Coming Events and Present Duties
Being Plain Papers on Prophecy

J.C. Ryle, 1879
 

WATCH!

"At that time the kingdom of Heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

At midnight the cry rang out: 'Here's the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!'

Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.'

'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.'

But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

Later the others also came. 'Sir! Sir!' they said. 'Open the door for us!'

But he replied, 'I tell you the truth, I don't know you.'

Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour!" Matthew 25:1-13
 

The passage of Scripture before our eyes, is one that deserves the close attention of all professing Christians. We ought to read it again and again, until we are thoroughly familiar with every sentence that it contains. It is a passage that concerns us all, whether ministers or people, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, old or young. It is a passage that can never be known too well.

These thirteen verses make up one of the most solemn parables that our Lord Christ ever spoke; partly because of the time at which it was spoken, partly because of the matter which it contains.

As to the time - it was but a few days before our Lord's crucifixion. It was spoken within view of Gethsemane and Calvary, of the cross and the grave.

As to the matter - it stands as a beacon to the Church of Christ in all ages. It is a witness against carelessness and slothfulness - against apathy and indifference about religion - and a witness of no uncertain sound. It cries to thoughtless sinners, "Awake!" It cries to true servants of Christ, "Watch!"

There are many trains of thought which this parable opens up, that I must of necessity leave alone. It would be foreign to my purpose to follow them out. I do not sit down to compose a learned commentary - but to write a simple practical address. I shall only clear my way by explaining two things, which otherwise might not be understood. And when I have done that, I shall keep to those main truths which it is most useful for us to know.

The marriage customs of the country where the parable was spoken, call for a few words of explanation. Marriages there generally took place in the evening. The bridegroom and his friends came in procession to the bride's house after nightfall. The young women who were the bride's friends were all assembled there, waiting for him. As soon as the lamps and torches, carried by the bridegroom's party, were seen coming in the distance - these young women lighted their lamps, and went forth to meet him. Then, having formed one united party, they all returned together to the bride's home. As soon as they arrived there, they entered in, the doors were shut, the marriage ceremony went forward, and no one else was admitted. All these were familiar things to those who heard the Lord Jesus speak; and it is right and proper that you should have them in your mind's eye while you read this parable.

The figures and emblems used in the parable also call for some explanation. I will give you my own view of their meaning. I may be wrong. I freely admit that they are not always interpreted exactly in the same way. But you have a right to have my opinion, and I will give it you shortly and decidedly.

I believe the parable to be a prophecy all the way through.

I believe the time spoken of in the parable, is the time when Christ shall return in person to this world, and a time yet to come. The very first word, the word "then," compared with the end of the twenty-fourth chapter, appears to me to settle that question.

I believe the ten virgins carrying lamps represent the whole body of professing Christians - the visible Church of Christ.

I believe the Bridegroom represents our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

I take the wise virgins to be the true believers, the real disciples of Christ, the converted part of the visible Church.

I take the foolish virgins to be the mere nominal Christians, the unconverted, the whole company of those who have no vital godliness.

I take the lamps, which all alike carried, to be that mere outward profession of Christianity which everyone possesses, who has been baptized and has never formally renounced his baptism.

I take the oil, which some virgins had with their lamps, and others had not, to be the grace of the Holy Spirit - that "unction of the Holy One" which is the mark of all true Christians.

I consider the coming of the Bridegroom to mean the second personal coming or advent of the Lord Christ, when He shall return in the clouds with glory.

I consider the going into the wedding banquet by the wise virgins, to mean the believer's entrance into his full reward in the day of Christ's appearing.

I consider the shutting out of the foolish virgins, to mean the exclusion from Christ's kingdom and glory of every soul whom He shall find unconverted at His second advent.

I offer these short explanations to your attention. I am not going to enter into any unprofitable discussion about them. And without saying another word in the way of preface, I will at once go on to point out the great practical lessons which the parable of the ten virgins is meant to teach us.

I. Learn, first of all, that the visible Church of Christ will always be a mixed body until Christ comes again.

II. Learn, secondly, that the visible Church is always in danger of neglecting the doctrine of Christ's second advent.

III. Learn, thirdly, that whenever Christ does come again, it will be a very sudden event.

IV. Learn, fourthly, that Christ's second advent will make an immense change to all the members of the visible Church, both good and bad.

Reader, let me try to set each of these four truths plainly before you. If I can bring you, by God's help, to see their vast importance, I believe I shall have done your soul an essential service.
 

I. Learn, first of all, that the visible Church of Christ will always be a mixed body, until Christ comes again.

I can gather no other meaning from the beginning of the parable we are now considering. I there see wise and foolish virgins mingled together in one company - virgins with oil, and virgins with no oil, all side by side. And I see this state of things going on until the very moment the Bridegroom appears. I see all this, and I cannot avoid the conclusion that the visible Church will always be a mixed body until Jesus comes again. Its members will never be all unbelievers - Christ will always have His witnesses. Its members will never be all believers - there will always be a vast proportion of formality, unbelief, hypocrisy, and false profession.

I frankly say, that I can find no standing ground for the common opinion that the visible Church will gradually advance to a state of perfection - that it will become better and better, holier and holier, up to the very end - and that little by little the whole body shall become full of light. I see no warrant of Scripture for believing that sin will gradually dwindle away in the earth, consume, melt, and disappear by inches, like the last snow-drift in spring. Nor yet do I see warrant for believing that holiness will gradually increase, like the banyan tree of the East, until it blossoms, blooms, and fills the face of the world with fruit. I know that thousands think in this way. All I say is, that I cannot see it in God's Word.

I fully admit that the Gospel appears sometimes to make rapid progress in some countries; but that it ever does more than call out an elect people - I utterly deny. It never did more in the days of the Apostles. Out of all the cities that Paul visited, there is not the slightest proof that in any one city - the whole population became believers. It never has done more in any country, from the time of the Apostle down to the present day. There never yet was a parish or congregation in any part of the world - however favored in the ministry it enjoyed - there never was one, I believe, in which all the people were converted. At all events, I never read or heard of it - and my belief is the thing never has been, and never will. I believe that now is the time of election, not of universal conversion. Now is the time for the gathering out of Christ's little flock. The time of general obedience is yet to come.

I fully admit that missions are doing a great work among the heathen, and that schools and district-visiting are rescuing thousands from the devil at home. I do not undervalue these things. I would to God that all professing Christians would value them more. But men appear to me to forget that Gospel religion is often withering in one place - while it is flourishing in another. They look at the progress of Christianity in the West of Europe. They forget how fearfully it has lost ground in the East. They point to the little flood-tide of India. They forget the tremendous ebb in Africa and Asia Minor.

And as for any signs that all the ends of the earth shall turn to the Lord, under the present order of things - there are none. God's work is going forward, as it always has done. The Gospel is being preached, for a witness to every quarter of the globe. The elect are being brought to Christ one by one, and there is everything to encourage us to persevere. But more than this, no missionary can report in any station in the world.

I long for the conversion of all mankind as much as anyone. But I believe it is utterly beyond the reach of any instrumentality that man possesses. I quite expect that the earth will one day be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. But I believe that day will be in an entirely new dispensation - it will not be until after the Lord's return. I would not hesitate to preach the Gospel, and offer Christ's salvation to every man and woman alive; but that there always will be a vast amount of unbelief and wickedness until the second advent, I am fully persuaded.

The Gospel-net may perhaps be spread far more widely than it has been hitherto - but the angels shall find abundance of bad fish in it as well as good fish, in the last day. The Gospel laborers may possibly be multiplied a thousand-fold, and I pray God it may be so; but however faithfully they may sow - a large proportion of tares will be found growing together with the wheat, at the time of harvest.

Reader, how is it with your own soul? Remember, that until the Lord Jesus Christ comes again, there always will be both wise and foolish in the Church. Now, which are you?

The wise are they who have that wisdom which the Holy Spirit alone can give. They know their own sinfulness. They know Christ as their own precious Savior. They know how to walk and please God, and they act upon their knowledge. They look on life as a season of preparation for eternity:
not as an end - but as a way;
not as a harbor - but as a voyage;
not as a home - but as a journey;
not as their mature age - but their time of schooling.

Happy are they who know these things! The world may despise them - but they are the wise.

The foolish are they who are without spiritual knowledge. They neither know God, nor Christ, nor sin, nor their own hearts, nor the world, nor Heaven, nor Hell, nor the value of their souls - as they ought! There is no folly like this. To expect wages after doing no work - or prosperity after taking no pains - or learning after neglecting books - this is rank folly! But to expect Heaven without faith in Christ - or the kingdom of God without being born again - or the crown of glory without the cross and a holy walk - all this is greater folly still, and yet more common. Alas! for the folly of the world!

Reader, until the Lord Jesus Christ comes, there always will be some who have grace, and some who have not grace - in the visible Church. Now which are you? How is it with your own soul?

Some have nothing but the name of Christian - others have the reality. Some have only the outward profession of religion - others have the possession also. Some are content if they belong to the Church - others are never content, unless they are also united by faith to Christ. Some are satisfied if they have only the baptism of water - others are never satisfied unless they also feel within the baptism of the Spirit, and the sprinkling of the blood of atonement. Some stop short in the form of Christianity - others never rest until they have also the substance.

Reader, the visible Church of Christ is made up of these two classes. There always have been such. There always will be such until the end. There must, no doubt, be borderers and waverers - whom man's eye cannot make out, though God's eye can. But gracious and graceless, wise and foolish - make up the whole visible Church of Christ.

You yourself are described and written down in this parable. You are either one of the wise virgins - or one of the foolish virgins. You have either got the oil of grace - or you have got none. You are either a member of Christ - or a child of the devil. You are either traveling towards Heaven - or towards Hell. Never for a moment forget this. This is the point that concerns your eternal soul. Whatever your opinion may be on other points - this is the one that you should never lose sight of. Let not the devil divert your attention from it. Say to yourself, as you read this parable, "I am spoken of here!"
 

II. Learn, secondly, that the visible Church is always in danger of neglecting the doctrine of Christ's second advent.

I draw this truth from that solemn verse in the parable, "While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept." I am quite aware that many good men explain these words in a different way. But I dare not call any man master. I feel that I am set for the proclamation of that which my own conscience tells me is true, and I cannot be bound by the opinions of others. There are such things as erroneous interpretations received by tradition, as well as false doctrines received by tradition - and against both I think we ought to be on our guard.

I do not believe that the words, "they all slumbered and slept," mean the death of all, though many think so. To my mind such an interpretation is contrary to plain facts. All the professing Church will not be sleeping the sleep of death, when Jesus comes again. Paul himself says in one place, "We shall not all sleep - but we shall all be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:51) - and in another place, "We who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air." (1 Thessalonians 4:17) Now the interpretation of which I speak, involves a most awkward contradiction to these two plain texts.

I do not believe that the words were meant to teach us that the whole professing Church will get into a slumbering and sleeping state of soul, though many think so. I would not be misunderstood in saying this. I do not for a moment deny that the love of even the brightest Christians is very cold - and that neither their faith nor works are what they ought to be. All I mean to say is, that this is not the truth which appears to me to be taught here. Such a view of the text seems to me to wipe away that broad line of distinction between believers and unbelievers, which, with all the short-comings of believers, undoubtedly does exist.

Sleep is one of those very emblems which the Spirit has chosen to represent the state of the unconverted man. "Awake, you that sleep," He says, "and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light" (Ephesians 5:14.)

But what does the verse mean? I believe that the words "all slumbered and slept," are to be interpreted with a special regard to the great event on which the whole parable hinges - even the second advent of Christ. And I believe our Lord's meaning was simply this, that during the interval between His first and second advent, the whole Church, both believers and unbelievers, would get into a dull and dim-sighted state of soul about the blessed doctrine of His own personal return to earth.

And, reader, I say deliberately, that so far as my own judgment goes, there never was a saying of our Lord's more thoroughly verified by the event. I say that of all doctrines of the Gospel, the one about which Christians have become most unlike the first Christians, in their sense of its true value - is the doctrine of Christ's second advent. I am obliged to say this of all denominations of Protestants. I know not of any exception.

In our view of man's corruption, of justification by faith, of our need of the sanctifying work of the Spirit, of the sufficiency of Scripture - upon these points I believe we would find that English believers were much of one mind with believers at Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, or Rome, in former times. But in our view of the second advent of Christ, I fear we would find there was a mighty difference between us and them, if our experience could be compared. I am afraid we would find that we fall woefully short of them in our estimate of its importance; that in our system of doctrine, it is a star of the fifteenth magnitude, while in their's it was one of the first. In one word, we would discover, that compared to them in this matter - we slumber and sleep.

I must speak my mind on this subject, now that I am upon it. I do so most unwillingly. I do so at the risk of giving offence, and of rubbing against the prejudices of many whom I love. But it is a cross I feel it a duty to take up. And speak I must.

I submit, then, that in the matter of Christ's second coming and kingdom, the Church of Christ has not dealt fairly with the prophecies of the Old Testament. We have gone on far too long refusing to see that there are two personal advents of Christ spoken of in those prophecies:
an advent in humiliation - and an advent in glory;
an advent to suffer - and an advent to reign;
a personal advent to carry the cross - and a personal advent to wear the crown.

We have been "slow of heart to believe ALL that the Prophets have written." (Luke 24:25.) The Apostles went into one extreme - they stumbled at Christ's sufferings. We have gone into the other extreme - we have stumbled at Christ's glory. We have got into a confused habit of speaking of the kingdom of Christ as already set up among us, and have shut our eyes to the fact that the devil is still prince of this world, and served by the vast majority; and that our Lord, like David in Adullam, though anointed - is not yet set upon His throne.

We have got into a wicked habit of taking all the promises spiritually - and all the denunciations and threats literally! The denunciations against Babylon, and Nineveh, and Edom, and Tyre, and Egypt, and the rebellious Jews, we have been content to take literally and hand over to our neighbors. The blessings and promises of glory to Zion, Jerusalem, Jacob, and Israel - we have taken spiritually, and comfortably applied them to ourselves and the Church of Christ. To bring forward proofs of this, would be waste of time. No man can hear many sermons, and read many commentaries, without being aware that it is a fact.

Now I believe this to have been an unfair system of interpreting Scripture. I hold that the first and primary sense of every Old Testament promise as well as threat, is the literal one - and that Jacob means Jacob, Jerusalem means Jerusalem, Zion means Zion, and Israel means Israel - as much as Egypt means Egypt, and Babylon means Babylon. That primary sense, I believe, we have sadly lost sight of. We have adapted and accommodated to the Church of Christ - the promises that were spoken by God to Israel and Zion. I do not mean to say that this accommodation is in no sense allowable. But I do mean to say that the primary sense of every prophecy and promise in Old Testament prophecy - was intended to have a literal fulfillment, and that this literal fulfillment has been far too much put aside and thrust into a corner. And by so doing, I think we have exactly fulfilled our Lord's words in the parable of the ten virgins - we have proved that we are slumbering and sleeping about the second advent of Christ!

But I submit further, that in the interpretation of the New Testament, the Church of Christ has dealt almost as unfairly with our Lord's second advent, as she has done in the interpretation of the Old. Men have got into the habit of putting a strange sense upon many of those passages which speak of "the coming of the Son of Man," or of the Lord's "appearing." And this habit has been far too readily submitted to.

Some tell us that the coming of the Son of Man often means death. No one can read the thousands of epitaphs in churchyards, in which some text about the coming of Christ is thrust in, and not perceive how widespread this view is.

Some tell us that our Lord's coming means the destruction of Jerusalem. This is a very common way of interpreting the expression. Many find the literal Jerusalem everywhere in New Testament prophecies - though, oddly enough, they refuse to see it in the Old Testament prophecies, and, like Aaron's rod, they make it swallow up everything else.

Some tell us that our Lord's coming means the general judgment, and the end of all things. This is their one answer to all inquiries about things to come.

Now I believe that all these interpretations are entirely beside the mark. I have not the least desire to underrate the importance of such subjects as death and judgment. I willingly concede that the destruction of Jerusalem is typical of many things connected with our Lord's second advent, and is spoken of in chapters where that mighty event is foretold. But I must express my own firm belief that the coming of Christ is one distinct thing - and that death, judgment, and the destruction of Jerusalem - are three other distinct things. And the wide acceptance which these strange interpretations have met with, I hold to be one more proof that in the matter of Christ's second advent the Church has long slumbered and slept.

The plain truth of Scripture I believe to be as follows. When the number of the elect is accomplished, Christ will come again to this world with power and great glory. He will raise His saints, and gather them to Himself. He will punish with fearful judgments all who are found His enemies, and reward with glorious rewards all His believing people. He will take to Himself His great power, and reign, and establish an universal kingdom. He will gather the scattered tribes of Israel, and place them once more in their own land. As He came the first time in person - so He will come the second time in person. As He went away from earth visibly - so He will return visibly. As He literally rode upon a donkey - was literally sold for thirty pieces of silver - had His hands and feet literally pierced - was numbered literally with the transgressors - and had lots literally cast upon His raiment - and all that Scripture might be fulfilled; so also will He literally come, literally set up a kingdom, and literally reign over the earth, because the very same Scripture has said it shall be so.

The words of the angels, in the first of Acts, are plain and unmistakable: "This same Jesus who is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go into Heaven." (Acts 1:11.) So also the words of the Apostle Peter: "The times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ, who before was preached unto you - whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began." (Acts 3:19-21.) So also the words of the Psalmist: "When the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory." (Psalm 102:16.) So also the words of Zechariah: "The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with you." (Zech. 14:5.) So also the words of Isaiah: "The Lord Almighty shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients gloriously." (Isaiah. 24:23.) So also the words of Jeremiah: "I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, says the Lord, and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it." "I will bring again the captivity of Jacob's tents, and have mercy on his dwelling-place; and the city shall be built on her own heap." (Jeremiah 30:3, 18.) So also the words of Daniel: "Behold one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of Heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away; and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." (Daniel 7. 13, 14.) All these texts are to my mind plain prophecies of Christ's second coming and kingdom. All are yet without their accomplishment - and all shall yet be literally and exactly fulfilled.

I say "literally and exactly fulfilled," and I say so advisedly. From the first day that I began to read the Bible with my heart, I have never been able to see these texts, and hundreds like them, in any other light. It always seemed to me that as we take literally the texts foretelling that the walls of Babylon shall be cast down - so we ought to take literally the texts foretelling that the walls of Zion shall be built up; that as according to prophecy the Jews were literally scattered - so according to prophecy the Jews will be literally gathered; and that as the least and minutest predictions were made good on the subject of our Lord's coming to suffer - so the minutest predictions shall be made good which describe our Lord's coming to reign.

And I have long felt that it is one of the greatest shortcomings of the Church of Christ, that we ministers do not preach enough about this advent of Christ, and that private believers do not think enough about it. A few of us here and there receive the doctrine, and profess to love it; but the number of such people is comparatively very small. And, after all, we none of us live on it, feed on it, act on it, work from it, take comfort in it - as much as God intended us to do. In short, the Bridegroom tarries - and we all slumber and sleep!

It proves nothing against the doctrine of Christ's second coming and kingdom, that it has sometimes been fearfully abused. I would like to know what doctrine of the Gospel has not been abused. Salvation by grace, has been made a pretext for licentiousness; election, has been made an excuse for all manner of unclean living; and justification by faith, has been made a warrant for Antinomianism. But if men will draw wrong conclusions - we are not therefore obliged to throw aside good principles. We do not give up the Gospel because of the outrageous conduct of the Anabaptists of Munster, or the extravagant assertions of Saltmarsh and William Huntingdon, or the strange proceedings of Jumpers and Shakers. And where is the fairness of telling us that we ought to reject the second advent of Christ, because there are Irvingites and Millerites in our own time. Alas, men must be hard pressed for an argument, when they have no better reasons than this!

It proves nothing against the second advent of Christ, that those who hold the doctrine differ among themselves on many particular points in prophecy. Such differences need never stumble anyone who recollects that unity on great points - is perfectly consistent with disagreement on small ones. Luther and Zwingli differed widely in their views of the Lord's Supper: yet who would think of saying that therefore Protestantism is all false? Fletcher and Toplady were both clergymen in the Church of England - but differed widely about Calvinism: yet where would be the sense of saying that all Evangelical religion was therefore untrue? In common fairness, this ought to be remembered when people talk of the differences among those who study prophecy. It is possible for men to differ much as to the meaning they place on the symbols in the book of Revelation, and yet on the matter of Christ's coming and kingdom they may be entirely and substantially agreed.

It proves nothing against the doctrine that it is encompassed with many difficulties. This I fully concede. The order of events connected with our Lord's coming, and the manner of His kingdom when it is set up - are both deep subjects, and hard to be understood. But I firmly believe that the difficulties connected with any other system of interpreting unfulfilled prophecy, are just twice as many as those which are said to stand in our way. I believe too that the difficulties connected with our Lord's second coming, are not half so many as those connected with His first coming, and that it was a far more improbable thing, that the Son of God should come to suffer, than it is that He should come to reign. And, after all, what have we to do with the "how," and "in what manner" prophecies are to be fulfilled? Is our miserable understanding of what is possible, to be the measure and limit of God's dealings? The only question we have to do with is, "Has God said a thing?" If He has, we ought not to doubt it shall be done.

For myself, I can only give my own individual testimony; but the little I know experimentally of the doctrine of Christ's second coming, makes me regard it as most practical and precious, and makes me long to see it more generally received.

I find Christ's second coming to be a powerful spring and stimulus to holy living - a motive for patience, for moderation, for spiritual-mindedness - a test for the employment of time, and a gauge for all my actions: "Would I like my Lord to find me in this place? Would I like Him to find me so doing?"

I find Christ's second coming to be the strongest argument for missionary work. The time is short. The Lord is at hand. The gathering out from all nations will soon be accomplished. The heralds and forerunners of the King will soon have proclaimed the Gospel in every nation. The night is far spent. The King will soon be here!

I find Christ's second coming to be the best answer to the infidel. He sneers at our churches and chapels, at our sermons and services, at our tracts and our schools. He points to the millions who care nothing for Christianity, after 1800 years of preaching. He asks me how I can account for it - if Christianity be true? I answer: It was never said that all the world would believe, and serve Christ under the present dispensation. I tell him the state of things he ridicules was actually foreseen, and the number of true Christians, it was predicted, would be few. But I tell him that Christ's kingdom is yet to come; and that though we see not yet all things put under Him, they will be so one day.

I find Christ's second coming to be the best argument with the Jew. If I do not take all the prophecy of Isaiah literally, I know not how I can persuade him that the fifty-third chapter is literally fulfilled. But if I do, I have a resting-place for my lever, which I know he cannot shake. How men can expect the Jews to see a Messiah coming to suffer in Old Testament prophecies, if they do not themselves see in them a Messiah coming to reign - is past my understanding.

And now, is there any one among the readers of this address who cannot receive the doctrine of Christ's second advent and kingdom? I invite that man to consider the subject calmly and dispassionately. Dismiss from your mind traditional interpretations. Separate the doctrine from the mistakes and blunders of many who hold it. Do not reject the foundation - because of the wood, hay, and stubble which some have built upon it. Do not condemn it and cast it aside - because of injudicious friends. Only examine the texts which speak of it, as calmly and fairly as you weigh texts in the Romish, Arian, or Socinian controversies - and I am hopeful as to the result on your mind. Alas, if texts of Scripture were always treated as unceremoniously as I have known texts to be treated by those who dislike the doctrine of Christ's second advent, I would indeed tremble for the cause of truth!

Is there any one among the readers of this address who agrees with the principles I have tried to advocate? I beseech that man to endeavor to realize the second coming of Christ more and more. Truly we feel it but little, compared to what we ought to do, at the very best.

Be gentle in argument with those that differ from you. Remember that a man may be mistaken on this subject, and yet be a holy child of God. It is not the slumbering on this subject that ruins souls - but the lack of grace! Above all, avoid dogmatism and positiveness, and specially about symbolic prophecy. It is a sad truth - but a truth never to be forgotten, that none have injured the doctrine of the second coming so much, as its over-zealous friends.
 

III. Learn, in the third place, that whenever Christ does come again, it will be a very sudden event.

I draw that truth from the verse in the parable which says, "At midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom comes, go out to meet him."

I do not know when Christ will come again. I would think it most presumptuous if I said that I did. I am no prophet, though I love the subject of prophecy. I dislike all fixing of dates, and naming of years, and I believe it has done great harm. I only assert positively, that Christ will come again one day to set up His kingdom on earth, and that whether the day be near, or whether it be far off - it will take the Church and the world exceedingly by surprise!

It will come on men suddenly. It will break on the world all at once. It will not have been talked over, prepared for, and looked forward to by everybody. It will awaken men's minds like the cry of fire at midnight. It will startle men's hearts like a trumpet blown at their bedside in their sleep. Like Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, they will know nothing until the very waters are upon them. Like Dathan, and Abiram, and their company, when the earth opened under them, the moment of their hearing the report of the visitation, will be the same moment when they will see it with their eyes. Before they can recover their breath and know where they are - they shall find that the Lord is come!

I suspect there is a vague notion floating in men's minds that the present order of things will not end quite so suddenly. I suspect men cling to the idea that there will be a time when all will know the day of the Lord is near; a time when all will be able to cleanse their consciences, make out their wedding garments, shake off their earthly business, and prepare to meet their God. If any reader of this address has got such a notion into his head, I charge him to give it up forever! If anything is clear in unfulfilled prophecy, this one fact seems clear - that the Lord's coming will be sudden, and take men by surprise. And any view of prophecy which destroys the possibility of its being sudden - whether by interposing a vast number of events as yet to happen, or by placing the millennium between ourselves and the advent - any such view appears to my mind to carry with it a fatal defect.

Everything which is written in Scripture on this point confirms the truth, that Christ's second coming will be sudden. "As a snare shall it come," says one place. "As a thief in the night," says another. "As the lightning," says a third. "In such an hour as you think not," says a fourth. "When they shall say, Peace and safety," says a fifth. (Luke 21:35; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; Luke 17:24; Matthew 24:44; 1 Thessalonians 5:3.)

Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself uses two most striking comparisons, when dwelling on this subject. Both are most instructive, and both ought to raise in us solemn thoughts.

In one, He compares His coming to the days of Lot. In the days when Lot fled from Sodom, the men of Sodom were buying and selling, eating and drinking, planting and building. They thought of nothing but earthly things - they were entirely absorbed in them. They despised Lot's warning. They mocked at his counsel. The sun rose on the earth as usual. All things were going on as they had done for hundreds of years. They saw no sign of danger. But now mark what our Lord says: "The same day that Lot went out of Sodom - it rained fire and brimstone from Heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed." (Luke 17:28-30.)

In the other passage I allude to, our Lord compares His coming to the days of Noah. Do you remember how it was in Noah's day? Stay a little, and let me remind you. When the flood came on the earth in Noah's time, there was no appearance beforehand of anything so awful being near. The days and nights were following each other in regular succession. The grass, and trees, and crops were growing as usual. The business of the world was going on. And though Noah preached continually of coming danger, and warned men to repent - no one believed what he said.

But at last, one day the rain began and did not cease; the waters rose and did not stop; the flood came, and swelled, and went on, and covered one thing after another; and all who were not in the ark were drowned! Now mark what our Lord says: "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it also be in the days of the Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark - and the flood came and destroyed them all." (Luke 17:26, 27.) The flood took the world by surprise - so also will the coming of the Son of Man. In the midst of the world's business, when everything is going on just as usual - in such an hour as this, the Lord Jesus Christ will return!

Reader, the suddenness of the Lord's second advent is a truth that should lead every professing Christian to great searchings of heart. It should lead him to serious thought, both about himself and about the world.

Think for a moment, how little the world is prepared for such an event. Look at the towns and cities of the earth, and think of them. Mark how most men are entirely absorbed in the things of time, and utterly engrossed with the business of their callings. Banks, counting-houses, shops, politics, law, medicine, commerce, railways, banquets, balls, theaters - each and all are drinking up the hearts and souls of thousands, and thrusting out the things of God! Think what a fearful shock the sudden stoppage of all these things would be - the sudden stoppage which will be in the day of Christ's appearing.

If only one great house of business stops payment now, it makes a great sensation. What then shall be the crash when the whole machine of worldly affairs shall stand still at once? From money-counting and earthly scheming, from racing after riches and wrangling about trifles - to be hurried away to meet the King of kings - how tremendous the change! From dancing and dressing, from opera-going and novel-reading - to be summoned away by the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God - how awful the transition! Yet remember, all this shall one day be!

Look at the rural parishes of such a land as ours, and think of them. See how the minds of the vast majority of their inhabitants are buried in farms and businesses, in cattle and corn, in rent and wages, in digging and sowing, in buying and selling, in planting and building. See how many there are who evidently care for nothing, and feel nothing, excepting the things of this world; who care nothing whether their minister preaches law or gospel, Christ or Antichrist, and would be utterly unconcerned if the Archbishop of Canterbury was turned out of Lambeth Palace, and the Pope of Rome put in his place.

See how many there are of whom it can only be said that their bellies and their pockets are their gods. And then imagine the awful effect of a sudden call to meet the Lord Christ - a call to a day of reckoning, in which the price of wheat and the rate of wages shall be nothing, and the Bible shall be the only rule of trial! And yet remember, all this shall one day be!

Reader, picture these things to your mind's eye. Picture your own house, your own family, your own fire-side. What will be found there? Picture, above all, your own feelings, your own state of mind. And then, remember, that this is the end towards which the world is hastening. This is the way in which the world's affairs will be wound up. This is an event which may possibly happen in our own time. And surely you cannot avoid the conclusion that the second coming of Christ is no mere curious speculation. It is an event of vast practical importance to your own soul.

"Ah!" I can imagine some reader saying, "This is all foolishness, raving, and nonsense! This writer is beside himself. This is all extravagant fanaticism. Where is the likelihood, where is the probability of all this? The world is going on as it always did. The world will last for my time." Do not say so. Do not drive away the subject by such language as this.

This is the way that men talked in the days of Noah and Lot - but what happened? They found to their cost that Noah and Lot were right. Do not say so. The Apostle Peter foretold, eighteen hundred years ago, that men would talk in this way. "There shall come in the last day scoffers," he tells us, "saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." (2 Peter 3:3, 4.) Oh, do not fulfill this prophecy by your unbelief!

Where is the raving and fanaticism of the things which I have been saying? Show it to me if you can. I calmly assert that the present order of things will come to an end one day. Will any one deny that? Will anyone tell me we are to go on as we do now forever? I calmly say that Christ's second coming will be the end of the present order of things. I have said so because the Bible says it. I have calmly said that Christ's second coming will be a sudden event, whenever it may be, and may possibly be in our own time. I have said so, because this and thus I find it written in the Word of God. If you do not like it, I am sorry for it. One thing only you must remember, you are finding fault with the Bible, not with me.
 

IV. Learn, in the last place, that Christ's second coming will make an immense change to all members of the visible Church, both good and bad.

I draw this truth from the concluding portion of the parable - from the discovery of the foolish virgins that their lamps were gone out - from their anxious address to the wise virgins, "Give us some of your oil," - from their vain knocking at the door when too late, crying, "Lord, Lord, open to us," - from the happy admission of the wise who were found ready, in company with the bridegroom.

Each and all of these points are full of food for thought. But I have neither time nor space to dwell upon them particularly. I can only take one single broad view of all. To all who have been baptized in the name of Christ . . .
converted, or unconverted;
believers, or unbelievers;
holy, or unholy;
godly, or ungodly;
wise, or foolish;
gracious, or graceless -
to all, the second advent of Christ will be an immense change!

It will be an immense change to the ungodly - to all who are found mere nominal Christians - a change both in their opinions and position. All such people, when Christ comes again, will see the value of real spiritual religion, if they never saw it before. They will do in effect what the parable describes under a figure - they will cry to the godly, "Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out!"

Who does not know, that, as things are now, spiritual religion never brings a man the world's praise? It never has done, and it never does at this day. It entails on a man . . .
the world's disapprobation,
the world's persecution,
the world's mockery,
the world's opposition,
the world's ridicule,
the world's sneers.

The world will let a man serve the devil and go to Hell quietly, and no one lifts a little finger to stop him, or says, "Be merciful to your soul." The world will never let a man serve Christ and go to Heaven quietly, and does everything that can be done to keep him back.

Who has not heard of nicknames in plenty, bestowed on those who follow Christ, and try to be saved - Pietists, Puritans, Methodists, Fanatics, Enthusiasts, Calvinists, Ultra-religionists, the Saints, the Righteous overmuch, the Very Good People - and many more? Who does not know the petty family persecutions which often go on in private society in our day?

Let a young person go to every ball, and opera, and race-course, and worldly party, and utterly neglect his soul - and no one interferes; no one says "Spare yourself!" No one says, "Take care! Remember God, judgment, and eternity!" But let him only begin to read his Bible, and be diligent in prayer - let him decline worldly amusements, and become particular in his employment of time, let him seek an evangelical ministry, and live like an immortal being - let him do this, I say, and all his friends and relations will probably be up in arms! "You are going too far! You need not be so religious. You are taking up extreme views." This, in all probability, is the very least that such a person will hear. If a young woman, she will be marked and avoided by all her equals. If a young man, he will be set down by all who know him, as weak, silly, and religious. In short, such a person will soon discover that there is no help from the world in the way to Heaven - but plenty of help in the way to Hell! Alas, that it should be so - but so it is!

These are ancient things. As it was in the days of Cain and Abel - as it was in the days of Isaac and Ishmael, even so it is now. "Those who are born after the flesh will persecute those that are born after the Spirit." (Galatians 4:29.) The Cross of Christ will always bring reproach with it! As the Jews hated Christ - so the world hates Christians. As the Head was bruised - so also the members will be. As contempt was poured on the Master - so it will be also on the disciples. In short, if a man will become a decided evangelical Christian, he must "count the cost" - and make up his mind to lose the world's favor. In a word, he must be content to be thought by many little better than a fool!

Reader, there will be an end of all this, when Christ returns to this world. The light of that day will at length show everything in its true colors. The scales will fall from the poor worldling's eyes. The value of the soul will flash on his astonished mind. The utter uselessness of a mere nominal Christianity will burst upon him like a thunder-storm. The blessedness of regeneration and faith in Christ, and a holy walk, will shine before him like the handwriting on the wall of the Babylonian palace. The veil will fall from his face. He will discover that the godly have been the wise, and that he has played the fool exceedingly. And just as Saul wanted Samuel when it was too late, and Belshazzar sent for Daniel when the kingdom was about to be taken from him - so will the ungodly turn to the very men they once mocked and despised, and cry to them, "Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out!"

But as there will be a complete change in the feelings of the ungodly, in the day of Christ's second advent - so will there also be a complete change in their position. Hope, the plank to which they now cling, and on which they generally depend to the very last - hope will be entirely taken away in that dreadful day. They will seek salvation with earnestness - but shall not be able to find it. They will run hither and there in a vain search for the oil of grace. They will knock loudly at the door of mercy, and get no answer. They will cry, "Lord, Lord, open to us!" but all to no purpose. They will discover to their sorrow, that opportunities once let slip - can never be regained; and that the notion of universal mercy always to be obtained - is a mere delusion of the devil!

Who does not know that thousands are urged to pray and repent now - who never attempt it? They mean to try one day perhaps. Like Felix, they hope for a convenient season. They imagine it will never be too late to seek the Lord. But there is a time coming when prayer shall be heard no longer, and repentance shall be unavailing. There is a time when the door by which Manasseh and Saul the persecutor entered - shall be shut and opened no more. There is a time when the fountain in which Magdalene, and John Newton, and thousands of others were washed and made clean - shall be sealed forever. There is a time when men shall know the folly of sin - but like Judas, too late for repentance; when they shall desire to enter the promised land - but like Israel at Kadesh not be able; when they shall see the value of God's favor and covenant blessing - but like Esau when they can no longer possess it; when they shall believe every jot and tittle of God's revealed Word - but like the miserable devils, only to tremble!

Yes, reader, men may come to this, and many will come to this in the day of Christ's appearing. They will ask - and not receive! They will seek - and not find. They will knock - and the door shall not be opened to them. Alas, indeed, that so it should be! Woe to the man who puts off seeking his manna, until the Lord's day of return. Like Israel of old, he will find none. Woe to the man who goes to buy oil - when he ought to be burning it! Like the foolish virgins, he will find himself shut out from the marriage supper of the Lamb!

Oh, that professing Christians would consider these things! Oh, that they would remember the words of our Lord have yet to be fulfilled, "Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.' Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.' But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!'" (Luke 13:25-27.)

But as Christ's second coming will be a mighty change to the ungodly - so will it also be a mighty change to the godly.

They shall at length be freed from everything which now mars their comfort. "The door shall be shut" . . .
against the fiery darts of Satan,
against the loathsome weakness of the flesh which now clings to them,
against the unkind world which now misrepresents and misunderstands them,
against the doubts and fears which now so often darken their path,
against the weariness which now clogs their best efforts to serve the Lord,
against all coldness and deadness,
against all shortcomings and backslidings -
against all these the door shall be shut forever! Not one single Canaanite shall be found in the land.

They shall no longer be . . .
vexed by temptation,
persecuted by the world,
warred against by the devil.

Their conflict shall all be over.

Their strife with the flesh shall forever cease.

The armor of God, which they have so long worn, shall at length be laid aside.

They shall be where there is . . .
no Satan,
no sorrow,
and no sin!

Ah, reader, the second Eden shall be far better than the first. In the first Eden, the door was not shut; our joy was but for a moment. But, blessed be God, in the second Eden, the Lord shall "shut us in."

And as the godly shall enjoy a freedom from all evil in the day of Christ's appearing - so shall they also enjoy the presence of all good. They shall go in with the Bridegroom to the marriage. They shall be forever in the company of Christ, to go out no more.

Faith shall then be swallowed up in sight.

Hope shall become certainty.

Knowledge shall at length be perfect.

Prayer shall be turned into praise.

Desires shall receive their full accomplishment.

Hunger and thirst after conformity to Christ's image shall at length be satisfied.

The thought of parting shall not spoil the pleasure of meeting.

The company of saints shall be enjoyed without hurry and distraction.
The family of Abraham shall no more feel temptations;
nor the family of Job, afflictions;
nor the family of David, household bereavements;
nor the family of Paul, thorns in the flesh;
nor the family of Lazarus, poverty and sores!

Every tear shall be wiped away in that day! It is the time when the Lord shall say, "I make all things new."

Oh, reader, if God's children find joy and peace in believing even now - what tongue shall tell their feelings when they behold the King in His beauty! If the report of the land that is far off has been sweet to them in the wilderness - what pen shall describe their happiness, when they see it with their own eyes? If it has cheered them now and then to meet two or three like-minded in this evil world - how their hearts will burn within them when they see a multitude that no man can number, the least defects of each purged away, and not one false brother in the list! If the narrow way has been a way of pleasantness to the scattered few who have traveled it with their poor frail bodies - how precious shall their rest seem in the day of gathering together, when they shall have a glorious body like their Lord's!

Then shall we understand the meaning of the text, "In Your presence is fullness of joy, and at Your right hand are pleasures for evermore!" (Psalm 16:11.) Then shall we experience the truth of that beautiful hymn, which says -

"Let me be with You where You are,
My Savior, my eternal rest;
Then only shall this longing heart
Be fully and forever blessed!

Let me be with You where You are,
Your unveiled glory to behold;
Then only shall this wandering heart
Cease to be false to You, and cold!

Let me be with You where You are,
Where none can die, where none remove;
There neither death nor life shall part
Me from Your presence and Your love!"

Is there a man or woman among the readers of this address who ever laughs at true religion? Is there one who persecutes and ridicules vital godliness in others, and dares to talk of people being over-particular, and righteous over-much? Oh, beware what you are doing! Again I say, beware! You may live to think very differently! You may live to alter your opinion - but perhaps too late!

Ah, reader, there is a day before us all when there will be no infidels! No, not one! There is a day when the disciples of Paine, and Voltaire, and Emerson, shall call on the rocks to fall on them, and on the hills to cover them! Before the throne of Jesus, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that He is the Lord. Remember that day, and beware!

Is there among the readers of this address some dear child of God, who is mocked and despised for the Gospel's sake, and feels as if he stood alone? Take comfort. Be patient. "Wait a little longer!" Your turn shall yet come. When the spies returned from searching Canaan, men talked of stoning Caleb and Joshua, because they brought a good report of the land. A few days passed away, and then all the assembly confessed that they alone had been right. Strive to be like them. Follow the Lord fully, as they did - and sooner or later all men shall confess that you did well. Never, never be afraid of going too far. Never, never be afraid of being too holy. Never, never be ashamed of desiring to go to Heaven, and of seeking to have a great crown. Millions will lament in the day of Christ's return, because they have not enough religion: not one will be heard to say that he has got too much. Take comfort. Press on.
 

And now, reader, it only remains for me to close this paper by three words of APPLICATION, which seem to me to arise naturally out of the parable of which I have been writing. I heartily pray God to bless them to your soul, and to make them words in season.

1. My first word of application shall be a question. I take the parable of the ten virgins as my warrant, and I address that question to every one of my readers. I ask you, "Are you ready?" Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, "Those who were ready went in with the bridegroom to the wedding banquet" - they who were ready, and no others. Now here, in the sight of God, I ask each and every reader, Is this your case? Are you ready?

I do not ask whether you are a Churchman, and make a profession of religion. I do not ask whether you attend an evangelical ministry, and like evangelical people, and can talk of evangelical subjects, and read evangelical tracts and books. All this is the surface of Christianity. All this costs little, and may be easily attained. I want to search your heart more thoroughly, and probe your conscience more deeply. I want to know whether you have been born again, and whether you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in your soul. I want to know whether you have any oil in your vessel while you carry the lamp of profession, and whether you are ready to meet the bridegroom - ready for Christ's return to the earth. I want to know, if the Lord would come this week - whether you could lift up your head with joy, and say, "This is our God; we have waited for Him; let us be glad, and rejoice in His salvation." These things I want to know, and this is what I mean when I say, "Are you ready?"

"Ah!" I can imagine some saying, "this is asking far too much. To be ready for Christ's appearing! This is far too high a standard. This is fanaticism. There would be no living in the world at this rate. This is a hard saying. Who can hear it?" I cannot help it. I believe this is the standard of the Bible. I believe this is the standard Paul sets before us when he says the Thessalonians were "waiting for the Son of God from Heaven," and the Corinthians "waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 1 Corinthians 1:7.) And surely this is the standard Peter sets before us, when he speaks of "looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God." (2 Peter 3:12.) I believe it is a mark, that every true believer should be continually aiming at - to live so as to be ever ready to meet Christ. God forbid that I should place the standard of Christian practice a hair's breadth higher than the level at which the Bible places it. But God forbid that I should ever put it a hair's breadth lower. If I do, what right have I to say that the Bible is my rule of faith?

I want to disqualify no man for usefulness upon earth. I require no man to become a hermit, and cease to serve his generation. I call on no man to leave his lawful calling, and neglect his earthly affairs. But I do call on every one to live like one who expects Christ to return - to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world - to live like a pilgrim and a stranger, ever looking unto Jesus - to live like a good servant, with his loins girded, and his lamp burning - to live like one whose treasure is in Heaven, with his heart packed up and ready to be gone! This is readiness. This is preparation. And is this too much to ask? I say unhesitatingly that it is not.

Now, reader, are, you ready in this way? If not, I would like to know what good your religion does you. What is it all, but a burdensome form? What is it, but a mere temporary cloak that will not wear beyond this world? Truly a religion that does not make a man ready for everything - for death, for judgment, for the second advent, for the resurrection - such a religion may well be looked on with suspicion. Reader, if your religion does not make you ready for anything - the sooner it is changed, the better!

2. My second word of application shall be an invitation. I address it to everyone who feels in his conscience that he has no grace in his heart - to everyone who feels that the character of the foolish virgins is his own. To every such person, I give an invitation this day, in my Master's name. I invite you "to awake and flee to Christ."

Reader, if you are a man of this sort, you know that all within you is wrong in the sight of God. Nothing can be said more true about you, than that you are asleep - asleep not merely about the doctrine of Christ's second advent - but about everything that concerns your soul. You are wide awake perhaps about temporal things. You read the newspapers, it may be, and are mighty in "the Times." You have your head stored with earthly wisdom and useful knowledge. But you have. . .
no heartfelt sense of sin,
no peace or friendship with God,
no experimental acquaintance with Christ,
no delight in the Bible and prayer.

And yet you are a sinner, a dying sinner, an immortal sinner, a sinner going to meet Christ, a sinner going to be judged. What, I would put it to your conscience as an honest man - what is all this, but being asleep?

How long is this to go on? When do you mean to arise and live as if you had a soul? When will you cease to hear as one who hears not? When will you give up running after shadows - and begin to seek something substantial? When will you throw off the mockery of a religion which . . .
cannot satisfy,
cannot comfort,
cannot sanctify,
cannot save, and
will not bear a calm examination?

When will you give up . . .
having a faith which does not influence your practice;
having a book which you say is God's Word - but treat as if it was not;
having the name of Christian - but knowing nothing of Christ?

Oh! reader, when, when shall it be?

Why not this very year? Why not this very day? Why not at once awake and call upon your God, and resolve that you will sleep no longer? I set before you an open door. I set before you Jesus Christ the Savior, who died to make atonement for sinners - Jesus who is able to save to the uttermost - Jesus willing to receive. The hand that was nailed to the cross - is held out to you in mercy! The eye that wept over Jerusalem - is looking on you with pity. The voice that has said to many wanderers, "Your sins are forgiven," is saying to you, "Come to Me!"

Go to Jesus first and foremost, if you would know what step to take. Think not to wait for repentance, and faith, and a new heart - but go to Him just as you are. Go to Him in prayer, and cry, "Lord save me - or I perish. I am weary of sleeping - I would sleep no longer." Oh! awake, you that sleep, and Christ shall give you light.

Sun, moon, and stars are all witnessing against you - they continue according to God's ordinances, and you are ever transgressing them. The grass, the birds, the very worms of the earth are all witnessing against you - they fill their place in creation, and you do not. Sabbaths and ordinances are continually witnessing against you - they are ever proclaiming that there is a God and a judgment, and you are living as if there were none. The tears and prayers of godly relations are witnessing against you - others are sorrowfully thinking you have a soul, though you seem to forget it. The very grave-stones that you see every week are witnessing against you - they are silently witnessing that life is uncertain, time is short, the resurrection is yet to come, the Lord is at hand!

All, all are saying, Awake, awake, awake! Oh! reader, the time past may surely suffice you to have slept! Awake to be wise! Awake to be safe. Awake to be happy! Awake, and sleep no more!

3. My last word of application shall be an exhortation to all true believers - to all who have the oil of grace in their hearts, and have fled for pardon to the blood of the Lamb. I draw it from the words of the Lord Jesus at the end of the parable. I exhort you earnestly "to watch."

I exhort you to watch against everything which might interfere with a readiness for Christ's appearing. Search your own hearts. Find out the things which most frequently interrupt your communion with Christ, and cause fogs to rise between you and the sun. Mark these things, and know them, and against them ever watch and be on your guard.

Watch against SIN of every kind and description. Think not to say of any sin whatever, "Ah! that is one of the things that I shall never do." I tell you there is no possible sin too abominable, for the very best of us all to commit! Remember David and Uriah. The spirit may be sometimes very willing - but the flesh is always very weak. You are yet in the body. Watch and pray!

Watch against doubts and unbelief as to the complete acceptance of your soul, if you are a believer in Christ Jesus. The Lord Jesus finished the work He came to do - do not tell Him that He did not. The Lord Jesus paid your debts in full - do not tell Him that you think He left you to pay part. The Lord Jesus promises eternal life to every sinner that comes to Him - do not tell Him, even while you are coming, that you think He lies. Alas, for our unbelief! In Christ you are like Noah in the ark, and Lot in Zoar - nothing can harm you. The earth may be burned up with fire at the Lord's appearing - but not a hair of your head shall perish. Doubt it not. Pray for more faith. Watch and pray!

Watch against inconsistency of walk - and conformity to the world. Watch against sins of temper and of tongue. These are the kind of things that grieve the Spirit of God, and make His witness within us faint and low. Watch and pray!

Watch against the leaven of false doctrine. Remember that Satan can transform himself into an angel of light. Remember that bad money is never marked bad - or else it would never pass. Be very jealous for the whole truth as it is in Jesus. Do not put up with a grain of error - merely for the sake of a pound of truth. Do not tolerate a little false doctrine - one bit more than you would a little sin. Oh, reader, remember this caution! Watch and pray!

Watch against slothfulness about the Bible and private prayer. There is nothing so spiritual, but we may at last do it formally. Most backslidings begin in the closet. When a tree is snapped in two by a high wind, we generally find there had been some long hidden decay. Oh, watch and pray!

Watch against bitterness and uncharitableness towards others. A little love is more valuable than many gifts. Be eagle-eyed in seeing the good that is in your brethren - and dim-sighted as the mole about the evil. Let your memory be a strong-box for their graces - but a sieve for their faults. Watch and pray!

Watch against pride and self-conceit. Peter said at first, "Though all men deny You - yet I never will." And presently he fell. Pride is the high road to a fall. Watch and pray!

Watch against the sins of Galatia, Ephesus, and Laodicea. Believers may run well for a season, then lose their first love, and then become lukewarm. Watch and pray!

Watch not least against the sin of Jehu. A man may have great zeal to all appearance - and yet have very bad motives. It is a much easier thing to oppose Antichrist - than to follow Christ. It is one thing to protest against error - it is quite another thing to love the truth. So watch and pray!

Oh, my believing readers, let us all watch more than we have done! Let us watch more every year that we live. Let us watch, that we may not be surprised when the Lord appears.

Let us watch for the world's sake. We are the books they chiefly read. They mark our ways, far more than we think. Let us aim to be plainly-written epistles of Christ!

Let us watch for our own sakes. As our walk is - so will be our peace. As our conformity to Christ's mind - so will be our sense of Christ's atoning blood. If a man will not walk in the full light of the sun, how can he expect to be warm?

And, above all, let us watch for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake. Let us live as if His glory was concerned in our behavior. Let us live as if every slip and fall was a reflection on the honor of our King. Let us live as if every allowed sin, was . . .
one more thorn in His head,
one more nail in His feet,
one more spear in His side!

Oh, let us exercise a godly jealousy over thoughts, words, and actions - over motives, manners, and walk! Never, never let us fear being too strict. Never, never let us think we can watch too much.

Leigh Richmond's dying words were very solemn. Few believers were ever more useful in their day and generation. Of few can it be said so truly, that he "being dead yet speaks." But what did he say to one who stood by, while he lay dying? "Brother, brother, we are none of us more than half awake!"

 

 

THE THEATER;
A DISCOURSE PREACHED AT THE BROMFIELD STREET M.E. CHURCH,
March 15, 1863.

 

BY
REV. F.H. NEWHALL, Pastor.

 

Were man happy, his joy would increase in proportion as his amusement lessened, as is the case with the saints, and with God.

Pascal.

 

BOSTON: J.P. MAGEE, No. 5 CORNHILL.
1863.

 

DISCOURSE.

2 Tim. 3:4.

"LOVERS OF PLEASURE MORE THAN LOVERS OF GOD."

THE Theater is an institution whose character may fairly be judged from its history. This history stretches over a period of about 2500 years, during which time its excellencies and defects, its capacities for good or evil, have had ample opportunity to be developed and observed. The friends of the Theater have always represented that it could be made a powerful ally of true education, of morality and religion; a place where the young would have the taste refined, and would see the beauty of virtue and the hideousness of vice,-these possibilities I intend to examine, but it is not a Theater which might or ought to be, that you will attend, if you patronize the institution; and the main practical topic to which I shall ask attention is the Theater as it now is, and the character that it has made for itself, through these ages of its history.

The primary characteristic of the institution is best set forth in a motto, which may be read across the curtain of a New York Theater; "WE STUDY TO PLEASE." It is preeminently the place where men go simply to be pleased-the House of Pleasure. As an institution it is sustained, not to educate, to draw out the powers of body or mind; not to train the muscles like the gymnasium, or the mental faculties like the school, or the moral faculties like the church; not to blend instruction and refinement with pleasure, like the lyceum and exhibitions of the fine arts; its sole object, its simple aim is to please, to amuse. It is not intended to educate any faculties of the soul, to make them healthier and stronger for the real duties of life, and so to add something to the permanent stock of human happiness; it professes no such design; Theater-goers would ridicule the very suggestion, but it is to set all these faculties, for a few hours, in a state of pleasurable excitement.

The Theater is a house of pleasure, or amusement, and not of recreation. The distinction is a vital one. Recreation, as the word imports, re-creates, renews the man, while amusement (amuser) simply kills his time. Recreation restores the wasted energies by some innocent pleasure, or change of employment; relieves the taxed powers, and allows them time to regain their wonted spring and vigor. Athletic games are thus a recreation for the body, poetry and music for the mind. Some of the hardest workers that the world has seen have depended on music for pleasurable rest and renewal. Frederic the Great played the flute half an hour every day, Luther played the flute and guitar, and Milton a great variety of musical instruments. A recreation may be abused so as to become a mere amusement, but this is no abuse of the Theater; it is its use, its primary and special design. This is what the public demand of it, and when it fails to amuse, it declines and falls. When the lyceum ceases to instruct and refine, as well as please, when it becomes a place of mere amusement, we say that it has degenerated. It may still be patronized as largely as when it was true to its claims and profession, but it is by a different class of the community. When the church ceases to be a place of religious culture, and becomes a place of amusement, we feel that it ceases to be a church. Throngs may crowd thither, but it is not the church-going and church-loving public. It is an abuse to make the lyceum or the church a place of amusement, but it is no abuse of the Theater. Let the Theater cease to make pleasure its sole aim, and endeavor to refine and instruct, and we all know that the class of the community on which it depends for patronage would forsake it. Pleasure is all its capital. We see this in the character of its patrons, of the plays, the actors, scenery, music, decorations, and in fact in all the machinery and appurtenances of the institution. All converge to this one point; that play is best as a play, which pleases the most, the actor is most popular, and fills out most truly the ideal of an actor, who pleases most completely his audience.

I have been somewhat diffuse in unfolding this, the central idea of the Theater, that it may be clearly seen that this discourse is not directed against any abuse of the institution, but against the institution itself, when it most completely carries out the plans of its founders, and the expectations of its patrons. Against this, its central idea, we protest in the name of all that is good and true. A man or an institution may lawfully aim to please, but if this be the sole aim, if every thing else be bent to this, that man becomes a very contemptible specimen of human nature, and that institution tramples on the dearest interests of human life. Aiming to give pleasure, at the hazard of every thing else, taste, truth, virtue, religion; this, the central idea of the Theater, is destructive to man, and dishonoring to God; it curses all who touch it, proprietors, patrons and actors.

The Theater is no place for the invigoration and renewal of the mind, but for exhaustion. It is not designed to restore wasted powers, but to excite, to stimulate, to arouse the passions and stir the blood; and, if it does not do this, it fails to fulfil expectation. Successful plays and players stir their audiences into tumults of riotous passion, and are applauded in proportion as they produce this effect. True, a man may become as excited at a political or religious meeting, as at the Theater, but at such a place the pleasure of the excitement is not the object of the meeting; there is some practical end in view, for which the excitement is a means, and that political or religious meeting is a success in proportion as it achieves this end. But in the Theater, the excitement itself is the sole end; it is stimulus for the sake of stimulus, a mental intoxication. And, like strong drink, Theater-going operates on the most delicate machinery of human nature, and sets it in a whirl of activity; it exhausts and enervates the most precious faculties of our nature. The play-goer, like the inebriate, craves excitement; life is tame without them. Play-going is preeminently dissipation; instead of renewing and refreshing, it dissipates, scatters the energies of the man.

I. As the inevitable result of this, its fundamental idea, the Theater, notwithstanding all the hopes and dreams of its friends, never can become a reformatory institution. Men go there, not to have their tastes reformed, but gratified; and this the play-writer and play-actor ever keep in view. The grand question with manager, writer and actor is, "What will please?" These men do not present themselves before the public as reformers of taste or morals, but as speculators, who agree to furnish a given amount of pleasure for a given pecuniary consideration.

1. The very constitution of the Theater precludes the possibility of its ever becoming an institution of moral reform. Men never would go to the House of Pleasure to hear their faults and crimes rebuked and reproved. Are the twinges of a guilty conscience pleasing? But no man can ever be reformed of any sin, till his conscience is made to feel moral delinquency; and the stage can never be allowed to trouble the conscience. The play-going public would desert it at the moment it assumed this character. Men may theorize about making the Stage display the beauty of virtue, and the hideousness of vice, for public reform, but it is a mere chimera; in the nature of things it is utterly impossible. Plays would cease to be acted the moment that they began to touch the conscience, that is, the moment that they began to do any good.

To the superficial observer many plays have the appearance of being eminently reformatory in character, because they portray the frightful enormities of some vice or crime. For example, Macbeth displays the dreadful consequences of unbridled ambition, and Othello of unreasoning jealousy. Now in plays like these, which stand at the very head of dramatic literature, in an intellectual and moral point of view, infinitely above the vast mass of matter which is to-day acted on the stage, here, I say, the case could be made out, if at all. Yet, we venture the assertion, that no man was ever made less ambitious by hearing Macbeth, or less jealous by listening to Othello. Shakspeare understood his art too well to level a drama at the conscience. These great plays are written not to the conscience, but to the imagination. Now the imagination may be roused and stimulated to the most feverish activity, by representations of the consequences of vice, without producing the least desire for reform in the heart. Nothing is easier than for a man to think, when his imagination is thus enkindled, that his heart is glowing with the love of virtue, and hatred of sin; but no greater mistake can be made. The pleasure of the Theater is the pleasure of sense and imagination; to these all its machinery is directed; and the imagination may be in a state of highest excitement, when the moral sense is cold and sluggish, or dead. Many a woman weeps nightly over imaginary sorrows, who would turn a blind and starving beggar from the door without a pang. During the bloody tyranny of Robespierre, according to Burke, twenty-eight Theaters were in full operation in Paris, and the very men and women, who, night after night, were thrilled with sympathy for imaginary heroes and heroines, jeered and ridiculed the poor wretches daily dragged to execution, and mocked, as heads were carried away by the basketful from the guillotine, while the gutters of Paris ran with its noblest blood. See them at the Theater and you think them tender and compassionate, meet them in the street and you find their hearts like the nether millstone.

2. The same may be said of reforms in taste to be effected by the stage. Plays must be written and acted to please the taste of the mass of pleasure-seekers. Does any body believe that their tastes are pure? Let them be composed in the highest style of art and how would the audiences dwindle! People do not go to the Theater to have their tastes refined, made more correct, or delicate, but to be pleased. An actor who should undertake to dictate to the tastes of his audience, would be greeted with brickbats rather than roses. Johnson wrote, in his Prologue to Irene,
 

"Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail, He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain, With merit needless, and without it vain; In Reason, Nature, Truth, he dares to trust, Ye fops be silent, and ye wits be just."

But no play pitched in that key could succeed, and Irene was a failure, though brought out by Garrick; and Johnson never tried again.

But I shall be asked what I have to say to the masterpieces of the drama, which spread such a glory over literature, ancient and modern. I reply,

(1.) My subject is not the Drama, but the Theater; and I call special attention to the distinction. I am not speaking against dramatic compositions in literature, but against dramatic representations on the stage, as they are to-day, and have, on the average, ever been. Let no one imagine this a trifling distinction, for some of the very choicest gems of dramatic composition were never acted, and never meant to be. The book of Job is a drama; Plato threw all his philosophy into the dramatic form; but Elihu and Eliphaz, Gorgias and Protagoras would look odd enough on the stage! Comus and Samson Agonistes were never acted, and never intended for the stage, and Paradise Lost was originally projected as a drama.

(2.) And as to the masterpieces of the drama which were composed for the stage, when we compare them with the mass of stage-literature, (if it be worthy of such a name,) they are grains of wheat among bushels, yes, cargoes of chaff. It is as unfair to present these productions as fair specimens of what is brought upon the stage, as it would be to present their authors, Sophocles, Gothe, Moliere, Shakspeare, to the inhabitants of another planet, as fair average specimens of the human race.

(3.) These are not the plays which the masses of Theater-goers want to see and hear; no Theater in the land could live by giving the public such entertainments, for they would be no entertainments to the average Theater-going public. Christopher North well shows up this affected admiration of Shakspeare, prated of by the Theater-going public, and makes the Ettrick Shepherd say, "Who but a Cockney would wish to see oftener than once or twice a year, tragedies that cause a soul-quake? The creatures, in their hearts, would far rather see Mother Goose."[1]

(4.) When these first class dramas are performed for the gratification of the best class of auditors, farces must be added to catch the mass who have dozed through the Shakspeare. Besides, it is extremely rare to hear these great plays spoken as they are written; the characters are cut down to fit into a prompt book. This has ever been the lament of all men of taste who have patronized the Theater, from Addison and Steele to Hazlitt and Knight. The great poet's text is dished up by the nameless player of the season; diluted and seasoned to fickle the taste of the day. Mr. Knight, in his edition of Shakspeare, highly compliments Mr. Macready, that he had entered on the "noble task of presenting the text of Shakspeare, not deformed by presumptuous innovations, and not vulgarized by stage conventionalities.[2]" This sufficiently indicates how the great poet's text is generally presented on the stage.

(5.) In the last place, I give you the authority of men of taste, who have frequented the Theater, for the assertion, that whatever intellectual advantages may be gained from listening to the performance of these great dramatic productions, can be gained in a far higher degree from perusing them at home. Hazlitt, in his Lectures on Dramatic Literature, declares that a man of taste can better appreciate plays which he has never seen acted; for if he has seen them, all the appurtenances of the Theater, and the rant of the stage, are perpetually floating between him and the poet's thoughts. Dr. Johnson says emphatically, "Many of Shakspeare's plays are the worse for being acted, Macbeth for instance.[3]" There have never yet been half a dozen men competent to play Hamlet or Lear, in fact it would take a Shakspeare to play Shakspeare; the ideal, which flits before the mind's eye in the study, is far loftier than any representation which crosses the stage once in a century. And again, at the Theater you may see "star" performers in leading characters; but wooden men disgust you every where else; while, as you read, you see the master's touch every where. I think that these considerations effectually dispose of every excuse that can be made for attending the Theater to receive intellectual profit.

I have thus, I trust, made good my first proposition, that the Theater can never be made an institution for the reformation of morals or taste. From the very nature of the institution this has been shown to be impossible, and history confirms the deduction. Great hopes have been entertained, in almost every age, by some sanguine friends of the Theater, that moral and intellectual productions might displace the rubbish that has occupied the stage, and thus make it a powerful ally of true education. But these hopes have never been realized. There was a time when the dignitaries of the Christian Church used all their influence and power to make the stage an ally of the Christian religion. But they utterly and disgracefully failed. Addison, Johnson and Hannah More cherished these hopes, patronized and wrote for the stage to elevate it up to this chimerical ideal, but they all failed. In fact the Theater is never defended by moral and intelligent men for what it is, but for what they imagine it might be, and no one ever pretends to point out any time in its history when this ideal was realized. It is instructive to note how this class of its defenders, and we heed only them, have ever been lamenting the decline and degradation of the institution in their day. In fact the history of the modern Theater is, as a whole, a history of its moral and aesthetic decline and fall. For what modern dramatist can be compared, for purity and severity of taste, and even for morality, with the heathen Sophocles?[4]

II. I now proceed farther to say that the Theater, as an institution, has been and is degrading to man, intellectually and morally. I am acquainted with the Theater only as I have examined the productions that are popular upon the stage, and much of this stuff I have waded through, as I have the works of blasphemers and infidels, not for any pleasure to be experienced in the perusal, but as a professional duty, as a physician would examine a patient sick with some loathsome disease. And I say, without the least fear of successful contradiction, that the great mass of productions, which are brought on the stage to-day, are both in taste and morals beneath contempt. No young man or woman can more effectually secure a false taste, than by attending the Theater, and loving to do so. The artificial is mistaken for the natural, mere show, glitter and tinsel for genuine beauty, rant for eloquence, and sentimentalism for sentiment. To please the mass of the patrons of the Theater, the grosser part of our nature must be excited and stimulated, for that play is a weak, tame failure that does not stir, arouse. A Theatrical audience want to be kept in transports; and what the average of the audience crave, the stage must furnish. Addison laments that in his day, rant, curses and imprecations would raise storms of applause, while sentiments of genuine beauty and virtue dropped dead from the actor's lips;[5] and Steele says bitterly, "At present, the intelligent part of the company [i.e., the audience] are wholly subdued by the insurrections of those who know no satisfactions but what they have in common with all other animals."[6] Severe language this, from friends and patrons of the stage! But where every thing is sacrificed to effect, this must always be, more or less, true. To produce a sensation, to give a play a great run, every thing is bent to this; taste, morals, sense, all are brushed aside, like cobwebs, before this idea. Any thing is, in the theatrical sense, successful, whether good or bad, true or false, foul or fair, which will best please the public whim or caprice of the day. In comedy any thing is successful which will keep up a general hilarity. The vulgar mass of pleasure-seekers cannot appreciate the genial play of genuine humor, their gross nature cannot feel the thrust of a refined and delicate wit, and it must ever be borne in mind that the play must please them. Hence popular comedy becomes farcical, profane, and sensual. Popular comic performances on the stage are largely vulgar and indecent, in expression or sentiment, openly or by innuendo. True religion is ridiculed and held up to contempt in the characters of hypocrites and Pharisees. Honor is the religion of the stage. Reckless boldness and prodigality are all the materials needful to compose a popular stage hero. Beauty will make a heroine, though she may not have a single trait which renders woman lovely. Virtue is travestied, Christian meekness, patience, humility, are made the butt of ridicule; and, on the other hand, crime is glossed over, thefts, murders and adulteries are mere weaknesses or eccentricities, when perpetrated by these popular characters. Love is the master passion of the stage; but it is not the ennobling passion which elevates and refines humanity. The purest stream that bubbles from the bosom of this sorrowing earth, is befouled by the sewers of a loathsome sensuality. The love which generally is represented on the stage is simply licentiousness. In fact the lowest passions of poor humanity are fed and fostered at the Theater. Profanity, profligacy, drunkenness, licentiousness will there find themselves apologized for, washed from their filthiness and admitted into decent society; yea, petted, praised and glorified. The confession of Sir Walter Scott is significant and noteworthy, where, in the course of an article which apologizes for the Theater, he remarks as to the contrast between the ancient and modern stage, that the "modern drama, . . . so far from possessing a religious character, [like the Greek,] has, with difficulty, escaped condemnation, as a profane, dissolute and unchristian pastime."[7]

But the indictment, which I bring against the moral character of average popular plays, will be better understood from a specific illustration. Take, then, the play, which has for some time been drawing vast audiences in all the principal theatres of our land, every where applauded and admired. "Camille" is, in plain language, an elegant and fascinating prostitute. With this woman the auditor is made to sympathize, through all her sin; yes, thousands through all this land have been led to pity, love and adore her. She appears as the victim of circumstances, and of an absurdly virtuous public opinion, compelled to live a life of shame. The crime is thus palliated and extenuated, and eventually, by an absurd and diabolical sophistry, this very crime is used to display the depth and fervor of a lawful love! She is made to plunge to the very depths of infamy, by reason of the purity and sincerity of her devotion to one who is a worthy object of her affection! A woman, demonstrating the purity and heroic self-devotion of her love, by trailing her soul through the foulest corruption that a woman can know, consuming away with the fires of slow disease, fires which are fed by ceaseless profligacy and licentiousness, yet uttering the noblest sentiments and cherishing the purest purposes; the queenly flower growing more and more beautiful as it fades away, till, like an immortal aroma, the happy spirit exhales to heaven! Selfish, foul, adulterous;-pure, heroic, heavenly! Did God ever make such a monster as this? Yet this is the idol which thousands on thousands of our youth are adoring to-day.

Sin is not dangerous when we see its rottenness, when its noisome stench rises to the nostrils; but here we see it wrapt in voluptuous draperies, wreathed in fascinating smiles, charming to the ear, bewitching to the eye, and, most diabolical of all, enjoying the smile of heaven. Give us the groggeries and dance halls, where the filth of our civilization settles in cess-pools, and where the putrid carcass is in full sight, rather than this elegantly attired, seraph-voiced Parisian licentiousness.

At the opera the music is the grand attraction. To produce a musical effect, play, costume, gesture, &c., are all combined; and it is only to the lovers of music, therefore, that it has a special charm. Many insist that the opera stands on a totally different foundation from the Theater, that its pleasures are purer, and that it is free from the objections which have been urged against theatrical amusements in general. The pleasures of music are in themselves innocent, but they add warmth and intensity to any sentiments with which they are blended in song, good or evil, ennobling or debasing. Songs religious and patriotic, or profligate and sensual, have fresh power infused into their lines by appropriate music. Music is thus like a steam power, which we may harness to our car to help us heavenward, or to whirl us to perdition. Now the predominant passion set forth in the music of the opera is love, and generally unchaste and lawless love. As the performance here is generally in a strange language, this may appear to be of little moment, but the libretto is generally before the hearer, where all is translated into English; and besides, the music, costume, positions, action, &c., are all intended to set forth the predominant passion of the piece, so that although particulars may not be understood, the general impression is unmistakable. As to the plot, poetry, and development of character, there is generally nothing to awaken interest in a thinking mind. Scott said of the opera in his day, that its charms were "effeminate and meretricious," and that "the mean and paltry dialogue, which is used as a vehicle for the music, is become proverbial to express nonsense and inanity." No one, however, would pretend that there is any intellectual advantage whatever to be gained from this amusement, except the cultivation of a musical taste. But will this compensate for the moral peril? I will briefly characterize several of the popular operas of to-day, and leave you to judge. The hero of "Norma" is a shameless adulterer, whose unlawful passion is represented as sublimely heroic, cheerfully braving death. The heroine of "La Favorita" is a wretched courtezan. "Don Giovanni" is simply "Don Juan," without the poetry, jingled into an opera. It is the violation of the seventh commandment, set to music with infinite variations. Morally speaking, it is fit only for some sewer that drains off the dregs of perdition. If Swedenborg's dreamy imagination pictured a hell of swine, such a creature as Don Giovanni wallowed in the place of honor there. And what shall I say of "Lucrezia Borgia" and "Robert the Devil"? Enough; our English language is too honest, clean, and wholesome to furnish words which could fitly characterize this spawn of French and Italian licentiousness. The audience, it is true, cannot follow these foul and wicked sentiments through all their lights and shades, for the language is foreign to them; but the actors and actresses can, and all their attitudes, gestures, intonations and lascivious dances have these diabolical thoughts as their inspiration. All operas are not equally sensuous; all poisons are not equally deadly. There are degrees even in rottenness. If a man were covered with putrefying sores, within and without, from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet, you might, perhaps, be able to touch with the point of your finger, here and there, upon spots comparatively sound and clean. But the man, nevertheless, would be a mass of putrefaction.

Now a man who attends the opera, must patronize men and women whose whole business it is, night after night, to sham these foul and filthy crimes, and to avow their wild and maddening love of them, not, as it were fitting, in notes of hellish discord, but in ravishing melodies, which rival the warblings of the nightingale. Suppose, as it is alleged, that there be music there that can be heard nowhere else, which is of the most value to you, an ear delicate and sensitive, or a heart pure and chaste? If these melodies are the garb of seductive sin, can you safely open to them your soul? And if you feel safe, strong in your virtue, is it so with others who will follow your example? Will you patronize an institution which perfumes sin with roses, and crowns it with garlands? There are often choice bits of song, delicate morceaux of melody, scattered through the whole, in themselves innocent, pure and beautiful; and so there is fine poetry in "Don Juan," and stanzas which might be quoted from the pulpit, but that does not make "Don Juan," as a whole, chaste or decent.

All this will sound prudish and puritanic to men and women whose tastes are modeled by the modern Theater, who are shocked at the vulgarity of Milton and Shakspeare, and demand that King James' Bible should be cleansed of its Anglo-Saxon grossness to be placed in the fair and delicate hands of their children, and yet they are delighted to see these same lily hands showering bouquets and clapping applause at the licentious innuendoes of Alexandre Dumas!

As to theatrical shows and amusements in other places than the Theater, they may be regarded as preparatory schools for the larger and more expensive institution. Here a taste is formed for this corrupting amusement, which will eventually seek gratification in that great Temple of Sinful Pleasure. I know that it may sometimes be hard to draw the line, for it is often among things apparently innocent that the snares of sin are set. Let our moral nature never be hazarded for the gratification of an hour, though it appear harmless and innocent. Be not anxious to see how near the precipice you can drive.

III. How debasing and demoralizing must the life of a player inevitably be! What must be the effect of perpetually committing to memory, practising and striving to get into the spirit of such productions as I have described? No man can speak well, unless for the time being he feels and believes what he says; the more fully he enters into its spirit the better he acts. And a man or a woman who is, as a business, constantly stimulating the lowest passions of human nature, who is shamming all kinds of sin as a profession, will not, cannot long remain virtuous, unless he be a moral miracle. If the player were a man of cold, impassive nature the case might be different; but the very qualities which make a man a good actor, warmth of imagination and passion, render him most liable to be ruined by the temptations of his business. Think of a man who daily communes with his God, swaggering nightly on the stage in the character of some licentious reprobate! You cannot conceive it. Think of a pure and virtuous woman, filling her memory and heart with sensual thoughts and imagery, committing her whole nature to their direction, and pouring them from her lips over vast throngs of all grades of pleasure-seekers, season after season, and yet remaining a woman whom you would not blush to own as a wife or sister! It is hardly imaginable, simply because actors and actresses are not angels, but men and women. That there have been exceptions to the generally fatal tendency of play-acting, I acknowledge; and so men have been shot through the body in battle and have lived; men have had cholera and plague in succession and have survived; but that does not prove that minnie balls are not deadly, and that plague and cholera are not fatal diseases. The general conclusion is unimpeachable. The business is degrading. And as the same general principles have always been at work, the business has had this historic reputation. Plato and Aristotle denounce it as infamous. Pagan Rome deprived actors of all the rights of citizenship. The early Christian fathers would never admit players to baptism. Even the infidel Rosseau, a man of pleasure, states "that in all nations the profession is dishonorable, those who practise it are despised, and the contempt is strongest where the manners are most pure." If there be any of you here who have made this the business of your life, I pray you listen to me, as I solemnly and affectionately warn you, that your business is ruinous, destructive to soul and body. I have spoken not in scorn, but in sorrow. Fly from it, I pray you, as from the smoke of the pit.

I need hardly remind you that in these conclusions I am sustained by the sages and moralists of all ages. The ancient philosophers protested against a Theater purer than ours, both in taste and morals. The language of Solon, (contemporary with Thespis himself,) is well known: "If we applaud falsehood in our public exhibitions, we shall soon find it in our contracts and agreements." The stern lawgiver exiled the founder of the stage from Athens. Socrates and his illustrious disciple, Plato, both vehemently opposed theatrical performances as hostile to morality. Plato's grand objection is the leading thought of this discourse, that plays are written merely to produce pleasure, and that average men are trained by them to become lovers of pleasure. Though some of the masterpieces of Greek literature were composed for the stage, he made the great tragedians to depart from his Republic.[8]

In the first ages of the Christian church, theatrical spectacles were well nigh universal throughout the Roman Empire, and the Christian fathers, with one voice, protest against them; and traces of that earnest protest are now to be seen in the baptismal vow which every Christian takes to-day. The phrase, "I renounce the vain pomp of the world," was, as its original phraseology shows, framed expressly to prohibit attendance upon the prevalent theatrical exhibitions. And the fathers of our republic, assembled in Congress in 1778, recorded their reprobation of the Theater, as did the fathers and lawgivers of the republics of old. They earnestly recommended to the several States to take effectual measures to suppress gambling, horse-racing and theatrical entertainments. In October, 1778, they enacted that any person holding office under the authority of the United States, "who shall act, promote, encourage, or attend such plays, shall be dismissed." Some seven years ago the following statement concerning Mr. Macready went the rounds of the press, and I have never seen it challenged. Among the rules for the government of his family [in his present retirement.] he has declared, "none of my children shall ever, with my consent, enter the Theater, or have any visiting connexion with actors or actresses."[9]

IV. But this is not the whole of the debauching influences of the Theater; the very worst of the evil is yet unmentioned. There are things done at the Theater which are never put down in the programmes, things that never flare in the capitals of the play-bills.

As this is preeminently the "House of Pleasure," all grades of pleasure-seekers frequent it; dainty, perfumed champagne-drinking pleasure-seekers, and coarse, unwashed whiskey-drinking pleasure-seekers; and hence the Theater is a general exchange for profligates and debauchees. The patrons of every species of illicit pleasure are here convened, and here, therefore, is the place where all grades of men and women who pander to human passion expose their wares. Grog-shops, gambling saloons and other abodes of nameless infamy swarm around a Theater, like filthy vermin round a carcass. There is usually a bar in the Theater itself, and a portion of the audience-room specially allotted to abandoned women, although for the honor of Boston I am glad to state that these two abominations are prohibited here. But this does not prevent our Theaters from being centers of profligacy. Here sin is recommended in most seductive forms, abstinence and temperance ridiculed, piety caricatured, here the young man hears his mother's prayers derided, his father's counsels ridiculed, he learns to be ashamed of the scruples sown in his heart by the Sabbath School, his passions are excited, and just in the moment of his greatest weakness, lo! the means of gratification are close at hand. Follow the crowds that nightly pour forth from those gates of pleasure, and see where they go. The paths are worn from those doors to the faro-bank and the subterranean groggery, and to that house, which, in the terrible language of Solomon, is the "way to hell, going down to the chambers of death," whither "the simple ones go, as a bird hasteth to the snare," and "none that go unto her return again."

Shall I be told that I have no right to make the Theater responsible for these things? I reply, take out the intemperate and licentious from the patrons of the Theater, in our land, and it could not live one season. The modern Theater has always drawn after it this train of abominations. I will give you a few proofs, and they shall all be from friends and patrons of the Theater. And, firstly, I quote again from Sir Walter Scott. In speaking of the large patronage that the Theaters of London received from abandoned women, he says: "The best part of the house is openly and avowedly set off for their reception, and no part of it that is open to the public at large, is free from their intrusion, or at least from the display of the disgusting improprieties to which their neighborhood gives rise. No man of delicacy would wish the female part of his family to be exposed to such scenes; no man of sense would wish to put youth of the male sex in the way of such temptations . . . . prostitutes and their admirers usually form the principal part of the audience."[10] A committee was at one time appointed to inquire into this abomination, on which Scott comments as above, and report in regard to one of the royal Theaters at London. They made a report that a proposition was made, in compliance with the wishes of many, to exclude abandoned women from the house, but they stated that they were obliged to overrule the proposition, being convinced that, if adopted, the Theater could not be supported. The manager of the Park Theatre in New York, a few years ago, attempted to purge that establishment of this abomination, and to enforce regulations which would shut its doors against persons of flagrantly disreputable character. But he could not sustain himself, and was obliged to declare it in a public card, and thus allow the house to become virtually a house of assignation as before. A committee, appointed by the proprietors of the Old Tremont Theater in Boston, to report upon its condition, made a statement precisely similar. Their language was, "that a part of the house was frequented by men of notoriously bad character, and that young men, clerks, students and minors were commonly found among them, yet that this was nothing new or peculiar to the Tremont Theater. On the contrary, there has been no time within memory when it was not so at every Theater in Boston." Read now this testimony from friends of the Theater; here is the frank confession that every Theater in Boston had always been a house of nameless infamy!

There is no city in the world where law and public opinion have clone so much to restrain and remove these abominations as in Boston; here we may see the Theater at its best estate, and if here its purlieus are foul with vice, what a center of abominations must it be, where there is an open bar in the building itself, and a special portion of the house allotted to the most depraved of mankind!

Some declare that they attend to learn men and manners,-to see special phases of human nature. But pleasure-seekers, who are the main patrons of the Theater, never attend on such philosophical principles as this. Besides, there are other places where a man could see human nature far more truthfully displayed, and, doubtless, could learn much that is valuable, such as gambling saloons, grog shops, jails and penitentiaries. A man who commits some great crime, and gets incarcerated in prison for a term of years, may, doubtless, if he improve his privileges, learn much that is new and valuable, by watching the effect of crime and punishment upon himself and his fellow-prisoners. Yet this information would hardly compensate for certain inconveniences which he would experience while a scholar in this school. The tuition is rather higher than most students of human nature are willing to pay.

Many, again, go to see for themselves if these pleasures are as intoxicating as they are represented; not willing to be guided by sound general principles, they want to experience the folly of it for themselves. The human soul is a delicate organism to risk in dangerous experiments. The physician tries the effect of newly invented drugs upon dogs and rabbits before he ventures to administer them to the human subject; the chemist does not experiment with newly discovered poisons in his own lungs or stomach, and it is hardly profitable for a man to experiment on fatal errors and mortal sins in the infinitely more delicate and sensitive soul.

I have thus endeavored, faithfully and honestly, to set forth what the Institution is which you must patronize, if you attend the Theater. I could have confirmed my positions by quotations, indefinitely extended, from divines and moralists; but you will observe that the severest things I have said are quoted from the friends and patrons of the stage. Men whom we all respect will tell you that these evils can be remedied, that the Theater can be elevated; I think that I have shown, inductively and deductively, that these hopes are chimerical; but whether I have succeeded in this or not, no one can dispute that the Institution is now such as I have described; and if you attend the Theater it will not be the one that may, can or might be, but the one that is. And this, I honestly believe, is in all our great cities, the one grand "snare of the devil." The uninitiated are revolted at an abrupt introduction to the grog shop, the gambling den, or the house of the strange woman; the unsophisticated child is disgusted at the coarse vices of the old debauchee; but carry him where the rottenness is covered with silk and crimson, and dazzling with jewels, where the wail of a guilty conscience and the cry of despairing misery are drowned in bewitching melodies; where beauty, poetry and eloquence shall on every side lure him into the snares of the devil, and you may succeed in securing for him a harmonious development of depravity.

Be not deceived; if you are lost, the sin which shall ruin you is not one that looks hateful and loathsome, but alluring and enchanting. Satan's snare for you is baited with a pleasure that has a charm for you. The way to ruin is not strewn with hideous sights, and echoing with jarring discords-there is no temptation in such a path. Men dance to hell over gardens of flowers, they march thither to delicious music. Oh, love not pleasure more than God. And if, in spite of every warning, you are ensnared at last, do not reproach me that I have failed to do my duty.

---

Footnotes:

---

[1] Noctes Ambrosianae, (Am. Ed.) II. p. 344. [back]

[2] Knight's Shakspeare, Vol. I. Dedication. [back]

[3] Boswell's Johnson, Vol. I., 260. [back]

[4] "The modern tragedy excels that of Greece and Rome in the intricacy and disposition of the fable; but, what a Christian writer would be ashamed to own, falls infinitely short of it in the moral part of the performance." Addison, in the Spectator. No. 39. [back]

[5] Spectator, No. 40. [back]

[6] Spectator, No. 502. [back]

[7] Encyc[lopaedia] Brittan[ica]., Art. Drama. [back]

[8] Gorg. 402, B. Protag. 314, B. Rep. III, 394, D. and X. 606. [back]

[9] My attention has been called to the fact that Mr. Macready has a son now on the stage, in Australia. It will be seen that this does not disprove the statement made above. Every parent's example is more weighty than his precept. [back]

[10] Encyc[lopaedia]. Brittan[ica]., Art. Drama. [back]

The Family of God

J.C. Ryle, 1878
 

"The whole family in Heaven and earth." Ephesians 3:15

Reader, Look at the words which form the title of this tract, and ponder them well. They are words which ought to stir some feelings in our minds at any time, and especially at Christmas. There lives not the man or woman on earth, who is not a member of some "family." The poorest as well as the richest, has his kith and kin, and can tell you something of "his family."

Family gatherings at Christmas, we all know, are very common. Thousands of firesides are crowded then, if at no other time of the year. The young man in town snatches a few days from business, and takes a run down to "the old folks at home." The young woman gets a short holiday, and comes to visit her father and mother. Brothers and sisters meet for a few hours. Parents and children look one another in the face. How much there is to talk about! How many questions to be asked! How many interesting things to be told! Happy indeed is that fireside which sees gathered round it at Christmas, "the whole family!"

Family gatherings at Christmas are natural, and right, and good. I approve them with all my heart. It does me good to see them kept up. They are one of the very few pleasant things which have survived the fall of man. Next to the grace of God, I see no principle which unites people so much in this sinful world - as family feeling. Community of blood is a most powerful tie. I have often observed that people will stand up for their relations, merely because they are their relations - and refuse to hear a word against them - even when they have no sympathy with their tastes and ways. Anything which helps to keep up family feeling ought to be commended. It is a wise thing, when it can be done, to gather together at Christmas "the whole family."

Family gatherings, nevertheless, are often sorrowful things. It would be strange indeed, in such a world as this, if they were not. Few are the family circles which do not show gaps and vacant places as years pass away. Changes and deaths make sad havoc as time goes on. Thoughts will rise up within us, as we grow older, about faces and voices no longer with us, which no Christmas merriment can entirely keep down. When the younger members of the family have once begun to shift for themselves and launch forth into the world - the old heads may long survive the scattering of the nest. But after a certain time, it seldom happens that you see together "the whole family."

And now, reader, let me take occasion from Christmas to tell you of a great family to which I want you to belong. It is a family despised by many, and not even known by some; but it is a family of far more importance than any family on earth. To belong to it entitles a man to far greater privileges than to be the son of a king. It is the family of which Paul speaks to the Ephesians, when he tells them of the "whole family in Heaven and earth." It is the family of God.

Reader, give me your attention while I try to describe this family, and recommend it to your notice. I do not wish to mar your Christmas merriment, or to lessen the joy of your Christmas gathering, wherever it may be. I only want to remind you of a better family, even a Heavenly one, and of the great benefits which membership of that family conveys. I want you to be found one of that family, when its gathering shall come at last - a gathering without separation, or sorrow, or tears. Hear me while, as a minister of Christ and friend to your soul - I talk for a few minutes about "the whole family in Heaven and earth."

I. First of all - what is this family?

II. Secondly - what is its present position?

III. Thirdly - what are its future prospects?

I wish to unfold these three things before you, and I invite your serious consideration of them. Our Christmas gatherings on earth must have an end one day. Our last earthly Christmas must come. Happy indeed, is that Christmas which finds us prepared to meet God!
 

I. What is that family which the Bible calls "the whole family in Heaven and earth"? Of whom does it consist?

The family before us consists of all real Christians - of all who have the Spirit - of all true believers in Christ - of the saints of every age, and church, and nation, and tongue. It includes the blessed company of all faithful people. It is the same as the election of God - the household of faith - the mystical body of Christ - the bride - the living temple - the sheep that never perish - the Church of the first-born. All these expressions are only "the family of God" under other names.

Membership in the family of God, does not depend on any earthly connection. It comes not by natural birth - but by new birth. Ministers cannot impart it to their hearers. Parents cannot give it to their children. You may be born in the godliest family in the land, and enjoy the richest means of grace a church can supply - and yet never belong to the family of God. To belong to it, you must be born again. None but the Holy Spirit can make a living member of this family. It is His special office and prerogative, to bring into the Church such as shall be saved. Those who are born again, are "born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man - but of God." (John 1:13.)

Reader, do you ask the reason of this name which the Bible gives to the company of all true Christians? Would you like to know why they are called "a family"? Listen, and I will tell you.

1. True Christians are called a "family" - because they have all one Father. They are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. They are all born of one Spirit. They are all sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. They have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby they cry, 'Abba Father!' (Galatians 3:26; John 3:8; 2 Corinthians 4:18; Romans 8:15.) They do not regard God with slavish fear - as an austere Being, only ready to punish them. They look up to Him with tender confidence as a reconciled and loving parent - as One forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, to all who believe on Jesus; and full of pity even to the least and feeblest. The words, "Our Father who is in Heaven," are no mere form in the mouth of true Christians. No wonder they are called God's "family."

2. True Christians are called "a family" - because they all rejoice in one name. That name is the name of their great Head and Elder Brother, even Jesus Christ the Lord. Just as a common family name is the uniting link to all the members of a human family, so does the name of Jesus tie all believers together in one vast family. As members of outward visible Churches, they have various names and distinguishing appellations. As living members of Christ, they all, with one heart and mind, rejoice in one Savior. Not a heart among them, but feels drawn to Jesus as the only object of hope. Not a tongue among them, but would tell you that "Christ is all." Sweet to them all, is the thought of Christ's death for them on the cross. Sweet is the thought of Christ's intercession for them at the right hand of God. Sweet is the thought of Christ's coming again to unite them to Himself in one glorified company forever. In fact, you might as well take away the sun out of Heaven - as take away the name of Christ from believers. To the world there may seem little in His name. To believers it is full of comfort, hope, joy, rest, and peace. No wonder they are called "a family."

3. True Christians, above all, are called "a family" - because there is so strong a family likeness among them. They are all led by one Spirit, and are marked by the same general features of life, heart, taste, and character. Just as there is a general physical resemblance among the brothers and sisters of a family, so there is a general spiritual resemblance among all the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. They all hate sin and love God. They all rest their hope of salvation on Christ, and have no confidence in themselves. They all endeavor to come out and be separate from the ways of the world, and to set their affections on things above. They all turn naturally to the same Bible as the only food of their souls, and the only sure guide in their pilgrimage toward Heaven. They find it a "lamp to their feet, and a light to their path." (Psalm. 119:105.) They all go to the same throne of grace in prayer, and find it as needful to speak to God as to breathe. They all live by the same rule, the Word of God, and strive to conform their daily life to its precepts. They have all the same inward experience. Repentance, faith, hope, charity, humility, inward conflict, are things with which they are all more or less acquainted. No wonder they are called "a family."

Reader, this family likeness among true believers is a thing that deserves special attention. To my own mind it is one of the strongest indirect evidences of the truth of Christianity. It is one of the greatest proofs of the reality of the work of the Holy Spirit. Some true Christians live in civilized countries - and some in the midst of heathen lands. Some are highly educated - and some are unable to read a letter. Some are rich - and some are poor. Some are Churchmen - and some are Dissenters. Some are old - and some are young. And yet, notwithstanding all this, there is a marvelous oneness of heart and character among them.

Their joys and their sorrows,
their love and their hatred,
their likes and their dislikes,
their tastes and their distastes,
their hopes and their fears -
are all most curiously alike! Let others think what they please, I see in all this the finger of God. His handiwork is always one and the same. No wonder that true Christians are compared to "a family."

Take an converted Englishman and a converted Hindu, and let them suddenly meet for the first time. I will engage, if they can understand one another's language, they will soon find common ground between them, and feel at home. The one may have been brought up at school and college, and enjoyed every privilege of English civilization. The other may have been trained in the midst of gross heathenism, and accustomed to habits, ways, and manners as unlike the Englishman's as darkness compared to light. And yet now in half an hour, they feel that they are friends! The Englishman finds that he has more in common with his Hindu brother - than he has with many an old college companion or school-fellow! Who can account for this? How can it be explained? Nothing can account for it but the unity of the Spirit's teaching. It is "one touch" of grace, not nature, "that makes the whole world kin." God's people are in the highest sense "a family."

Reader, this is the family to which I wish to direct your attention this Christmas. This is the family to which I want you to belong. I ask you this day to consider it well, if you never considered it before. I have shown you the Father of the family, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I have shown you the Head and Elder Brother of the family, the Lord Jesus Himself. I have shown you the features and characteristics of the family. Its members have all great general marks of resemblance. Once more I say, consider it well.

Outside this family, remember, there is no salvation. None but those who belong to it, according to the Bible, are in the way that leads to Heaven. The salvation of our souls does not depend on union with one church or separation from another. They are miserably deceived, who think that it does, and will find it out to their cost one day, except they awake. No, reader, the life of our souls depends on something far more important! This is life eternal, to be a member of "the whole family in Heaven and earth." I will now pass on to the second thing which I promised to consider.
 

II. What is the present position of "the whole family in Heaven and earth"?

The family to which I am directing your attention this day is divided into two great parts. Each part has its own residence or dwelling-place. Part of the family is in Heaven, and part is on earth. For the present, the two parts are entirely separated from one another. But they form one body in the sight of God, though resident in two places: and their union is sure to come one day.

Two places, be it remembered, and two only, contain the family of God. The Bible tells us of no third habitation. There is no such thing as Purgatory, whatever some may think fit to say. There is no place of purification for those who are not true Christians when they die. Oh no! There are but two parts of the family - the part that is seen - and the part that is unseen, the part that is in "Heaven" - and the part that is on "earth." The members of the family that are not in Heaven are on earth, and those that are not on earth are in Heaven. Two parts, and two only! Two places, and two only! Let this never be forgotten.

Some of God's family are safe in Heaven. They are at rest in that place which the Lord Jesus expressly calls "Paradise." (Luke 23:43.) They have finished their course. They have fought their battle. They have done their appointed work. They have learned their lessons. They have carried their cross. They have passed through the ocean of this troublesome world and reached the harbor. As little as we know about them - we know that they are happy. They are no longer troubled by sin and temptation. They have said goodbye forever to poverty and anxiety, to pain and sickness, to sorrow and tears. They are with Christ Himself, who loved them and gave Himself for them, and in His company they must needs be happy. (Philippians 1:23.) They have nothing to fear in looking back to the past. They have nothing to dread in looking forward to things to come. Three things only are lacking to make their happiness complete. These three are:
the second advent of Christ in glory,
the resurrection of their own bodies, and
the gathering together of all believers.
And of these three things they are sure.

Some of God's family are still upon earth. They are scattered to and fro in the midst of a wicked world, a few in one place and a few in another. All are more or less occupied in the same way, according to the measure of their grace. All are . . .
running a race,
doing a work,
warring a warfare,
carrying a cross,
striving against sin,
resisting the devil,
crucifying the flesh,
struggling against the world,
witnessing for Christ,
mourning over their own hearts,
hearing, reading, and praying, however feebly, for the life of their souls.

Each is often disposed to think no cross so heavy as his own, no work so difficult, no heart so hard. But each and all hold on their way - a wonder to the ignorant world around them, and often a wonder to themselves.

But, reader, however divided God's family may be at present in dwelling-place and local habitation - it is still one family. Both parts of it are still one in character, one in possessions, and one in relation to God. The part in Heaven has not so much superiority over the part on earth - as at first sight may appear. The difference between the two is only one of degree.

1. Both parts of the family love the same Savior, and delight in the same perfect will of God. But the part on earth loves with much imperfection and infirmity, and lives by faith, not by sight. The part in Heaven loves without weakness, or doubt, or distraction. It walks by sight, and not by faith, and sees what it once believed.

2. Both parts of the family are saints. But the saints on earth are often poor weary pilgrims, who find the "flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit lusting against the flesh, so that they cannot do the things they would." (Galatians 5:17.) They live in the midst of an evil world, and are often sick of themselves and of the sin they see around them. The saints in Heaven, on the contrary, are delivered from the world, the flesh, and the devil, and enjoy a glorious liberty. They are called "the spirits of just men made perfect." (Hebrews 12:23.)

3. Both parts of the family are alike God's children. But the children in Heaven have learned all their lessons, have finished their appointed tasks, have begun an eternal holiday. The children on earth are still at school. They are daily learning wisdom, though slowly and with much trouble, and often needing to be reminded of their past lessons by chastisement and the rod. Their holidays are yet to come.

4. Both parts of the family are alike God's soldiers. But the soldiers on earth are yet militant. Their warfare is not accomplished. Their fight is not over. They need every day to put on the whole armor of God. The soldiers in Heaven are all triumphant. No enemy can hurt them now. No fiery dart can reach them. Helmet and shield may both be laid aside. They may at last say to the sword of the Spirit, "Rest and be still!" They may at length sit down, and need not to watch and stand on guard.

5. Last, but not least - both parts of the family are alike safe and secure. As wonderful as this may sound, it is true! Christ cares as much for His members on earth - as His members in Heaven. You might as well think to pluck the stars out of Heaven - as to pluck one saint, however feeble, out of Christ's hand. Both parts of the family are alike secured by "an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure." (2 Sam. 23:5.) The members on earth, through the burden of the flesh and the dimness of their faith - may neither see, nor know, nor feel their own safety. But they are safe, though they may not see it. The whole family is "kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation." (1 Peter 1:5.) The members yet on the road, are as secure as the members who have got home! Not one shall he found missing at the last day. The words of the Christian poet shall be found strictly true: "More happy - but not more secure - are the glorified spirits in Heaven!"

Reader, before I leave this part of my subject, I ask you to understand thoroughly the present position of God's family, and to form a just estimate of it. Learn not to measure its numbers or its privileges - by what you see with your eyes. You see only a small body of believers in this present time. But you must not forget that a great company has gotten safe to Heaven already, and that when all are assembled at the last day, they will be "a multitude which no man can number." (Rev. 7:9.) You only see that part of the family which is struggling on earth. You must never forget that the greater part of the family has got home and is resting in Paradise. You see the militant part, but not the triumphant. You see the part that is carrying the cross - but not the part which is safe at the other side of the river. The family of God is far more rich and glorious than you suppose. Believe me, it is no small thing to belong to the "whole family in Heaven and earth." I will now pass on to the last thing which I promised to consider.
 

III. What are the future prospects of "the whole family" in Heaven and earth?

The future prospects of a family! What a vast amount of uncertainty these words open up when we look at any family now in the world! How little we can tell of the things coming on any of us! What a mercy that we do not know the sorrows, and trials, and separations, through which our beloved children will have to pass, when we have left the world! It is a mercy that we do not know "what a day may bring forth," and a far greater mercy that we do not know what may happen in twenty years! (Proverbs 27:1.) Reader, foreknowledge of the future of our families, would spoil many a family gathering this Christmas, and fill the whole party with gloom!

Think how many a fine boy, who is now the delight of his parents - will by and by walk in the prodigal's footsteps, and never return home! Think how many a fair daughter, the joy of a mother's heart - will follow the bent of her self-will after a few years, and insist on some miserably mistaken marriage! Think how disease and pain will often lay low the loveliest of a family circle, and make her life a burden and weariness to herself and others! Think of the endless breaches and divisions arising out of money matters! Alas, there is many a lifelong quarrel about a few dollars, between those who once played together in the same nursery! Reader, think of these things! The "future prospects" of many a family which will meet together this Christmas are a solemn and serious subject. Hundreds, to say the least, are gathering together for the last time! When they part - they will never meet again.

But, thank God, there is one great family whose prospects are very different. It is the family of which I am speaking in this tract, and commending to your attention. The future prospects of the family of God are not uncertain. They are good, and only good - happy, and only happy. Listen to me, and I will try to set them in order before you.

1. The members of God's family shall all be brought safely home one day! Here upon earth they may be scattered, tried, tossed with tempests, and bowed down with afflictions. But not one of them shall perish! (John 10:28.) The weakest lamb shall not be left to perish in the wilderness. The feeblest child shall not be missing when the muster-roll is brought out at the last day. In spite of the world, the flesh, and the devil - the whole family shall get safely home! "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." (Romans 5:10.)

2. The members of God's family shall all have glorious bodies one day! When the Lord Jesus Christ comes the second time, the dead saints shall all be raised, and the living shall all be changed. They shall no longer have a vile mortal body, full of weaknesses and infirmities. They shall have a body like that of their risen Lord - without the slightest liability to sickness and pain. They shall no longer be clogged and hindered by an aching frame when they want to serve God. They shall be able to serve Him night and day without weariness, and to attend upon Him without distraction. The former things will have passed away. That word will be fulfilled, "I make all things new!" (Rev. 21:5.)

3. The members of God's family shall all be gathered into one company one day! It matters nothing where they have lived or where they have died. They may have been separated from one another both by time and space. One may have lived in tents, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - and another traveled by railway in our own day. One may have laid his bones in an Australian desert - and another may have been buried in an English churchyard. It makes no difference. All shall be gathered together, from north and south, and east and west - and meet in one happy assembly, to part no more. The earthly partings of God's family are only for a few days. Their meeting is for eternity. It matters little where we live. It is a time of scattering now, and not of gathering. It matters little where we die. All graves are equally near to Paradise. But it does matter much, whether we belong to God's family. If we do - we are sure to meet again at last.

4. The members of God's family shall all be united in mind and judgement one day. They are not so now, about many little things. About the things needful to salvation, there is a marvelous unity among them. About many speculative points in religion - about forms of worship and Church government, they often sadly disagree. But there shall be no disagreement among them one day. Ephraim shall no longer vex Judah, nor Judah Ephraim. Churchmen shall no more quarrel with Dissenters, nor Dissenters with Churchmen. Partial knowledge and dim vision shall be at an end forever. Divisions and separations, misunderstandings and misconstructions - shall be buried and forgotten. As there shall only be one language, so there shall only be one opinion. At last, after six thousand years of strife and jangling - perfect unity and harmony shall be found! A family shall at length be gathered, in which all are of one mind.

5. The members of God's family shall all be perfected in holiness one day! They are not literally perfect now. Though born again, and renewed after the image of Christ - they offend and fall short in many things. (James 3:2.) None know it better than they do themselves. It is their grief and sorrow, that they do not love God more heartily and serve Him more faithfully. But they shall be completely freed from all sinful corruption one day. They shall rise again at Christ's second appearing without any of the infirmities which cleave to them in their lives. Not a single evil temper or corrupt inclination shall he found in them! They shall be presented by their Head to the Father - without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing - perfectly holy and without blemish - as fair as the moon and as clear as the sun! (Ephesians 5:27; Canticles 5:10.) Grace, even now, is a beautiful thing, when it lives, and shines, and flourishes in the midst of imperfection. But how much more beautiful will grace appear - when it is seen pure, unmixed, disentangled, and alone. And it shall be seen so, when Christ comes to be glorified in His saints at the last day.

6. Last, but not least - the members of God's family shall all be eternally provided for one day! When the affairs of this sinful world are finally wound up and settled, there shall be an everlasting portion for all the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. Not even the weakest of them shall be overlooked and forgotten. There shall be something for everyone, according to his measure. The smallest vessel of grace, as well as the greatest - shall be filled to the brim with glory - the precise nature of that glory and reward it would be folly to pretend to describe. It is a thing which eye has not seen, nor mind of man conceived. Enough for us to know that each member of God's family, when he awakes up after His Master's likeness, shall be satisfied. (Psalm 17:15.) Enough, above all, to know that their joy, and glory, and reward shall be forever. What they receive in the day of the Lord - they will never lose. The inheritance reserved for them, when they come of age, is "incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading!" (1 Peter 1:4.)

Reader, these prospects of God's family are great realities. They are not vague shadowy talk of man's invention. They are real true things, and will be seen as such before long. They deserve your serious consideration. Examine them well.

Look around the families of earth with which you are acquainted, the richest, the greatest, the noblest, the happiest. Where will you find one among them all, which can show prospects to compare with those of which you have just heard? The earthly riches, in many a case, will be gone in a hundred years hence. The noble blood, in many a case, will not prevent some disgraceful deed staining the family name. The happiness in many a case, will be found hollow and surface. Few, indeed, are the homes which have not a secret sorrow or "a skeleton in the closet." Whether for present possessions or future prospects, there is no family so well off as "the whole family in Heaven and earth." Whether you look at what they have now, or will have hereafter - there is no family like the family of God.
 

Reader, my task is done. My tract is drawing to a close. It only remains to close it with a few words of PRACTICAL APPLICATION. Give me your attention for the last time. May God bless what I am going to say to the good of your soul!

(1) I ask you a plain question. Take it with you to the family gathering which you are going to join at Christmas. Take it with you, and amidst all your Christmas happiness make time for thinking about it. It is a simple question, but a solemn one: Do you yet belong to the family of God?

To the family of God, remember! This is the point of my question. It is no answer to say that you are a Protestant, or a Churchman, or a Dissenter. I want to hear of something more and better than that. I want you to have some soul-satisfying and soul-saving religion - a religion which will give you peace while you live, and hope when you die. To have such peace and hope, you must be something more than a Protestant, or a Churchman, or a Dissenter. You must belong to "the family of God." Thousands around you do not belong to it. But that is no reason why you should not.

Reader, if you do not yet belong to God's family, I invite you this day to join it without delay. Open your eyes to see . . .
the value of your soul,
the sinfulness of sin,
the holiness of God,
the danger of your present condition,
the absolute necessity of a mighty change!

Open your eyes to see these things, and repent this very day! Open your eyes to see the great Head of God's family, even Christ Jesus, waiting to save your soul. See how He has loved you, lived for you, died for you, risen again for you, and obtained complete redemption for you. See how He offers you free, full, immediate pardon, if you will believe in Him. Open your eyes to see these things. Seek Christ at once. Come and believe on Him, and commit your soul to His keeping this very day.

I know nothing of your family or past history. I know not where you are going to spend your Christmas, or what company you are going to be in. But I am bold to say, that if you join the family of God this Christmas - it will be the best and happiest Christmas in your life.

(2) Reader, if you really belong to the whole family in Heaven and earth, count up your privileges, and learn to be more thankful! Think what a mercy it is to have something which the world can neither give nor take away - something which is independent of sickness or poverty - something which is your own for evermore. The old family fireside will soon be cold and tenantless. The old family gatherings will soon be past and gone forever. The loving faces we now delight to gaze on, are rapidly leaving us. The cheerful voices which now welcome us, will soon be silent in the grave. But, thank God, if we belong to Christ's family - there is a better gathering yet to come. Let us often think of it - and be thankful!

Those grey-haired old patriarchs, whose cheerfulness made their Christianity so beautiful, and who thought of everybody more than of themselves - those tender mothers, whose memory is still so fragrant to their children, and whose sun seemed to go down at noonday - we shall see them all again. They are not lost - but only gone before. All, all will meet us in the great home, when the last trumpet sounds and "the whole family" is gathered together. Reader, let us often think of this, and be thankful.

The family gathering of all God's people will make amends for all that their religion now costs them. A meeting where none are missing - a meeting where there are no gaps and empty places - a meeting where there are no tears - a meeting where there is no parting - such a meeting as this is worth a fight and a struggle! And such a meeting is yet to come to "the whole family in Heaven and earth."

In the meantime, let us strive to live worthy of the family to which we belong. Let us labor to do nothing that may cause our Father's house to be spoken against. Let us endeavor to make our Master's name beautiful by our temper, conduct and conversation. Let us love as brethren, and abhor all quarrels. Let us behave as if the honor of the family depended on our behavior.

So living, by the grace of God, we shall make our calling and election sure, both to ourselves and others. So living, we may hope to have an abundant entrance, and to enter harbor in full sail, whenever we change earth for Heaven. So living, we shall recommend our Father's family to others, and perhaps, by God's blessing incline them to say, "We will go with you!"

Reader, I commend these Christmas thoughts to your attention; and, wishing you a happy Christmas in the best and highest sense!

I remain, your affectionate friend,
J.C. Ryle

 

 

Riches and Poverty

J.C. Ryle, 1878

"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'

But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony!" Luke 16:19-25

There are probably few readers of the Bible who are not familiar with the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. It is one of those passages of Scripture which leave an indelible impression on the mind. Like the parable of the Prodigal Son - once read it is never forgotten.

The reason of this is clear and simple. The whole parable is a most vividly painted picture. The story, as it goes on, carries our senses with it with irresistible power. Instead of readers, we become lookers. We are witnesses of all the events described. We see. We hear. We imagine we could almost touch. The rich man's banquet - the purple - the fine linen - the gate - the beggar lying by it - the sores - the dogs - the crumbs - the two deaths - the rich man's burial - the ministering angels - the bosom of Abraham - the rich man's fearful waking up - the fire - the gulf - the hopeless remorse - all, all stand out before our eyes in bold relief, and stamp themselves upon our minds. This is the perfection of language. This is the attainment of the famous Arabian standard, "He speaks the best - who turns the ear into an eye!"

But after all, it is one thing to admire the masterly composition of this parable, and quite another to receive the spiritual lesson it contains. The eye of the intellect can often see beauties while the heart remains asleep, and sees nothing at all. Hundreds read "Pilgrim's Progress" with deep interest, to whom the struggle for the celestial city is foolishness. Thousands are familiar with every word of the parable before us this day, who never consider how it comes home to their own case. Their conscience is deaf to the cry which ought to ring in their ears as they read, "You are the man!" Their heart never turns to God with the solemn inquiry, "Lord, is this my picture? Lord, is it I?"

Reader, I invite you this day to consider the leading truth which this parable is meant to teach us. I purposely omit to notice any part of it but that which stands at the head of this paper. May the Holy Spirit give you a teachable spirit, and an understanding heart, and so produce lasting impressions on your soul!
 

I. Observe, first of all - how different are the conditions which God allots to different men.

The Lord Jesus begins the parable by telling us of a rich man and a beggar. He says not a word in praise either of poverty or of riches. He describes the circumstances of a wealthy man and the circumstances of a poor man; but neither condemns the temporal position of one, nor praises that of the other.

The contrast between the two men is painfully striking. Look on this picture, and on that.

Here is one who possessed abundance of this world's good things. "He was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day."

Here is another who has literally nothing. He is a friendless, diseased, half-starved pauper. "He lies at the rich man's gate full of sores," and begs for crumbs.

Both are children of Adam. Both came from the same dust, and belong to one family. Both are living in the same land and subjects of the same government. And yet how different is their condition!

But we must take heed that we do not draw lessons from the parable, which it was never meant to teach. The rich are not always bad men, and do not always go to Hell. The poor are not always good men, and do not always go to Heaven. We must not rush into the extreme of supposing that it is sinful to be rich. We must not run away with the idea that there is anything wicked in the difference of condition here described, and that God intended all men to be equal. There is nothing in our Lord Jesus Christ's words to warrant any such conclusion. He simply describes things as they are often seen in the world, and as we must expect to see them.

Many in every age have disturbed society by stirring up the poor against the rich. But so long as the world is under the present order of things, universal equality cannot be attained.

So long as some are wise and some are foolish - some strong and some weak - some healthy and some diseased; so long as children reap the fruit of their parent's misconduct - so long as sun, and rain, and heat, and cold, and wind, and waves, and drought, and blight, and storm, and tempest are beyond man's control - so long there will be inequality in this world.

Take all the property in England by force this day, and divide it equally among the inhabitants. Give every man over twenty years old an equal portion. Let all share alike, and begin the world over again. Do this, and see where you would be at the end of fifty years. You would just have come round to the point where you began! You would just find things as unequal as before!
Some would have worked - and some would have been idle;
some would have been always careless - and some always scheming;
some would have sold - and others would have bought;
some would have wasted - and others would have saved.
And the end would be, that some would be rich - and others poor.

We might as well say that all men ought to be of the same height, weight, strength, and cleverness - or that all oak trees ought to be of the same shape and size, or that all blades of grass ought to be of the same length - as that all men were meant to be equal.

Settle it in your mind that the main cause of all the suffering you see around you is sin. Sin is the grand cause of the enormous luxury of the rich, and the painful degradation of the poor - of the heartless selfishness of the highest classes, and the helpless poverty of the lowest. Sin must be first cast out of the world; the hearts of all men must be renewed and sanctified; the devil must be bound; the Prince of Peace must come down and take His great power and reign: all this must be before there ever can be universal happiness, or the gulf be filled up which now divides the rich and poor.

Beware of expecting a millennium to be brought about by any method of government, by any system of education, by any political party. Labor to do good to all men; pity your poorer brethren, and help every reasonable endeavor to raise them from their low estate; do not slacken your hand from any endeavor to increase knowledge - to promote morality - to improve the temporal condition of the poor. But never, never forget that you live in a fallen world, that sin is all around you, and that the devil is abroad. And be very sure that the rich man and Lazarus are emblems of two classes of people which will always be in the world until the Lord comes.

 

II. Observe, in the next place - that a man's temporal condition is no test to the state of his soul.

"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day." The rich man in the parable appears to have been the world's pattern of a prosperous man. If the present life were all - he seems to have had everything that heart could wish. We know that he was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day - we need not doubt that he had everything else which money could procure. The wisest of men had good cause for saying, "Money answers all things;" "The rich has many friends" (Eccles. 10:19; Proverbs 14:20).

But who that reads the story through to the end, can fail to see that in the highest and best sense - the rich man was pitiably poor? Take away the good things of this life, and he had nothing left - nothing after death, nothing beyond the grave, nothing in the world to come. With all his riches - he had no treasure laid up in Heaven. With all his purple and fine linen - he had no 'garment of righteousness'. With all his admiring companions - he had no Friend and Advocate at God's right hand. With all his sumptuous fare - he had never tasted the bread of life. With all his splendid palace - he had no home in the eternal world. Without God, without Christ, without faith, without grace, without pardon, without holiness - he lives to himself for a few short years, and then goes down hopelessly into the pit of Hell! How hollow and unreal was all his prosperity! Reader, judge what I say - The rich man was very poor!

"At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores." Lazarus appears to have been one who had literally nothing in this world. It is hard to conceive a case of greater misery and destitution than his. He had neither house, nor money, nor food, nor health, nor, in all probability, even clothes. His picture is one that can never be forgotten. He lay at the rich man's gate, covered with sores; he desired to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table; moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. Truly the wise man might well say, "The poor is hated even of his neighbor." "The destruction of the poor is their poverty." (Proverbs 14:20; 10:15).

But who that reads the parable to the end, can fail to see that in the highest sense Lazarus was not poor - but rich? He was a child of God. He was an heir of glory. He possessed durable riches and righteousness. His name was in the book of life. His place was prepared for him in Heaven. He had the best of clothing - the righteousness of a Savior. He had the best of friends - God Himself was his portion. He had the best of food - he had food to eat which the world knew nothing of. And, best of all, he had these things forever! They supported him in life - they did not leave him in the hour of death. They went with him beyond the grave - they were his to eternity. Surely in this point of view, we may well say, not "poor Lazarus," but "rich Lazarus!"

Reader, you would do well to measure all men by God's standard - to measure them not by the amount of their income - but by the condition of their souls. When the Lord God looks down from Heaven upon men, He takes no account of many things which are highly esteemed by the world. He looks not at men's money, or lands, or titles. He looks only at the state of their souls - and reckons them accordingly. Oh, that you would strive to do likewise! Oh, that you would value grace above titles, or intellect, or gold! Often, far too often, the only question asked about a man is, "How much is he worth?" It would be well for us all to remember that every man is pitiably poor - until he is rich in faith, and rich toward God.

As astonishing as it may seem to some - all the money in the world is worthless in God's balances, compared to grace! As hard as the saying may sound - I believe that a converted beggar is far more important and honorable in the sight of God - than an unconverted king. The king may glitter like the butterfly in the sun for a little season, and be admired by an ignorant world - but his latter end is darkness, and misery forever! The beggar may crawl through the world like a crushed worm, and be despised by every one who sees him - but his latter end is a glorious resurrection and a blessed eternity with Christ! Of him the Lord says, "I know your poverty - but you are rich!" (Rev. 2:9).

King Ahab was ruler over the ten tribes of Israel. Obadiah was nothing more than a servant in his household. Yet who can doubt which was most precious in God's sight - the servant or the king?

Ridley and Latimer were deposed from all their dignities, cast into prison as malefactors, and at length burned at the stake. Bonner and Gardiner, their persecutors, were raised to the highest pitch of ecclesiastical greatness, enjoyed large incomes, and died unmolested in their beds. Yet who can doubt which of the two parties was on the Lord's side?

Richard Baxter, the famous divine, was persecuted with savage malignity, and condemned to a long imprisonment by a most unjust judgment. Jeffreys, the Lord Chief Justice, was a man of infamous character, without either morality or religion. Baxter was sent to jail - and Jeffreys was loaded with honors. Yet who can doubt who was the good man of the two, the Lord Chief Justice - or the author of "The Saint's Everlasting Rest?"

Reader, be very sure that riches and worldly greatness are no certain marks of God's favor. They are often, on the contrary - a snare and hindrance to a man's soul. They make him love the world and forget God. What says Solomon? "Labor not to be rich!" (Proverbs 23:4). What says Paul? "Those who will be rich, fall into temptation, and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition" (1 Tim. 6:9).

Reader, be no less sure that poverty and afflictions are no certain proof of God's displeasure. They are blessings in disguise! They are always sent in divine love and wisdom. They often serve to wean man from the world; they teach him to set his affections on things above. They often show the sinner his own heart: they often make the saint fruitful in good works. What says the book of Job? "Happy is the man whom God corrects; therefore despise not the chastening of the Almighty" (Job 5:17). What says Paul? "Whom the Lord loves - He chastens" (Hebrews 12:6).

One great secret of happiness in this life is to be of a patient, contented spirit. Strive daily to realize the truth that this present life is not the place of reward. The time of retribution and recompense is yet to come! Do not judge anything hastily before that time. Remember the words of the wise man: "If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied - do not be surprised at such things." (Eccles. 5:8). Yes, there is a day of judgment yet to come! That day shall put all in their right places. At last, a mighty difference there shall be seen between him who fears God - and him who does not fear God. The children of Lazarus and the children of the rich man, shall at length be seen in their true colors - and everyone shall receive according to his works.
 

III. Observe, in the next place - how all classes alike come to the grave.

"The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried." Luke 16:22

Lazarus died - and the rich man also died. As different and divided as they were in their lives - they had both to drink of the same cup at the last. Both went to the house appointed for all living. Both went to that place where rich and poor meet together. Dust they were - and unto dust they returned.

This is the lot of all men. It will be our own, unless the Lord shall first return in glory. After all our scheming, and contriving, and planning, and studying - after all our inventions, and discoveries, and scientific attainments - there remains one enemy we cannot conquer and disarm - and that is Death! The chapter in Genesis, which records the long lives of Methuselah, and the rest who lived before the flood, winds up the simple story of each by two expressive words,"He died." And now, after thousands of years, what more can be said of the greatest among ourselves? The histories of Marlborough, and Washington, and Napoleon, and Wellington arrive at the same humbling conclusion. The end of each, after all his greatness, is just this, "He died."

Death is a mighty leveler! He spares none, he waits for none! He will not tarry until you are ready. He will not be kept out by doors, and bars, and bolts. The Englishman boasts that his home is his castle - but, with all his boasting, he cannot exclude death. An Austrian nobleman forbade death and the smallpox to be named in his presence. But named or not named, it matters little - in God's appointed hour, death will come!

One man rolls lazily along the road in the smoothest and handsomest carriage which money can procure; another toils wearily along the path on foot - yet both are sure to meet at last in the same home!

One man, like Absalom, has fifty servants to wait upon him and do his bidding; another has none to lift a finger to do him a service - but both are traveling to a place where they must lie down alone.

One man is the owner of millions; another has scarcely a dollar that he can call his own property - yet neither one nor the other can carry one penny with him into the unseen world.

One man is the possessor of half a county; another has not so much as an inch of land - and yet 'six feet' of dirt will be amply sufficient for either of them at the last.

One man pampers his body with every possible delicacy, and clothes it in the richest and softest apparel; another has scarcely enough to eat, and seldom enough to put on - yet both alike are hurrying on to a day when "ashes to ashes, and dust to dust," shall be proclaimed over them! Fifty years hence, none shall be able to say, "This was the rich man's bone - and this the bone of the poor man."

Reader, I know that these are ancient things. I do not deny it for a moment. I am writing stale old things that all men know - but I am also writing things that all men do not feel. Oh, no! if they did feel them, they would not speak and live as they do.

You wonder sometimes at the tone and language of ministers of the Gospel. You marvel that we press upon you immediate decision. You think us extreme and extravagant in our views, because we urge upon you to close with Christ - to leave nothing uncertain - to make sure that you are born again and ready for Heaven. You hear - but do not approve. You go away, and say to one another, "The man means well - but he goes too far."

But do you not see, that the reality of death is continually forbidding us to use other language? We see him gradually thinning our congregations; we miss face after face in our assemblies; we know not whose turn may come next! We only know as the tree falls - there it will lie, and that "after death comes the judgment!" We must be bold and decided, and uncompromising in our language. We would rather run the risk of offending some than of losing any. We would aim at the standard set up by old Baxter "I'll preach as though I never would preach again! I preach as a dying man to dying men!"

We would realize the character given by Charles II of one of his preachers: "That man preaches as though death was behind his back! When I hear him, I cannot go to sleep."

Oh, that men would learn to live - as those who must one day die! Truly it is poor work to set our affections on a dying world and its short-lived comforts, and for the sake of an inch of time to lose a glorious immortality! Here we are toiling, and laboring, and wearying ourselves about trifles, and running to and fro like ants upon a heap - and yet after a few years we shall all be gone, and another generation will fill our place. Live for eternity, reader! Seek a portion which can never be taken from you; and never forget John Bunyan's golden rule: "He who would live well - let him make his dying day his company-keeper."
 

4. Observe, in the next place - how precious a believer's soul is in the sight of God.

The rich man, in the parable, dies and is buried. Perhaps he had a splendid funeral - a funeral proportioned to his expenditure while he was yet alive. But we hear nothing further of the moment when soul and body were divided. The next thing we hear of, is that he is in Hell.

The poor man, in the parable, dies also. What kind of burial he had, we know not. A pauper's funeral is a melancholy business! But this we do know, that the moment Lazarus dies - he is carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom - carried to a place of rest, where all the faithful are waiting for the 'resurrection of the just'.

Reader, there is something to my mind very striking, very touching, and very comforting in this expression of the parable. I ask your especial attention to it. It throws great light on the relation of all sinners who believe in Christ to their God and Father. It shows a little of the care bestowed on the least and lowest of Christ's disciples by the King of kings.

No man has such friends and attendants as the believer, however little he may think it. Angels rejoice over him in the day that he is born again of the Spirit; angels minister to him all through life; angels encamp around him in the wilderness of this world; angels take charge of his soul in death, and bear it safely home. Yes, as vile as he may be in his own eyes, and lowly in his own sight - the very poorest and humblest believer in Jesus is cared for by his Father in Heaven with a care that surpasses knowledge! The Lord has become his Shepherd - and he can lack nothing really good. Only let a man come sincerely to Christ - and he shall have all the benefits of a covenant ordered in all things and sure.

Is he laden with many sins? Though they be as scarlet - they shall be as white as snow!

Is his heart hard and prone to evil? A new heart shall be given to him, and a new spirit put in him!

Is he weak and cowardly? He who enabled Peter to confess Christ before his enemies, shall make him bold!

Is he ignorant? He who bore with Thomas' slowness, shall bear with him, and guide him into all truth!

Is he alone in his position? He who stood by Paul when all men forsook him, shall also stand by his side!

Is he in circumstances of special trial? He who enabled men to be saints in Nero's household, shall also enable him to persevere!

The very hairs of his head are all numbered. Nothing can harm him without God's permission. He who hurts him - hurts the apple of God's eye, and injures a brother and member of Christ Himself!

His trials are all wisely ordered. Satan can only vex him as he did Job - when God permits him. No temptation can happen to him, above what he is able to bear. All things are working together for his good!

His steps are all ordered - from grace to glory. He is kept on earth until he is ripe for Heaven - and not one moment longer. The harvest of the Lord must have its appointed proportion of sun and wind, of cold and heat, of rain and storm - and then, when the believer's work is done, the angels of God shall come for him as they did for Lazarus, and carry him safely home!

Ah, reader, the men of the world little think whom they are despising, when they mock Christ's people! They are mocking those whom angels are not ashamed to attend upon. They are mocking the brethren and sisters of Christ Himself! Little do they consider that these are those for whose sakes the days of tribulation are shortened: these are those by whose intercession kings reign peacefully. Little do they reckon that the prayers of men like Lazarus have more weight in the affairs of nations, than hosts of armed men.

Believers in Christ who read these pages, you little know the full extent of your privileges and possessions. Like children at school - you know not half of what your Father is doing for your welfare. Learn to live by faith more than you have done. Acquaint yourself with the fullness of the treasure laid up for you in Christ even now. This world, no doubt, must always be a place of trial while we are in the body; but still there are comforts provided for the brethren of Lazarus which many never enjoy.
 

V. Observe, in the last place - what a dangerous and soul-ruining sin is the sin of selfishness.

You have the rich man in the parable, in a hopeless state. If there was no other picture of a lost soul in Hell in all the Bible - you have it here. You meet him in the beginning - clothed in purple and fine linen; you part with him at the last - tormented in the everlasting fire!

And yet there is nothing to show that this man was a murderer, or a thief, or an adulterer, or a liar. There is no reason to say that he was an atheist, or an infidel, or a blasphemer. For anything we know - he faithfully attended to all the ordinances of the Jewish religion. But we do know that he was lost forever.

There is something to my mind very solemn in this thought. Here is a man whose outward life in all probability was correct - at all events, we know nothing against him. He dresses richly - but then he had money to spend on his apparel. He gives splendid feasts and entertainments - but then he was wealthy, and could well afford it. We read nothing recorded against him that might not be recorded of hundreds and thousands in the present day - who are counted respectable and good sort of people. And yet the end of this man, is that he goes to Hell. Surely this deserves serious attention!

I believe it is meant to teach us to beware of living only for ourselves. It is not enough that we are able to say, "I live correctly. I pay every one his due. I discharge all the relations of life with propriety. I attend to all the outward requirements of Christianity." There remains behind another question, to which the Bible requires an answer: "To whom do you live - to yourself or to Christ? What is the great end, aim, object, and ruling motive in your life?" Let men call the question extreme if they please. For myself, I can find nothing short of this in Paul's words, "He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves - but unto Him who died for them, and rose again" (2 Corinthians 5:15). And I draw the conclusion that if, like the rich man, we live only to ourselves - we shall ruin our souls forever!

I believe further that this passage is meant to teach us the damnable nature of sins of omission. It does not seem that it was so much the things the rich man did - but the things he left undone, which made him miss Heaven. Lazarus was at his gate - and he merely let him alone. But is not this exactly in keeping with the history of the judgment in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew? Nothing is said there of the sins of commission of which the lost are guilty. How does the charge run?
"For I was hungry - and you gave Me nothing to eat;
 I was thirsty - and you gave Me nothing to drink;
 I was a stranger - and you did not take Me in;
 I was naked - and you did not clothe Me,
 I was sick and in prison - and you did not take care of Me!"
(Matthew 25:42, 43).

The charge against them is simply that they did not do certain things. On this their sentence turns. And I draw the conclusion again, that except we take heed, sins of omission may ruin our souls! Truly it was a solemn saying of good old Usher, on his death-bed: "Lord, forgive me all my sins - but specially my sins of omission."

I believe further, that the passage is meant to teach us that riches bring special danger with them. Yes! riches, which the vast majority of men are always seeking after - riches for which they spend their lives, and of which they make an idol - riches entail on their possessor immense spiritual peril! The possession of them has a very hardening effect on the soul - they chill; they freeze; they petrify the inward man! They close the eye to the things of faith. They insensibly produce a tendency to forget God.

And does not this stand in perfect harmony with all the language of Scripture on the same subject?

What does our Lord say? "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle - than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God!" Mark 10:23-25 !" (Mark 10:23, 25).

What does Paul say? "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs!" (1 Tim. 6:10).

What can be more striking than the fact that the Bible has frequently spoken of money as a most fruitful cause of sin and evil?
For money, Achan brought defeat on the armies of Israel, and death on himself.
For money, Balaam sinned against light, and tried to curse God's people.
For money, Delilah betrayed Samson to the Philistines.
For money, Gehazi lied to Naaman and Elisha, and became a leper.
For money, Ananias and Sapphira became the first hypocrites in the early Church, and lost their lives.
For money, Judas Iscariot sold Christ, and was ruined eternally.
Surely these facts speak loudly!

Money, in truth is one of the most unsatisfying of possessions. It takes away some cares, no doubt - but it brings with it quite as many cares as it takes away!
There is trouble in the getting of it;
there is anxiety in the keeping of it;
there are temptations in the use of it;
there is guilt in the abuse of it;
there is sorrow in the losing of it;
there is perplexity in the disposing of it.

Two-thirds of all the strifes, quarrels, and lawsuits in the world, arise from one simple cause - money!

Money most certainly is one of the most heart-ensnaring of possessions. It seems desirable at a distance - yet it often proves a poison when in our hand! No man can possibly tell the effect of money on his soul, if it suddenly falls to his lot to possess it. Many a one did run well - as a poor man who forgets God when he becomes rich.

Reader, I draw the conclusion that those who have money, like the rich man in the parable, ought to take double pains about their souls. They live in a most unhealthy atmosphere - they have double need to be on their guard!

I believe, not least, that the passage is meant to stir up special carefulness about selfishness in these last days. You have a special warning in 2 Timothy 3:1-2; "In the last days perilous times shall come: for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous." I believe we have come to the last days, and that we ought to beware of the sins here mentioned, if we love our souls.

Perhaps we are poor judges of our own times: we are apt to exaggerate and magnify their evils, just because we see and feel them; but after every allowance, I doubt whether there ever was more need of warnings against selfishness than in the present day. I am sure there never was a time when all classes in England had so many comforts and so many temporal good things; and yet I believe there is an utter disproportion between men's expenditure on themselves - and their outlay on works of charity and works of mercy. I see this in the miserable donations to which many rich men confine their charity. I see it in the languishing condition of many of our best Christian societies, and the painfully slow growth of their annual incomes. I see it in the small number of names which appear in the list of contributions to any good work. There are, I believe, thousands of rich people in this country, who literally give away nothing at all. I see it in the notorious fact that few, even of those who give - give anything proportioned to their means. I see all this, and mourn over it! I regard it as the selfishness and covetousness predicted as likely to arise in the last days.

Readers, I know that this is a painful and delicate subject. But it must not on that account, be avoided by the minister of Christ. It is a subject for the times, and it needs pressing home. I desire to speak to myself, and to all who make any profession of religion. Of course I cannot expect worldly and utterly ungodly people to view this subject in Bible light - to them the Bible is no rule of faith and practice; to quote texts to them would be of little use.

But I do ask all professing Christians to consider well what Scripture says against covetousness and selfishness, and on behalf of liberality in giving money.

Is it for nothing that the Lord Jesus spoke the parable of the Rich Fool, and blamed him because he was not "rich towards God?" (Luke 12:21). Is it for nothing that in the parable of the Sower, He mentions the deceitfulness of riches as one reason why the seed of the Word bears no fruit? (Matthew 13:22.) Is it for nothing that He says, "I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings." (Luke 16:9.) Is it for nothing that He says, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." (Luke 14:12-14.) Is it for nothing that He says, "Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in Heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys." (Luke 12:33.) Is it for nothing that He says, "It is more blessed to give than to receive?" (Acts 20:35). Is it for nothing that He warns us against the example of the priest and Levite, who saw the wounded traveler - but passed by on the other side? Is it for nothing that He praises the good Samaritan, who denied himself to show kindness to a stranger? (Luke 10:34.)

Is it for nothing that Paul classes covetousness with sins of the grossest description, and denounces it as idolatry? (Coloss. 3:5.) And is there not a striking and painful difference between this language and the habits and feeling of society about money? I appeal to any one who knows the world. Let him judge what I say.

Reader, I only ask you to consider calmly the passages of Scripture to which I have referred. I cannot think they were meant to teach nothing at all. That the habits of the East and our own are different, I freely allow; that some of the expressions I have quoted are figurative I freely admit; but still, after all, a principle lies at the bottom of all these expressions. Let us take heed that this principle is not neglected. I wish that many a professing Christian in this day, who perhaps dislikes what I am saying, would try to write a commentary on these expressions, and try to explain to himself what they mean!

To know that alms-giving cannot atone for sin, is well. To know that our good works cannot justify us, is excellent. To know that we may give all our goods to feed the poor, and build hospitals and cathedrals, without any real charity, is most important. But let us beware lest we go into the other extreme, and because our money cannot save us - give away no money at all.

Has anyone who reads these pages money? Then take heed and beware of covetousness! Remember you carry weight in the race towards Heaven. All men are naturally in danger of being lost forever; but you are doubly so, because of your possessions. Nothing is said to put out fire so soon - as earth thrown upon it; and nothing, I am sure, has such a tendency to quench the fire of religion - as the possession of money. It was a solemn message which Buchanan, on his death-bed, sent to his old pupil: "He was going to a place where few kings and great men would come."

It is possible, no doubt, for you to be saved as well as others. With God, nothing is impossible. Abraham, Job, and David were all rich - and yet saved. But oh, take heed to yourself! Money is a good servant - but a bad master. Let that saying of our Lord's sink down into your heart: "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven!"

Well said an old divine: "The surface above gold mines is generally very barren." Well might old Latimer begin one of his sermons before Edward VI by quoting three times over our Lord's words: "Take heed and beware of covetousness!" And then saying, "What if I should say nothing else these three or four hours?" There are few prayers more wise and more necessary than that petition: "In all time of our wealth, good Lord deliver us!"

Has anyone who reads these pages little or no money? Then do not envy those who are richer than yourself? Pray for them. Pity them. Be charitable to their faults. Remember that high places are giddy places, and be not too hasty in your condemnation of their conduct. Perhaps if you had their difficulties - you would do no better yourself. Beware of the love of money! A man may love money overmuch, without having any at all. Beware of the love of self - it may be found in a poor cottage as well as in a palace. And beware of thinking that poverty alone will save you! If you would sit with Lazarus in glory - you must not only have fellowship with him in suffering - but in grace.

Does any reader desire to know the remedy against that love of self, which ruined the rich man's soul, and cleaves to us all by nature, like our skin! I tell him plainly there is only one remedy, and I ask him to mark well what that remedy is. It is not the fear of Hell. It is not the hope of Heaven. It is not any sense of duty. Oh, no! The disease of selfishness is far too deeply rooted to yield to such secondary motives as these. Nothing will ever cure it, but an experimental knowledge of Christ's redeeming love! You must know the misery and guilt of your own estate by nature; you must experience the power of Christ's atoning blood sprinkled upon your conscience, and making you whole; you must taste the sweetness of peace with God through the mediation of Jesus, and feel the love of a reconciled Father shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit.

Then, and not until then, the mainspring of selfishness will be broken! Then, knowing the immensity of your debt to Christ, you will feel that nothing is too great and too costly to give to Him. Feeling that you have been loved much, when you deserved nothing - you will heartily love in return, and cry, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits?" Feeling that you have freely received countless mercies, you will think it a privilege to do anything to please Him to Whom you owe all. Feeling that you have been bought with a price, and are no longer your own - you will labor to glorify God with body and spirit, which are His.

Yes, reader, I repeat it this day! I know no effectual remedy for the love of self - but a believing apprehension of the love of Christ. Other remedies may palliate the disease - this alone will heal it. Other antidotes may hide its deformity - this alone will work a perfect cure.

An easy, good-natured temper may cover over selfishness in one man; a love of praise may conceal it in a second; a self-righteous asceticism and an affected spirit of self-denial, may keep it out of sight in a third; but nothing will ever cut up selfishness by the roots - but the love of Christ revealed in the mind by the Holy Spirit, and felt in the heart by simple faith. Once let a man see the full meaning of the words, "Christ loved me and gave Himself for me!" and then he will delight to give himself to Christ, and all that he has to His service. He will live to Him, not in order that he may be saved - but because he is saved already. He will work for Him, not that he may have life and peace - but because life and peace are his already.

Go to the cross of Christ - all you who want to be delivered from the power of selfishness. Go and see what a price was paid there to provide a ransom for your soul. Go and see what an astounding sacrifice was there made that a door to eternal life might be provided for poor sinners like you. Go and see how the Son of God gave Himself for you - and learn to think it a small thing to give yourself to Him.

Reader, the disease which ruined the rich man in the parable, may be cured. But oh, remember, there is only one real remedy! If you would not live to yourself - you must live to Christ. See to it that this remedy is not only known - but applied; not only heard of - but used.
 

1. And now let me conclude, all by urging on every reader of these pages the great duty of self-examination.

A passage of Scripture like this parable ought surely to raise in many an one great searchings of heart. "What am I? Where am I going? What am I doing? What is likely to be my condition after death? Am I prepared to leave the world? Have I any home to look forward to in the world to come. Have I put off the old man and put on the new? Am I really one with Christ, and a pardoned soul?" Surely such questions as these, may well be asked when the story of the rich man and Lazarus has been heard. Oh, that the Holy Spirit may incline many a reader's heart to ask them!

2. In the next place, I invite all readers who desire to have their souls saved, and have no good account to give of themselves at present - to seek salvation while it can be found. I do entreat you to apply to Him, by Whom alone man can enter Heaven and be saved, even Jesus Christ the Lord. He has the keys of Heaven. He is sealed and appointed by God the Father to be the Savior of all who will come to Him. Go to Him in earnest and hearty prayer, and tell Him your case. Tell Him that you have heard that He receives sinners - and that you come to Him as such. Tell Him that you desire to be saved by Him in His Own way - and ask Him to save you. Oh that you may take this course without delay! Remember the hopeless end of the rich man. Once dead - there is no more opportunity to be saved.

3. Last of all, I entreat all professing Christians to encourage themselves in habits of liberality towards causes of charity and mercy. Remember that you are God's stewards - and give money liberally, freely, and without grudging, whenever you have an opportunity. You cannot keep your money forever. You must give account one day of the manner in which it has been expended. Oh, lay it out with an eye to eternity, while you can!

I do not ask rich men to leave their situations in life and go into the workhouse. I ask no man to neglect his worldly calling, and to omit to provide for his family. Diligence in business is a positive Christian duty; provision for those dependent on us, is proper Christian prudence. But I ask all to look around continually as they journey on, and to remember the poor - the poor in body and the poor in soul.

We are here for a few short years. How can we do most good with our money while we are here? How can we so spend it as to leave the world somewhat happier and somewhat holier when we are gone? Might we not abridge some of our luxuries? Might we not lay out less upon ourselves - and give more to Christ's cause and Christ's poor? Is there none we can do good to? Are there no sick, no poor, no needy - whose sorrows we might lessen, and whose comforts we might increase? Such questions will never fail to elicit an answer from some quarter. I am thoroughly persuaded that the income of every Christian and charitable society in England might easily be multiplied tenfold, if English Christians would give in proportion to their means.

There are none, surely, to whom such appeals ought to come home with such power - as professing believers in the Lord Jesus. The parable of the text is a striking illustration of our position by nature, and our debt to Christ. We all lay, like Lazarus at Heaven's gate, sick unto the death, helpless, and starving. Blessed be God, we were not neglected as he was! Jesus came forth to relieve us. Jesus gave Himself for us - that we might have hope and live. For a poor Lazarus-like world - He came down from Heaven, and humbled Himself to become a man. For a poor Lazarus-like world - He went up and down doing good, caring for men's bodies as well as souls, until He died for us on the cross!

I believe that in giving to support works of charity and mercy, we are doing that which is according to Christ's mind - and I ask readers of these pages to begin the habit of giving, if they never began it before; and to go on with it increasingly, if they have begun.

I believe that in offering a warning against covetousness, I have done no more than bring forward a warning specially called for by the times, and I ask God to bless the consideration of these pages to many souls!

 

 

The Bible

 

A Sermon
(No. 15)

Delivered on Sabbath Evening, March 18, 1855, by the
REV. C. H. Spurgeon
At Exeter Hall, Strand.

 

"I have written to him the great things of my law; but they were counted as a strange thing."-Hosea 8:12

This is God's complaint against Ephraim. It is no mean proof of his goodness, that he stoops to rebuke his erring creatures; it is a great argument of his gracious disposition, that he bows his head to notice terrestrial affairs. He might, if he pleased, wrap himself with might as with a garment; he might put the stars around his wrist for bracelets, and bind the suns around his brow for a coronet; he might dwell alone, far, far above this world, up in the seventh heaven, and look down with calm and silent indifference upon all the doings of his creatures; he might do as the heathens supposed their Jove did, sit in perpetual silence, sometimes nodding his awful head to make the fates move as he pleased, but never taking thought of the little things of earth, disposing of them as beneath his notice, engrossed with his own being, swallowed up within himself, living alone and retired; and I, as one of his creatures, might stand by night upon a mountain-top, and look upon the silent stars and say, "Ye are the eyes of God, but ye look not down on me; your light is the gift of his omnipotence, but your rays are not smiles of love to me. God, the mighty Creator, has forgotten me; I am a despicable drop in the ocean of creation, a sear leaf in the forest of beings, an atom in the mountain of existence. He knows me not; I am alone, alone, alone." But it is not so, beloved. Our God is of another order. He notices every one of us; there is not a sparrow or a worm but is found in his decrees. There is not a person upon whom his eye is not fixed. Our most secret acts are known to him. Whatsoever we do, or bear, or suffer, the eye of God still rests upon us, and we are beneath his smile-for we are his people; or beneath his frown-for we have erred from him.
Oh! how ten-thousand-fold merciful is God, that, looking down upon the race of man, he does not smite it our of existence. We see from our text that God looks upon man; for he says of Ephraim, "I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing." But see how, when he observes the sin of man, he does not dash him away and spurn him with his foot; he does not shake him by the neck over the gulf of hell, until his brain doth reel and then drop him forever; but rather, he comes down from heaven to plead with his creatures; he argues with them; he puts himself, as it were, upon a level with the sinner-states his grievances and pleads his claim. O Ephraim, I have written unto thee the great things of my law, but they have been unto thee as a strange thing! I come here to-night in God's stead, my friends, to plead with you as God's ambassador, to charge many of you with a sin; to lay it to your hearts by the power of the Spirit, so that you may be convinced of sin, of righteousness, and of a judgment to come. The crime I charge you with is the sin of the text. God has written to you the great things of his law, but they have been unto you as a strange thing. It is concerning this blessed book, the Bible, that I mean to speak tonight. Here lies my text-this Word of God. Here is the theme of my discourse, a theme which demands more eloquence than I possess; a subject upon which a thousand orators might speak at once; a mighty, vast, and comprehensive theme, which might engross all eloquence throughout eternity, and still it would remain unexhausted.
Concerning the Bible, I have three things to say to-night, and they are all in my text. First, its author, "I have written;" secondly, its subjects-the great things of God's law; and thirdly, its common treatment-it has been accounted by most men a strange thing.
I. First, then, concerning this book: Who is the author? The text says that it is God. "I have written to him the great things of my law." Here lies my Bible-who wrote it? I open it, and find it consists of a series of tracts. The first five tracts were written by a man called Moses; I turn on, and I find others. Sometimes I see David is the penman, at other times Solomon. Here I read Micah, then Amos, then Hosea. As I turn further on, to the more luminous pages of the New Testament, I see Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Paul, Peter, James, and others; but when I shut up the book; I ask myself, who is the author of it? Do these men jointly claim the authorship? Are they the compositors of this massive volume? Do they between themselves divide the honor? Our holy religion answers, No! This volume is the writing of the living God; each letter was penned with an Almighty finger; each word in it dropped from the everlasting lips; each sentence was dictated by the Holy Spirit. Albeit, that Moses was employed to write his histories with his fiery pen, God guided that pen. It may be that David touched his harp, and let sweet Psalms of melody drop from his fingers; but God moved his hands over the living strings of his golden harp. It may be that Solomon sang canticles of love, or gave forth words of consummate wisdom, but God directed his lips, and made the preacher eloquent. If I follow the thundering Nahum, when his horses plough the waters, or Habakkuk, when he sees the tents of Cushan in affliction; if I read Malachi, when the earth is burning like an oven; if I turn to the smooth page of John, who tells of love, or the rugged, fiery chapters of Peter, who speaks of fire devouring God's enemies; if I turn to Jude, who launches forth anathemas upon the foes of God, everywhere I find God speaking; it is God's voice, not man's; the words are God's words, the words of the Eternal, the Invisible, the Almighty, the Jehovah of this earth. This Bible is God's Bible, and when I see it, I seem to hear a voice springing up from it, saying, "I am the book of God; man, read me. I am God's writing; open my leaf, for I was penned by God; read it, for he is my author, and you will see him visible and manifest everywhere." "I have written to him the great things of my law."
How do you know that God wrote the book? That is just what I shall not try to prove to you. I could if I pleased, demonstrate it, for there are arguments enough, there are reasons enough, did I care to occupy your time to-night in bringing them before you; but I shall do no such thing. I might tell you, if I pleased, that the grandeur of the style is above that of an mortal writing, and that all the poets who have ever existed could not, with all their works united, give us such sublime poetry and such mighty language as is to be found in the Scriptures. I might insist upon it, that the subjects of which it treats are beyond the human intellect; that man could never have invented the grand doctrines of a Trinity in the Godhead; man could not have told us anything of the creation of the universe; he could never have been the author of the majestic idea of Providence-that all things are ordered according to the will of one great Supreme Being, and work together for good. I might enlarge upon its honesty, since it tells the faults of its writers; its unity, since it never belies itself; its master simplicity, that he who runs may read it; and I might mention a hundred more things, which would all prove, to a demonstration, that the book is of God. But I come not here to prove it. I am a Christian minister, and you are Christians, or profess to be so; and there is never any necessity for Christian ministers to make a point of bringing forward infidel arguments in order to answer them. It is the greatest folly in the world. Infidels, poor creatures, do not know their own arguments till we tell them, and then they glean their blunted shafts to shoot them at the shield of truth again. It is follow to bring forward these firebrands of hell, even if we are well prepared t quench them. Let men of the world learn error of themselves; do not let us be propagators of their falsehoods. True, there are some preachers who are short of stock, and want to fill them up; but God's own chosen men need not do that; they are taught of God, and God supplies them with matter, with language, with power. There may be some one here to-night who has come without faith, a man of reason, a freethinker. With him I have no argument at all. I profess not to stand here as a controversialist, but as a preacher of things that I know and feel. But I too, have been like him. There was an evil hour when I once shipped the anchor of my faith; I cut the cable of my belief; I no longer moored myself hard by the coasts of Revelation; I allowed my vessel to drift before the wind; I said to reason, "Be thou my captain;" I said to my own brain, "Be thou my rudder;" and I started on my mad voyage. Thank God, it is all over now; but I will tell you its brief history. It was one hurried sailing over the tempestuous ocean of free thought. I went on, and as I went, the skies began to darken; but to make up for that deficiency, the waters were brilliant with coruscations of brilliancy. I saw sparks flying upward that pleased me, and I thought, "If this be free thought, it is a happy thing." My thoughts seemed gems, and I scattered stars with both my hands; but anon, instead of these coruscations of glory, I saw grim fiends, fierce and horrible, start up from the waters, and as I dashed on, they gnashed their teeth, and grinned upon me; they seized the prow of my ship and dragged me on, while I, in part, gloried at the rapidity of my motion, but yet shuddered at the terrific rate with which I passed the old landmarks of my faith. As I hurried forward, with an awful speed, I began to doubt my very existence; I doubted if there were a world, I doubted if there was such a thing as myself. I went to the very verge of the dreary realms of unbelief. I went to the very bottom of the sea of Infidelity. I doubted everything. But here the devil foiled himself: for the very extravagance of the doubt, proved its absurdity. Just when I saw the bottom of that sea, there came a voice which said, "And can this doubt be true?" At this very thought I awoke. I started from that deathdream, which, God knows might have damned my soul, and ruined this, my body, if I had not awoke. When I arose, faith took the helm; from that moment I doubted not. Faith steered me back; faith cried, "Away, away!" I cast my anchor on Calvary; I lifted my eye to God; and here I am, "alive, and out of hell." Therefore, I speak what I do know. I have sailed that perilous voyage; I have come safe to land. Ask me again to be an infidel! No; I have tried it; it was sweet at first, but bitter afterwards. Now, lashed to God's gospel more firmly than ever, standing as on a rock of adamant, I defy the arguments of hell to move me; for "I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him." But I shall neither plead nor argue this night. You profess to be Christian men, or else you would not be here. Your professions may be lies; what you say you are, may be the very contrary to what you really are; but still I suppose you all admit that this is the Word of God. A thought or two then upon it. "I have written to him the great things of my law."
First, my friends, stand over this volume, and admire its authority. This is no common book. It is not the sayings of the sages of Greece; here are not the utterances of philosophers of past ages. If these words were written by a man, we might reject them; but O let me think the solemn thought, that this book is God's handwriting-that these words are God's! Let me look at its date; it is dated from the hills of heaven. Let me look at its letters; they flash glory on my eye. Let me read the chapters; they are big with meaning and mysteries unknown. Let me turn over the prophecies; they are pregnant with unthought-of wonders. Oh, book of books! And wast thou written by my God? Then will I bow before thee. Thou book of vast authority! thou art a proclamation from the Emperor of Heaven; far be it from me to exercise my reason in contradicting thee. Reason, thy place is to stand and find out what this volume means, not to tell what this book ought to say. Come thou, my reason, my intellect, sit thou down and listen, for these words are the words of God. I do not know how to enlarge on this thought. Oh! if you could ever remember that this Bible was actually and really written by God. Oh! if ye had been let into the secret chambers of heaven, if ye had beheld God grasping his pen and writing down these letters-then surely ye would respect them; but they are just as much God's handwriting as if you had seen God write them. This Bible is a book of authority; it is an authorized book, for God has written it. Oh! tremble, lest any of you despise it; mark its authority, for it is the Word of God.
Then, since God wrote it, mark its truthfulness. If I had written it, there would be worms of critics who would at once swarm upon it, and would cover it with their evil spawn; Had I written it, there would be men who would pull it to pieces at once, and perhaps quite right too. But this is the Word of God; come, search, ye critics, and find a flaw; examine it, from its Genesis to its Revelation, and find an error. This is a vein of pure gold, unalloyed by quartz, or any earthly substance. This is a star without a speck; a sun without a blot; a light without darkness; a moon without its paleness; a glory without a dimness. O Bible! it cannot be said of any other book, that it is perfect and pure; but of thee we can declare all wisdom is gathered up in thee, without a particle of folly. This is the judge that ends the strife, where wit and reason fail. This is the book untainted by any error; but is pure, unalloyed, perfect truth. Why? Because God wrote it. Ah! charge God with error if ye please; tell him that his book is not what it ought to be. I have heard men, with prudish and mock-modesty, who would like to alter the Bible; and (I almost blush to say it) I have heard ministers alter God's Bible, because they were afraid of it. Have you never heard a man say, "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not"-what does the Bible say?-"Shall be damned." But that does not happen to be polite enough, so they say, "Shall be condemned." Gentlemen, pull the velvet out of your mouths; speak God's word; we want none of your alterations. I have heard men in prayer instead of saying, "Make your calling and election sure," say "Make your calling and salvation sure." Pity they were not born when God lived far-far back that they might have taught God how to write. Oh, impudence beyond all bounds! Oh full-blown self-conceit! To attempt to dictate to the All-wise-to teach the Omniscient and instruct the Eternal. Strange that there should be men so vile as to use the penknife of Jehoiakim to cut passages out of the word, because they are unpalatable. O ye who dislike certain portions of Holy Writ, rest assured that your taste is corrupt, and that God will not stay for you little opinion. Your dislike is the very reason why God wrote it, because you out not to be suited; you have no right to be pleased. God wrote what you do not like; he wrote the truth. Oh! let us bend in reverence before it, for God inspired it. It is pure truth. Here from this fountain gushes aqua vitae-the water of life-without a single particle of earth; here from this sun cometh forth rays of radiance, without the mixture of darkness. Blessed Bible! thou art all truth.
Yet once more, before we leave this point, let us stop and consider the merciful nature of God, in having written us a Bible at all. Ah! he might have left us without it, to grope our dark way, as blind men seek the wall; he might have suffered us to wander on with the star of reason as our only guide. I recollect a story of Mr. Hume, who so constantly affirmed that the light of reason is abundantly sufficient. Being at a good minister's house one evening, he had been discussing the question, and declaring his firm belief in the sufficiency of the light of nature. On leaving, the minister offered to hold him a candle to light him down the steps. He said "No; the light of nature would be enough; the moon would do." It so happened that the moon was covered with a cloud, and he fell down the steps. "Ah!" said the minister, "you had better have had a little light from above, after all, Mr. Hume." So, supposing the light of nature to be sufficient, we had better have a little light from above too, and then we shall be sure to be right. Better have two lights than only one. The light of creation is a bright light. God may be seen in the stars; his name is written in gilt letters on the brow of night; you may discover his glory in the ocean waves, yea, in the trees of the field; but it is better to read it in two books than in one. You will find it here more clearly revealed; for he has written this book himself, and he has given you the key to understand it, if you have the Holy Spirit. Ah, beloved, let us thank God for this Bible; let us love it; let us count it more precious than much fine gold.
But let me say one thing, before I pass on to the second point. If this be the Word of God, what will become of some of you who have not read it for the last month? "Month, sir! I have not read it for this year." Ay, there are some of you who have not read it at all. Most people treat the Bible very politely . They have a small pocket volume, neatly bound; they put a white pocket-handkerchief round it and carry it to their places of worship; when they get home, they lay it up in a drawer till next Sunday morning; then it comes out again for a little bit of a treat, and goes to chapel; that is all the poor Bible gets in the way of an airing. That is your style of entertaining this heavenly messenger. There is dust enough on some of your Bibles to write "damnation" with your fingers. There are some of you who have not turned over your Bibles for a long, long while, and what think you? I tell you blunt words, but true words. What will God say at last? When you shall come before him, he shall say, "Did you read my Bible?" "No." "I wrote you a letter of mercy; did you read it?" "No." "Rebel! I have sent thee a letter inviting thee to me; didst thou ever read it?" "Lord, I never broke the seal; I kept it shut up." "Wretch!" says God, "then, thou deservest hell, if I sent thee a loving epistle, and thou wouldst not even break the seal; what shall I do unto thee?" Oh, let it not be so with you. Be Bible-readers; be Bible-searchers.
II. Our second point is: The subjects on which the Bible treats. The words of the text are these: "I have written to him the great things of my law." The Bible treats of great things, and of great things only. there is nothing in this Bible which is unimportant. Every verse in it has a solemn meaning; and if we have not found it out yet, we hope yet to do it. You have seen mummies, wrapped round and round with folds of linen. Well, God's Bible is like that; it is a vast roll of white linen, woven in the loom of truth; so you will have to continue unwinding it, roll after roll, before you get the real meaning of it from the very depth; and when you have found, as you think, a part of the meaning, you will still need to keep on unwinding, unwinding, and all eternity you will be unwinding the words of this great volume. Yet there is nothing in the Bible but great things. Let me divide, so as to be more brief. First, all things in this Bible are great; but, secondly, some things are the greatest of all.
All things in the Bible are great. Some people think it does not matter what doctrines you believe; that it is immaterial what church you attend; that all denominations are alike. Well, I dislike Mrs. Bigotry above almost all people in the world, and I never give her any compliment or praise; but there is another woman I hate equally as much, and that is Mrs. Latitudinarianism-a well-known character, who has made the discovery that all of us are alike. Now, I believe that a man may be saved in any church. Some have been saved in the Church of Rome-a few blessed men whose names I could mention here. I know, blessed be God, what multitudes are saved in the Church of England; she has a host of pious, praying men in her midst. I think that all sections of Protestant Christians have a remnant according to the election of grace; and they had need to have, some of them, a little salt, for otherwise they would go to corruption. But when I say that, do you imagine that I think them all on a level? Are they all alike truthful? One sect says infant baptism is right; another says it is wrong; yet you say they are both right. I cannot see that. One teaches we are saved by free grace; another say us that we are not, but are saved by free will; and yet you believe they are both right. I do not understand that. One says that God loves his people, and never leaves off loving them; another says that he did not love his people before they loved him-that he often loves them, and then ceases to love them, and turns them away. They may both be right in the main; but can they both be right when one says "Yes," and the other says "No?" I must have a pair of spectacles, to enable me to look backwards and forwards at the same time, before I can see that. It cannot be, sirs, that they are both right. But some say they differ upon non-essentials. This text says, "I have written to him the great things of my law." There is nothing in God's Bible which is not great. Did ever any of you sit down to see which was the purest religion? "Oh," say you, "we never took the trouble. We went just where our father and mother went." Ah! that is a profound reason indeed. You went where you father and mother did. I thought you were sensible people; I didn't think you went where other people pulled you, but went of your own selves. I love my parents above all that breathe, and the very thought that they believe a thing to be true, helps me to think it is correct; but I have not followed them; I belong to a different denomination, and I thank God that I do. I can receive them as Christian brethren and sisters; but I never thought that, because they happened to be one thing, I was to be the same. No such thing. God gave me brains, and I will use them; and if you have any intellect, use it too. Never say it doesn't matter. Whatever God has put here is of eminent importance; he would not have written a thing that was indifferent. Whatever is here is of some value; therefore, search all questions, try all by the Word of God. I am not afraid to have what I preach tried by this book. Only give me a fair field and no favor, and this book; if I say anything contrary to it, I will withdraw it the next Sabbath-day. By this I stand, by this I fall. Search and see; but don't say, "it does not matter." If God says a thing, it always must be of importance.
But, while all things in God's word are important, all are not equally important. There are certain fundamental and vital truths which must be believed, or otherwise no man would be saved. If you want to know what you must believe, if ye would be saved, you will find the great things of God's law between these two covers; they are all contained here. As a sort of digest or summary of the great things of law, I remember an old friend of mine once saying, "Ah! you preach the three R's, and God will always bless you." I said, "What are the three R's?" and he answered, "Ruin, redemption, and regeneration." They contain the sum and substance of divinity. R for ruin. We were all ruined in the fall; we were lost when Adam sinned, and we were all ruined by our own transgressions; we are all ruined by our own evil hearts, and our own wicked wills; and we all shall be ruined, unless grace saves us. Then there is a second R for redemption. We are ransomed by the blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish and without spot; we are rescued by his power; we are ransomed by his merits; we are redeemed by his strength. then there is R for regeneration. If we would be pardoned, we must also be regenerated; for no man can partake of redemption unless he is regenerate. Let him be as good as he pleases; let him serve God, as he imagines, as much as he likes; unless he is regenerate, and has a new heart, a new birth, he will still be in the first R, that is ruin. These things contain an epitome of the gospel. I believe there is a better epitome in the five points of Calvinism;-Election according to the foreknowledge of God; the natural depravity and sinfulness of man; particular redemption by the blood of Christ; effectual calling by the power of the Spirit; and ultimate perseverance by the efforts of God's might. I think all those need to be believed, in order to salvation; but I should not like to write a creed like the Athanasian, beginning with "Whosoever shall be saved, before all things it is necessary that he should hold the Catholic faith, which faith is this,"-when I got so far, I should stop, because I should not know what to write. I hold the Catholic faith of the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. It is not for me to draw up creeds; but I ask you to search the Scriptures, for this is the word of life.
God says, "I have written to him the great things of my law." Do you doubt their greatness? Do ye think they are not worth your attention? Reflect a moment, man. Where art thou standing now?

"Lo on a narrow neck of land,
'Twixt two unbounded seas I stand;
An inch of time, a moment's space,
May lodge me in yon heavenly place,
Or shut me up in hell."

I recollect standing on a seashore once, upon a narrow neck of land, thoughtless that the tide might come up. The tide kept continually washing up on either side, and, wrapped in thoughts, I stood there, until at last there was the greatest difficulty in getting on shore. You and I stand each day on a narrow neck, and there is one wave coming up there; see, how near it is to your foot; and lo! another follows at every tick of the clock; "Our hearts, like muffled drums, are beating funeral marches to the tomb." We are always tending downwards to the grave each moment that we live. This book tells me that if I am converted, when I die, there is a heaven of joy and love to receive me; it tells me that angels' pinions shall be stretched, and I, borne by strong cherubic wings, shall out-soar the lightning, and mount beyond the stars, up to the throne of God, to dwell forever.

"Far from a world of grief and sin,
With God eternally shut in."

Oh! it makes the hot tear start from my eye, it makes my heart too big for this my body, and my brain whirls at the thought of

"Jerusalem, my happy home,
Name ever dear to me."

Oh! that sweet scene beyond the clouds; sweet fields arrayed in living green, and rivers of delight. Are not these great things? But then, poor unregenerate soul, the Bible says if thou are lost, thou art lost forever; it tells thee that if thou diest without Christ, without God, there is no hope for thee; that there is no place without a gleam of hope, where thou shalt read, in burning letters, "Ye knew your duty, but ye did it not;" it tells you, that ye shall be driven from his presence with a "depart, ye cursed." Are these not great things? Yes, sirs, as heaven is desirable, as hell is terrible, as time is short, as eternity is infinite, as the soul is precious, as pain is to be shunned, as heaven is to be sought, as God is eternal, and as his words are sure, these are great things, things ye ought to listen to.
III. Our last point is: The treatment which the poor Bible receives in this world; it is accounted a strange thing. What does that mean-the Bible accounted a strange thing? In the first place, it means that it is very strange to some people, because they never read it. I remember reading, on one occasion, the sacred story of David and Goliath, and there was a person present, positively grown up to years of maturity, who said to me, "Dear me! what an interesting story; what book is that in?" And I recollect a person once coming to me in private; I spoke to her about her soul, she told me how deeply she felt, how she had a desire t serve God, but she found another law in her members. I turned to a passage in Romans, and read to her, "The good that I would I do not; and the evil which I would not that I do!" She said, "Is that in the Bible? I did not know it." I did not blame her, because she had no interest in the Bible till then; but I did not wonder that there could be found persons who knew nothing about such a passage. Ah! you know more about your ledgers than your Bible; you know more about your day-books than what God has written; many of you will read a novel from beginning to end, and what have you got? A mouthful of froth when you have done. But you cannot read the Bible; that solid, lasting, substantial, and satisfying food goes uneaten, locked up in the cupboard of neglect; while anything that man writes, a catch of the day, is greedily devoured. "I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing." Ye have never read it. I bring the broad charge against you. Perhaps, ye say, I ought not to charge you with any such thing. I always think it better to have a worse opinion of you than too good an one. I charge you with this: you do not read your Bibles. Some of you have never read it through. I know I speak what your heart must say is honest truth. You are not Bible readers. You say you have the Bible in your houses; do I think you are such heathens as not to have a Bible? But when did you read it last? How do you know that your spectacles, which you have lost, have not been there for the last three years? Many people have not turned over its pages for a long time, and God might say unto them, "I have written unto you the great things of my law, but they have been accounted unto you a strange thing."
Others there be who read the Bible; but when they read it, they say it is so horribly dry. That young man over there says it is a "bore;" that is the words he uses. He says, "My mother says to me, when you go up to town, read a chapter every day. Well, I thought I would please her, and I said I would. I am sure I wish I had not. I did not read a chapter yesterday, or the day before. We were so busy, I could not help it." You do not love the Bible, do you? "No, there is nothing in it which is interesting." Ah, I thought so. But a little while ago I could not see anything in it. Do you know why? Blind men cannot see, can they? But when the Spirit touches the scales of the eyes, they fall off; and when he puts eye-salves on, the Bible becomes precious. I remember a minister who went to see an old lady, and he thought he would give her some precious promises out of the word of God. Turning to one, he saw written in the margin "P.," and he asked, "What does this mean?" "That means precious, sir." Further down, he saw "T. and P.," and he asked what the letters meant. "That," she said, "means tried and proved, for I have tried and proved it." If you have tried God's word and proved it-if it is precious to your soul. then you are Christians; but those persons who despise the Bible, have "neither part nor lot in the matter." If it is dry to you, you will be dry at last in hell. If you do not esteem it as better than your necessary food, there is no hope for you; for you lack the greatest evidence of your Christianity.
Alas! alas! the worst case is to come. There are some people who hate the Bible, as well as despise it. Is there such an one stepped in here? Some of you said, "Let us go and hear what the young preacher has to say to us." This is what he has to say to you: "Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish." This is what he hath to say to you: "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all that forget God." And this, again he has to say to you: "Behold, there shall come in the last days, mockers, like yourselves, walking after your own lusts." But more: he tells you to-night that if you are saved, you must find salvation here. Therefore, despise not the Bible; but search it, read it, and come unto it. Rest thee will assured, O scorner, that thy laughs cannot alter truth, thy jests cannot avert thine inevitable doom. Though in thy hardihood thou shouldst make a league with death, and sign a covenant with hell-yet swift justice shall o'ertake thee, and strong vengeance strike the low. In vain dost thou jeer and mock, for eternal verities are mightier than thy sophistries, nor can thy smart sayings alter the divine truth of a single word of this volume of Revelation. Oh! why dost thou quarrel with thy best friend, and ill-treat thy only refuge? There yet remains hope, even for the scorner. Hope in a Saviour's veins. Hope in the Father's mercy. Hope in the Holy Spirit's omnipotent agency.
I have done when I have said one word. My friend, the philosopher, says it may be very well for me to urge people to read the Bible; but he thinks there are a great many sciences far more interesting and useful than theology. Extremely obliged to you for your opinion, sir. What science do you mean? The science of dissecting beetles and arranging butterflies? "No," you say, "certainly not." The science, then, of arranging stones, and telling us of the strata of the earth? "No, not exactly that." Which science, then? "Oh, all sciences," say you, "are better than the science of the Bible." Ah! sir, that is your opinion; and it is because you are far from God, that you say so. But the science of Jesus Christ is the most excellent of sciences. Let no one turn away from the Bible because it is not a book of learning and wisdom. It is. Would ye know astronomy? It is here: it tells you of the Sun of Righteousness and the Star of Bethlehem. Would you know of botany? It is here: it tells you of the plant of renown-the Lily of the Valley, and the rose of Sharon. Would you know geology and mineralogy? You shall learn it here: for you may read of the Rock of Ages, and the White Stone with the name engraven thereon, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. Would ye study history? Here is the most ancient of all the records of the history of the human race. Whate'er your science is, come and bend o'er this book; your science is here. Come and drink out of this fair fount of knowledge and wisdom, and ye shall find yourselves made wise unto salvation. Wise and foolish, babes and men, gray-headed sires, youths and maidens-I speak to you, I plead with you, I beg of you respect your Bibles, and search them out, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and these are they which testify of Christ.
I have done. Let us go home and practice what we have heard. I have heard of a woman, who, when she was asked what she remembered of the minister's sermon, said, "I don't recollect anything of it. It was about short weights and bad measures, and I didn't recollect anything but to go home and burn the bushel." So, if you will remember to go home and burn the bushel, if you will recollect to go home and read your Bibles, I shall have said enough. And may God, in his infinite mercy, when you read your Bibles, pour into your souls the illuminating rays of the Sun of Righteousness, by the agency of the ever-adorable Spirit; then you will read to your profit and to your soul's salvation.
We may say of THE BIBLE:

"God's cabinet of revealed counsel 't is!
Where weal and woe, are ordered so
That every man may know which shall be his;
Unless his own mistake, false application make.

"It is the index to eternity.
He cannot miss of endless bliss.
That takes this chart to steer by,
Nor can he be mistook that speaketh by this book.

"It is the book of God. What if I should
Say, God of books, let him that looks
Angry at that expression, as too bold,
His thoughts in silence smother, till he find such another."

 

 

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

Enfield, Connecticut
July 8, 1741

"Their foot shall slide in due time""
Deuteronomy 32:35

In this verse is threatened the vengeance of God on the wicked unbelieving Israelites, who were God's visible people, and who lived under the means of grace; but who, notwithstanding all God's wonderful works towards them, remained (as vers 28.) void of counsel, having no understanding in them. Under all the cultivations of heaven, they brought forth bitter and poisonous fruit; as in the two verses next preceding the text. -- The expression I have chosen for my text, their foot shall slide in due time, seems to imply the following things, relating to the punishment and destruction to which these wicked Israelites were exposed.

1. That they were always exposed to destruction; as one that stands or walks in slippery places is always exposed to fall. This is implied in the manner of their destruction coming upon them, being represented by their foot sliding. The same is expressed, Psalm 72:18. "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction."
2. It implies, that they were always exposed to sudden unexpected destruction. As he that walks in slippery places is every moment liable to fall, he cannot foresee one moment whether he shall stand or fall the next; and when he does fall, he falls at once without warning: Which is also expressed in Psalm 73:18,19. "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction: How are they brought into desolation as in a moment!"
3. Another thing implied is, that they are liable to fall of themselves, without being thrown down by the hand of another; as he that stands or walks on slippery ground needs nothing but his own weight to throw him down.
4. That the reason why they are not fallen already and do not fall now is only that God's appointed time is not come. For it is said, that when that due time, or appointed time comes, their foor shall slide. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined by their own weight. God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then, at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction; as he that stands on such slippery declining ground, on the edge of a pit, he cannot stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost.

The observation from the words that I would now insist upon is this. -- "There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God." -- By the mere pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty, any more than if nothing else but God's mere will had in the least degree, or in any respect whatsoever, any hand in the preservation of wicked men one moment. -- The truth of this observation may appear by the following considerations.

1. There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment. Men's hands cannot be strong when God rises up. The strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any deliver out of his hands. -- He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but he can most easily do it. Sometimes an earthly prince meets with a great deal of difficulty to subdue a rebel, who has found means to fortify himself, and has made himself strong by the numbers of his followers. But it is not so with God. There is no fortress that is any defence from the power of God. Though hand join in hand, and vast multitudes of God's enemies combine and associate themselves, they are easily broken in pieces. They are as great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind; or large quantities of dry stubble before devouring flames. We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so it is easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by: thus easy is it for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell. What are we, that we should think to stand before him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before whom the rocks are thrown down?
2. They deserve to be cast into hell; so that divine justice never stands in the way, it makes no objection against God's using his power at any moment to destroy them. Yea, on the contrary, justice calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins. Divine justice says of the tree that brings forth such grapes of Sodom, "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?" Luke 13:7. The sword of divine justice is every moment brandished over their heads, and it is nothing but the hand of arbitrary mercy, and God's mere will, that holds it back.
3. They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They do not only justly deserve to be cast down thither, but the sentence of the law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, is gone out against them, and stands against them; so that they are bound over already to hell. John 3:18. "He that believeth not is condemned already." So that every unconverted man properly belongs to hell; that is his place; from thence he is, John 8:23. "Ye are from beneath:" And thither he is bound; it is the place that justice, and God's word, and the sentence of his unchangeable law assign to him.
4. They are now the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God, that is expressed in the torments of hell. And the reason why they do not go down to hell at each moment, is not because God, in whose power they are, is not then very angry with them; as he is with many miserable creatures now tormented in hell, who there feel and bear the fierceness of his wrath. Yea, God is a great deal more angry with great numbers that are now on earth: yea, doubtless, with many that are now in this congregation, who it may be are at ease, than he is with many of those who are now in the flames of hell.

So that it is not because God is unmindful of their wickedness, and does not resent it, that he does not let loose his hand and cut them off. God is not altogether such an one as themselves, though they may imagine him to be so. The wrath of God bums against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the fumace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them.

1. The devil stands ready to fall upon them, and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit him. They belong to him; he has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion. The scripture represents them as his goods, Luke 11:12. The devils watch them; they are ever by them at their right hand; they stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back. If God should withdraw his hand, by which they are restrained, they would in one moment fly upon their poor souls. The old serpent is gaping for them; hell opens its mouth wide to receive them; and if God should permit it, they would be hastily swallowed up and lost.
2. There are in the souls of wicked men those hellish principles reigning, that would presently kindle and flame out into hell fire, if it were not for God's restraints. There is laid in the very nature of carnal men, a foundation for the torments of hell. There are those corrupt principles, in reigning power in them, and in full possession of them, that are seeds of hell fire. These principles are active and powerful, exceeding violent in their nature, and if it were not for the restraining hand of God upon them, they would soon break out, they would flame out after the same manner as the same corruptions, the same enmity does in the hearts of damned souls, and would beget the same torments as they do in them. The souls of the wicked are in scripture compared to the troubled sea, Isa. 57:20. For the present, God restrains their wickedness by his mighty power, as he does the raging waves of the troubled sea, saying, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further;" but if God should withdraw that restraining power, it would soon carry all before it. Sin is the ruin and misery of the soul; it is destructive in its nature; and if God should leave it without restraint, there would need nothing else to make the soul perfectly miserable. The corruption of the heart of man is immoderate and boundless in its fury; and while wicked me live here, it is like fire pent up by God's restraints, whereas if it were let loose, it would set on fire the course of nature; and as the heart is now a sink of sin, so if sin was not restrained, it would immediately turn the soul into fiery oven, or a furnace of fire and brimstone.
3. It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are no visible means of death at hand. It is no security to a natural man, that he is now in health, and that he does not see which way he should now immediately go out of the world by any accident, and that there is no visible danger in any respect in his circumstances. The manifold and continual experience of the world in all ages, shows this is no evidence, that a man is not on the very brink of eternity, and that the next step will not be into another world. The unseen, unthought-of ways and means of persons going suddenly out of the world are innumerable and inconceivable. Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day; the sharpest sight cannot discem them. God has so many different unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the world and sending them to hell, that there is nothing to make it appear, that God had need to be at the expense of a miracle, or go out of the ordinary course of his providence, to destroy any wicked man, at any moment. All the means that there are of sinners going out of the world, are so in God's hands, and so universally and absolutely subject to his power and determination, that it does not depend at all the less on the mere will of God, whether sinners shall at any moment go to hell, than if means were never made use of, or at all concerned in the case.
4. Natural men's prudence and care to preserve their own lives, or the care of others to preserve them, do not secure them a moment. To this, divine providence and universal experience do also bear testimony. There is this clear evidence that men's own wisdom is no security to them from death; that if it were otherwise we should see some difference between the wise and politic men of the world, and others, with regard to their liableness to early and unexpected death: but how is it in fact? Eccles. 2:16. "How dieth the wise man? even as the fool."
5. All wicked men's pains and contrivande which they use to escape hell, while they continue to reject Christ, and so remain wicked men, do not secure them from hell one moment. Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it; he depends upon himself for his own security; he flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or what he intends to do. Every one lays out matters in his own mind how he shall avoid damnation, and flatters himself that he contrives well for himself, and that his schemes will not fail. They hear indeed that there are but few saved, and that the greater part of men that have died heretofore are gone to hell; but each one imagines that he lays out matters better for his own escape than others have done. He does not intend to come to that place of torment; he says within himself, that he intends to take effectual care, and to order matters so for himself as not to fail.

But the foolish children of men miserably delude themselves in their own schemes, and in confidence in their own strength and wisdom; they trust to nothing but a shadow. The greater part of those who heretofore have lived under the same means of grace, and are now dead, are undoubtedly gone to hell; and it was not because they were not as wise as those who are now alive: it was not because they did not lay out matters as well for themselves to secure their own escape. If we could speak with them, and inquire of them, one by one, whether they expected, when alive, and when they used to hear about hell, ever to be the subjects of misery: we doubtless, should hear one and another reply, "No, I never intended to come here: I had laid out matters otherwise in my mind; I thought I should contrive well for myself -- I thought my scheme good. I intended to take effectual care; but it came upon me unexpected; I did not look for it at that time, and in that manner; it came as a thief -- Death outwitted me: God's wrath was too quick for me. Oh, my cursed foolishness! I was flattering myself, and pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do hereafter; and when I was saying, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction came upon me."

1. God has laid himself under no obligation, by any promise to keep any natural man out of hell one moment. God certainly has made no promises either of eternal life, or of any deliverance or preservation from eternal death, but what are contained in the covenant of grace, the promises that are given in Christ, in whom all the promises are yea and amen. But surely they have no interest in the promises of the covenant of grace who are not the children of the covenant, who do not believe in any of the promises, and have no interest in the Mediator of the covenant.

So that, whatever some have imagined and pretended about promises made to natural men's earnest seeking and knocking, it is plain and manifest, that whatever pains a natural man takes in religion, whatever prayers he makes, till he believes in Christ, God is under no manner of obligation to keep him a moment from eternal destruction.

So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out: and they have no interest in any Mediator, there are no means within reach that can be any security to them. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of; all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.

Application

The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons in this congregation. This that you have heard is the case of every one of you that are out of Christ. -- That world of misery, that take of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.

You probably are not sensible of this; you find you are kept out of hell, but do not see the hand of God in it; but look at other things, as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But indeed these things are nothing; if God should withdraw his hand, they would avail no more to keep you from falling, than the thin air to hold up a person that is suspended in it.

Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock. Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you one moment; for you are a burden to it; the creation groans with you; the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly; the sun does not willingly shine upon you to give you light to serve sin and Satan; the earth does not willingly yield her increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon; the air does not willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God's enemies. God's creatures are good, and were made for men to serve God with, and do not willingly subserve to any other purpose, and groan when they are abused to purposes so directly contrary to their nature and end. And the world would spew you out, were it not for the sovereign hand of him who hath subjected it in hope. There are the black clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God, it would immediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign pleasure of God, for the present, stays his rough wind; otherwise it would come with fury, and your destruction would come like a whirlwind, and you would be like the chaff of the summer threshing floor.

The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose. It is true, that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God's vengeance have been withheld; but your guilt in the mean time is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; the waters are constantly rising, and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw his hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.

The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never bom again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great fumace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment. -- And consider here more particularly,

1. Whose wrath it is: it is the wrath of the infinite God. If it were only the wrath of man, though it were of the most potent prince, it would be comparatively little to be regarded. The wrath of kings is very much dreaded, especially of absolute monarchs, who have the possessions and lives of their subjects wholly in their power, to be disposed of at their mere will. Prov. 20:2. "The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion: Whoso provoketh him to anger, sinneth against his own soul." The subject that very much enrages an arbitrary prince, is liable to suffer the most extreme torments that human art can invent, or human power can inflict. But the greatest earthly potentates in their greatest majesty and strength, and when clothed in their greatest terrors, are but feeble, despicable worms of the dust, in comparison of the great and almighty Creator and King of heaven and earth. It is but little that they can do, when most enraged, and when they have exerted the utmost of their fury. All the kings of the earth, before God, are as grasshoppers; they are nothing, and less than nothing: both their love and their hatred is to be despised. The wrath of the great King of kings, is as much more terrible than theirs, as his majesty is greater. Luke 12:4,5. "And I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that, have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: fear him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell: yea, I say unto you, Fear him."
2. It is the fierceness of his wrath that you are exposed to. We often read of the fury of God; as in Isa. 59:18. "According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay fury to his adversaries." So Isa. 66:15. "For behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire." And in many other places. So, Rev. 19:15, we read of "the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." The words are exceeding terrible. If it had only been said, "the wrath of God," the words would have implied that which is infinitely dreadful: but it is "the fierceness and wrath of God." The fury of God! the fierceness of Jehovah! Oh, how dreadful that must be! Who can utter or conceive what such expressions carry in them! But it is also "the fierceness and wrath of almighty God." As though there would be a very great manifestation of his almighty power in what the fierceness of his wrath should inflict, as though omnipotence should be as it were enraged, and exerted, as men are wont to exert their strength in the fierceness of their wrath. Oh! then, what will be the consequence! What will become of the poor worms that shall suffer it! Whose hands can be strong? And whose heart can endure? To what a dreadful, inexpressible, inconceivable depth of misery must the poor creature be sunk who shall be the subject of this!

Consider this, you that are here present, that yet remain in an unregenerate state. That God will execute the fierceness of his anger, implies, that he will inflict wrath without any pity. When God beholds the ineffable extremity of your case, and sees your torment to be so fastly disproportioned to your strength, and sees how your poor soul is crushed, and sinks down, as it were, into an infinite gloom; he will have no compassion upon you, he will not forbear the executions of his wrath, or in the least lighten his hand; there shall be no moderation or mercy, nor will God then at all stay his rough wind; he will have no regard to your welfare, nor be at all careful lest you should suffer too much in any other sense, than only that you shall not suffer beyond what strict justice requires. Nothing shall be withheld, because it is so hard for you to bear. Ezek. 8:18. "Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet I will not hear them." Now God stands ready to pity you; this is a day of mercy; you may cry now with some encouragement of obtaining mercy. But when once the day of mercy is past, your most lamentable and dolorous cries and shrieks will be in vain; you will be wholly lost and thrown away of God, as to any regard to your welfare. God will have no other use to put you to, but to suffer misery; you shall be continued in being to no other end; for you will be a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction; and there will be no other use of this vessel, but to be filled full of wrath. God will be so far from pitying you when you cry to him, that it is said he will only "laugh and mock," Prov. 1:25,26,&c.

How awful are those words, Isa. 63:3, which are the words of the great God. "I will tread them in mine anger, and will trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment." It is perhaps impossible to conceive of words that carry in them greater manifestations of these three things, viz. contempt, and hatred, and fierceness of indignation. If you cry to God to pity you, he will be so far from pitying you in your doleful case, or showing you the least regard or favour, that instead of that, he will only tread you under foot. And though he will know that you cannot bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, yet he will not regard that, but he will crush you under his feet without mercy; he will crush out your blood, and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on his garments, so as to stain all his raiment. He will not only hate you, but he will have you in the utmost contempt: no place shall be thought fit for you, but under his feet to be trodden down as the mire of the streets.

1. The misery you are exposed to is that which God will inflict to that end, that he might show what that wrath of Jehovah is. God hath had it on his heart to show to angels and men, both how excellent his love is, and also how terrible his wrath is. Sometimes earthly kings have a mind to show how terrible their wrath is, by the extreme punishments they would execute on those that would provoke them. Nebuchadnezzar, that mighty and haughty monarch of the Chaldean empire, was willing to show his wrath when enraged with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; and accordingly gave orders that the burning fiery furnace should be heated seven times hotter than it was before; doubtless, it was raised to the utmost degree of fierceness that human art could raise it. But the great God is also willing to show his wrath, and magnify his awful majesty and mighty power in the extreme sufferings of his enemies. Rom. 9:22. "What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?" And seeing this is his design, and what he has determined, even to show how terrible the unrestrained wrath, the fury and fierceness of Jehovah is, he will do it to effect. There will be something accomplished and brought to pass that will be dreadful with a witness. When the great and angry God hath risen up and executed his awful vengeance on the poor sinner, and the wretch is actually suffering the infinite weight and power of his indignation, then will God call upon the whole universe to behold that awful majesty and mighty power that is to be seen in it. Isa. 33:12-14. "And the people shall be as the burnings of lime, as thorns cut up shall they be burnt in the fire. Hear ye that are far off, what I have done; and ye that are near, acknowledge my might. The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites, " &c.

Thus it will be with you that are in an unconverted state, if you continue in it; the infinite might, and majesty, and terribleness of the omnipotent God shall be magnified upon you, in the ineffable strength of your torments. You shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and when you shall be in this state of suffering, the glorious inhabitants of heaven shall go forth and look on the awful spectacle, that they may see what the wrath and fierceness of the Almighty is; and when they have seen it, they will fall down and adore that great power and majesty. Isa. 66:23,24. "And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh."

1. It is everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see a long for ever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. So that your punishment will indeed be infinite. Oh, who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it, gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it; it is inexpressible and inconceivable: For "who knows the power of God's anger?"

How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in the danger of this great wrath and infinite misery! But this is the dismal case of every soul in this congregation that has not been bom again, however moral and strict, sober and religious, they may otherwise be. Oh that you would consider it, whether you be young or old! There is reason to think, that there are many in this congregation now hearing this discourse, that will actually be the subjects of this very misery to all eternity. We know not who they are, or in what seats they sit, or what thoughts they now have. It may be they are now at ease, and hear all these things without much disturbance, and are now flattering themselves that they are not the persons, promising themselves that they shall escape. If we knew that there was one person, and but one, in the whole congregation, that was to be the subject of this misery, what an awful thing would it be to think of! If we knew who it was, what an awful sight would it be to see such a person! How might all the rest of the congregation lift up a lamentable and bitter cry over him! But, alas! instead of one, how many is it likely will remember this discourse in hell? And it would be a wonder, if some that are now present should not be in hell in a very short time, even before this year is out. And it would be no wonder if some persons, that now sit here, in some seats of this meeting-house, in health, quiet and secure, should be there before tomorrow morning. Those of you that finally continue in a natural condition, that shall keep out of hell longest will be there in a little time! your damnation does not slumber; it will come swiftly, and, in all probability, very suddenly upon many of you. You have reason to wonder that you are not already in hell. It is doubtless the case of some whom you have seen and known, that never deserved hell more than you, and that heretofore appeared as likely to have been now alive as you. Their case is past all hope; they are crying in extreme misery and perfect despair; but here you are in the land of the living and in the house of God, and have an opportunity to obtain salvation. What would not those poor damned hopeless souls give for one day's opportunity such as you now enjoy!

And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open, and stands in calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners; a day wherein many are flocking to him, and pressing into the kingdom of God. Many are daily coming from the east, west, north and south; many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in, are now in a happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him who has loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. How awful is it to be left behind at such a day! To see so many others feasting, while you are pining and perishing! To see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of heart, while you have cause to mourn for sorrow of heart, and howl for vexation of spirit! How can you rest one moment in such a condition? Are not your souls as precious as the souls of the people at Suffield, where they are flocking from day to day to Christ?

Are there not many here who have lived long in the world, and are not to this day born again? and so are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and have done nothing ever since they have lived, but treasure up wrath against the day of wrath? Oh, sirs, your case, in an especial manner, is extremely dangerous. Your guilt and hardness of heart is extremely great. Do you not see how generaity persons of your years are passed over and left, in the present remarkable and wonderful dispensation of God's mercy? You had need to consider yourselves, and awake thoroughly out of sleep. You cannot bear the fierceness and wrath of the infinite God. -- And you, young men, and young women, will you neglect this precious season which you now enjoy, when so many others of your age are renouncing all youthful vanities, and flocking to Christ? You especially have now an extraordinary opportunity; but if you neglect it, it will soon be with you as with those persons who spent all the precious days of youth in sin, and are now come to such a dreadful pass in blindness and hardness. -- And you, children, who are unconverted, do not you know that you are going down to hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that God, who is now angry with you every day and every night? Will you be content to be the children of the devil, when so many other children in the land are converted, and are become the holy and happy children of the King of kings?

And let every one that is yet out of Christ, and hanging over the pit of hell, whether they be old men and women, or middle aged, or young people, or little children, now hearken to the loud calls of God's word and providence. This acceptable year of the Lord, a day of such great favour to some, will doubtless be a day of as remarkable vengeance to others. Men's hearts harden, and their guilt increases apace at such a day as this, if they neglect their souls; and never was there so great danger of such persons being given up to hardness of heart and blindness of mind. God seems now to be hastily gathering in his elect in all parts of the land; and probably the greater part of adult persons that ever shall be saved, will be brought in now in a little time, and that it will be as it was on the great out-pouring of the Spirit upon the Jews in the apostles' days; the election will obtain, and the rest will be blinded. If this should be the case with you, you will eternally curse this day, and will curse the day that ever you was born, to see such a season of the pouring out of God's Spirit, and will wish that you had died and gone to hell before you had seen it. Now undoubtedly it is, as it was in the days of John the Baptist, the axe is in an extraordinary manner laid at the root of the trees, that every tree which brings not forth good fruit, may be hewn down and cast into the fire.

Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let every one fly out of Sodom: "Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed."