life cannot be infused into the blood from religious parents, cannot be obtained from the Sunday school, nor taught by tutors and governesses. The happy partakers of this divine life are not so born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but directly and immediately, of God, (John 1:13). And that because they were chosen in Christ before the world began, and are personally interested in his blood and righteousness.

3. But we may observe, from the expression made use of in the text, that this life which is given to the child of God, is given to him in a peculiar way. "Your life will I give unto you for a prey." Are you not, my friends, continually finding that this life is given in God's own channel of communication? If your experience resembles mine, you sit sometimes by your fireside, or you take your walk in the fields, sighing and panting after the manifestations of God's loving-kindness and tender mercy. But I want it to come in my way, not God's way. I want to have it poured, as it were, into my soul out of Christ's fullness, without its passing through the channel of griefs, trials, sorrows and difficulties. But God does not give his favors in this way. He says. "Your life will I give"--a free, irreversible gift, but to come in a certain way (I was going to say on a certain condition, but I hate the word "condition")--"for a prey."

Let us see if we can penetrate into the spiritual meaning of these words. The word "prey" points out that this life is an object of attack. We hear of "beasts of prey," and of "birds of prey," and the expression implies a carnivorous animal. Thus the words, "Your life will I give unto you for a prey," imply that there are ravenous beasts that are continually seeking to devour this life--voracious enemies upon the watch, who are eager to prey upon this life which God the Holy Spirit has kindled in the soul. How accurately and how experimentally do these words describe the inward kingdom of God! Eternal life is given by God, and kept by him when given; preserved by his power from being ever extinguished. And yet preserved by a perpetual miracle; like a burning lamp set afloat upon the waves of the sea; or, to use a figure that I have somewhere seen, like a lighted candle carried over a heath in the midst of a gale of wind.

But the figure employed in the text points to ravenous beasts that are continually seeking to prey upon that hidden life, which is the gift of God. I do not mean to say that they have any appetite for it--but it is the object of their attack. For instance, there is unbelief that yawning monster, ever opening his jaws to devour, if it were possible, all living faith in the soul. Do you not often find this "beast of the field" (Isa. 56:9) coming forth out of his den to prey upon the faith of God in your heart?

And at other times, his fellow-ravener, infidelity, that other monster from the deep, that other voracious beast from the bottomless pit, will be spreading forth his talons to grasp, in our feelings, all that testifies to the being, character, and presence of God in the conscience. Some here, perhaps, may never have been so tempted, may never have had these dreadful suggestions presented to their minds. But if not in this manner, you may have been assaulted with blasphemous and rebellious thoughts against God.

Or if these beasts of prey have not thus violently roared upon you, the more subtle and insidious inhabitants of the forest may have sought to make you their prey. Worldliness, pride, and covetousness may have made much havoc with your religion unseen. The base lusts and filthy appetites of our fallen nature may have desolated your soul, and left sad marks of their talons in your conscience. Or if spared the attacks of these grosser beasts of prey, presumption may have seized you in his grasp; or you may have fallen out of his clutches, as is commonly the case, almost into the jaws of despair, and may just have escaped, "as the shepherd takes out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear," (Amos 3:12).

We read, too, of Satan as a roaring lion, walking about seeking whom he may devour, (1 Pet. 5:8). Thus, what with the lion without, and the ravenous beasts within, wherever we go, we are beset with ferocious animals that are seeking to prey upon our souls.

Thus, "our life is given us for a prey;" and the power, faithfulness, and wisdom of God are manifested in keeping this life unhurt amid all its enemies. As Daniel was preserved in the den of lions, and as the three men were preserved in the burning fiery furnace--so the life of God is preserved in the soul, in the midst of lions, as David says, "my soul is among lions," (Ps. 57:4), and amid the fires, "Glorify the Lord in the fires," (Isa. 24:15). So that the life of the child of God is one continual conflict between faith and unbelief between enmity and love, between the grace of God and the rebellion of the carnal mind, between the sinkings of the drooping spirit and the liftings up of the light of God's countenance.

4. "In all places where you go." This was true of Baruch literally. Whether he remained with the remnant who were left in the land, under Gedaliah (2 Kings 25:22), or was carried captive to Babylon, or was taken down into Egypt, as proved to be the case with him and his brother Jeremiah (Jer. 43:6,7), his life was to be secure; but in such a manner as to seem to be in constant jeopardy. His life was given him, freely given, but not for him to play with. His life was secured him by the terms of the promise, as was more clearly expressed in nearly similar words to Ebed-melech, "I will surely deliver you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but your life shall be for a prey unto you," (Jer. 39:18); but so given as to "stand in jeopardy every hour," (1 Cor. 15:30), and to be "in deaths often," (2 Cor. 11:23). Change of place and scene mattered not. These procured him neither release nor respite. Canaan, Babylon, Egypt, might present different enemies, but enemies were everywhere to be found.

So, spiritually, in all places where the living soul may come, in whatever state or stage of experience it may be, life is given unto it for a prey. Is the child of God sinking in doubts and fears, and well-near overwhelmed with despondency, fearing lest of faith he should make shipwreck, (1 Tim. 1:19), and go down into the billows of endless woe? His life is given him for a prey. Despair is now seeking to prey upon it, but "it shall not be given as a prey to its teeth," (Psalm. 124:6).

Or has the Lord lifted up upon him the light of his countenance? Even then his life is still given him for a prey. Presumption may attack the soul that has been thus favored, or pride make its insidious assault; thus, in either state, an enemy is at hand. If in doubt and fear, despair may open its mouth; if blessed with confidence, presumption or pride may "war against the soul," (1 Pet. 2:11). Thus, in whatever state or stage a spiritual man may be, whether a newborn babe, a child, a youth, a man in Christ, or a father or mother in Israel, his life is still given him for a prey; and in every stage he has just so much grace given as is needful for him, and only just so much.

Thus, the deeper a man's religion is, the more powerful are the enemies that attack him. The babe has little grace and few enemies; the man in Christ and strong in the Lord has enemies proportionate to his strength; the greater the grace the more the trials, the stronger the faith the heavier the burdens; therefore, be his state or stage what it may, "in all places where he shall come," be it the barren sand or the green pastures, the land of great drought, or fountains of living waters, moments of sweet communion, or of guilt and self-condemnation, sorrow after an absent Lord or enjoyment of a present Jesus, in whatever state or stage of Christian experience he may be, it is still true, "life is given him for a prey."

This then, my friends, is a short epitome of vital godliness. In my right mind, in standing up in this pulpit, or in any other place where the Lord's providence may call me, I have but one object--not to make proselytes to my creed, not to draw together a congregation, not to work upon your natural feelings, but to contend for the power of vital godliness so far as I am acquainted with it. So far as I am under divine teaching, my desire and aim is not to deceive souls by flattery--not to please any party--not to minister to any man's pride or any man's presumption; but simply and sincerely, with an eye to God's glory, with his fear working in my heart, to speak to the edification of his people, to do the work of an evangelist and to commend myself to every man's conscience in the sight of God (2 Cor. 4:2). And depend upon it, that a minister who stands up with any other motives, and aiming at any other ends than the glory of God and the edification of his people, bears no scriptural marks that he has been sent into the vineyard by God himself, nor will the Lord own his labors, or bless his testimony.

So far, then, as I have been taught the mysteries of vital godliness, this is the truth that I believe and preach--that spiritual life is the sovereign and free gift of God to his elect, a covenant blessing, given freely in the appointed season; and that this life is maintained by the invincible energy of God the Holy Spirit, as an irrevocable gift, and to shine throughout an endless day. And yet though so freely, so irrevocably given, and so inviolably preserved, yet "given for a prey"--with difficulty preserved, so to speak, in the midst of enemies. It thus agrees with those words, "If the righteous scarcely are saved," (1 Pet. 4:18) not "scarcely" as implying any deficiency in the power of God to save, nor any risk of fatal or final miscarriage; but "scarcely" on account of the temptations, snares, hindrances, and obstacles with which he is beset.

If the Lord, then, has been our teacher, he has taught us something of these lessons; we have learned the sovereignty of the gift, by seeing so many passed by, and us, the most undeserving, visited therewith--its freeness, by knowing our thorough ruin and helplessness--its preservation, by its being kept alive unto this day--and the manner of its preservation, by feeling the fangs of so many cruel enemies, and though cast down, not destroyed. And thus we may set to our seal, that though a rough and rugged, a strange and mysterious way, that yet it is a right way, and one that leads to the "city which has foundations," (Heb. 11:10) where there are pleasures at God's right hand for evermore, (Ps. 16:11).

THE WILDERNESS AND ITS FRUITS

Preached at Providence Chapel, London, on July 28, 1850, by J. C. Philpot

"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.
And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt."
(Hosea 2:14-15)

The prophecies of the Old Testament are often very obscure, and some almost unintelligible. This arises partly from the very nature of the subject, and partly from the highly figurative language in which they are couched. But, what adds to the difficulty, is our ignorance for the most part of the circumstances under which they were delivered, of the times to which they apply, and of the events which they dimly foreshadow.

But taking a broad view of prophetical Scripture, I consider that it admits for the most part of three distinct interpretations—historical, experimental, and unfulfilled; corresponding with the three times—past, present, and future.

1. HISTORICAL (past). Many prophecies of the Old Testament are already fulfilled; such as the sufferings, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ; the casting off of Israel; the calling of the Gentiles; the dispersion of the Jews. These prophecies have been fulfilled, their interpretation is strictly historical, and relates altogether to the past.

2. UNFULFILLED (future). But there is a large portion of prophecy which is still unfulfilled; such as the calling of the Jews; the second coming of Christ; and that glorious period still future, when "the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."

3. EXPERIMENTAL (present). But, besides the interpretation of those prophecies which are past and therefore fulfilled, and those which are future and therefore unfulfilled, there is that which bears more immediately and directly upon the present—experimental interpretation. And indeed, without this, this part of God's word would be to us a dead letter. If it did not bear upon our own experience; if there were not a spiritual interpretation as well as a literal; if prophecy were not descriptive of God's dealings with the soul now, we might as well put our Bible into the drawer. We might almost take a thread and needle, and sew up the prophetical part of God's word; or tear it out of the Bible, if it has no reference to us. To the past we look back with admiration; to the future we look forward in hope; but the present, the spiritual and experimental interpretation of prophecy as bearing upon our own soul, is that which most deeply concerns us. Living under the dispensation of the Spirit, we need a spiritual interpretation.

These three interpretations we find sometimes in the very same chapter. We have an instance in the one before us. (Hos. 2.) In it we find a prophecy already fulfilled; "I will cause all her mirth to cease, her feast-days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts; and I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees, whereof she has said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them." The present state of Judea stands forth as a literal fulfillment of these words. The new moons, the sabbaths, and solemn feasts of Israel have ceased in the land, and her vines and fig-trees are destroyed. But we have reason to believe that this chapter also contains prophecies which one day will be literally fulfilled; that when the Lord brings back his captive Zion, he will "betroth her unto him forever in righteousness, in judgment, in loving-kindness, and in tender mercy; he will betroth her unto himself in faithfulness, and she shall know the Lord." And, united with these two, we have the spiritual, experimental interpretation shining throughout the whole chapter, as bearing upon the experience of God's children. It is in this latter point of view, that I shall, with God's blessing, now consider the words before us. We may observe in them two leading features.

First; the bringing of Israel into the wilderness.

Secondly; what God does to her when he has brought her there.


I. The bringing of Israel into the wilderness. "Behold," he says, "I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness."

A. But what are we to understand by "the WILDERNESS"? I think we may understand by it two things. First, the world; secondly, the human heart. For, we shall find, if the Lord enable, that to a child of God both the world, and the human heart as dissected and laid bare by the Spirit of God, bear marks and characters of "a wilderness."

But what is "a wilderness?" We must comprehend the word literally, before we can understand it spiritually.

1. A "wilderness," then, is, first, a place where no food grows. That is the very character of the Arabian desert. No grain grows there fit for man.

2. But secondly, it is a place where no food can be made to grow. Now, you know, in this country there are commons and heaths that do not bear grain in their present state; but they might be brought under cultivation and made to produce it. But there are wild, waste districts in the Scottish Highlands, which could not by any cultivation be made to grow grain. So with the "wilderness." You might plough, sow, harrow, and roll it, but you would never have a crop. The sun would dry it up; there is no soil in which the plant could grow. It might spring up for a time; but with all our attempts, it would soon utterly wither away.

3. And the third idea to make up a desert, and flowing out of the two former features, is, that it is a place of which the inhabitants are always rovers, without a settled habitation. They have no home, house, nor building, but live in tents; and are continually shifting the spot on which for a time they dwell.

Do not these three ideas very much make up the figure of a "wilderness?" See whether they are not applicable to two things in the experience of a child of God—the world, and his own heart.

1. The WORLD is not "a wilderness" to a worldling. To him it is a beautiful estate, enclosed in a ring fence, with land easily cultivable and soil of the best quality, producing the richest crops, laden with golden harvests. But to a child of God, as I shall show you by and by, (if led into it,) the world is but a "wilderness;" from which no crop grows to feed his soul; from which by no exertions of his own can food be made to grow; and in which he is, and ever must be, a wanderer, not a settled inhabitant.

2. And this, too, with the HUMAN HEART. We shall find, I think, these three ideas of "a wilderness" meeting also in the human heart, as laid bare by the keen dissecting knife of the Spirit to the spiritual eye of a child of God. Out of his heart no food can come, for "in him, that is, in his flesh, dwells no good thing;" there is no food in it for his new nature; nothing of which he can say, 'This is what my soul can feed upon.' And though he may seek to cultivate it, and is bidden and admonished to do so; and though he has tried often to put in the plough, to clean it with the hoe, to rake it with the harrow, to sow good seed, and to water it perhaps with the waterpot, yet, after all his attempts, the harvest is only a heap of sand in the day of desperate sorrow, the soil being absolutely barren, totally uncultivable and unproductive, with all his fairest exertions. He is tossed up and down, in consequence, finding nothing in his heart on which he can set his foot, on which he can build for eternity, or in which he can safely and happily dwell, as a fixed resting-place.

Now, bear these things in wind, and when I come to the "wilderness," as the Spirit of the Lord has promised to bring his people there, you will then see whether you have an experimental knowledge of these two things for yourselves.

B. The Lord says, "Behold, I will ALLURE her." Does this mean the first work of the Spirit upon the soul? I believe not. The first work of the Spirit, we read in Scripture, and we find confirmed by experience, is, to convince of sin, to pierce to the heart, to wound, to make the soul sensible of its state before God, and its utter alienation from him. Therefore, the word "allure," cannot apply to the first work of the Spirit upon the soul. Men may talk of being drawn by love; but what is the religion of those who are thus drawn by love? What depth, what reality, what power, what life, what godliness is there in it? The word "allure" is not applicable, then, to the first beginning of a work. That first work usually commences with conviction, a sight and sense of sin, a cry for mercy, a feeling of wretchedness and ruin, and a despair of salvation in self.

But after the Lord has been pleased thus to pierce, to wound, to convince, and bring down, he often, perhaps usually, drops down some sweetness, blessedness, and consolation into the soul. He gives it to taste a few 'dewdrops of his love', some 'honey-drops from the Rock of Ages'. This I call the "Spring of the soul". You know what a beautiful season spring is; when the leaves are clothing the trees, when the birds are singing upon the branches, when the flowers are springing out of the ground, when the chilly winds of winter are gone, when the balmy breezes blow from the south, when the sun rises high in the sky, and sheds gladness over the face of the renewed earth. Thus the soul has, generally speaking, a Spring; and, as there is but one spring in nature, so for the most part there is but one spring in grace. As regards our natural life, it is only once that we are young; and it is so spiritually; we only once enjoy that sweet season of which Job speaks, "As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle." (Job 29:4.)

During, then, this youth of the soul, this Spring season, this "day of espousals," there is an "alluring" of the heart unto God. Now this we need. And why? Perhaps we are bound up with carnal companions, or by snares we cannot break; hampered by worldly relations, and their persecutions we cannot face; tied down with lusts and sins, and the chain of these we cannot burst; in the world, and unable to come out of it. Notwithstanding all the frights, terrors, alarms, and convictions that the soul may experience, (though these for a time may operate, and that powerfully); yet when their effect has ceased, it slips back into the old spot; it is not fairly or fully brought out. We need something beyond law and terrors to do that; we need something besides thunder and lightning to bring the soul fully unto God.

There is an old fable of the 'Sun' and 'North wind', once having a strife as to which could first make a traveler throw aside his coat. The 'North wind' had the first trial. But though he sent forth his chilling blasts, trying to blow the traveler's coat off, yet the more that powerful cold wind blew, the tighter and closer did the traveler wrap his cloak around him. But when he had blown his worst and last, and was defeated, then the 'Sun' tried what he could do. He burst from the clouds in all his warmth and brightness, and shot his rays with such fervor, that the traveler soon threw aside his cloak, and fled to the woods. I dare say, the fable was meant to illustrate the difference between 'harshness' and 'kindness'; but it seems to bear upon our subject also.

Law terrors, convictions, and alarms—these are like old 'North wind', with his blustering cheeks; they will not bring the great coat off; you wrap the old cloak tighter round you. Something melting is wanted; something warming, cheering, reviving, comforting, and blessing. And when the Sun begins to shine, and a few rays of righteousness, warmth, light, life, and love beam upon the heart, then it does in a moment what law and terrors could not do in a century—it melts off the old garment, brings the soul unto Jesus, and into sweet union and communion with him.

There is felt and seen, then, a beauty, a blessedness, a reality, a sweetness in the things of God, which the tongue cannot describe. By it the heart is drawn unto the Lord Jesus, to the truth as it is in Jesus, to the people of Jesus, and to the service of Jesus. The world, friends, foes, relations are all disregarded; neither frowns nor smiles have any effect. There is such a sweetness then felt in the things of God, such a blessedness and reality, that the soul is "allured" by them out of everything that before held it back from union with a living Head.

Under these blessed feelings, a soul will do anything for Christ; will make any sacrifice, give up anything, bear anything, endure anything for the Lord Jesus. The 'Spring of nature' is beautiful to see; but the 'Spring of grace' is more beautiful to feel. Early days, if not the most profitable, yet are often the best days in our feelings.

Now, by these "allurements," sweetness, and blessedness, the Lord draws the soul into a profession of religion, into perhaps joining a church, taking up the cross, walking with the people of God, putting itself forward, and that in the utmost sincerity, to serve the Lord Jesus. And perhaps, we think, we shall enjoy this all our days. At this season, when we see old professors carnal and worldly-minded, and we feel full of life and zeal; some mourning and sighing, and we singing and dancing; others complaining of their bad hearts, when we scarcely know that we have a bad one; others cast down with temptations, and we not exposed to them; or groaning under trials, and we ignorant of them; we think that they must be deceived. We say, 'That is not religion; the religion we have is a very different thing; there is a sweetness in ours; there is a comfort, a blessedness in it.'

Perhaps we write very hard things against these old professors; think they have been doing something very bad, and have sinned away their comforts; or that it is their own fault they are not so lively, so happy, and so comfortable as we. But we do not know what the Lord is doing by this "alluring," nor what his purposes are; that all this is to bring us "into the wilderness." And when he has got us there fairly and fully, then to show us what the "wilderness" really is.

C. But HOW does this take place? A "wilderness," I endeavored to show represents generally two things—the world and the human heart.

Now, I dare say, when your soul was flourishing, the world in a measure flourished with you too. The Lord, generally speaking, calls his people young—being young, they have not many worldly trials—and therefore, very often natural youth and spiritual youth go hand in hand. There is a buoyancy, then, naturally, and spiritually, and the two are often closely united. But now comes the "wilderness." Now comes the world, as opened up in its real character. Trial often begins with some heavy stroke of a worldly nature. This is sometimes the first stab that the soul gets when it comes into the "wilderness." Perhaps some illness robs us of health for life; or some stroke in providence casts down all our airy Babels—or some disappointment, it may be of a very tender nature, lays all the youthful hopes of the heart prostrate in the dust.

1. Now, up to this time the world was not manifested as a "wilderness" world, nor was our heart altogether divorced from it. And though the Lord was sweet and precious, yet there were worldly things indulged in; worldly society perhaps not fully given up; worldly practices that the heart was not weaned from; worldly connections not fully broken through. John Newton speaks of his enjoying in early days the presence of the Lord sweetly in the woods, and yet spending the rest of the evening in carnal company. Now that seems very strange; yet perhaps you and I might have done something of the same kind. When I was a Fellow of my College at Oxford, soon after I felt the weight of eternal things, I have sat in the Common Room after dinner with the other Fellows, and amid all the drinking of wine, and the hum and buzz of conversation, in which I took no part, have been secretly lifting up my heart to the Lord. But I could not go among them after I got into the wilderness. The reason was, I was not fully brought out; though there was a blessedness felt in the things of God, yet the evils of the world were not clearly manifested; temptation was not powerfully presented; and therefore, the danger of it was not felt nor feared.

But now, the world begins to be opened up in its real character. Once it was your friend; now it has become your enemy—once it smiled upon you; now it frowns—once it did you good; now it slanders you, and does you all the evil it can—once you could enjoy it, but now it palls upon your appetite. Disappointment, vexation, and sorrow embitter all; and you find the world to be what God declares it, "a wilderness." No food grows in it; nothing that your soul can really be satisfied with; "vanity and vexation of spirit," are written upon all. Though you may try to get food out of it, all your attempts are blighted with disappointment; and you in consequence, finding no solid footing, become a wanderer, a pilgrim, and a stranger, tossed up and down in it, and having in it neither heart nor home.

2. But again. The human heart, as opened up to a child of God, is a "wilderness," too. You did not know this formerly; you did not know you had so bad a heart. When the Lord was first "alluring" you into the "wilderness," you could not see that you had no strength, no holiness, no wisdom in yourself; that your heart was a cage of unclean birds; that there was nothing spiritually good in it. In early days, we cannot discern between the Lord's strength and our own; between natural and spiritual feelings; between the zeal of the flesh and the life of the Spirit. Nor do we understand these things until our senses are exercised to discern good and evil. A clear line is not drawn at first in our soul between nature and grace; and therefore, our hearts in early days are not to us a "wilderness."

We think we can cultivate them; why could we not? Cannot we encourage a spirit of prayer? Cannot we read God's word? Cannot we go to hear good men preach? Cannot we arrange certain seasons and hours in which to seek the Lord's face? Cannot we watch against besetting sins? Cannot we keep the door of our lips? Cannot we keep our eyes and hearts fixed upon the Lord Jesus Christ? We are told to do these things; to cultivate grace; and we make the attempt. Are we successful? If we are, it is our ignorance that makes us think so. Let us have light to see, life to feel, and spiritual discernment to know what is of God, and what is of man; what grace is, and what the work of the Spirit is; what divine feelings are, and how distinct these are from the work of the flesh; then we shall find that our heart not only does not bear food that we can feed upon to our soul's satisfaction; but cannot be made to bear it. It is a "wilderness," a wide waste, a barren sand, a desert—fiercely blown by the dreadful Sirocco, parched by the sun, dried up and desolate, absolutely sterile and uncultivable.

Now, here in the "wilderness," we get stripped to the very bone; here we lose all our goodness, all our wisdom, all our strength, all our creature holiness, all our rags of fleshly righteousness. It is in the "wilderness" we get stripped—and until we come there, we do not know what stripping is. Then we feel poor creatures, ruined wretches—desolate, forsaken, abandoned, almost without hope or help—in self lost and undone. We look upon the world—all is vanity, vexation, and sorrow. We look within—all is dark, wild, and desolate—nothing but sin, and that continually—unbelief, infidelity, obscenity, filth, and blasphemy—everything hideous, everything vile—nothing but evil without and within. This is stripping work—this is "the wilderness"—this is bringing a man to his senses; this is laying the creature low; this is making him know the depth of the fall; this is plucking up his fleshly religion, tearing out by the roots all his carnal hopes, leaving him naked, empty, and bare. All his creature holiness gone, all his creature zeal withered, all his creature strength turned into weakness, all his creature loveliness into corruption—and he standing before God utterly unable to work one spiritual feeling in his own heart.

Are you here? Have you ever been here? Is God bringing you here? Here we must come to learn what true religion is; here must we come to see the end of all perfection, and to feel that "the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." But does the Lord leave his people here? No!


II. Which leads us to our second point. The Lord brings his people there to do them good—to give them blessings; to work grace in their hearts; and to extend to them favor and mercy in a measure and degree hitherto unfelt. But let us look at the catalogue of blessings provided for Israel when she comes into the "wilderness."

A. "I will speak comfortably unto her." It is in the margin, (and so it is in the Hebrew) "to her heart." I shall take the two renderings—first, "to her heart;" secondly, "comfortably."

1. "To her heart." It is in the "wilderness," then, that we learn "heart religion". If you want God to speak to your heart, you must go into the "wilderness" for it. It is often only 'headwork' and 'mere doctrines' until we get there. Into the wilderness of human nature must we go, if God himself is to speak to our heart. And when you begin to feel what a heart you have, you will find the necessity of God speaking to it; for only so far as he speaks, have you any feeling, any life, any power in your religion. And O, when a man begins to find and feel what a "wilderness" heart he has—how anxious, how desirous he is that God would speak to his heart! How this shuts up his religion into a very narrow compass! How it cuts off the flesh of it, and brings him, and his religion too, into a nutshell! How it hacks to pieces all the ornaments that have been hung around it by self and the devil, and brings him to this point, (and a very trying point it is to be brought to)—"I have no religion of self; I cannot work a grain in mine own heart; I am dead, dark, stupid; God must speak to my soul—and if he does not speak, I am utterly destitute. I have no feeling, no life, no faith, no love, no strength, no holiness—I have nothing. I stand," says the soul, "before God without a thread."

"Lord," (the poor man cries under these painful exercises, toiling and struggling in the wilderness), "speak to my soul; drop a word into my heart." And how anxious he is for God to speak! But how many sleepless nights have you passed because God does not speak to your heart? How many times do you roll backwards and forwards upon your bed because you cannot get the Lord to speak a word into your soul? Do you ever go groaning and sighing along the street because the Lord does not speak to you? or, are you gazing with a fool's eye into every picture-shop?

Now, if you are in the "wilderness," you will want the Lord to speak to your soul; and you will feel all your religion to hang upon this—that you have no more true religion than springs out of God's word and work in your heart. And here you will look and wait, long, beg, and pray, 'Lord, in mercy speak to my poor soul.' The Lord has promised to do this; but he will not speak until he brings you to the spot where he has promised to do so. When he has "allured" you along into the wilderness, and got you fastened there, he will now and then drop a word, give a promise, speak with soft melting whispers, make his word sweet and precious; and thus fulfill his promise, 'I will speak to her heart.'

2. "Comfortably." But the word also means "comfortably." Now when the Lord was "alluring" your soul in the way I have described, you did not know much about comfort springing out of the Lord's speaking to your soul. You could hardly tell whence your comfort came. It did not come direct from the mouth of God; the Lord did not mean it at that time to come so. Every sermon seemed at that time blessed; but now perhaps it is only one word out of it. At that time, when you went upon your knees, it seemed as though you had sweet access to the throne of grace; every hymn was full of beauty; and every child of God you could take in your arms, embrace, and feel sweet communion with. And yet, all the time, when you look back, you cannot say this sprung out of any special words or promises that God applied to your soul. There was a general sweetness, but not a particular one. It was more in the truth, in the people of God, in the blessedness of the things of God, in the doctrines of grace, than it was in special promises, or special applications of blood and love.

But when you get into the "wilderness," you cannot do with what did very well in times of old. There are many children of God who love to hear a minister trace out evidences. 'O,' they say, 'this just suits me; I love to hear evidences.' But you get, after a time, beyond evidences. They will do for a babe; they will suit a child; but a man wants meat; a man can pick a bone. And so (I address myself now to those who know the "wilderness") you want something stronger, more solid, more weighty, more real, more effectual; you want testimonies, words, manifestations, a sweet discovery of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is by being stripped in the "wilderness," that we are brought to look and long for the Lord's own special comfort; for we are brought to stand in need of it; and as we cannot get a drop of comfort by cultivating our own graces, we are obliged to beg for a few grains of comfort from the Lord himself.

And what a mercy it is, that he has promised to speak "comfortably;" that when nobody else can speak comfort, when we cannot speak it to our own souls, and cannot get consolation from anything, the Lord can and does, according to his promise, speak "comfortably." He whispers peace, and blesses the soul with some testimony of its saving interest in the precious blood and love of his dear Son. That is the first thing the Lord has promised to do.

B. "I will give her her vineyards from thence." A strange place! We would not go to Bagshot Heath or Woking Common to find "a vineyard;" and I am sure we should not go to the great Sahara desert, or the Arabian desert, to find grapes growing. But we might as well expect clusters of grapes upon Bagshot Heath, as spiritual fruitfulness in the human heart. Here, then, is the wonder. "I will give her her vineyards from thence." What! in the wilderness! when she has been trying to bring something out of her heart to please God and self with, and all her efforts are baffled! What! to give her vineyards there! Why, that is the mystery; that is the beauty; that is the blessedness; that is the sweetness—that the Lord can and does make the barren heart fruitful in the "wilderness."

Now, perhaps you have been toiling, tugging, working very hard to produce some fruit. 'Come,' say you, 'it will not do to go on like this. I must do something; I must pray more, read the word of God more, watch over my heart more, and seek the Lord more. I will do it too; nobody shall hinder me.' So some Monday morning, you begin and set to work, and take the Bible down. 'Yes,' say you, 'I will read two or three chapters this morning; I will go to prayer, and I will try if I cannot do something to be a real Christian.' All very good. But what do you get from it? What power, sweetness, or blessedness can you put into the word of God? What life and feeling can you put into your soul? Well, you have tried it again and again; and when you have cast up the account, it is nil—nothing, a cipher. Zero is the full amount! And you wonder where the fault is, until at last you begin to despair, and feel and say, 'I am a wretch, and ever shall be. God be merciful to such a wretch! Lord, look in tender compassion on such a monster, such a filthy creature that has done nothing, and can do nothing but sin.'

Now when the Lord is pleased to speak a word to the heart, and bless your soul with real comfort, what is the effect? It makes you fruitful. Then you can read the word of God—aye, and with blessedness too; then you can pray, and with sweet satisfaction too; then you can look up, and with eyes of affection too; and then you can be holy, and that by the real sanctifying operations of the Spirit too. This is the way whereby all fruitfulness is produced—not by roller, plough, and harrow; seed basket and hoe; turning up the desert, and casting good grain there—to be like Pharaoh's corn—only blasted by the East wind. But to be in the "wilderness"—to feel a needy, naked wretch, without hope or help in self, and to wait upon the Lord for him to speak a word to the soul, by his own blessed breath breathing into us a fruitfulness that our heart never could produce in itself. Here is genuine spirituality and true holiness—here is real fruitfulness. These are the graces of the Spirit—not the perishing works of the flesh.

What is thus wrought in the soul by the power of God is to the glory of God. "I will give her her vineyards from thence." Now, if you had never known the "wilderness," what a barren heart and desperately wicked nature you have, you would not have wanted fruitfulness to come from God's own mouth into your soul. The starved, withered crop that 'nature' produces would have been reaped and gathered into your garner, and you would have been pleased with the sheaves, though they were but straw and chaff.

As time is running on, I must just hastily skim over the other blessings which God has promised in the "wilderness."

C. "The valley of Achor for a door of hope." Now the "valley of ACHOR" signifies the 'valley of trouble.' It was the valley in which Achan was stoned. And why stoned? Because he had taken the accursed thing—because his eye had been captivated by the Babylonish garment and golden wedge, and he had buried them in the tent. This may throw a light on what "the valley of Achor" is spiritually. Perhaps you have been guilty of Achan's sin—you have been taking the accursed thing—you have been too deeply connected with the world—you have done things that God's displeasure is against. Let conscience speak in your bosom. The consequence has been, that you have gotten into the "valley of Achor!" Trouble, sorrow, and confusion are your lot; and you do not know whether the lot of Achan may not await you there.

Now it is in this "valley of Achor," or sorrow, confusion, and fear, that the "door of HOPE" is opened. And what is "a door of hope?" What is a 'door' literally? Is not "a door" a place of exit and a place for entrance? By "a door" we go out, and by "a door" we come in. So "a door of hope" admits the visits of the Lord to the soul; and "a door of hope" admits the going out of the soul's breathings after God. Thus, every glimpse of mercy, every beam of love, and every ray of comfort; every sweet promise that drops into the soul, every intimation from God, every testimony of interest in Christ; every dewdrop, every honey-drop that falls into a parched wilderness heart—this is opening up "a door of hope."

But why "in the valley of Achor?" That we may cease to hope in self—that a sound and true gospel hope may enter within the veil as an anchor sure and steadfast, and there be no hope but in the precious blood of the Lamb, and in a sweet manifestation of that blood to the conscience. This is "the door of hope" through which the soul looks into the very presence of God—sees Jesus on the throne of grace, the sprinkled mercy-seat, and the great High Priest "able and willing to save to the uttermost."

Through this "door of hope," by which Christ is seen, the soul goes forth in desires, breathings, hungerings, and thirstings after him. And through this "door of hope" descend visits, smiles, tokens, testimonies, mercies, and favors. And thus, there is a "door of hope;" no longer barred, closed, and shut back—but thrown wide open in the bleeding side of an incarnate God! And this is opened "in the valley of Achor," where we deserve to be stoned to death because we have touched the accursed thing—where we deserve nothing but damnation, the eternal vengeance of God, and to be made as Achan a monument of eternal wrath. Yet, in this "valley of Achor," is opened up a blessed "door of hope."

D. "She shall sing there as in the days of her youth, as in the day when the Lord brought her out of the land of Egypt." Spring again! only a better spring. Youth again! "They shall renew their strength as the eagle." Here is a renewing—of visits almost despaired of—of joys that seemed never to return—of hopes almost extinct—of consolations remembered, but remembered almost with fear, lest they should have been delusive. "She shall sing there as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came out of the land of Egypt."

But what a place to go and get into, to learn religion. How much more pleasant it would be to the flesh to take our Bible down, get a notebook, have a new pen, put some fresh ink into the ink bottle, and then to draw out our religion from the Bible; to believe all we read, take down all we see, and transplant it into our heart. But that is not the way—that would only stand in the 'letter'. It would not do for eternity, nor for a dying bed. It would exalt the creature, but would depress the Creator. It might do for an hour, but it would not do for the judgment-day. And therefore, we have to learn our religion, if we learn it at all, in a way totally opposite.

Have you learned your religion in the wilderness? If you have, it will stand. There is a reality in it—it bears marks of God's grace and teaching. But if we have not learned it in this way—what reality, what power, what blessedness is there in it? None! We shall have to part with it when we need it most. When we lie upon a death-bed, all our false religion will make to itself wings, and fly away—and when we stretch forth our hands for a little true hope, it is all gone.

Thus, we want something solid, real, spiritual, abiding; something of God and godliness, divine, heavenly, and supernatural; wrought in the soul by the almighty power, and breathed into our heart by the very mouth of God himself. That will stand, and no other will.

If the Lord has led you in his path, you have an evidence in your soul that these things are so; and you will know that this is the way—not because I say, so, nor because the Bible always says it—but because you have felt, experienced, and known these things by divine teaching and by divine testimony!

THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD

Preached at Eden Street Chapel, Hampstead Road, London, on August 3, 1851, by J. C. Philpot

"Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand."
(Ephesians 6:13)

Every child of God is a soldier, and a real one. In the Christian army, there are no feather-bed, no fire-side soldiers. All to a man are actual combatants. Are not their enemies real? Flesh and blood real? The world real? And Satan real? – a real devil? And if their enemies are real, the conflict with their enemies must be real too. "Every battle of the warrior," we read, "is with garments rolled in blood." And such is "the good fight of faith." It is no sham fight – but a hand to hand battle, in which wounds are inflicted, blood shed, and life, according to our feelings, often at stake.

But how shall we be able to fight this great battle, and so to withstand the enemies of our soul's salvation, as to come off more than conquerors? Weak and defenceless as we are, without one weapon of sufficient temper and strength – through sin, like the children of Israel, "made naked unto their shame among their enemies" Ex 32:25, fall we shall, defeated we must be, unless we have some better weapons than our own armory can furnish. God, who knows the strength of our enemies – God, who knows the weakness of our flesh, has therefore provided in the heavenly armory weapons whereby, and whereby alone, we can make an effectual stand.

Of this heavenly armor the apostle speaks in the text, where, addressing his Christian brethren, he says, "therefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." He here makes it imperative upon them to take not a part of, but "the whole armor of God," assuring them that it is indispensable to their safety – that only by being clad in it from top to toe, can they "withstand in the evil day," when all the powers of earth and hell are arrayed against them – and that even then, when they have in the strength of that heavenly armor "done," or "overcome all," they must not put it off – but will still need it "to stand."

In opening up the words of our text, I shall endeavor, with God's blessing, this morning–
I. First, to describe the heavenly armor; its various pieces and accoutrements, as indispensable to the Christian soldier.
II. Secondly, to show how this heavenly armor is taken, worn, and used.


I. A description of the heavenly armor; its various pieces and accoutrements, as indispensable to the Christian soldier. In order to do justice to our text, it will be necessary that I should take up, one by one, these several pieces of the heavenly armor; for it says, "therefore take unto you the whole armor of God." If, then, I, as a combatant, am without one piece, I run the risk of defeat; and if I, as a minister, in laying open this text, omit one, I am so far unfaithful in neglecting a part that may be for our spiritual defense. As a Christian, then, and as a minister, I must take the whole, each and all being alike indispensable.

1. The first piece of heavenly armor that the apostle speaks of is, the Belt – "Stand, therefore," he says, "having your LOINS girt about with truth." The LOINS, or lower part of the back, is the seat of strength, as well as of activity and motion. No heavy weights can a man lift, no hard work can he perform unless he be strong there. The prophet therefore says, "Make your loins strong, fortify your power mightily" Na 2:1. Of Behemoth, we read, "His strength is in his loins" Job 40:16. These loins, then, the seat of activity and strength, need to be guarded by a piece of heavenly armor, lest Satan make a deadly thrust there. If he can get a blow at our unprotected loins, it will paralyze every movement. A stroke here, so as to reach the spine, prostrates indeed. "Smite through the loins of those who rise against him, and of those who hate him, that they rise not again" De 33:11. We need, therefore, to have our loins girded about with a piece of heavenly armor which shall effectually protect them from these paralyzing blows.

This heavenly belt is "Truth," What truth? By "truth" here we may understand. I think, two things.

First, generally Christian sincerity; "Truth," as the Psalmist speaks, "in the inward parts" Psalm 51:6. Uprightness of heart lies at the base of all true Christian profession. If a man has no sincerity Godwards, he has nothing. Our loins, therefore, or the seat of strength and activity, need in this sense to be girt about with what the apostle calls "simplicity and godly sincerity" 2Co 1:12. If there be insincerity in our profession, O what advantage is given to Satan! A blow from his hand against our profession, when there is no consciousness of sincerity Godwards, must be fatal. Here he smote Judas, Saul, and Ahithophel; and they fell to rise no more. Against, then, these fatal blows, we need a belt of truth – to be sincere Godwards; to have truth in our inward parts; and, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, to be made upright in our Christian profession. "I was upright before Him, and kept myself from my iniquity."

But we may observe further, that the ancients wore loose dresses; and as these were often in their way impeding their movements, they kept them tight round their body by a belt. So we are continually impeded by the loose dress of unbelief, "the sin that does so easily beset us," as the apostle calls it, alluding to it as an encumbering garment, which clings round the limbs, and impedes all free movements. But when the loins are girt about with sincerity and truth, it braces them with flesh activity and strength.

But secondly, the word "truth" is also used in a more particular and restricted sense to signify Christian truth, "the truth as it is in Jesus." A man may be sincerely wrong. Do you think that there is no sincerity but what God implants? Are not many Papists sincere? many Muhammadans sincere? many utterly devoid of grace, and bitterly opposed to the work of the Spirit, sincere? Yes, surely. Not spiritually, but naturally sincere. View the crowds of people this day going to church and chapel where the truth is not preached--must we make a broad sweep with them all, and say, They are all of them wretched hypocrites, dishonest and designing, doing it to be seen of men.' I dare not say so. Christian sincerity is one thing; natural sincerity another. Was not Saul of Tarsus sincere? And the mariners that threw Jonah overboard?

But spiritual sincerity itself, in deadly conflicts with sin and Satan, is not sufficient without a knowledge of "the truth as it is in Jesus." Young converts are spiritually sincere, but how unable to fight in this great battle!

The truth, then, as revealed in the gospel of the grace of God must be the foundation of our spiritual strength. We cannot fight against Satan with lies. If we fight against him, it must be with truth. The truth of the gospel made known to the soul, revealed and applied to the heart and conscience by the Holy Spirit, must be the belt to strengthen and guard the loins in the day of battle.

2. We pass on to consider the second piece of Christian armor, "the BREASTPLATE of righteousness." Now as the loins are the seat of activity and strength, so the breast is the seat of the heart, the fountain of the blood, which it propels through every artery--and of the lungs, which alternately inspire and expire the air, the vital breath of heaven. These are two vital parts. We need, therefore, to have this double seat of life specially secured.

Spiritually viewed, the HEART may represent two things– firstly the conscience; and secondly the affections.

Now all these vital parts – the peculiar seat of life and feeling, the special domain of heart religion – need to be covered with a heavenly breastplate; for if Satan could pierce any of these, that thrust would be fatal.

But how often does he aim his thrust against the heart, as the seat of CONSCIENCE! and would, if he could, by deadly thrusts at that tender point, plunge the soul into despair! He would, were it wholly unguarded, hurl dart after dart, and shoot arrow after arrow into the conscience, until he made it bleed to death. We need conscience, then, to be guarded by a piece of heavenly armor. This is provided from the heavenly armory – "the Breastplate of righteousness" – not our own, no, not our own, but Christ's imputed righteousness.

Let Satan strike that, if he will. He could not pierce it when worn by the captain of our salvation, though, in the wilderness and in the garden, he thrust severely at it; as the Lord speaks, "You have thrust severely at me that I might fall, but the Lord helped me" Psalm 118:13. Let him strike at it now as worn by the soldier. It is to strike against a wall of flint, against a breastplate of steel. If that breastplate be on, let him accuse – let him tempt to despair – let him say, Your sins are too great to be forgiven – you have backslidden beyond all hope of recovery – you have no real religion; your beginning was wrong, the middle is wrong, and the end will be wrong; you are only a hypocrite, who will die in despair; there is no fear of God in your heart. These are some of the "fiery darts" of Satan aimed against conscience. If, then, we put on our own righteousness to shield us from these thrusts, it is but a wicker breastplate which the first fiery dart will set in flame, or the slightest thrust pierce through. We need a breastplate of steel, not of wicker-work such as our own fingers may intertwine, but Christ's righteousness imputed; as Deer justly says–

Righteousness within you rooted,
May appear to take your part;
But let righteousness imputed,
Be the breastplate of your heart.

And our AFFECTIONS also; for the heart is not only the seat of conscience, but the seat of the affections. What fiery darts can Satan throw into our affections! What lusts he can kindle through the eye! What love of the world; what greedy desire of gain; what sensual imaginations can he kindle into a flame! Even the tender affections which sweeten the bitter cup of life, the social relationships of husband and wife, parent and child, how he can distort even them, and pervert into idolatry the most hallowed ties! David's overweening love to Absalom nearly cost him his throne and his life. Eli loved his sons until he ruined them, and brought a curse upon his house.

No more, the heavenly affections themselves; the pure desires, the celestial love of God's own implanting, need to be guarded. These affections the breastplate of Christ's righteousness only can guard, and preserve pure, holy, and tender, that the sacred flame may be ever kept burning upon the altar of a broken heart.

But the breast is also the seat of the LUNGS, that important organ of life, by which we alternately inspire and expire the breath of heaven. This may represent, in a spiritual sense–

1. The inspiration, or breathing in of God's Spirit, whereby we draw in the breath of heaven, "Come from the four winds, O breath" Eze 37:9.

2. The expiration, or breathing out of these heavenly desires whereby the soul pours itself out before God, after his favor and presence.

This inspiration and expiration, these inflowings and outflowings of life divine, need to be covered by the breastplate of righteousness; for soon, soon, Satan would strike a dart through the lungs to stop all inspiration of God's favor, and all expiration of desire, thankfulness, or praise. But our own righteousness – what a poor defense! Can it guard or protect the vital seat of these heavenly operations? But when the impregnable breastplate of Christ's imputed righteousness is received at the hands of God, fitted on to the bosom, and firmly clasped all around, the conscience, the affections, and the life of God are all shielded as with unpenetrable armor.

3. But we pass on to the feet. "Your FEET shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." There is armor for the legs and feet; for these too may be assailed by the Prince of darkness. The feet have often to tread in miry ways; to walk amid thorns, and snares, and pricking bushes; and, in ancient warfare, the uncovered feet were liable to be wounded by a weapon called "caltrops," or balls with three spikes of iron issuing from them, strewed on the ground.

By "the feet," we may spiritually understand our walk and conversation. Against this Satan may aim a fearful thrust. He aims at every unguarded spot; sometimes at the loins – the seat of strength and of activity; sometimes at the heart and lungs – the conscience, the affections, and the life of God; sometimes at the feet – the walk, the conduct, and conversation.

Here is one of our greatest temptations – lest Satan should entangle us in anything disgraceful, inconsistent, or unbecoming! O how we seem to walk amid snares and temptations! and how Satan is aiming deadly blows at our legs and feet, to wound them, and lay us low. We need, then, shoes reaching half way up the legs, in order to protect them from these deadly thrusts of Satan. And what has God provided? "The preparation of the gospel of peace." There is something very sweet and expressive, though perhaps at first sight obscure, in the word "preparation." It seems to my mind to convey the idea that the "gospel of peace" is prepared for and fitted to the feet and legs. It is not a loose leather shoe that may be kicked off and on – not an old, easy slipper – but a tight, firm, strong, clasped, and buckled boot of polished steel – "Your shoes shall be iron and brass." This fits closely and tightly round the leg; and is "the preparation of the gospel" – the leg and foot prepared for the gospel, and the gospel prepared for the leg and foot.

Thus, the apostle does not send us to Sinai to get a shoe from that fiery mount, nor to the blacksmith of Moses and Aaron, that they may forge a piece of armor to protect and guard our life, walk, and conversation. But he sends us to the gospel, "the preparation of the gospel of peace;" not the law of war, but the gospel of peace. Here is firm standing. To be at peace with God through this gospel gives firm foothold. To be shod aright, the foot must be neither in the tight pinching boot of the law, nor in the loose slipper of 'our own obedience'; but in the firm yet pliant, strong yet soft, easy yet impenetrable shoe of the gospel.

And observe, it is "the gospel of peace," not wrangling and quarreling. Get only a sweet sense of peace into your heart; let the gospel of peace reach your soul, and you will find a piece of armor that will guard life and conduct and conversation, and be your best preservation in this wilderness from the thrusts of Satan at your daily walk.

4. To make the body armor complete, before I pass on to the shield, I shall next take in order "the HELMET of salvation," which is to cover the head. The head, we may consider, as the seat of two special things–
1. Of energy, activity, authority, movement.
2. Of comprehension and understanding.

Now Satan aims his deadly blows at our head, sometimes to destroy and paralyze all energy and movement, all life and feeling in the things of God--and sometimes to confuse our understanding, to thrust us into some error, or draw us aside into some heresy. How stunning is a blow on the head when unprotected by any defense! All energy and movement cease. So in grace. Were our head not guarded, how would we be stunned and paralyzed by Satan's blows! And we may observe, that there is an intimate relationship between consciousness and energy. The same organ, the brain, which apprehends, communicates influence to every muscle. If Satan, then, can confuse our mind, how he paralyzes all the springs of motion!

Has not your mind sometimes been sadly tempted with erroneous doctrines? When you have heard of some deadly error that has been going abroad, has there not been something in it that seemed to lay hold of your mind and carnal understanding so that it seemed almost true? Now here is Satan confusing the mind, stunning and bewildering it with his plausible errors. What need, them a piece of armor to guard the head. And we have it provided – "the Helmet of salvation."

But why is "the Helmet of salvation" so suitable to the head? Because all truth contains in it salvation, and all error involves in it damnation. There are no trifling errors. All errors, examined to the root, are fatal. Satan never troubles himself to introduce an unimportant error. His blows are at the head. If you examine every error that comes abroad, you will find that it always is aimed at Christ, to deny his Godhead, his actual Sonship, the efficacy of his blood, the imputation of his righteousness, the truth of his grace, the power of his resurrection; or in some way or other to destroy and put away salvation, complete salvation, through the Person, work, and blood of Jesus. As Satan, then, aims these deadly blows at our head to confuse our judgment, we need a piece of armor to guard and shield it all around, which is called here "the Helmet of salvation."

A child of God is made very tender about the truth. To part with truth is to part with life; to embrace error is to embrace death; and the more that he lives in communion with Christ, the more he will value "the truth as it is in Jesus." Never give up truth. If you give up truth, what is there then to save your soul? But "the Helmet of salvation" must be put on and worn; and it is put on and worn when salvation is laid hold of as it stands in the Person of the Son of God. Salvation by grace--what but this can shield the head in the day of battle? Keep it firmly braced round your temples. Legality and self-righteousness, heresy and error will strike, but will glance harmlessly off the helmet of salvation.

5. The next piece of armor that I shall take, is, "the SHIELD of faith." We have seen the body guarded on every side, except, as Bunyan, I believe, says, 'there is no armor for the back.' At any rate, we have seen the body guarded in front – for it is a front to front battle; a face to face, hand to hand, foot to foot, shoulder to shoulder engagement. We have seen the loins, the legs, the feet, the breast, and the head all protected; but there may be perhaps some unguarded part. We have to fight with a very skillful enemy, who watches every movement and every unguarded place to make a deadly thrust. We need then one piece of defensive armor more, which in ancient times was a very useful one – the Shield; so that by looking on every side where the darts fly, we may oppose it in an instant.

This shield is "the shield of faith." How needful is this! What are we, where are we, how can we fight for a single moment, when unbelief seems to gain power and prevalence? We faint, we sink, we have no strength to lift up a finger, when unbelief and infidelity work so powerfully in our carnal mind. O how we need the shield of faith, faith in lively exercise, that it may be opposed against Satan, come from whatever quarter he may, thrust on whatever side he will! This shield of faith is "above all," or "over all," so as to protect whatever part may be unprotected, and to guard every portion unguarded. But one reason is especially mentioned, "thereby we shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one."

The ancients were accustomed to employ "fiery darts,"--that is, arrows tipped at the end with pitch, which they kindled, and then threw against their enemies. How beautifully this represents the fiery darts of Satan! his blasphemous and obscene injections; for how they set on fire the carnal mind! Like the burning arrows used by the ancients, wherever they stick they set on fire. But these fiery darts of the devil, these infidel, blasphemous suggestions, these dreadful injections which this Prince of darkness shoots into the carnal mind, we cannot, with all our own strength, resist. We need heavenly armor, and the shield of faith, so as not to give credit to Satan's lies; but when the fiery darts come, to hold up the shield, that they may spend all their strength on that. That they cannot set on fire. Our carnal mind is very inflammable; the least fiery dart can set it all on flame. But not so with the shield of faith – that is made of materials which can quench every fiery dart.

When we believe our saving interest in the Son of God – that our name is in the book of life – that God is our Father, Christ our Brother, the Holy Spirit our Friend and Teacher – when we can believe that all Satan says is lies, and lies only – that all these imaginations are but his contrivances, all these base workings of his raising, all these vile thoughts of his suggesting, and not take them as our own – when we can thus hold up "the shield of faith;" they drop off, they do not reach the soul; they meet with no materials which they inflame. They fall down quenched by "the shield of faith." But begin to doubt and fear and sink; to believe all that Satan suggests – to fall in with his carnal reasonings; to listen to his infidel suggestions, and give way to his vile thoughts, and the whole carnal mind is immediately set on flame. O how we need, deeply need the shield of faith to "quench the fiery darts of the wicked one!"

6. Now the pieces that I have thus far considered are pieces of defensive armor. But I pass on to one piece, and only one, of offensive armor, the Sword; for in this battle we have not merely to receive blow upon blow, and thrust after thrust; but we have to maintain the offensive as well as the defensive; we have to thrust at Satan as well as to be thrust at by him; to fight with him as well as he to fight with us. And what is our weapon? One only. But O, what an effectual one, called here "The Sword of the Spirit!"

This is the only piece of offensive armor provided, and yet about the last that we are enabled to take hold of. How apt we are to meet Satan upon Satan's own ground! He reasons for, and we reason against; he brings his arguments, we bring perhaps our counter arguments; he tempts, and we are seduced by his temptations; he speaks, and we listen; he finds words, and we find ears; he lays the snare, and we lay a foot to be caught in it. If we attempt to fight, it is often by some sword of our own forging, not the 'true Jerusalem blade', not the sword from the heavenly armory. Resolutions, promises, tears, acknowledgments, confessions – all these are but weapons of earthly origination and temper.

How slow, how unable are we to take the only true weapon, "the sword of the Spirit; which is the word of God!" What an example the blessed Lord left us when he was tempted. Thrice did Satan bring his temptations to cast Jesus down – and thrice did Jesus meet him with the sword of the Spirit, "It is written, it is written, it is written." He used no other weapon – and that weapon made Satan quail.

Now "the sword of the Spirit" is "the word of God." But we can only use this sword so far as it is opened up to our understanding, applied to our heart, sealed upon our conscience, and faith is given to lay hold of it. A promise, a precept, an invitation, a warning, an admonition, a truth – it matters not what part it be of God's word suitable to our state and case--it only becomes "the sword of the Spirit" when laid hold of by faith, and is the only effectual weapon whereby to beat back Satan. Through the temptations of Satan, the soul sometimes seems ready to sink into despair. It is almost as though he had gotten the victory, so fast and thick does he hurl his fiery darts, arrow upon arrow, suggestion after suggestion.

Well, how can you stand? You have no strength in yourself; you never had any; and the little you had in Christ, or thought you had, seems gone. Just at this critical moment, some promise seems to drop into your soul just suitable to your case; it is caught up as "the sword of the Spirit;" and by that the enemy is beaten back. Or Satan is tempting you to some sin, and painting before your carnal mind some pleasure or profit to be gained by committing it. Here you are, wavering and wavering, and standing upon the very brink of a fall. In this critical moment the Lord drops some precept, admonition, or warning; the word comes with power to your soul. Here is "the sword of the Spirit, the word of God;" and by that the temptation is defeated, and Satan driven back. O! without "the sword of the Spirit" we are, as it were, only a target for Satan's arrows. But when, in addition to the defensive armor which repels, there is the offensive weapon, "the sword of the Spirit," which thrusts, he not only gains no ground, but is for a time beaten back.


II. And then comes the heavenly recipe – how to take, wear, and use this armor aright.

"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." It is by faith, as we shall presently see, that the heavenly armor is received, worn, and used – but it is chiefly by the "prayer of faith," for by believing prayer is the armor taken – by continual prayer "praying always" kept on – and by spiritual prayer "supplication in the Spirit" used and wielded. If we do not continually "pray in the Spirit," the limbs will, so to speak, shrink – and the armor drop off.

The knights of old exercised themselves every day in their full armor, or they could not have borne it, nor used their weapons with dexterity and strength. So must the Christian warrior, by prayer and supplication, "exercise himself unto godliness." Without "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance" – standing sentry in the armor, keeping ward and watch – its very weight will crush us.

But it is "praying in the Spirit." Not loud, long, formal prayers, nor vain repetitions; but, as Jude speaks, "praying in the Holy Spirit,"--by the help and intercession of the Spirit; and that "always;" at all seasons, all times, all places, everywhere, and whenever the Spirit of grace and supplication may fall.

Again; it must be "all prayer;" that is, all kinds of prayer- public prayer, private prayer, mental prayer, crying prayer, groaning prayer, weeping prayer, meditating prayer; prayer feeble, prayer strong; prayer of necessity, prayer of importunity; prayer of distance, and prayer of nearness; the prayer of the tax-collector, the leper, and the outcast, as well as the prayer of the believing, the hoping, and the loving.

With prayer, must be joined "supplication," that is, beseeching the Lord, weeping at his feet, begging of him to appear, clasping his knees, and pouring out the soul into his bosom.

To this must be added, "watching thereunto." To watch for the answer; to wait for the appearing of the Lord "more than those who watch for the morning."

And this, "with all perseverance," never giving it up, taking no denial, begging of the Lord again and again, and wrestling with him until he appears to bless, visit, and shine upon the soul.

O how this heavenly recipe keeps every part of the armor bright, and the soldier active and expert in its use! The armor indeed of itself, as being from heaven, gets neither dull nor rusty. It is we who get sluggish in its use. But, to our apprehension, faith and prayer make it glitter more brightly. How, for instance, "the prayer of faith" brightens up the belt of truth, and makes it glitter and shine! How it burnishes the breastplate, and makes it fit tightly round the bosom! How it makes the helmet glitter in the sun, and its noble plumes to wave in all their native luster! How it beats out every dent the shield may have received from the fiery darts, and fits it for fresh encounters! And how it sharpens "the sword of the Spirit," gives it a brighter polish, and nerves the arm to wield it with renewed activity and vigor!

O this is the secret of all true victory! All is, all must be well, when we are in a prayerful, meditative, watching state – and all is ill, when this heavenly recipe is neglected – when the hands droop, and the knees faint, and prayer seems dead and motionless in the breast. Let there be in the soul an abiding spirit of prayer, and victory is sure. Satan has little power against the soul that has an abiding spirit of prayer, and is "watching thereunto with all perseverance." But, without this spirit of prayer, we are a prey to all his temptations, and can neither take, wear, nor use the only armor against them.

Such, then, is the armor that God has provided – and such is the way in which it is to be taken, worn, and used – taken by faith, worn by prayer, and wielded with perseverance – for it is never to be laid by until death unclasps it. And, you may depend upon it, that God would not have provided such an armor as this, so complete a panoply, unless there were a real battle to fight. Christian warriors are not Chinese soldiers, who wear armor of cardboard, painted to resemble iron; but their armor is of real steel. As, therefore, God has provided such an armor as this, it is plain they have no puny enemy to fight.

Now Satan's grand stratagem is to conceal and hide his strength. He is like a skillful general, who does not show all his army, but conceals them behind hedges, walls, and trees, and keeps them close in the trenches, so that the enemy may not see all his force. Satan is never so powerful as when we think least of his power, and he is never so successful as when he shoots at us from behind the trench. The apostle, therefore, says, "Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." It is his devilish craft and subtlety that we have so much to dread. Lay aside one piece of the armor, and you are at once shot down.

The text speaks of "an evil day;" that is, a day of danger, of alarm – a day on which the Prince of Evil is plotting – and an evil, dark and gloomy day for us, unless we have on the heavenly armor, and know how to wear and use it.

"Put on," says the apostle – "take unto you the whole armor of God." There is a putting of it on. It is not like our 'Tower Armory', where guns, and pistols, and other military weapons are hung up in ornamental circles to be looked at as a spectacle – but it is to be taken, to be put on, to be received from the hands of God, and clasped round by his own fingers.

I have already shown how needful prayer and watchfulness are to the putting on of heavenly armor. But I may further add, that it is by faith we PUT ON every piece. If we have no faith, we have no Christian sincerity, nor spiritual knowledge of the truth; therefore, "the loins are not girt about with truth." If we have no faith, we have on no breastplate of Christ's righteousness; for that is only put on by faith. If we have no faith, we have no defense for our feet; for by faith we stand and walk; and therefore the feet are not "shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." If we have no faith, we have no helmet, because "salvation" is laid hold of by faith. If we have no faith, we cannot have "the shield of faith;" that is evident. If we have no faith, we cannot use "the sword of the Spirit," which is only wielded by faith. If we have no faith, we have no true prayer; for it is "the prayer of faith" that is effectual with God. By faith, therefore, is every piece of the heavenly armor put on; and by faith, living faith, is every piece of it used.

What strange characters we are! Able to fight one day, fleeing the next; resisting Satan this moment, and giving way that moment. How is this to be accounted for? Because at this moment we have faith; at the next, we have, or seem to have none. Faith is to the soul what a main-spring is to the watch. If the main-spring is broken, or lacking, what is the watch worth? So faith is the main-spring of the soul. Let there be no faith, there is no inward movement. There may be hands, but like the hands of a child's watch, they are made for show, not for use – a bauble and a toy, not a working instrument. There must be faith in the soul in order that the hands may move in accordance with the will of God, and keep right time with the dial of the Sun of Righteousness.

Faith too, we need not only to wear, but to use and wield this heavenly armor, so as to "withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." It is, in the margin, "having overcome all, to STAND." And what a flood of light does this cast upon a Christian's path--that the greatest danger lies in, and after victory! Bunyan has beautifully touched upon this, where he represents Christian as stumbling and falling immediately after he had got ahead of his brother. When you have, in the strength of Christ, overcome one temptation, you are standing upon the brink of another – and the very pride that may lift up your heart for having gained one battle, only opens a way to fall by the next encounter.

What a strange warfare! Paul's maxim would not do for the Duke of Wellington, "When I am weak, then am I strong." That would not do to go to battle with. We are never so weak as when in ourselves we are strong; we are never so strong as when in ourselves we are weak. Let me think myself secure, I fall; let me fear to fall, I am safe. O the mysteries of the Christian life! O the paradox of the heavenly warfare! And therefore, with the deepest wisdom, the apostle has said, "Take unto yourself the whole armor of God." Do not leave a single piece out; your life is at stake; do not forget one buckle; do not leave loose a single clasp; "that you may withstand in the evil day." There is an evil day coming; a day of temptation, an hour of trial; an evil day when the clouds gather blackness, the atmosphere is overspread with gloom, and the enemy comes forth in all his strength. In that "evil day," the hour of temptation, who can stand? None but he who has on "the whole armor of God."

Well; the evil day passes over; the sky clears, the clouds break, the sun comes forth, and its bright beams glance upon the warrior's armor. It is unharmed; it has effectually shielded him; the fiery darts have dropped quenched at his feet. Is he safe now? When one battle is gained, is peace to be proclaimed, and maintained for the remainder of one's life? Not so in the heavenly warfare. "Having done all," or, as it is in the margin, "overcome all," and gained the victory, then comes the difficulty – "to STAND."

Why, it is as though there were greater danger after the victory than before it – that when the battle has been fought, and the enemy fled, then the devil was stronger than ever; because then we are for laying aside the heavenly armor. We perhaps say, "we have fought and conquered – let us enjoy victory; get our furlough – hang up the armor – take a quiet nap to refresh ourselves." But Satan never sleeps; he never rests, nor tires; and therefore, when the Christian warrior has laid the armor aside, and said, "Now let me sleep, I have gained the victory!" that is the moment for his unsuspected adversary to take him at unawares, and aim at him a deadly thrust. Therefore, the apostle says, "Having done all, or overcome all, to stand."

O, we must never lay aside the heavenly armor! And this is a mercy, that if we have one piece, we have all. God does not send us to the battle half armed. He who has provided one, has provided all. Let this too be remembered, and laid to heart, by way of encouragement-that the Lord, in choosing recruits, does not, like our army sergeants, choose the strong, active, stout, robust, vigorous, and healthy. He admits strange characters into his regiment; those whom no army doctor would admit--the halt, and the lame, the blind, the crippled, and asthmatic, the wheezing, and the paralyzed; the consumptive in lung, the diseased in heart, and the withered in limb; he enlists them in his heavenly regiment, makes them all 'whole' by a touch of his finger, clothes them with his heavenly armor, sends them forth to battle, and fights for them as "the God of armies." Thus, weak in themselves, they are strong in Christ, and in the power of his might. And every such soldier will eventually win the day, gain the prize, and come off more than conqueror through him who loved and gave himself for him.

PRAYER AND ITS ANSWER

Preached at Zoar Chapel, London, on July 26, 1846, by J. C. Philpot

"Call unto me, and I will answer thee; and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not."
(Jeremiah 33:3)

These words were spoken by the Lord unto the prophet Jeremiah under peculiar circumstances. We read in the first verse of this chapter, "Moreover the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah the second time, while he was yet confined in the court of the prison." Jeremiah, at this time, then was a prisoner. But what brought him into prison? The real cause of his imprisonment was his faithfulness; as we find in the preceding chapter. "Jeremiah the prophet was confined in the court of the prison, which was in the King of Judah's house. For Zedekiah king of Judah had confined him, saying, Why do you prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord, Behold I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it." (32:2, 3.) Jeremiah's faithfulness, in the exercise of his prophetic office, was then the real, substantial cause of his imprisonment. But it would not do to assign this as the real cause; they must needs therefore lay hold of a pretext; and this pretext was, that Jeremiah was a traitor to Judah and Jerusalem. For when the army of the King of Egypt came up to deliver Jerusalem from Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah, going out of the city, was apprehended in the gate of Benjamin, and imprisoned as intending to desert to the Chaldeans. (Jeremiah 37:11-15.)

But what were the circumstances of the city itself? Jerusalem at this time was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar. For nearly a year had that mighty conqueror hemmed her in; the sword was made bare against her bosom; famine and pestilence were walking in her streets; and God was about to bring down upon her those judgments which he had so long denounced. It was a time of general mourning; a period of universal sorrow. Deeply was the heart of the prophet bowed within him; not merely by his own personal calamities, of which he had so very large a share, but also by the dark cloud of destruction which he saw was about to burst forth upon the city of Zion.

It was, then, under this trying state, and amid these perplexing circumstances that the Lord spoke these words to Jeremiah—"Call unto me, and I will answer you; and show you great and mighty things, which you know not."

Two things strike my mind as particularly worthy of notice in the text.
I. The invitation—"Call unto me."
II. The promise connected with the invitation—"And I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you know not."

I. The INVITATION—"Call unto me." It seems to me, that the condition of Judah and Jerusalem at this time is emblematic of the state of God's people before the Lord stretches forth his right arm to deliver them. If you read this chapter attentively, you will find it contains a whole cluster of the richest blessings for God's people. "Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth; and I will cause the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them as at the first. And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities whereby they have transgressed against me." (verses 6-8.)

What, then, was the season, and what the opportunity, that the Lord took to give these blessed and unconditional promises? When Judah and Jerusalem were sunk to the very lowest point; when there was no hope, nor help; when Nebuchadnezzar was about to burn the city with fire, and to drag into a miserable captivity those of her children who would escape the sword. At that very gloomy time, at that very hopeless season, God revealed these promises, which he fulfilled in a measure when he restored Judah from the Babylonish captivity; and which, I believe, he will one day more fully accomplish, when he sets his hand the second time to bring back his own for a time cast-off Israel.

Judah's sunken condition seems, then, emblematic of that of the Lord's people before there is any real deliverance. They have to sink down into similar spots of helplessness and hopelessness, out of which he, and he only can deliver them. And when all that the creature can do is thoroughly exhausted, when the right arm of man's strength is withered, then is the time that the Lord usually appears, and manifests himself as "the God of all grace." Jerusalem must be besieged, and Jeremiah imprisoned, before any promise can come to the one or the other.

But let us, with God's blessing, look a little more closely at the invitation before us; for it is applicable not merely to Jeremiah under his distressed circumstances, but to all the family of God under similar states spiritually. "Call unto me."

True prayer is the gift of God. It is one of those "good gifts," and those "perfect gifts," which "come down from the Father of light, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." (James 1:17.) The Lord, therefore, says, "I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication." (Zech. 12:10.) And again, "Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." (Rom. 8:26.) There is no real, no spiritual, no acceptable prayer to the Lord except that which is created by the operation of God the Spirit upon the heart of a believer. The invitation, therefore, is not addressed to men generally; no more, it is not addressed to the people of God generally; but it is addressed to the people of God under peculiar circumstances. It belongs to them only so far as they are brought into those trying circumstances and perplexing states into which God is pleased to bring them, that he may enable them to cry and sigh unto himself. The gracious invitation, "Call unto me," is made to that prayer only which enters into the ears of the Lord almighty, and brings down in God's own time and way the desired answer.

But it is necessary for several things to be wrought with divine power in the soul before we can spiritually act upon this invitation. The Lord says, "Call unto me." Can I therefore at once call unto him? can I seek his face? can I pray unto him acceptably? I cannot, except he is first pleased himself to work certain things in my soul. What are these things?

1. The first is, a deep sense of my sinfulness, guilt, and vileness. There is no real prayer to the Lord except the soul is abased, humbled, and laid low. And what abases, humbles, and lays low? Reading about sin, hearing about sin, talking about sin? No—a spiritual sense of our guilt, our shame, our vileness, our pollution, our unworthiness, divinely wrought in the soul, abases, humbles, and lays low at the footstool of mercy. And I am bold to say, no prayer will rise up with acceptance into the ears of the Lord of hosts, except that which springs out of a broken heart and a contrite spirit, made so by the blessed Spirit of God, discovering to us what we are, and thus humbling us, laying us low in our own eyes, and making us to feel guilty and filthy in our own sight.

2. A sense of our ignorance is another gracious qualification before we can call upon the Lord. As long as we think we can teach ourselves, instruct our own minds, and bring into our own hearts, by dint of creature exertion, the truth of God, we shall never pray sincerely, earnestly, and spiritually for divine teaching. But when we are brought to this point, that we know nothing, absolutely nothing, except what God himself is pleased to teach us by the special operation of the Spirit; when we feel so shut up in blindness, darkness, and folly, that nothing short of God's light, nothing short of divine manifestation, can communicate to our souls that which we want to feel and enjoy—then we begin to pray aright. This knowledge, then, of our own ignorance, blindness, and folly is absolutely necessary to make us cry to the Lord with sincerity and earnestness that he himself would be pleased to teach us. If I can teach myself the truth as it is in Jesus; if I can bring into my own heart with sweet and unctuous power the word of God's grace; if I can feed upon it, enjoy it, and sit under the shadow of it by my own exertions, it is but awful mockery in me to pretend to go to the throne of grace to ask the Lord to do it for me. But if, on the other hand, I am oppressed by a sense of my ignorance; if this feeling is deeply wrought in my heart, that I know nothing, absolutely nothing, except so far as the Spirit of God is pleased to unfold the truth to my soul, then I come to the Lord to ask him to teach me, not because I have read in the Scriptures of such a doctrine as divine teaching; nor because I have heard others ask the Lord to teach them; but because I feel utterly unable without this teaching to bring into my soul those heavenly realities which it longs to experience.

3. A sense of our helplessness, inability, and impotency in divine things is a third qualification before we can truly and spiritually call upon God. How much there is of false prayer in us! How much there is of formality and self-righteousness even in true Christians! How much bowing of the knee without God's hand bowing down the heart! How many words escape from the lips that have never been indited by the Holy Spirit in the soul! But a sense of our helplessness, insufficiency, and inability must be created by the hand of God in our souls before we can sincerely and spiritually ask him to bless us, manifest himself unto us, shine upon our hearts, and lift up upon us the light of his countenance.

4. A glimpse of the things which we desire to experience, is another qualification before we can put in practice this divine invitation. It is not because we read about certain blessings in God's word, that we are enabled to go to a throne of grace, and ask the Lord to confer these blessings upon us. We may do it naturally; but this reading and praying in the letter will not profit; for "the flesh profits nothing." But, on the other hand, when the Lord is pleased to shine upon the sacred Scriptures; to give us glimpses in our hearts of the blessings revealed in them; to show us the promises which are all "yes and amen in Christ Jesus;" and the blessings which are stored up in him for those who fear God—when we enjoy glimpses of these heavenly blessings, then we rightly, sincerely, and earnestly call upon God to bestow them upon us.

5. Faith in the promises; faith in God who gives them; faith in Jesus in whom they are stored; faith in the blessed Spirit through whom they are communicated—this precious faith, God's gift and work, is absolutely indispensable before we can call upon God aright. "Let him," says James, "ask in faith, nothing wavering." (1:6.) "The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it." (Heb. 4:20.) If there be no faith in our prayers they are not acceptable to God; they do not enter his ears; they do not bring down the promised blessing. Therefore, before we can call upon the Lord aright, we must have a living faith raised up in our heart, whereby we believe that God hears us, and that he will in his own time and way communicate his blessings to us. It is thus that we find access through the Mediator into God's presence, and plead with him for those blessings which he has to bestow.

6. Hungering, thirsting, panting, longing, and languishing after those blessings which God has to grant, is another qualification before we can call upon him to bestow them upon us. Is it not mockery, awful mockery, to go to the Lord in prayer, and to ask him to give us this, and to give us that; to bestow this mercy, to enrich our souls with that blessing; to apply this and that promise; and all the time have no earnest longings, pantings, thirstings, hungerings, and breathings after them? It is awful mockery to ask God for a blessing, and have no desire in the soul after that blessing; to ask him for food, and have no hunger; to beg of him the water of life, and feel no thirst; to request divine clothing, and to know no nakedness; to implore sweet manifestations of his favor and love, and not desire them above thousands of gold and silver. It is but awful mockery, I repeat it, to go with these pretended petitions, and all the while have no earnest, sincere longings or languishings after the blessings which God has to bestow.

7. The last qualification I shall mention is, patience and perseverance to wait at God's footstool; as we read, "Be followers of those, who, through faith and patience inherit the promises." (Heb. 6:12.) We must resemble the woman, of whom the Lord spoke in the parable, that though the unjust judge feared not God, nor regarded man, yet he was overcome by her importunity; we must be like the man who was in bed with his children, but was brought out of it by the importunity of his friend to give him all that he needed. So must the Lord's people not only seek, cry, and beg, but also wait and persevere until he arise to satisfy their desires.

If, then, these qualifications are absolutely needful; if there is no right calling upon God except this experience has been wrought in the heart by God the Spirit himself, how much true prayer is there in the world? How much true prayer is there in our hearts? And is not this the reason why there are so few answers? why we pray so much, and get so little? why we have so little prevalency with God? why we seek, and so seldom find? knock at the door, and find it so rarely opened? May not this be the reason, that with all our calling upon God, we lack these needful qualifications? They are indeed God's own gifts, God's own work; but still, if we lack these needful qualifications, prayer is but empty breath, and the words of the lip but idle mockery.

But when the Lord himself would give us a blessing; when it is in his heart to bestow a favor, he raises up these divine qualifications in the soul; he puts us spiritually where Jeremiah was naturally—in the prison; shuts us up, lays burdens upon us, makes our chain heavy, brings upon us troubles, trials, temptations, afflictions, sharp distresses, perhaps outward persecutions; in a word, puts us into those spots and states out of which none but he can deliver. When then, in this state, the divine "Author and Finisher of faith," the bounteous Giver of every good and perfect gift, begins to raise up desires and breathings in the soul; prayer at once springs up out of the heart, and enters into the ears of the Lord almighty; and, in God's own time and in God's own way, brings down the blessed answer.

And this leads us to the second branch of the subject.

II. The PROMISE connected with the invitation—"Call unto me, and I will answer you; and show you great and mighty things which you know not."

Let us cast a glimpse at the state of Jerusalem at that time. It is, as I before observed, emblematic of the state of God's people before he answers their prayers, and reveals to them the abundance of peace and truth. Was not Jerusalem sinking as low as she could possibly fall? Was not the sword of destruction hanging over her head by a single thread? Was not Nebuchadnezzar about to thrust the edge of his slaughter-weapon into her very bosom? It was so. And did she not justly deserve it? Had not her sins and iniquities drawn down divine indignation? Could she plead innocent? Could she justly say, 'I have not sinned! these things have come upon me unmeritedly?'

The carnal and self-righteous might have said so; as we know there were some who uttered that language in her streets, "Yet you say, because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will plead with you, because you say, I have not sinned." (Jer. 2:35.) But the God-fearing people of the city could not say so. When the Lord said, "Have you not procured this unto yourself?" (Jer. 2:17,) each and all who feared God would answer, 'Yes, yes; we have, we have.' And thus no God-fearing man, who has had a discovery of his own sinfulness, can ever plead innocent. Whatever he suffers, he suffers deservedly; whatever he endures, he has justly merited. This makes him put his mouth in the dust; because he knows that every suffering, yes, hell itself, is his just desert.

In this state, then, when the cloud of destruction was lowering over Jerusalem; when the lightning-flash at times was bursting through the heavens; when the harbingers and precursors of the coming storm were falling thick and fast, and it seemed as though Judah and Jerusalem were about to be swept utterly away—then God reveals the promise, that "he would bring her health and cure; would cause her captivity to return, would cleanse her from all her iniquity, and make her a name of joy, and praise, and an honor before all the nations of the earth." O how wonderful that God should take that very time and that very occasion to lay open the bounty of his loving bosom, and assure her, that his heart was full of love to her! At the very time that his sword, bathed in vengeance, hung over her to destroy, he tells her there was love in his heart towards her; that his covenant should stand forever, and the purposes of his heart be fulfilled.

Is not this emblematic? Is not this strikingly descriptive of the dealings of God with his people? That he smites with one hand, while he blesses with the other; and that while he holds the sword of chastisement over their head, yet his heart is full of love and mercy? He, therefore, says to Jeremiah, '"Call unto me;" I have blessings to bestow; my heart is full of love to Judah and Jerusalem; I have promises to bestow upon her; I will never leave her, nor forsake her; I will forgive her; I will restore her; she shall be a name and praise to all around her; my covenant with her shall stand for evermore. "Call unto me," you have but to ask, you have but to seek, you have but to beg, you have but to implore; I will show her mercy, I will make known my love, I will reveal pardon and peace, I will comfort her, I will bless her and do her good.'

How suitable is this for a child of God in a similar state! And to such a soul, he says, '"Call unto me." You have but to plead, but to beg, but to petition; the blessing is in my bosom—you have but to draw it forth. My heart is full of love; it only waits for you to open your mouth wide, and I will fill it with every good thing. "Call unto me, I will answer you;" not by the sword, not by judgments, not by pestilence, not by famine. "Call unto me, I will answer you; and show you great and mighty things, which you know not."'

But what are these "great and mighty things" which Jeremiah knew not? He could not believe that God had love in his heart towards Jerusalem. But the Lord says, 'Only seek me, only supplicate me; I will show you these great and mighty things.' So he says to his people—'Though you are deeply sunk under a sense of your sinfulness, ignorance, helplessness, yet "Call unto me, I will show you great and mighty things, which you know not."'

What are some of these "great and mighty things" which they know not?

1. One is, Divine sovereignty—that God "does according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and that he will fulfill all his pleasure." The doctrine of God's sovereignty is very easily learned—it may be caught up under one sermon, or by reading half a page of a tract; it may be known in theory in less than half an hour. But have I then learned it? Have I got it aright? Say, I have read an author, Elisha Coles for instance, who writes admirably on God's sovereignty—can I learn it thus? I might walk by the Bank of England, and say, 'What a noble building! what beautiful architecture! its cellars bursting with gold!' But is it all mine because I walk by and look at it? Just as much might I lay hold of divine sovereignty by merely reading a book, or hearing a preacher explain it, as I can lay claim to all the gold in the Bank cellars by walking round it, and admiring it as a beautiful structure.

I must learn divine sovereignty in a very different way from merely reading, hearing, or talking about it. I must know and feel it in my heart by a divine power. And how must I learn it there? For the most part, by having this divine sovereignty cross me at every turn. If I lay plans—to have divine sovereignty overthrowing them; if I wish for something very much—to have divine sovereignty thwarting me in it; if I want to be something—to have divine sovereignty in that very thing pulling me down; no, if I want something really good—to find divine sovereignty bestowing it in a way most painful to my flesh. Thus we learn divine sovereignty where Jeremiah learned it—in the prison-house, amid persecutions, through afflictions, in sharp temptations, and having the corruptions of our heart laid bare. Here we learn God will execute his own purposes, let proud nature kick and rebel, pine and fret her utmost.

When, then, you "Call unto the Lord," he begins to show you a little of divine sovereignty; and not merely shows it you, but brings you to submit to it. That is a very hard thing to be brought to—to submit to God's sovereignty when it is thwarting some desired purpose, some deeply cherished and much longed-for plan, crossing you at every turn, disappointing the wishes of your heart! Can man, proud, rebellious, independent man, submit to God's sovereignty? Yes! he can, when he is brought down by the Spirit of God, laid low, and made to find and feel that God will execute his own purposes, whether man kicks against it or submits. To learn God's sovereignty thus is somewhat different from lying on a sofa on a May morning, and reading Elisha Coles.

2. The salvation of the soul by the blood and obedience of God's only-begotten Son, is another of these great and mighty things which God reveals in answer to true prayer. Is that point easily settled? the salvation of our souls? our saving interest in the love of the Lamb? our election before all time? our redemption by the precious blood of Jesus? our regeneration by the power of the Spirit? and our certain perseverance unto the heavenly kingdom? Is all this easily learned? If you have learned it so easily, you will have to go to another school. You have got to learn it again, to know it in a different way.

Salvation, as a doctrine, may be learned in a quarter of an hour; salvation, as a blessing, may not be learned in many years. When a vessel of mercy becomes exercised to know whether his name is in the Book of Life; whether the work of the Spirit is begun upon his heart; whether he is one of those for whom the Lamb of God shed his atoning blood; whether he is one of the sons or daughters of the Lord God Almighty; and becomes restless, tried, and exercised upon this point, he will call upon God to make that point clear in his soul. And it will be made manifest in God's own time and way; he will in answer to prayer give clearer or fainter testimonies to the soul's eternal salvation in the blood and righteousness of his dear Son.

3. The reason of all our trials; the end to be answered by all the providential circumstances through which we pass; the cause of all the afflictions, temptations, and distresses that the soul has had to endure; is another of those great and mighty things which God makes known in answer to true prayer. Can I often see the reason of them? I cannot. And I must say, if you often or usually can, you are favored. There are some who, directly a trial comes, say, 'I know why this trial befalls me;' directly an affliction visits them, 'O , I see the reason of this affliction, and I am sure it will be a blessing to my soul.' If you can feel and speak in this way, you have stronger faith than the majority of God's people.

The usual operation of affliction on the souls of God's people is this—they know not why it has come upon them; they see not what profit it is to produce; they cannot believe any blessing is couched beneath it. As we cannot perceive the sun behind the cloud, so they cannot see the Lord's face when he hides himself behind a cloud of afflictions and sorrows. But the Lord says to his afflicted people, "Call unto me; seek my face; lay your petition at my footstool; press earnestly forward with your request. I will show you great and mighty things which you know not. You know not what this trial is for; you know not what is the benefit of these temptations you are laboring under; you know not what this affliction is to produce; you know not what this reverse in circumstances is to bring about. You are therefore tried, perplexed, exercised. But do not go to man; do not look to the creature; seek not to unravel it yourself—call unto me—I will show you great and mighty things, which you know not. I will show you what this trial is for, what this temptation is to do—to humble you; this trouble is to wean you from the world, this affliction to break some snare, this exercise to meeken and soften your heart, and bring you to the footstool of mercy. You shall see that there is a blessing lodged beneath this trial and couched in this affliction, which you will have reason to bless God for to the latest day of your existence."

And I believe (it is not part of my 'theory', but, through mercy, part of my 'experience',) that our greatest blessings spring out of our greatest trials; and that those clouds which seem most dark, so dark that we think we never shall see a ray of light upon them, in God's own time and way disperse; light bursts through them—and we bless God for the very trial, however heavy it may have been at the time, however much we may have despaired of seeing it made a blessing to our souls.

4. That all things work together for good to our souls; that whatever we pass through in providence or in grace, is for our spiritual profit—is another thing that God will show us when we rightly call upon his name. He says, "Call unto me." 'Do not go to the creature—that is but a broken reed; do not trust to an arm of flesh—that will fail you when you need it most; come to me, to my bosom—pour out your petition in my ear; seek my face; lay your needs at my footstool. "Call unto me, I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you know not."'

To believe that all our trials, temptations, and afflictions are working together for our spiritual good—is a great, a mighty thing, which often we know not. 'How can that be for my good, and how can this be for my good?' Is not our mind often thus perplexed? But the Lord says, "Call unto me, I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you know not;" among them, that "all things are working together for good;" and that spiritual profit will be answered by all and each.

5. The super-aboundings of God's grace over the aboundings of our sin, is another great and mighty thing that God will show and make known to those who call upon him. What a blessed truth is this—the super-aboundings of grace over the aboundings of sin! yet how painfully learned. How the soul must grapple hard with sin and temptation! What workings up of the depth of our fallen nature before we can know anything of the super-aboundings of grace over it! But the Lord says, "Call unto me, I will answer you; and show you great and mighty things, which you know not"—and among them, the super-aboundings of my mercy and grace over the aboundings of your iniquity. Have iniquity and sin abounded in us? Have we felt and known it, and been so filled with it, as to have sunk very low at times with a sight and sense of what we have thought, said, or done? Have our backslidings, our vain thoughts, our inward adulteries and idolatries, and the workings of our fallen nature, sometimes made us sink very low, and to feel that sin has indeed abounded in us? "Call unto me, I will answer you; and show you great and mighty things, which you know not." Among them shall be the super-aboundings of my grace over the aboundings of your sin; that though "sin has reigned unto death, grace shall reign through righteousness unto everlasting life;" that God takes occasion by the very sins of his people to manifest more of his mercy in forgiving them, his love in covering them, and his grace in superabounding over them.

Are not these rich blessings? Time will not suffice to enumerate more, such as—
the pardon of sin,
the sweet enjoyment of God's favor,
testimonies of his eternal love,
smiles of his loving countenance,
the witness of the blessed Spirit,
the leadings, guidings, and teachings of that divine Comforter.

These are the "great and mighty things" that God's people are longing from time to time to experience. And is not the Lord from time to time drawing us to his bosom? and raising up sighs and cries in the soul? When the Lord has raised up these inward desires, he answers them, and begins to show the "great and mighty things" which we know not, and to reveal the abundance of peace and truth.

If you have gathered my meaning (however feebly and faintly expressed,) from what I have endeavored to speak this morning, you will have observed, that there are two leading features in every gracious man's experience—
1. a sense of his own sinfulness, ignorance, and helplessness;
2. a longing and languishing after those blessings which God has to bestow.

And these the Lord from time to time opens up to his soul, revealing to his heart, and discovering by the teaching and operations of his blessed Spirit those blessings, favors, and mercies, that he is longing to enjoy. And I believe, if you will look at your experience under the teachings and leadings of God in your soul, you will know something of this. You will find, that your experience may be summed up in these two features. Sometimes you have sunk very low, have been tried in your mind, harassed in your soul, deeply perplexed, everything making against you and little for you. But the Lord from time to time has raised up desires, sighs, cries, and groans in your heart, draws you to his footstool of mercy, and there enables you to tell him all that you are, and all that you need. And then, there are times and seasons when the Lord graciously and mercifully opens his hand, gives you a testimony, bestows upon you a word, a visit, a whisper, a smile, softens your heart, melts your soul, raises up some evidence, and blesses you more or less with that blessing which makes rich, and adds no sorrow with it.

Do you expect to have any other experience all your life long? Do you expect to find 'the dream of your early youth' ever realized—to be better and better, holier and holier, wiser and wiser, stronger and stronger; every day that you live? I never expect to find the fond dream of my early religious youth thus fulfilled. But I believe, so far as God is our teacher, this will be, more or less, our daily experience, so long as we are tenants in this fallen world—a growing sense of our sinfulness, ignorance, helplessness, nothingness, inability, and impotency. At times (for the Lord only at times makes us to feel our complete dependence upon him) we shall cry, sigh, and groan, breathe out our heart, wrestle with the Divine Majesty, and supplicate at his footstool. And then, there will sometimes come a word, a promise, a testimony, a token, a smile, a whisper, a melting, a softening, a breaking down, an encouragement; and this produces a going forward in the strength of the Lord. It is thus, and thus only, that we shall live to praise his name, and crown Jesus Lord of all.

Is not this the way which is most glorifying to God, though so humbling to man? And must not this be a right way? Shall you and I be such sacrilegious wretches, as under the cover of religion to creep into the very sanctuary, and snatch the Redeemer's crown off his head? But to be nothing but what God makes us, know nothing but what God teaches, feel nothing but what God inspires, enjoy nothing but what God communicates—this is to bless him for everything which he freely imparts. And therefore, in order to keep a sinner at the footstool of mercy all his days; to hide pride from man, and abase him in his own eyes; to break to pieces all his wisdom, strength, and righteousness, God keeps his people ever poor and needy, ever crying, sighing and begging for what he has to bestow.

And when he gives it, it is in a gracious, in a sweetly manifestative way, that the creature shall know from whom it comes, and not be able to take to itself an atom of glory. And thus, by these gracious dealings upon the hearts of his people, contrary to flesh and blood, contrary to our fond dream of early days, contrary to all the arguments and reasonings of our reasoning mind, and to the creed of all the world, religious or profane, the Lord carries on his own work in his own way.

And thus, when a man is sufficiently humbled to be raised; sufficiently brought down to be made to stand; sufficiently stripped to be clothed; and sufficiently emptied to be richly filled—then, the Lord begins to manifest his favor, grace, and love; and thus he covers the creature with shame, while he crowns himself with glory!

LAWFUL STRIFE

Preached on December 27, 1840, by J. C. Philpot, at Trinity Chapel, Alfred Street, Leicester.

"And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully."
(2 Timothy 2:5)

The Holy Spirit appears to have made much use of figures and illustrations in the word of God; and I believe we may find more or less of this mode of instruction from Genesis to Revelation. For instance, immediately after the fall, the Lord made use of a visible figure, when he made coats of skins, and clothed in them our first parents. What was this but a visible sign of the garment of imputed righteousness, in which alone they could stand accepted before him, connected with Christ's sacrifice, as the skin of the sacrificed animal was with its poured out blood?

So, after the flood, the Lord set his rainbow in the cloud, that, spanning earth and heaven, it might be a visible sign of his covenanted mercy from generation to generation. When we come a little lower down to the period when the Lord brought the children of Israel out of Egypt that they might be to him a peculiar people, He still chose the same visible mode of instruction by type and figure. The paschal lamb, the blood sprinkled on the lintel and the two side-posts, the ark of the covenant, the whole train of sacrifices, rites, and ceremonies, with all the furniture of the tabernacle, were all so many speaking figures, whereby spiritual instruction was communicated to those who had eyes to look through the type to the thing typified.

So when we come down to the times of the prophets, types and figures were still employed. Jeremiah is sent down to the Potter's house to learn God's absolute sovereignty; was commanded to wear a linen belt, and then hide it in a hole of the rock by the river Euphrates, to show how the Lord would mar the pride of Judah; Jer 13:1-11 and was shown the two baskets of figs, to teach them the difference between the precious and the vile. Jer 24 So Isaiah walked barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder upon Egypt and Ethiopia; Isa 20:3 and Ezekiel was commanded to take a tile and portray upon it the city, even Jerusalem, and lay siege against it. Eze 4:1,2

When we come to the New Testament, we find the Lord making great use of this mode of instruction. All his parables were so many speaking figures, under which spiritual wisdom was couched. The sower going forth to sow, the woman hiding the leaven in three measures of meal, the man finding a pearl of great price, the net cast into the sea, the door, the shepherd, the vine to which he compares himself--what are all these but natural figures, which the Lord employs to convey spiritual instruction?

Indeed so apt and so beautiful are some of these figures, that it has been a question with some, whether God had not in the original creation of all things a special view to spiritual truths. For instance, when he created the sheep, whether he had not a special eye to the elect; and when he created the vine, whether he had not a spiritual reference to Christ and his members. They thus look upon all outward creation as a type and figure of the new creation. But I think there is one consideration which shows that this view is not founded on truth. We find the apostle Paul employing figures not only altogether of man's invention, but even such as contain in themselves much evil. For instance, in four different places he has borrowed an illustration from the public games of the Greeks, which, like all large and promiscuous assemblies, were doubtless accompanied with much evil. Thus we find him speaking, 1Co 9:24-26 "Don't you know that those who run in a race run all, but one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain. And every man that strives for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beats the air." The figure here is clearly drawn from the foot race and the boxing match in use among the Greeks at their public games. So again Heb 12:1 he says, "Therefore seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses," alluding to the multitude of spectators that surrounds the runners for the prize, as a cloud "let us lay aside every weight and the sin that does so easily beset us," as the racers threw aside all useless encumbrances "and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." So speaking of his own experience, Php 3:13,14 he says, "Brethren, I count myself not to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Here he clearly alludes to the runner in the foot race who never thinks of the ground over which he has passed, in his eagerness to press forward and carry off the prize.

The fourth place where the same apostle borrows the figure of these public games, is the verse from which I intend, with God's help and blessing, to deliver a few thoughts this morning. "And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully."

In order to enter into the spiritual meaning of this text, I must detain you for a few minutes with the natural explanation of it. The Holy Spirit has chosen by the mouth of Paul to convey spiritual instruction under this natural figure; we must therefore break through this shell to get at the kernel, for unless we have a clear view of the figure itself, we shall have a confused idea of its spiritual signification.

The apostle then, as I have already shown, borrows a figure here from the public games in his time, where there were prizes given to those who obtained the victory in one of these five contests, the chariot, and the foot race, wrestling, boxing, and a combat made up of the two last. The "man that strives for masteries," means he who wrestles, or otherwise contends for victory, the prize being a crown of leaves, which was given publicly to the victor. Now there were certain rules and conditions, laid down beforehand, which were to be rigidly observed by all the candidates for the prize, and if any one of these what we may call "rules of the game" were broken by a candidate, then though he came in first, yet he lost the prize, because "he had not striven lawfully," that is, had not complied with the rules. To borrow a comparison from the horse-races of this country, a practice I condemn, though I use the figure to throw a light upon the text if a horse runs the wrong side of the post, or carries less weight than the rule of the race requires, he loses the prize, though he comes in the first.

Having thus far opened up the natural meaning of the figure, we will now proceed to the spiritual instruction conveyed by it. We gather from it, then, that in spiritual things, there is a striving lawfully, and a striving unlawfully; and that the prize is not necessarily given to him who wins the race, if he has not complied with certain rules laid down. I think then we may say that there are three distinct ways of striving.

1. There is an unlawful striving after unlawful objects.

2. An unlawful striving after lawful objects.

3. A lawful striving after lawful objects.

Of these three kinds of striving two are wrong, and one is right. To strive unlawfully after unlawful objects is clearly wrong. To strive unlawfully after lawful objects deprives a man of the prize, and it is therefore wrong too. To strive lawfully after lawful objects is the only strife that the Lord crowns, and therefore the only strife that is right.


1. There is an unlawful striving after unlawful objects.

But as what is right is often more clearly shown by holding up what is wrong, I shall attempt to describe first what it is to strive unlawfully after unlawful objects.

1. To strive then after the pre-eminence, to be a Diotrephes in a church, 3John 9 is an unlawful striving after an unlawful object. There is to be no superiority, or pre-eminence among the followers of Christ. "You are all brethren," said Jesus to his disciples; Mt 23:8 "the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is he who is most like a child." Mt 18:4 "The princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and those who are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant." Mt 20:25-27 Pre-eminence among brethren is an unlawful object, and must therefore be always unlawfully striven after.

2. All strife about vain and idle questions is unlawful strife. "Of these things," says Paul, "put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers." 2Ti 2:14 So he speaks of those who "dote about questions and strifes of words, whereof comes envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds." 1Ti 6:4,5 When men of this caviling, contentious spirit arise in churches, woe to their peace.

3. To seek after a form of godliness, while secretly denying the power thereof, or to have a name to live when dead in sin, is an unlawful striving after an unlawful object. To strive to be a whited sepulcher, a painted hypocrite, a deceiver of the churches, is dreadful striving indeed.

4. To strive after fleshly holiness and creature perfection is an unlawful strife. God never designed that the flesh should be holy. In his discourse with Nicodemus, Jesus laid it down at the very entrance in the divine life, that "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," thus establishing an eternal and unalterable distinction between them. "I know that in me," says Paul, "that is, in my flesh, there dwells no good thing." "The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other." Ga 5:17 All attempts therefore to improve or sanctify the flesh, are bidding "the leopard change his spots, and washing the Ethiopian white."

5. Again, all attempts to please God by anything that we ourselves can do, is an unlawful striving after an unlawful object. He cannot be so pleased. The corrupt fountain of our heart is continually pouring forth its polluted streams, and therefore all that comes out of it is polluted. Nothing short of perfect purity can please a perfectly pure God; and as no thought, word, or deed has passed from us by nature which is not defiled, it cannot please God. But how many think that their prayers or their tears or their good actions are acceptable to Him.

6. All attempt to keep the law in its strict requirements is an unlawful striving. That is, it is not done as God would have it done. Jesus, and He alone of all the sons of men, kept the law; and he who would go about to establish his own righteousness, to the neglect or contempt of Christ's righteousness, strives unlawfully.

7. To strive to convert the world, and to turn goats into sheep, to seek to overthrow the eternal lines of distinction between the elect and the reprobate, and frustrate Jehovah's sovereign decrees of judgment and mercy, is an unlawful strife after an unlawful object. To break down the barriers of the church and the world, and reduce to mere nullities the distinguishing doctrines of grace, is indeed to strive contrary to every rule in the word of God.

8. To seek to find an easier and smoother path than the strait gate and the narrow way; to come into the fold, but not through the door of regeneration, as the Porter opens it; to be aiming at any other salvation than an experimental acquaintance with Christ and the power of his resurrection; to set up human talents, and creature religion as sufficient with, or without the Holy Spirit's heavenly teachings; to strive after natural faith, hope, repentance, and love--all are so many branches of unlawful striving after unlawful objects.

By unlawful is meant as I said before, not that which is contrary to the letter of the law, not that which is not in strict accordance with the moral law, or the ten commandments, or any branch of the Mosaic law. The words "lawful" and "unlawful" in the text have no reference whatever to the law properly so called. The words "lawfully" and "unlawfully" mean a complying, or a not complying with certain rules and conditions, laid down in God's word. The laws and rules are not legal, old covenant rules, but gospel, law covenant conditions. Mistake me not. I do not here mean conditions to be performed by the creature, but certain rules, according to which the Holy Spirit works. "We are the clay, and He the Potter;" but the heavenly Potter works according to certain rules; and could it be possible for a vessel to be made contrary to these rules, it would not be a vessel of honor fit for the master's use. I wish to explain myself clearly, for directly a man begins to talk about rules and conditions, there are plenty of people so ignorant or so prejudiced, that they will be sure to make him an offender for a word. Remember this then, that by the word rules, laws, or conditions, I mean certain modes laid down in God's word, according to which the Holy Spirit acts, when he works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure.

All the striving then of carnal unregenerate professors is an unlawful striving after one or more unlawful objects. Being destitute of heavenly teaching, lawful objects, that is, such objects as are set before the eyes of the elect, are never striven after by them. God has never enlightened them into the depths of the fall, nor brought his holy law into their conscience in its depth and spirituality. The fountains of the great deep in their heart were never broken up, nor their secret corruptions laid bare. Sin is a burden under which they never groaned, unbelief never grieved and plagued them, the utter alienation of their heart from God was never so discovered to them as to convince them of their helplessness and hopelessness. Isaiah's experience was never theirs, when he cried out, "Woe is me, for I am undone; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Their loveliness was never turned into corruption like Daniel's; nor did they ever abhor themselves in dust and ashes, like Job. Had this work been wrought with divine power on their consciences, had the law been inwardly applied, it would effectually have cut them off from all unlawful striving.

Nor on the other hand did the Holy Spirit ever set before the eyes of their mind the gospel of the grace of God. No carnal professor, whether Calvinist or Arminian, ever had a spiritual knowledge of law or gospel. Had he experimentally known the law, it would have cut him off from unlawful striving. Had he known experimentally the gospel, it would have cut him off from unlawful objects. Thus they never had any inward taste of the sweetness of the gospel. The outward scheme and theory they might perfectly understand, and discuss it most exactly and learnedly; but the inward power, the heavenly sweetness, the divine application of it they had never the least acquaintance with. Their heads may be at Mount Zion, but their hearts are at Mount Sinai.

These unlawful strivers after unlawful objects are never crowned. They may indeed seem to arrive first at the goal; and we well know how an unburdened professor outstrips in zeal, activity, and outward religion, the poor heavy laden, panting child of God. But he is not crowned. He has carried no weight. He has run the wrong side of the post. He has won the race and lost the prize. We hear the great Judge at the last day, in reply to all his declarations of his having prophesied in his name, cast out devils, and done many mighty works, refuse the crown of eternal life with this dreadful sentence; "Depart from me, I never knew you."

I shall have occasion to show as I proceed with my subject, that the Judge of the living and the dead gives the lawful victor two crowns, a crown here and a crown hereafter--the crown of his love and approbation in the conscience on earth, and the crown of eternal glory in heaven. The unlawful striver after unlawful objects has neither of these crowns bestowed upon him, for the one is but the foretaste and sure forerunner of the other. He has therefore no secret crown of divine approbation set on his heart. God never smiled into his soul, nor sanctioned with a divine manifestation in his conscience his words and works. Professors of every degree may have praised him; but the sealing of the Spirit, the heavenly diadem of God's own putting on, was never felt nor known.

God's children themselves are often entangled in this freewill strife, especially younger days, before the Lord has purged away their filth by the Spirit of Judgment, and the Spirit of burning. We find this much in the case of the disciples, while their Lord was with them, before they were baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Though quickened into spiritual life, they were continually striving after pre-eminence, each wishing to be greatest. Thus the sons of Zebedee, fearful of their own persuasive powers, must needs employ the persuasive tongue of a woman--that powerful weapon which so few men can withstand, to induce their master to seat them on his left hand and his right hand in his kingdom. So, on another occasion, the same two disciples would have had fire come down from heaven to consume the Samaritans, when they would not receive Christ Lu 9:54.

Thus we in our youthful religious day were striving after many unlawful objects. Holiness in the flesh, to please God by our own exertions, to make ourselves religious, and understand the doctrines of grace by reading all sorts of religious books, to please professors, conciliate the world, avoid the cross, shun the imputation of uncharitableness, soften down carnal relations, and keep up old acquaintances--who of us has never thus striven after these unlawful objects? But we could never get the Searcher of hearts, to put on our consciences the crown of his approbation. We strove for the mastery but were never crowned because we strove unlawfully.



2. But now I come to another kind of striving, which is unlawful striving after lawful objects. The strife we have just been describing was unlawful strife after unlawful objects. In that the things aimed at and sought after were as contrary to the rules of the word of God as the mode of striving to obtain them. In the strife that we are about to consider now, the objects aimed at are lawful and good, but they are sought after in an unlawful, wrong way.

I repeat again, that lawful and unlawful here do not mean, and have nothing to do with the law properly so called, but signify a compliance or a noncompliance on the part of the striver with certain rules, which God has laid down in his word. What those rules are we shall see before long.

There are then certain lawful objects, set forth in the word of God, as the things to be aimed at by everyone who runs the race set before him by the Holy Spirit. These lawful objects are the blessings which God blessed his church with in Christ Jesus. Who sits at the end of the race to award the prize? What says Paul? "Let us run with patience the race set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." Heb 12:1,2 Now to whom can the runners in a race look, but to him who sits at the goal? They leave the spectators behind, and without stretched necks look forward to the Judge of the prize. He is "the Author of their faith," giving them power to run, and "the Finisher," by crowning it with his approbation.

To "win Christ" then is the object set before the soul that runs the heavenly race. "That I may win Christ," says Paul. Php 3:8 But what is it to win Christ? Why, to have him in our hearts as the hope of glory, to embrace him in our arms of faith and affection, and to be able to say feelingly, "My beloved is mine, and I am his." Again, pardon of sin, manifestations of mercy, visitations of God the Father's presence and love, the Spirit of adoption enabling the soul to cry, "Abba, Father," applications of Christ's atoning blood, and gracious discoveries of his glorious righteousness, these are lawful objects for the living family to strive after. Lawful, not because the law, strictly so called, speaks of them, for the law never did testify of them either outwardly or inwardly, but because the believer's rule, the glorious gospel of the grace of God, sets forth these blessings as the portion of the people of God in the New Testament.

Now none but a living soul ever panted and longed after these spiritual blessings. Hypocrites and reprobates may desire heaven to escape hell, as Balaam desired to die the death of the righteous. But I never can believe that any but a living soul desired an eternal heaven. Pardon of sin a reprobate may desire, to escape the gnawing of the never dying worm, and the fire that is not quenched; but I feel fully persuaded, that no one dead in sin longed and panted with intense breathings and burning desires after the manifestations of the pure love of an all pure God.

No natural man, no, not the highest doctrinal professor, ever poured out his soul after the blessed overshadowings of the Holy Spirit. It was never his daily longing, nor midnight cry. Such a blessing he has neither a heart to ask, nor a heart to receive.

But in his gracious dealings with his own children, the Lord usually sets before them certain blessings, of which he makes them feel their deep need, and after which he kindles in their soul intense desires. I well remember how ardently not quite fourteen years ago my soul longed after the knowledge of God. It came upon me in the depths of affliction, unsought, and abode with me for weeks at times night and day. O what a spirit of grace and supplication I then had after the internal knowledge of God in Christ!

But there is an unlawful striving in quickened souls after these lawful objects. Now God has laid down in his word of truth three solemn rules, laws you may call them if you like, which constitute lawful striving.

1. The Holy Spirit must begin, carry on, and finish the inward work of grace.

2. The soul must be brought under his divine teaching to be thoroughly stripped and emptied of all creature wisdom, strength, help, hope, and righteousness.

3. The glory of a Triune God must be the end and motive of all.

Any departure from these three rules of striving makes a man strive unlawfully.

Now in early days with us we are often striving after lawful objects, but our manner of striving after them is not in compliance with these three rules, and therefore we strive unlawfully. We are not stripped and laid low in a day. It is often the work of time. I can speak well from experience here. I was not stripped, nor brought down for several years after, as I trust, the Lord quickened my soul, though from the first I was led to strive more or less after lawful objects, and could not do without an internal religion. But thorough soul poverty had not laid hold of me, shame and confusion of face had not covered me. I had not then felt what a vile monster of iniquity I was, nor loathed and abhorred myself in dust and ashes. Man's utter helplessness was to me more a doctrine than a truth; I was not acquainted with the mighty overwhelming power of sin, nor had the ploughshare of temptation turned up the deep corruptions of my heart. I therefore strove unlawfully. When I fell as I fell continually, I had some secret reserve in SELF, some prayers, or repentance, or hopes, or resolutions to help me out of the ditch.

Have we not all been more or loss here? We had a 'legal spirit' influencing us, and there was a kind of dead hope that if we lived holy lives, believed the promises, looked, as we thought looking then was, to Christ, and kept perseveringly on, we would get the object of our desires. And though we never got a step forward in the matter, there was a dim struggling after progressive sanctification, and seeking the blessings of the gospel by the works of the law. Now what was the result of all this unlawful striving? Did God ever crown it with his gracious smiles and heavenly approbation? We know that he never did. When is the crown put on? "In the day of the espousals, and in the day of the gladness of the heart." So 3:11 And there can be no espousals, no manifested betrothing of the soul unto Christ in loving kindness, in mercies, in faithfulness, until we are dead to the law, our first husband. Then the crown is put upon the heart. God is a jealous God, and will not give his glory to another. Our own strivings shall never procure us the looks of his love. Now this denial of the crown to all their ardent desires and earnest strivings sadly puzzles and bewilders the seeking soul. No he is almost ready to quarrel with God, and accuse him of unfaithfulness, because he will not smile, and speak peace and pardon. Jeremiah was here, when with intemperate complaint, he cried aloud, "Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will you be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?" Jer 15:18

But we cannot learn spiritual religion, as we learn arithmetic; we cannot take the slate, and copy out the rule, and work the sum. God's teachings are of a very different nature, intended to baffle and confound all the pride and wisdom of the creature. Nor can we hasten God's work. His teachings are not hasty teachings for the most part, but line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little. I cannot stand in your experience; you cannot stand in mine. Neither of us know one jot more nor one jot less than the Holy Spirit has written upon our heart. We do not learn religion in a day. The way from Egypt to Canaan was but a few days journey, but the Lord choose to lead his people about in the wilderness, amid fiery flying serpents, drought, and famine, for forty years. And why?--but "to humble them, and test them, and know what was in their heart?" This was one part of the lesson; and the other was that "he might make them know that man does not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord." De 8:2,3 And thus we have to learn by painful experience the uselessness of all creature strivings, and to be brought down into that state where all exertions fail.



3. But we come now to the only striving which the Lord crowns--a lawful striving after lawful objects.

Of the other two kinds of striving, the first was chiefly the striving of reprobates; therefore not crowned. The second was the striving of quickened souls, but not crowned, because they strove not according to gospel rules.

But now we are dealing with characters brought down to poverty and utter insolvency, in the state described in the parable of the two servants, "when they had nothing to pay." What Deer calls "perfect poverty."

'Tis perfect poverty alone
That sets the soul at large;
While we can call one mite our own,
We have no full discharge.

To bring this about is the work of the law. The gospel does not reduce the soul to beggary. It only steps in as a friend to pay the debt when all one's own money is gone. The law draws all the money out of the pocket by crying, "Do, do," "work, work." But when all is gone, the law can do no more. The law then has done its office. The law puts a burden on, which burden is carried until the heart is brought down with labor, and the soul falls down, and there is none to help. Ps 107:12 As Paul says, "I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." By this death the soul becomes dead to the law, as Paul says again, "don't you know, brethren, (for I speak to those who know the law) how that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives." Ro 7:1 When then he dies under the law, he dies to the law, and the law ceases to have dominion over him. All strivings therefore of the elect under the law, end sooner or later in death to the law. Now I appeal to your consciences, whether God ever crowned your legal strivings. What has the law done for you? what can the law do for you, but to bring its curse in your heart, lay guilt on your conscience, and stir up slavish fear in your mind? To strive lawfully then, is not to strive after the law, but after certain rules laid down in the gospel.

Well then, they are called laws, as the Holy Spirit uses the word when he says, "I will put my laws into their hearts, and write them in their minds." Now we will begin with the first rule, which is this, that the Holy Spirit must work in us all the power, wisdom, grace, faith, strength, and life, that we strive with. This work the apostle calls a law in Ro 8:2 "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." "Whatever is not of faith is sin." "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." "The things of God knows no one but the Spirit of God." "When the Spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth." Now while striving in our own strength, the power and reality of the Spirit's teachings were little known. We could not lie passive, as helpless as the Potter's clay. All creature strength was not gone; some little reservoir was left.

The second rule of lawful striving is, that the runners in this race should have no strength. "He gives power to the faint, and to those who have no might he increases strength." "When we were without strength, Christ died for the ungodly." "Without me," said Jesus, "you can do nothing." The Lord opened his ministry with setting forth his covenant character to the poor and needy. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, to set at liberty those who are bruised." So he said, "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who mourn, for you shall be comforted."

All the blessings of the gospel are promised to the poor in spirit, the outcasts of Israel. But who makes them poor? The Lord surely, according to that word, "The Lord makes poor, and makes rich." A man may indeed after a form make himself poor by wearing rags, and assuming the garb of poverty. I have read of a man who, from some whim or kind of madness, went about the country dressed and living as a common beggar. He had abundance of property, but he chose to dress in rags, and live on alms. Such a man was not really poor, as his apparent poverty was but a mask and a cheat. So spiritually, he that makes himself poor is not one of God's poor; and he infringes just as much upon the work of the Spirit, and is as much guilty of presumption and hypocrisy, as if he made himself rich.

And a child of God who strives to make himself poor, strives unlawfully, for he acts against the rule, that all we are and have, all we know and feel aright, must be the whole and sole work of the blessed Spirit. A man who makes himself poor by throwing away external pride, and putting on external humility never passes in his soul through the feelings that God exercises his children with. The living family are stripped unwillingly; they cannot believe the Lord is leading them in the right way. Despondency, unbelief, rebellion, infidelity work up in their heart against His teaching. Their former enjoyments, and what they thought communion are taken away, and they feel as Isaiah speaks, left as "a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on a hill." Isa 30:17 The word beacon is in the margin, "a tree bereft of branches." And thus they stand bereft of all their spreading boughs of religion, a leafless trunk stripped of flowers and fruit--naked and bare.

Perhaps some of you here never were in this spot--never lost all your religion, and stood before God without a grain, like the tall, leafless, branchless tree on the top of the hill, "O no," say you, "I have been very far, but was never driven into this spot yet." Then I will tell you a secret; If you belong unto God, you have to be driven farther than you have been yet. We read Eze 17:24 that "the Lord dries up the green tree, and makes the dry tree to flourish." Then you must be dried up, for you are a green tree still, before you can flourish in the courts of the Lord. And perhaps when you get to have no religion of your own, it will be the very time for the Lord to give you some of his. We are "to buy from him gold tried in the fire."

Now if we look into the fire, where the gold was being tried, what would we see? why a crucible, that is a kind of earthen pot, with scum and dross and foam, bubbling and boiling. O where is the gold? Out of sight, at the bottom of the vessel, covered with scum and foam. So it is with the soul that is in the furnace. Faith, hope, and love, are all hidden at the bottom of the heart, and the scum and dross of unbelief, despondency, and rebellion are alone seen. But when the refiner removes the scum with his rod, then the pure gold shines forth. Now while passing through this experience, you are striving lawfully, for you are fulfilling the second rule of the Christian strife. You are a poor needy outcast, who can do nothing. You now are where Paul was, "though I be nothing." 2Co 12:11

And this enables you to comply with the third rule of lawful strife– to give God all the glory. Surely you can take no glory to self, when self has been proved, and found lacking. Then if the Lord has made you poor, in order to make you rich, naked that he may clothe you, a beggar that he may relieve you, a bankrupt that he may pay all your debts, an insolvent that he may take you out of jail with flying colors in the face of your creditors, and has brought you down to the gates of hell to lift you up to the door of heaven, then surely you must give him all the glory. He has solemnly declared that "no flesh shall glory in his presence," and "he that glories let him glory in the Lord." But what is so staggering to nature and reason is the way that he brings about this taking to himself the glory. No man in his senses would walk in this way. But God does not act according to our senses, but "according to the counsel of his own will."

Thus we never strife lawfully until we cease to strive naturally. Then the Holy Spirit begins to strive within with groanings which cannot be uttered. No pretty prayers to tickle rotten professors; no cut and dried sentences with texts nicely assorted and fitted in like the squares of a chess-board; no flowers of eloquence to please those who are all for word and hate power. But the real striving is all inward work, sighing, crying, and groaning to the Lord. "Oh!" say you, "I will tell you what I call striving. It is to go to chapel three times on the Lord's day, attend prayer meetings, pray privately seven times regularly every day." Ah, my friend, this is striving after the flesh. The only striving that God acknowledges is the striving of the Spirit and the Spirit never strives effectually, until the flesh has ceased to strive.

Now this inward striving of the Spirit are a fulfilling of the experience Paul describes. 2Co 12:9,10 "When I am weak, he says, then am I strong." Why so? Because "the strength of Christ is made perfect in weakness." Then if I am saved, I am saved as a vile wretch, a monster of iniquity, by rich, free, sovereign, distinguishing grace. Not a drop of heavenly favor can reach my heart by my own exertions. I might as well think of taking up the whole Atlantic ocean in the hollow of my hand, as bring down into my soul a drop of God's love, or a single smile of his countenance. I may sigh, cry, groan, long, and pant after the shedding abroad of his love, but I cannot bring down one grain or atom of it within. Then if felt, must not we give to God all the glory?

Now these lawful strivers after lawful objects are crowned, and they only. This CROWN is two-fold--a crown here and a crown hereafter, a crown of grace set on the heart below, and the crown of glory set on the head above. Thus Paul says, "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all those also that love his appearing." 2Ti 4:8 This crown none will have but those who have striven, striven lawfully to enter in at the strait gate, and striven successfully.

The CROWN BELOW is the crown spoken of in, Eze 16:12 "I put a beautiful crown on your head;" and which the church laments to have lost, "The crown is fallen from our head." La 5:16 This crown is put on the heart, when the Lord smiles approbation and acceptance in the Son of his love. As David speaks, Ps 103:4 "Who crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercies." Now this inward crown is never set on the heart of any but a beggar, that has been on the ash-heap. "He raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the beggar from the ash-heap, to set them among princes, and make them inherit the throne of glory." This beggar is one who is begging for a manifested interest in God's great salvation, clothed in rags and sitting in dust and ashes on the ash-heap of his own corruptions. He and he only is raised up in his soul to sit among princes, the priests and kings, the royal generation, who are invariably crowned with divine favor below, and inherit the throne of glory above.

Now of this internal crowning I believe there are different degrees. There are no degrees in glory, but there certainly are degrees of grace. There are no 'pious eminent saints' above close to the throne, while the thief on the cross and Mary Magdalene stand at the door as having been such great sinners. But below there are degrees of manifested favor; there are babes, young men, and fathers. Whenever then you have been enabled by faith to rest on Christ's blood and righteousness, whenever a drop of God's favor has flowed into your soul, whenever peace has been felt and known, and a solemn sense of God's goodness and mercy through the blood of the Lamb has been tasted; whenever in the depths of soul poverty and helplessness, help and strength have been found to cast your burden on the Lord, then and there you have been crowned as a lawful striver.

O, say some, "We must have full assurance, and there is no faith without it." I believe that all true faith has a measure of assurance in it, but who can say how full it shall be. The leper who merely cried, "If you will, you can make me clean," had faith, and so had the woman who pressed through the throng to touch Jesus' garment, and so had the Canaanitish woman who sought but for a crumb from the children's table. This was a venturing faith, a faith of necessity, a faith working up and out of trials and burdens.

This faith the Lord crowns as his own work, for he never crowns anything else. He crowns not our strivings but his own, not our work but the work of Jesus Christ. Have you then never felt a little of this soul melting work? "Aye," say you, "but it did not last long, and has been but rarely felt." But where is it said how long it is to last, or how often to be felt? To have had the crown on but once, and that but for a few moments, is to have been crowned. You complain that you have lost these sweet feelings. But how could you have lost what you never had? You are saying, "the crown has fallen from my head." Then it must have been there. And I will tell you another thing, that if the crown was ever set on your heart, the rim of it has left its mark behind, and upon that spot where it has left its impression, you are longing to have it again set on.

See then to it that you are striving lawfully. Have you run yourself out of breath yet? are your arms withered, your legs and back broken? Then will the Lord himself bear you, as on eagles' wings, to the end of the race, and lay you at the feet of the Judge, where you will learn that "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong," but that "God has mercy upon whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardens."

HEAVENLY GIFTS TO VICTORIOUS SAINTS

Preached at Eden Street Chapel, London, on August 30, 1846, by J. C. Philpot

"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it."
(Revelation 2:17)

I do not know a more striking or more deeply important portion of God's Word than that which is contained in the first three chapters of the Book of Revelation. What a solemn vision was John favored with, when the Lord of life and glory appeared unto him in the manner described in the first chapter! "And standing in the middle of the lampstands was the Son of Man. He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow (evidencing his eternity). And his eyes were bright like flames of fire (to show how he looks into the heart, and searches the thoughts). His feet were as bright as bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice thundered like mighty ocean waves. He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came from his mouth. And his face was as bright as the sun in all its brilliance." Rev. 1:13-16

Though John was the beloved disciple, and had even lain in the Lord's bosom while upon earth, yet this glorious vision took such an effect upon him, that he "fell at his feet as dead." This vision was preparatory to the messages which the Lord gave him to the seven churches of Asia Minor. It is worthy of remark, that in every message there are three things repeated to each church. To all of them the Lord says, "l know your works;" to all of them he declares, "He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches;" and to all of them a promise is made, though to each of a different nature, "to him who overcomes."

What do we learn from these three features which are thus stamped upon every message to the churches? We learn, first, that the Redeemer looks into all hearts, and searches all thoughts. We learn, secondly, the deep importance of the message he delivers; and yet that none will hear and attend to it, but those to whom the Lord has given an ear to hear. And we learn, thirdly, what sweet promises the Lord gives to him who overcomes in the spiritual conflict.

I shall this evening, with God's blessing, dwell chiefly upon two features which strike my mind as flowing out of the words before us; and shall endeavor to describe, in the first place, the CHARACTER pointed out under the words "him who overcomes;" and in the second place, as the Lord may enable, to enter more fully into the PROMISE which the Lord gives to him who overcomes, containing three distinct blessings–

1. that he shall "eat of the hidden manna;"

2. that the Lord "will give him a white stone;" and

3. "on the stone a new name written, which no man knows but he that receives it."

The Lord's purpose and object in his dealings with the souls of his people is, to glorify himself. The glory of God must ever be the end of all his works; the glory of man therefore must give way. The glory of God and the glory of man can never stand upon the same pedestal. Man therefore must sink, and be reduced to a sense of his real state and character, that the glory of a Three-One God may shine forth brightly and conspicuously.

I. The Lord in the text speaks of THE CHARACTER THAT BEARS THIS DESIGNATION--"he who overcomes." The promise is therefore limited to that character; it is his alone; and in his case alone will the Lord fulfill it to the uttermost.

But who is this character? Where shall we find the man to whom this promise is made--"him who overcomes?" Let us see if we can find such a one. When the Lord is first pleased to begin a work of grace upon the soul, he convinces a man of his lost state by nature. He sets before him eternal life as an object to be obtained--and without which, he convinces him, he must be of all men the most miserable here, and the most miserable hereafter. But in early days, the veil of ignorance remaining much upon the heart, having imbibed many superstitions and ignorant ideas from our very cradles, and not being illuminated by the Spirit's teaching, to know Jesus to be "the way, the truth, and the life," we make many efforts to win the prize by nature's strength, and to reach the goal by creature righteousness.

Now the Lord's purpose is to make us "overcome;" for the promise is only "to him who overcomes." But he purposes to make us "overcome" in His strength alone, and not in our own--and this for the most part we learn very slowly. We set before us the commandments; and we think if we keep them diligently, we shall at last obtain God's favor, and arrive safely in heaven. But as in this obedience we continually fail, yet not knowing the strictness of God's commandments, the spirituality of the law, nor the breadth of the precept, we think the fault must surely be in ourselves--that we have not watched enough, nor kept a sufficient look-out upon the avenues of our heart, nor done what we really might have done.

Not knowing at this time that the inherent depravity of man is such that he never can keep God's law; not knowing that the Lord intends by these means to teach us our weakness, like a person who falls down, we get up again, and try to run the race anew. But to our surprise we find ourselves continually defeated; that we cannot be what we would. We would be righteous--we would be holy; we would not sin--we would watch our eyes, our ears, our hearts; we would not break out on the right hand, we would not break out on the left. The Lord may allow us for a season to go on in these labor-in-vain paths; but after a time there shall be some outbreak; some temptation may take us unawares, which is so sweet and suitable, that we are entangled in a moment, and down goes all our strength; our resolutions for the future are broken in an instant; and we slowly begin to learn how very weak we are against any one temptation.

But again. We are not at first fully alive to the breadth and spirituality of God's law. But as the Lord begins to show us more and more clearly what we are, makes us to feel more and more our helplessness and weakness against temptation, he also unfolds more and more clearly the breadth and spirituality of his law--he shows how it reaches to the very thoughts and intents of the heart; and not only so, but that it is connected with a curse to every soul which is found under it, and that it genders to bondage.

Who would think that this is the way to "overcome"? When a man is continually being overcome; when sometimes his lusts surprise him; sometimes despair overtakes him; sometimes pride breaks forth; sometimes covetousness and carnality manifest themselves; sometimes one evil displays itself, at other times another, and anon a third monster lifts up its hateful head--who would think that this is the man who is to gain the victory, when he is so continually vanquished and so perpetually defeated?

But there is one portion in God's word which shows us wherein the secret of their overcoming lies--"And they overcame"--How? By their own strength? by their own wisdom? by their own righteousness? by their own resolutions? No. "They overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of his testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death." So that when a poor sinner, feeling deeply and daily that he has nothing but sin and has entirely given up all hopes whatever of being any better, sinks down at the footstool of mercy as a lost, guilty, condemned wretch; if indulged then with a glimpse of "the blood of the Lamb," which speaks pardon and peace to the guilty conscience, and the "word of God's testimony" comes into his heart with divine power, then he "overcomes," not by his own strength, his own wisdom, or his own righteousness, but by the blood of the Lamb being applied to his conscience, and by the word of God's testimony being applied with divine power to his heart. This is the only way to "overcome."

1. But if we are to "overcome," we must have enemies. Among these the things of time and sense will be one. How many of God's family find the world to be continually entangling them, sometimes with its cares and anxieties, sometimes with its vain company and its pleasures, falsely so called, for really there is no pleasure in them. Thus they are drawn aside by a multitude of vain things that only leave sorrow and vexation behind them. How then are they to overcome the WORLD? Only by faith in the blood of the Lamb; as we read, "Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" 1Jo 5:5 "And this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith." When the Lamb of God is pleased to manifest himself to the conscience of the sinner, and to raise up in his heart living faith whereby he is looked unto and embraced, this faith will give him the victory over the world which he never could obtain by any strength or resolutions of his own.

2. Again, there is a whole army of DOUBTS AND FEARS rising up against God's family; a whole array of apprehensions whether the work of grace is begun upon their heart; a whole host of alarms whether they are anything more than hypocrites. And this company of doubts and fears wars against every testimony that God has dropped into their soul. How, then, are they to "overcome" this company of doubts and fears? By arguing against them? Satan laughs at their arguments. By trying to persuade themselves they are children of God? Satan is a better logician than they; he can soon pour contempt upon all their attempts to persuade themselves they are interested in atoning blood and dying love. But when "the blood of the Lamb" is applied to their conscience, and the "word of God's testimony" is spoken by God's own lips to their heart, realizing to them, that they are interested in his eternal favor--then they overcome this company of doubts and fears; not by any arguments they bring from nature or reason, but by the sweet unctuous teachings of the Spirit in the court of conscience, and by that blood of sprinkling "which speaks better things than the blood of Abel."

3. SIN, again, is an enemy. How many of the Lord's people are continually under bondage to evil! What power the lusts of the flesh have over some! How perpetually they are entangled with everything sensual and carnal! What power the pride of the heart has over another! and what strength covetousness exercises over a third! What power the love of the world and the things of time and sense exercise over a fourth! How then are they to overcome sin? By making resolutions? by endeavoring to overcome it in their own strength? No; sin will always break through man's strength; it will ever be stronger than any resolution we can make not to be overcome by it.

But when the blood of the Lamb is applied to the sinner's conscience, and the word of God's testimony comes with power into his soul, it gives him the victory over those lusts with which he was before entangled, it brings him out of the world that had so allured him, and breaks to pieces the dominion of sin under which he had been so long laboring. "Sin shall not have dominion over you; for you are not under the law, but under grace" Ro 6:14

"To him who overcomes." A man must be overcome, then, in this battle before he can shout victory; and therefore the Lord allows his people to be so long and often entangled, perplexed, exercised, and distressed, that they may learn this secret, which is hidden from all but God's living family--that the strength of Christ is made perfect in their weakness. Have not some of you had to learn this lesson very painfully? There was a time when you thought you would get better and better, holier and holier; that you would not only not walk in open sin as before, but would not be entangled by temptation, overcome by besetting lusts, or cast down by hidden snares. There was a time when you thought you were going forward, attaining some more strength, some better wisdom than you believed you once possessed. How has it been with you? Have these expectations ever been realized? Have you ever attained these fond hopes? Has sin become weaker? Has the world become less alluring? Have your lusts become tamer? Has your temper become milder? Have the corruptions of your heart become feebler and feebler? No!

If I can read the heart of some poor tried, tempted soul here present, he would say, "No; to my shame and sorrow be it spoken, I find on the contrary that sin is stronger and stronger, that the evils of my heart are more and more powerful than ever I knew them in my life; and as to my own endeavors to overcome them, I find indeed that they are fainter and fainter, and weaker and weaker. This it is," says the soul, "that casts me down. If I could have more strength against sin; if I could stand more boldly against Satan; if I could overcome my besetting lusts; live more to God's glory, and be holier and holier, then, then," says some poor distressed child of God, "I could have some comfort; but to feel myself so continually baffled, so perpetually disconcerted, so incessantly cast down by the workings of my corrupt nature, it is this, it is this that cuts so keenly; it is this, it is this that tries me so deeply."

My friend, you are on the high road to victory. This is the very way by which you are to overcome.

If you, on the other hand, were sailing upon this tack--getting better and better, sin weaker and weaker, and your heart holier and holier, by and by you would look forward to a complete victory. But depend upon it, you would be then sailing upon the wrong tack altogether. But, on the other hand, when you feel weaker and weaker, poorer and poorer, guiltier and guiltier, viler and viler, so that really through painful experience you are compelled to call yourself, not in the language of mock humility, but in the language of self-abhorrence, the chief of sinners, then you are on the high road to victory. Thus when the Lord is pleased to bring a sense of his atoning blood with power into his conscience, and to speak a word with his own lips to the poor child of God, then he overcomes, not by his own strength, his own wisdom, or his own righteousness, but by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of his testimony, revealed to his heart by the power of God himself. Be certain, if we overcome in any way but this, we do not overcome so as to gain a real and spiritual victory.

II. Now to such the Lord gives three distinct SPECIAL PROMISES. "To him who overcomes will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no man knows but he that receives it."

1. The first promise is, "I will give to him to eat of the hidden manna." What is this hidden manna? Is it not God's word applied with power to the heart? What says Jeremiah? "Your words were found, and I did eat them; and your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart" Jer 15:16 When the Lord is pleased to drop a word into the heart from his own lips; to apply some promise; to open up some precious portion of his word; to whisper softly some blessed Scripture into the heart--is not this manna? Whence did the manna flow? Was it cultivated by the hand of man? Was it gathered, as infidels tell us, from the ash trees that grew in the wilderness? No; it fell from heaven. And is not this true of the word of the Lord applied with power to the heart? It is not our searching the Scriptures, though it is good to search the Scriptures; it is not our comparing passage with passage; but it is the Lord himself being pleased to apply some precious portion of truth to our hearts; and when this takes place, it is "manna;" it is sweet, refreshing, strengthening, comforting, encouraging--yes, it is angels' food; the very flesh and blood of the Lamb with which the Lord is pleased from time to time to feed and favor hungry souls.

But, in the text it is called "hidden." Why "hidden"? Because hidden from the eves of the wise and prudent, as the Lord says, "I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes; even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight." Lu 10:21 Hidden from the eyes of self-righteous pharisees; hidden from those that fight in their own strength, and seek to gain the victory by their own brawny arm; hidden from all but God's tried and tempted family; hidden from all but those who know the plague of their own hearts; hidden from all but those who have learned the secret of overcoming by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of his testimony.

Say, that you have been entangled in some snare; say, you have been cast down by some of Satan's temptations; was there not some hidden manna for you? Did not the Lord apply some portion of his word to your heart with sweetness? There was conviction indeed, cutting conviction; there was guilt, deep, black guilt; there was shame, for you were covered with it; there was confusion, for your heart could say, "I am full of confusion." But was there not some sweet promise? Was there not a portion of Scripture opened up with divine power to your soul? Was there not some testimony of the Spirit of God to your spirit that you were one of his people? Was there no word, like hidden manna, dropped with power and sweetness into your heart?

There was no manna, and never will be, while guilt remains upon the conscience, while sin has dominion, while we are entangled in and cast down by Satan's snares, while we are overcome with the lusts of the flesh, while pride and covetousness and every evil bear the sway.

But when the Lord leads us into this path--to sink down into weakness, and in weakness to find his strength made perfect; to fall down all guilt, and then to feel the application of atoning blood; to tremble under the weight of doubts and fears, and then to have the precious word of his testimony dropped into the heart--this is manna. The children of Israel had to endure hunger in the wilderness before manna fell; and thus the Lord's people learn the value of the hidden manna, the sweet communications from above, by hungering and thirsting in a waste howling wilderness.

But there is something more implied by the word "manna" than this. The Lord Jesus Christ himself tells us that he is "the true bread that came from heaven;" and that the manna represented his f