eChurch Blog

I was woken early this morning by the wonderful sounds of the birds praising God. I had to get up and listen to them outside and I, like them, am filled with the Joys of Jesus.

That is one fantastic thing about England, the birds, they sing very early in the morning, like at no other time in the day (except perhaps at dusk) and it fills me with Joy.

The Church of England has an early evening service called ‘Evensong’  and many years ago, when it was the time of year, when the service happened at around sunset, the birds sang their final sonnet of the day and as I sat outside of the church, I just couldn’t help but feel that this was their Evensong to the glory of God.

Have a wonderful and blessed day.

The following article is taken from our friends at Christian Concern for our Nation:-

Free Speech and Assisted Suicide: Coroners and Justice Bill Second Reading Debate. Continued prayer, action and pressure needed.

Removal of Free Speech Clause “Not Constitutionally Proper” and “Plain Shoddy”

The Coroners and Justice Bill saw its Second Reading Debate in the House of Lords on Monday, 18th May 2009. At Second Reading no votes are taken. Forty-four members contributed to the debate. The Government is attempting to use the Coroners and Justice Bill to remove the free speech provision from the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (“CJIA 2008”). If the provision is removed, doubt would be cast upon the legality of discussing or criticising homosexual practice.

Lord Bach, (Labour) Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Justice, introducing the Bill on behalf of the Government, contended that the Government had made it clear at the time the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act was passed that they would return to the issue of free speech. This is because they had not been content with the insertion of the free speech clause, but had allowed it to be included so that the Act as a whole could be passed. Lord Bach argued that the offence of “inciting hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation” has a very high threshold and that the free speech provision was unnecessary and could cause confusion on the scope of the offence. Most Peers, however, argued in favour of retaining the free speech provision.

Lord Kingsland (Conservative), Shadow Chancellor, considered that it was “not constitutionally proper” to raise the issue of free speech again now that the CJIB 2008 has been passed, as Peers “are entitled to conclude that the Government had reached the decision that the amendment…was acceptable”. Lord Henley (Conservative), Shadow Minister for Justice, later added that in his opinion “it is just plain shoddy” because the Government had “signed up to it.”

The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham expressed his concern with the potential application of the law, which could “restrict legitimate discussion and expression of opinion about sexual ethics and behaviour” as existing law has sometimes been used to “warrant over-zealous police investigation against people with conservative views on homosexuality.”

Lord Waddington (Conservative) argued powerfully in favour of his free speech provision, stating that it was “simply untrue” that the Government had threatened to come back to it. The Government’s own notes showed that it “does not raise the threshold for the offence or make prosecutions more difficult.” Lord Waddington said that he was not trying to weaken the protection of the offence, but that he did want the scope of the criminal offence made plain to avoid the “scandals” of previous cases. He argued that the CPS Guidance on Homophobic and Transphobic Crime 2007 did not inspire confidence, but rather made a case for the necessity of the free speech provision.

Lord Lester (Liberal Democrat), expressing the minority view in the debate, argued against the free speech provision (despite having previously supported a free speech clause in relation to the religious hatred offence). Lord Hylton (Cross Bench) feared that the Government “may have caved in to the pressure from the fashionable homosexual lobby” and questioned what the slightest evidence might be that the important defence “has done the slightest harm?”

Lord Bach concluded on behalf of the Government that he did not think that there is any “constitutional outrage” in revisiting the free speech provision and that he was entitled to point to the fact that the House of Commons has voted twice in favour of removing the free speech provision.

Legalising Assisted Suicide: The Vulnerable Put at Risk

The Coroners and Justice Bill includes provisions that would make it illegal to encourage suicide on a website. However, some members of the House of Commons and some Peers in the House of Lords wish to legalise assistance with suicide. Lord Bach’s introduction to the Bill on behalf of the Government offered some cautious advice that the “issue of doctor-assisted dying is too important and too profound for it to be slipped into a passing Government Bill. It warrants a Bill of its own and, in the Government’s view, a Private Member’s Bill at that.” The Government do not want to deal with the issue of assisted suicide in this Bill.

A number of Peers, however, spoke in favour of legalising doctor-assisted suicide. Baroness Jay of Paddington (Labour) said that she remained “strongly in favour of a change to the law that would enable mentally-competent, but terminally-ill adults to commit assisted suicide.” However, “this is not the Bill in which to attempt a wide-scale reform of that law.” Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Labour) argued that such a change to the law was needed to “identify proper safeguards” and due to “uncertainty” citing the case of Ms. Diane Purdy.

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Cross Bench) who is against any change in the law corrected Lord Falconer of Thoroton by stating that “Dignitas is not a clinic… it is, quite simply, a suicide service, probably for commercial gain.” On safeguards, she posed the questions “How do you actually provide immunity for those travelling abroad?” and “How do you detect coercion—subtle coercion—whether internal or external?”

Lord Alton (Cross Bench) reminded the Peers that “voluntary euthanasia” in Holland led to “involuntary euthanasia”. “Nearly 1,000 deaths a year are involuntary out of a total of 4,000. So we need to be clear where we are proceeding if we give the green light to what is being suggested. It is, of course, the reason why all of the Royal Colleges and the British Medical Association take the view, shared by the Government, that the law should not be changed.”

Baroness Emerton (Cross Bench) stated that most people would be “put at risk by an amendment to give licence for assisted suicide to a small minority of highly resolute people.” She added that the

…law is there primarily to protect vulnerable people from abuse…. In any case, legalising assistance with suicide is tantamount to encouraging it. If Parliament were to say that encouraging suicide should be against the law but assisting it in certain cases should be legal, we would in effect be discouraging it for most people but encouraging it for others. What sort of message would that send from this House to seriously ill and other vulnerable people? I hope that your Lordships’ House therefore will support the Government’s amendments and resist any attempts to amend them further to allow assistance with suicide.

Lord Bach summed up on behalf of the Government saying that “We heard many passionate speeches on assisted suicide, either for a change in the law or for maintaining the law as it is.” He confirmed there would be a free vote on the Government side on an amendment of the kind proposed by Baroness Jay, but repeated that the Government did “not think this Bill is the appropriate vehicle in which to pursue a change in the law.”

Please continue to write to Peers on these important issues. Our updated Information and Action Pack provides the resources you need to do this quickly and effectively. Please click on the icon on the right and take action as soon as you can. The next important dates for the Bill’s Committee Stage are 9th and 10th June, when amendments to specific clauses, such as clause 61, can be tabled and voted upon.

Please use the list of Peers’ votes at the link below to find out which Peers voted for the free speech clause in May 2008. Please write to as many as you can, asking them to attend Parliament to vote for any amendment that would remove clause 61. If you have any personal contact with a Peer, please seek to persuade them of the necessity of voting for the free speech clause. To see our list of Peers’ votes, please click here.

To access the Second Reading debate in full, please click here.

mmm, interesting article, you’ll have to make your own minds up on this one, I have posted before on ‘Twittering Christians‘ and ‘Christians Online‘:-

Social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook are full of “inane chatter” and are no substitute for real friendships, a leading Roman Catholic bishop has warned.

In a message to be read out at mass in every Catholic parish in Scotland this weekend, the Bishop of Paisley, Rt Rev Philip Tartaglia, speaks against the “obsessive” reliance on new technology.

In a pastoral letter to Scotland’s 500 Catholic parishes, Bishop Tartaglia, president of a Bishops’ Conference of Scotland communications group, praises the benefits of the internet but also warns of the dangers such as so-called cyberbullying.

“In dialogue with others we need to be wary of the inane chatter that can go on in the digital world which does nothing to promote growth in understanding and tolerance,” he wrote.

Echoing a message on the same theme from the Pope, he said it would be “profoundly sad” if online friendships became a substitute for the real thing.

“The fact that we can instantly communicate doesn’t mean that we must,” he added.

“We should avoid an obsessive need for virtual connectedness and develop primary human relationships, pursuing true friendship with real people.”

Recognising the “wonder and no little envy” felt by many older people at the ease with which children can access the internet, he went on: “Yet with opportunities, come dangers.

“What parent has not wondered what their child is doing on the internet? What material are they accessing?

“Who are they talking to in social networking sites?”

His warning comes despite growing enthusiasm for the internet and mobile communications within the church, which has even seen the introduction of a dedicated Vatican channel on the video sharing website YouTube.

Last month the leader of Ireland’s Catholics, Cardinal Sean Brady, suggested posting prayers on Twitter, the popular “microblogging” site, or sharing them with other believers by email or text message.

Fr Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican’s radio and television operations, delivered a lecture to media executives in London on Tuesday entitled ‘Blessed be the Net?’.

Meanwhile the Pope has made high profile efforts to connect with what he called the “digital generation”.

During World Youth Day celebrations in Australia last summer he sent out daily inspirational text messages to thousands of the faithful.

He also gave his blessing to a dedicated Catholic social networking site called Xt3.com, which was set up on the model of Facebook and MySpace.

But the church’s enthusiasm for the all things digital has met resistance in some quarters.

Eyebrows were raised at reports that French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, had been seen glancing at text messages during an audience with Benedict XVI.

Bishops in Italy issued an unprecedented call for believers to give up text messaging and social networking for Lent earlier this year.

The church is marking “Communications Sunday” this weekend with messages urging believers to embrace new technology as a “gift to humanity”.

An article about Liberalism from our Christian friends at UK Apologetics

Facing Up to the Truth of a Rapidly Failing Philosophy…

ARTICLE QUOTE: “One is bound to draw the conclusion that the lineage of modern Liberalism is often flawed, frequently contradictory and sometimes smeared with the blood of the innocent. Today, ‘liberal values’ offer a form of ‘abundant life’ – the freedom to sin and to set one’s own standards in every area of life. But we reap what we sow and our modern western societies are now reaping the rewards of this flawed “freedom” in unparalleled abortions, skyrocketing divorce rates, numerous teenage pregnancies, frightening rates of drug abuse, and a suicide rate which stuns those who come from the very poorest nations. The big lie of liberalism is that the “freedom” which it claims to offer is truly not freedom at all but actually an enslavement – an enslavement to a morally-destitute path which leads down to the very bottomless pit of despair…”

Today much of the world is affected by Liberalism. The question must be asked: Where did a philosophy of life which has done so much to undermine the message of the Christian Gospel originally come from?

Liberalism had its origins in the 18th century ‘enlightenment’ with that movement’s determination to immerse men and women in a new materialistic form of knowledge with its roots entirely in what one might term ‘human knowledge and understanding.’ Yet initially, much of this new direction in the acquirement of knowledge had certain Christian sympathies and influences, but it soon became axiomatic that the ‘new knowledge’ should have no recourse to the divine or supernatural, nor to any concept of ‘revelation.’ This anti-supernaturalist tendency would become foundational to Liberalism especially as the new philosophy of life increasingly drew upon the thoughts of such devout non-believers as Voltaire and David Hume.

The Freedom of the Individual

In the 17th century, ‘civil society’ was a term which started to be used by philosophers such as John Locke as a way of distinguishing political order from the state of nature. Often thought of as the real ‘founding father’ of liberalism, Locke bequeathed to the liberal tradition the important distinction between the state and society. He felt that to make such a distinction was vital and he was concerned with the place of the individual.

Locke exercised a profound influence on subsequent philosophy and politics. He was also a strong influence on Voltaire, while his arguments concerning liberty and the social contract later influenced the written works of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the other Founding Fathers of the United States.

The original strain of liberalism was not entirely evil and was concerned to protect and to grant rights to ordinary men, women and children in an often harsh and cruel age. This original strain is now usually referred to as Classical Liberalism. Classical liberalism is a political philosophy which supports individual rights as pre-existing the state, a government that exists to protect those moral rights, ensured by a constitution that protects individual autonomy from other individuals and governmental power and private property. Since many aspects of this ideology developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, it is often seen as being the natural philosophy/ ideology of the industrial revolution and its subsequent capitalist system, yet some would debate this. The early liberal figures that modern libertarians now describe as their fellow “classical liberals” rejected many foundational assumptions which dominated most earlier theories of government, such as the divine right of kings, hereditary status, and established religion, and these new influences strongly focused on individual freedom, reason, justice and tolerance. Such thinkers and their ideas helped to inspire the American Revolution and certainly influenced the French Revolution.

Classical Liberalism did not believe that government created individual rights (in a moral sense), but rather that moral rights existed entirely independent of government. Thomas Jefferson called these “inalienable rights” and indicative of the classical liberal belief that rights do not come from law but that law serves to protect natural individual rights. He said,

“…Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’, because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

Interestingly, for classical liberals, “human rights” were of a negative nature – that is, rights that require that other individuals (and governments) refrain from interfering with individual liberty. This is in stark contrast to Modern Liberalism which holds that individuals have a right to be provided with certain benefits or services by others. Unlike modern social liberals, classical liberals were also almost universally hostile to any concept of a ‘welfare state.’ So we see that not all of the influences which made up the original form of liberalism were bad and many were entirely caring, indeed, many such influences (as we have already noted), were strongly influenced by Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards, although this is frequently denied today.

Anti-Supernaturalism

But in the anti-supernaturalist and strictly materialistic approach to knowledge of the ‘enlightenment’ it was inevitable that many more extreme and libertarian influences would also climb on board, and French writer, essayist and philosopher Voltaire who lived 1694-1778, (his real name was actually François-Marie Arouet) was one such influence.

Voltaire is known for his sharp and acidic wit, his philosophical writings, and a strong defense of civil liberties, including the freedom of religion and the right to a fair trial. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform despite strict censorship laws in France and harsh penalties for those who broke them. He frequently made use of his works to criticize Church dogma and the French institutions of his day and was to become one of the most powerful influences on the developing concept of liberalism.

The young Voltaire was especially impressed by England’s constitutional monarchy, as well as the country’s support of the freedoms of speech and religion. In his younger years, he saw English playwright William Shakespeare as an example French writers should look to, though he later revealed his emerging arrogance when stating that he himself was a superior writer to Shakespeare! After three years in English exile, Voltaire returned to Paris and published his ideas in a fictional document about the English government entitled the Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais (‘Philosophical letters on the English’). Due to the fact that he regarded England’s constitutional monarchy as more developed and more respectful of human rights (particularly religious tolerance) than its French counterpart, these letters met great controversy in France, to the point where copies of the document started to be banned and were even burned; this eventually forced Voltaire to leave Paris.

Voltaire opposed Christian beliefs quite fiercely. He claimed that the Gospels were figments of the imagination and that Jesus did not exist – in his view the ‘Gospels’ were produced by those who wanted to create God in their own image and were full of errors and discrepancies. His largest philosophical work (the Dictionnaire philosophique), comprised articles contributed by him to the great Encyclopédie. While he attacked French political institutions and also his personal enemies, his work mostly targeted the Bible and the Roman Catholic Church. So Voltaire strongly contributed to the anti-Christian as well as to the sexually libertarian (he was opposed to the censorship of outrageous writers), elements which went into Classical Liberalism.

Yet during and after Voltaire’s time, other influences continued to contribute to Liberalism, for the new philosophy of life was not yet a finished product.

Nobody who contributed to the emerging liberalism was as commited to its anti-religious agenda as David Hume (1711-1776), a Scottish philosopher. Hume believed and stressed that all human knowledge comes to us through our senses. Our perceptions, as he called them, can be divided into two categories: ideas and impressions. He defined these terms thus in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding:

“By the term impression, then, I mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will. And impressions are distinguished from ideas, which are the less lively perceptions, of which we are conscious, when we reflect on any of those sensations or movements above mentioned.” He further specifies his ideas, saying, “It seems a proposition, which will not admit of much dispute, that all our ideas are nothing but copies of our impressions, or, in other words, that it is impossible for us to think of anything, which we have not antecedently felt, either by our external or internal senses.”

This forms an important aspect of Hume’s skepticism, for he says that we cannot be certain of anything, and certainly should reject concepts such as God, angels, a soul, or even a self, unless we can point out and actually tie down the impression from which the idea of the thing is derived. Hume had been influenced by Locke and he himself would later strongly influence Immanuel Kant, James Madison, Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley and A.J. Ayer.

Nobody more than Hume gave such philosophical foundation and credibility to those who would attack God (for Voltaire, on his own, was seen as somewhat unsubstantial in his anti-God rhetoric). Hume scoffed at miracles and angels and placed all supernaturalist teachings on the level of fairy tales. His philosophical influence on liberalism was to drive out any last vestiges of Christian authority. He outlawed God, the supernatural and Christian morality, and provided a foundation and structure upon which Darwinian evolutionism could be constructed a century later. Yet from the viewpoint of postmodernism, it is quite obvious that Hume only really chased biblical religion ‘out of town’ in order to replace it with a new religion: the deification and glorification of the naturalistic learning of Mankind. Worship would indeed continue – but now only the “knowledge” and achievements of the human race would be intellectually respectable subjects for worship!

Liberalism’s ‘Illegitimate Child’ of Totalitarianism

In the 19th century, the philosopher G. W. F. Hegel inherited the liberal distinction between the state and society, which he referred to as civil society. Yet Hegel complained that liberalism regarded the state as an association of mutual advantage and, in so doing, failed to distinguish it from civil society. The latter is the domain of the family, the Church, professional associations, corporations, clubs and other associations of mutual interest and advantage. Civil society is particular, pluralistic, and diverse. In contrast, the state has its foundation in universal principles to which all owe allegiance regardless of their particular interests, religion, or station.

For Hegel, the state is not built on selfishness and mutual advantage, but on selfless devotion to principles and a willingness to lay down one’s life for these ideals. He therefore surmised that the state is superior to civil society. In contrast to the state, civil society seemed to him like a selfish affair. This was a new turn in the continually emerging doctrine. Yet despite his deprecation of civil society in comparison to the state, Hegel upheld the liberal idea that the state should leave society alone and not interfere in its affairs.

But Hegel had now opened a very dangerous door. His romanticization of the state opened the way to the totalitarian state that regards itself as sovereign, the state that subordinates everything in civil society to itself, the state that turns civil society into a means for its own ends, the state that interferes in every aspect of life; the state that totally strangles civil society and its spontaneous order. The totalitarian state was the enemy of the market, the churches, and the synagogues; it controlled education, communication, the media and all cultural activities.

The totalitarian regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, and Stalin subverted the liberal spirit of Hegel’s philosophy and focused only on his praise and eulogy to the state. They used the state’s alleged superiority to interfere in every aspect of civil society. It was the great misfortune of the still-developing liberalism that evil and mischievous men took just one aspect of Hegel’s writing and abused it.

Karl Marx was critical of Hegel’s distinction between the state and civil society and rejected his liberal view of civil society as a domain of freedom that must remain independent of state interference. But, without doubt, the totalitarian governments of Nazism and Communism were offshoots (illegitimate children, if you will), of the forces that developed liberalism – nobody can deny this. Neither can it be denied that the first avowed European liberal government of all – post-revolution France – slaughtered many thousands of its own people – most of them without trial.

Other Late Contributors to Liberalism

So there can be no question that several leading philosophical figures of the 19th century also made a strong contribution to the modern Liberalism which we now observe all around us. We have already noted Hegel, and referred to Marx, but now we need to say a little more.

Interestingly, many of these figures were decidedly illiberal people and their theories and philosophical leanings were hardly liberal in general terms, yet quotes from such individuals often now almost routinely fall from the lips of modern liberals. These figures include Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche. The unquestioned influence of Nietzsche and Marx are especially interesting since these men are also so strongly associated with political totalitarianism, but we have already noted with interest that such totalitarianism is indeed what one might term the ‘illegitimate child’ of liberal theory. Modern liberals now attempt to perform major contortions in order to avoid what might seem to some of them as a smear, but there can be no real doubt that the first “liberal” European government, that is, the post-revolution French Republic presided over terrible abuses of power and a ‘rule of the guillotine’ which saw many thousands of men and women executed without trial – often for the flimsiest of reasons. Moreover, Freud’s avowedly anti-religious analytical theory of the mind and his view of sexual freedom, Nietzsche’s atheism and concern for individual freedom (including, paradoxically, the ‘freedom’ to choose to enslave weaker people and nations), and Marx’s social and economic theory have made very major contributions to modern Liberalism. Indeed, liberals have been at the forefront of the movement which has sought to reclaim Marxist social theory from the hideous stain of the track record of world-wide communism.

One is bound to draw the conclusion that the lineage of modern Liberalism is often flawed, frequently contradictory and sometimes smeared with the blood of the innocent. Today, ‘liberal values’ offer a form of ‘abundant life’ – the freedom to sin and to set one’s own standards in every area of life. But we reap what we sow and our modern western societies are now reaping the rewards of this flawed “freedom” in unparalleled abortions, skyrocketing divorce rates, numerous teenage pregnancies, frightening rates of drug abuse, and a suicide rate which stuns those who come from the very poorest nations. The big lie of liberalism is that the “freedom” which it claims to offer is truly not freedom at all but actually an enslavement – an enslavement to a morally-destitute path which leads down to the very bottomless pit of despair.

But a man came to this world almost 2,000 years ago who also offered an ‘abundant life.’ The people who have chosen this path have found true contentment, joy and happiness even though they may have little money and few possessions. These people are able to enjoy a clear conscience right now and look forward to an eternity of being at their Master’s side! Indeed, they have embarked upon a path which leads to the true abundance and REAL freedom of life eternal!

‘…I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.’ (John 10:10b, NKJV)

‘”Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.’ (Luke 12:32, NKJV).

Do YOU – the reader of this article – hunger and thirst for TRUE FREEDOM? The good news is that such a freedom truly exists and is available, but it is not within the power of political/social Liberalism to give it – it comes from Jesus of Nazareth alone.

Few words are bandied about with such casual abandon as “lib­eral”. In contemporary theological disputation, it is often assumed that everybody understands what the word means. Yet it can refer to so many different things — connected, perhaps, by family resemblance, but often by little more.

Roughly speaking: to be liberal when it comes to economics is to believe in free trade and a smaller state; to be a liberal in the theological sense is often understood as allow-ing human reason to stand in judge­ment over revealed religion; to be a liberal in the philosophical liter-ature is to believe in the possibility of human self-authoring; and so on.

Thus, in the free-trade sense, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were the great liberals of the 20th century. On another reading, they were two great anti-liberals. Consider Luther: he sought to free the individual to stand alone before God without the mediation of the Roman Church. This was a pivotal move in the development of one form of liberalism. Yet Luther was fierce in his denunciation of human reason’s capacity to judge revelation.

What use does a word have that can be so variously applied? One could argue that the common thread in all these senses of liberal is the importance of freedom. There is some truth here, but only to the extent to which we are all liberals these days. The need for freedom from tyranny is a moral given in contemporary Western thought, Christian or otherwise.

Yet this emphasis on freedom has a shadow side. Increasingly, the rejection of any “outside” influence, in the name of individual freedom, has come to be expressed as the idea that I am capable of making myself up. On this account, the values and identity I acquire can be generated by myself alone, by some act of will. Here, I manifest my freedom by cutting myself off from any unchosen influence.

It is rather like deciding to put one’s child in an empty room for all of childhood, passing food through a hatch, and expecting him or her to emerge at 18 with values and iden­tities chosen and established. Of course, it is not possible for the child to do this because self-authoring is a nonsense.

We are creatures embedded in language, culture, and tradition. The desire to be released from these in the cause of liberal freedom is self-defeating. Culture and traditions are the founda­tions from which we build; destroying them in the name of freedom robs us of the conditions that make freedom possible. This is the point at which liberalism becomes a threat to the very thing it claims to love.

“For, behold, he prayeth”-Acts 9:11

GOD has many methods of quenching persecution. He will not suffer his
church to be injured by its enemies, or overwhelmed by its foes; and he is
not short of means for turning aside the way of the wicked, or of turning it
upside down. In two ways he usually accomplishes his end: sometimes by
the confusion of the persecutor, and at others in a more blessed manner, by
his conversion. Sometimes he confuses and confounds his enemies; he
makes the diviner mad; he lets the man who comes against him be utterly
destroyed, suffers him to drive on to his own destruction, and then at last
turns round in triumphant derision upon the man who hoped to have said
aha! aha! to the church of God. But at other times, as in this case, he
converts the persecutor. Thus, he transforms the foe into a friend; he
makes the man who was a warrior against the gospel, a soldier for it. Out
of darkness he bringeth forth light; out of the eater he getteth honey, yea,
out of stony hearts he raiseth up children unto Abraham. Such was the case
with Saul.

A more furious bigot it is impossible to conceive. He had been
bespattered with the blood of Stephen when they stoned him to death: so
officious was he in his cruelty, that the men left their clothes in the charge
of a young man named Saul. Living at Jerusalem, in the college of
Gamaliel, he constantly came in contact with the disciples of the Man of
Nazareth; he laughed at them, he reviled them as they passed along the
street; he procured enactments against them, and put them to death; and
now, as a crowning point, this ware-wolf, having tasted blood, becomes
exceeding mad, determines to go to Damascus, that he may glut himself
with the gore of men and women; that he may bind the Christians, and
bring them to Jerusalem, there to suffer what he considered to be a just
punishment for their heresy, and departure from their ancient religion.

But oh! how marvelous was the power of God! Jesus stays this man in his mad career: just as with his lance in rest he was dashing against Christ, Christ
met him, unhorsed him, threw him on the ground, and questioned him,
“Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” He then graciously removed his
rebellious heart – gave him a new heart and a right spirit – turned his aim and
object – led him to Damascus – laid him prostrate for three days and nightsspoke to him – made mystic sounds go murmuring through his ears – set his whole soul on fire; and when at last he started up from that three day’s trance, and began to pray, then it was that Jesus from heaven descended, came in a vision to Ananias, and said, “Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth.”

First, our text was an announcement: “Behold he prayeth.” Secondly, it
was an argument: “For, behold, he prayeth.” Then, to conclude, we will
try to make an application of our text to your hearts. Though application is
the work of God alone, we will trust that he will be pleased to make that
application while the word is preached this morning.

I. First, here was AN ANNOUNCEMENT: “Go inquire for Saul of Tarsus: for
behold, he prayeth.” Without any preface, let me say that this was the
announcement of a fact which was noticed in heaven, which was joyous to
the angels, which was astonishing to Ananias, and which was a novelty to
Saul himself.

It was the announcement of a fact which was noticed in heaven. Poor Saul
had been led to cry for mercy, and the moment he began to pray God
began to hear. Do you not notice, in reading the chapter, what attention
God paid to Saul. He knew the street where he lived: “Go to the street that
is called Straight.” He knew the house where he resided: “Inquire at the
house of Judas.” He knew his name; it was Saul. He knew the place where
he came from: “Esquire for Saul of Tarsus.” And he knew that he had
prayed. “Behold, he prayeth.” Oh! it is a glorious fact that prayers are
noticed in heaven. The poor broken-hearted sinner climbing up to his
chamber, bends his knee, but can only utter his wailing in the language of
sighs and tears. Lo! that groan has made all the harps of heaven thrill with
music, that tear has been caught by God and put into the lachrymatory of
heaven, to be perpetually preserved. The suppliant, whose fears prevent his
words, will be well understood by the Most High. He may only shed one
hasty tear; but “prayer is the falling of a tear.” Tears are the diamonds of
heaven; sighs are a part of the music of Jehovah’s throne; for though
prayers be

“The simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try;”
So are they likewise, the
“Sublimest strains that reach
The majesty on high.”

Let me dilate on this thought a moment. Prayers are noticed in heaven. Oh!
I know what is the case with many of you. You think, “If I turn to God, if I
seek him, surely I am so inconsiderable a being, so guilty and vile, that it
cannot be imagined he would take any notice of me “My friends, harbour
no such heathenish ideas. Our God is no God who sits in one perpetual
dream, nor doth he clothe himself in such thick darkness that he cannot
see; he is not like Baal, who heareth not. True, he may not regard battles;
he cares not for the pomp and pageantry of kings; he listens not to the
swell of martial music; he regards not the triumph and pride of man, but
wherever there is a heart big with sorrow, wherever there is an eye
suffused with tears, wherever there is a lip quivering with agony, wherever
there is a deep groan, or a penitential sigh, the ear of Jehovah is wide open;
he marks it down in the registry of his memory; he puts our prayers, like
rose leaves, between the pages of his book of remembrance, and when the
volume is opened at last, there shall be a precious fragrance springing up
therefrom.

Oh! poor sinner, of the blackest and vilest character, thy prayers
are heard, and even now God hath said of thee, “Behold he prayeth.”
Where was a barn? Where was it-in the closet? Was it at thy bedside this
morning, or in this hall? Art thou now glancing thine eye to heaven? Speak,
poor heart. Did I hear thy lips just now mutter out “God have mercy on
me, a sinner? “I tell thee, sinner, there is one thing which doth outstrip the
telegraph. You know we can now send a message and receive an answer in
a few moments; but I read of something in the Bible more swift than the
electric fluid. “Before they call I will answer, and while they are speaking I
will hear.” So then, poor sinner, thou art noticed: yea, thou art heard by
him that sitteth on the throne.

Again, this was the announcement of a fact joyous to heaven. Our text is
prefaced with “Behold,” for, doubtless, our Savior himself regarded it with
joy. Once only do we read of a smile resting on the countenance of Jesus,
when lifting up his eye to heaven, he exclaimed, “I thank thee, O Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it
seemed good in thy sight.” The Shepherd of our souls rejoices in the vision
of his sheep securely folded, he triumphs in spirit when he brings a
wanderer home. I conceive that when he spoke these words to Ananias,
one of the smiles of paradise must have shone from his eyes. “Behold,” I
have won the heart of my enemy; I have saved my persecutor; even now he
is bending the knee at my footstool, “Behold he prayeth.” Jesus himself led
the song, rejoicing over the new convert with singing. Jesus Christ was
glad, and rejoiced more over that lost sheep than over ninety and nine that
went not astray.

And angels rejoiced too. Why, when one of God’s elect is born, angels
stand around his cradle. He grows up, and runs into sin, angels follow him,
tracking him all his way, they gaze with sorrow upon his many wanderings;
the fair Peri drops a tear whene’er that loved one sins. Presently the man is
brought under the sound of the gospel. The angel says, “Behold, he begins
to hear.” He waits a little while, the word sinks into his heart, a tear runs
down his check, and at last he cries from his inmost soul, “God have mercy
upon me!” See! the angel claps his wings, up he flies to heaven, and says,
“Brethren angels, list to me: ‘Behold, he prayeth.’” Then they set heaven’s
bells ringing; they have a Jubilee in glory; again they shout with gladsome
voices, for verily I tell you, “there is joy in heaven among the angels of
God over one sinner that repenteth.” They watch us till we pray, and when
we pray, they say, “Behold, he prayeth.”

Moreover, my dear friends, there may be other spirits in heaven that
rejoice, besides the angels. Those persons are our friends who have gone
before us. I have not many relations in heaven, but I have one whom I
dearly love, who, I doubt not, often prayed for me. For she nursed me
when I was a child and brought me up during part of my infancy, and now
she sits before the throne in glory – suddenly snatched away. I fancy she
looked upon her darling grandson, and as she saw him in the ways of sin,
of vice, and folly; she could not look with sorrow, for there are no tears in
the eyes of glorified ones, she could not look with regret, because they
cannot know such a feeling before the throne of God; but ah! that moment
when by sovereign grace, I was constrained to pray, when all alone I bent
my knee and wrestled, methinks I see her as she said, “Behold, he prayeth;
behold, he prayeth.” Oh! I can picture her countenance. She seemed to
have two heavens for a moment, a double bliss, a heaven in me as well as
in herself, – when she could say, “Behold, he prayeth “Ah! young man, there
is your mother walking the golden streets She is looking down upon you
this hour. She nursed you, on her breast you lay when but a child, and she
consecrated you to Jesus Christ. From heaven, she has been watching you
with that intense anxiety which is compatible with happiness; this morning
she is looking upon you. What sayest thou, young man? Does Christ by his
Spirit say in thine heart, “Come unto me?” Dost thou drop the tear of
repentance? Methinks I see thy mother as she cries, “Behold, he prayeth.”
Once more she bends before the throne of God and says, “I thank thee, O
thou evergracious one, that he who was my child on earth, has now
become thy child in light.”

But, if there is one in heaven who has more joy than another over the
conversion of a sinner, it is a minister, one of God’s true ministers. Oh, my
hearers, ye little think how God’s true ministers do love your souls.
Perhaps ye think it is easy work to stand here and preach to you. God
knows, if that were all, it were easy work, but when we think that when we
speak to you, your salvation or damnation in some measure depends upon
what we say – when we reflect that if we are unfaithful watchmen, your
blood will God require at our hands – oh, good God, when I reflect that I
have preached to thousands in my lifetime, many thousands, and have
perhaps said many things I ought not to have said, it startles me, it makes
me shake and tremble. Luther said he could face his enemies but could not
go up his pulpit stairs without his knees knocking together. Preaching is
not child’s play, it is not a thing to be done without labor and anxiety it is
solemn work, it is awful work if you view it in its relation to eternity. Ah!
how God’s minister prays for you!

If you might have listened under the
eaves of his chamber window, you would have heard him groaning every
Sunday night over his sermons because he had not spoken with more
effect, you would have heard him pleading with God, “Who hath believed
our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” Ah, when he
observes you, from his rest in heaven – when he sees you praying, how will
he clap his hands and say, “Behold, the child thou hast given me! behold,
he prays.” I am sure when we see one brought to know the Lord, we feel
very much like one who has saved a fellow creature from being drowned.

There is a poor man in the flood; he is going down, he is sinking, he must
be drowned, but I spring in, grasp him firmly, lift him on the shore, and lay
him on the ground; the physician comes; he looks at him, he puts his hand
upon him, and says, “I am afraid he is dead.” We apply all the means in our
power, we do what we can to restore life. I feel I have been that man’s
deliverer, and oh, how I stoop down and put my ear beside his mouth! at
last, I say he breathes! he breathes!” What pleasure there is in that thought!
He breathes; there is life still. So when we find a man praying, we shout – he
breathes; he is not dead; he is alive; for while a man prays he is not dead in
trespasses and sins; but is brought to life, is quickened by the power of the
Spirit. “Behold, he prayeth.” This was joyful news in heaven, as well as
being noticed by God.

Then in the next place, this was an event most astonishing to men Ananias
lifted up both his hands in amazement. “O my Lord, I should have thought
anybody would pray but that man! Is it possible!” I do not know how it is
with other ministers, but sometimes I look upon such-and-such individuals
in the congregation, and I say, “Well, they are very hopeful; I think I shall
have them. I trust there is a work going on, and hope soon to hear them
tell what the Lord has done for their souls.” Soon, perhaps, I see nothing
of them, and miss them altogether; but instead thereof, my good Master
sends me one of whom I had no hope – an outcast, a drunkard, a reprobate,
to the praise of the glory of his grace. Then I lift up my hands in
astonishment, thinking, “I should have thought of anybody rather than
you.”

I remember a circumstance which occurred a little while ago. There
was a poor man about sixty years old; he had been a rough sailor, one of
the worst men in the village; it was his custom to drink, and he seemed to
be delighted when he was cursing and swearing. He came into the chapel,
however, one Sabbath day, when one nearly related to me was preaching
from the text concerning Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. And the poor man
thought, “What! did Jesus Christ ever weep over such a wretch as I am?”
He thought he was too bad for Christ to care for him. At last he came to
the minister, and said, “Sir, sixty years have I been sailing under the colors
of the devil; it is time I should have a new owner; I want to scuttle the old
ship and sink her altogether; then I shall have a new one, and I shall sail
under the colors of Prince Immanuel.” Ever since that moment that man
has been a praying character, walking before God in all sincerity. Yet he
was the very last man you would have thought of. Somehow God does
choose the last men, he does not care for the diamond, but he picks up the
pebble stones for he is able, out of “stones, to raise up children unto
Abraham.” God is more wise than the chemist: he not only refines gold, but
be transmutes base metal into precious jewels; he takes the filthiest and the
vilest, and fashions them into glorious beings, makes them saints, whereas
they have been sinners, and sanctifies them, whereas they have been
unholy.

The conversion of Saul was a strange thing; but, beloved, was it stranger
than that you and I should have been Christians? Let me ask you if any
body had told you, a few years ago, that you would belong – to a church and
be numbered with the children of God, what would you have said? “Stuff
and nonsense! I am not one of your canting methodists; I am not going to
have any religion; I love to think and do as I like.” Did not you and I say
so? and how on earth did we get here? When we look at the change that
has passed over us, it appears like a dream. God has left many in our
families who were better than we were, and why has he chosen us? Oh! is
it not strange? might we not lift up our hands in astonishment, as Ananias
did and say, “Behold, behold, behold, it is a miracle on earth, a wonder in
heaven?”

The last thing I have to say here, is this – this fact was a novelty to Saul
himself. “Behold, he prayeth.” What is there novel in that? Saul used to go
up to the temple twice a day, at the hour of prayer. If you could have
accompanied him, you would have heard him speak beautifully, in words
like these: “Lord, I thank thee I am not as other men are; I am not an
extortioner, nor a publican; I fast twice in the week, and give tithes of all I
possess” and so on. Oh! you might have found him pouring out a fine
oration before the throne of God. And yet it saith – ”Behold, he prayeth.”
What! had he never prayed before? No, never. All he had ever done before
went for nothing; it was not prayer. I have heard of an old gentleman, who
was taught, when a child, to pray, “Pray God bless my father and mother,”
and he kept on praying the same thing for seventy years when his parents
were both dead. After that it pleased God, in his infinite mercy, to touch
his heart, and he was led to see that, notwithstanding his constancy to his
forms, he had not been praying at all; he often said his prayers, but never
prayed.

So it was with Saul. He had pronounced his magniloquent
orations, but they were all good for nothing. He had prayed his long
prayers for a pretense; it had all been a failure. Now comes a true petition,
and it is said, “Behold he prayeth.” Do you see that man trying to obtain a
hearing from his Maker? How he stands! He speaks Latin and blank verse
before the Almighty’s throne; but God sits in calm indifference paying no
attention. Then the man tries a different style, procures a book, and
bending his knee again, prays in a delightful form the best old prayer that
could ever be put together but the Most High disregards his empty
formalities. At last the poor creature throws the book away, forgets his
blank verse, and says, “O Lord, hear, for Christ’s sake.” “Hear him,” says
God, “I have heard him “There is the mercy thou hast sought. One hearty
prayer is better than ten thousand forms. One prayer coming from the soul
is better than a myriad cold readings. As for prayers that spring from the
mouth and head only, God abhors them; he loves those that come deep
from the heart.

Perhaps I should be impudent if I were to say that there are
hundreds here this morning who never prayed once in their lives. There are
some of you who never did. There is one young man over there, who told
his parents when he left them, that he should always go through his form of
prayer every morning and night. But he is ashamed, and he has left it off.
Well, young man, what will you do when you come to die? Will you have
“the watchword at the gates of death?” Will you “enter heaven by prayer?”
No, you will not; you will be driven from God’s presence, and be cast
away.

II. Secondly, we have here AN ARGUMENT. “For, behold, he prayeth.” It
was an argument, first of all, for Ananias’ safety. Poor Ananias was afraid
to go to Saul; he thought it was very much like stepping into a lion’s den.
“If I go to his house,” he thought, “the moment he sees me, he will take me
to Jerusalem at once, for I am one of Christ’s disciples, I dare not go.”
God says, “Behold, he prayeth.” “Well,” says Ananias, “that is enough for
me. If he is a praying man, he will not hurt me; if he is a man of real
devotion, I am safe.” Be sure you may always trust a praying man. I do not
know how it is, but even ungodly men always pay a reverence to a sincere
Christian. A master likes to have a praying servant after all, if he does not
regard religion himself, he likes to have a pious servant, and he will trust
him rather any other. True, there are some of your professedly praying
people that have not a bit of prayer in them. But whenever you find a really
praying man, trust him with untold gold; for if he really prays, you need not
be afraid of him. He who communes with God in secret, may be trusted in
public. I always feel safe with a man who is a visitor to the mercy-seat.

I have heard an anecdote of two gentlemen traveling together, somewhere in Switzerland. Presently they come into the midst of the forests, and you
know the gloomy tales the people tell about the inns there, how dangerous
it is to lodge in them. One of them, an infidel, said to the other, who was a
Christian, “I don’t like stopping here at all, it is very dangerous indeed.”
“Well,” said the other, “let us try.” So they went into a house, but it looked
so suspicious that neither of them liked it; and they thought they would
prefer being at home in England. Presently the landlord said, “Gentlemen, I
always read and pray with my family before going to bed, will you allow
me to do so night?” “Yes,” they said “with the greatest pleasure. When
they went up stairs, the infidel said, “I am not at all afraid now.” “Why?”
said the Christian. “Because our host has prayed.” “Oh!” said the other,
“then it seems, after all, you think something of religion; because a man
prays, you can go to sleep in his house.” And it was marvelous how both
of them did sleep. Sweet dreams they had, for they felt that where the
house had been roofed by prayer, and walled with devotion, there could
not be found a man living that would commit an injury to them. This, then,
was an argument to Ananias, that he might go with safety to Saul’s house.

But more than this there was an argument for Paul’s sincerity. Secret
prayer is one of the best tests of sincere religion. If Jesus had said to
Ananias, “Behold, he preacheth,” Ananias would have said, “that he may
do, and yet be a deceiver.” If he had said, “He is gone to a meeting of the
church,” Ananias would have said “He may enter there as a wolf in sheep’s
clothing.” But when he said, “Behold, he prayeth,’’ that was argument
enough. A young person comes and tells me about what he has felt and
what he has been doing. At last I say, “kneel down and pray.” “I would
much rather not.” “Never mind, you shall.” Down he falls on his knees, he
has hardly a word to say: he begins groaning and crying, and there he stays
on his knees till at last he stammers out, “Lord have mercy upon me a
sinner – I am the greatest of sinners; have mercy upon me!” Then I am a
little more satisfied, and I say, “I did not mind all your talk, I wanted your
prayers.’’ But oh! if I could trace him home; if I could see him go and pray
alone then I should feel sure; for he who prays in private is a real Christian.

The mere reading of a book of daily devotion will not prove you a child of
God; if you pray in private, then you have a sincere religion a little religion,
if sincere, is better than mountains of pretense. Home piety is the best
piety. Praying will make you leave off sinning, or sinning will make you
leave of praying. Prayer in the heart proves the reality of conversion. A
man may be sincere, but sincerely wrong. Paul was sincerely right.
“Behold, he prayeth,” was the best argument that his religion was right. If
any one should ask me for an epitome of the Christian religion, I should say
it is in that one word – ”prayer.” If I should be asked, “What will take in the
whole of Christian experience?” I should answer, “prayer.” A man must
have been convinced of sin before he could pray, he must have had some
hope that there was mercy for him before he could pray. In fact, all the
Christian virtues are locked up in that word, prayer, Do but tell me you are
a man of prayer and I will reply at once, “Sir, I have no doubt of the
reality, as well as the sincerity, of your religion.”

But one more thought,
and I will leave this subject. It was a proof of this man’s election, for you
read directly afterwards, “Behold, he is a chosen vessel.” I often find
people troubling themselves about the doctrine of Election. Every now and
then I get a letter from somebody or other taking me to task for preaching
election. All the answer I can give is, “There it is in the Bible; go and ask
my Master why he put it there. I cannot help it. I am only a serving man,
and I tell you the message from above, If I were a footman I should not
alter my Master’s message at the door. I happen to be an ambassador of
heaven, and I dare not alter the message I have received. If it is wrong,
send up to head quarters. There it is, and I cannot alter it.” This much let
me say in explanation. Some say. “How can I discover whether I am God’s
elect? I am afraid I am not God’s elect.” Do you pray? If it can be said,
“Behold, he prayeth,” it can also be said, “Behold he is a chosen vessel
“Have you faith? If so, you are elect. Those are the marks of election. If
you have none of these you have no grounds for concluding that you
belong to the peculiar people of God. Have you a desire to believe? Have
you a wish to love Christ? Have you the millionth part of a desire to come
to Christ? And is it a practical desire? Does it lead you to offer earnest,
tearful supplication? If so, never be afraid of non-election; for whoever
prays with sincerity, was ordained of God before the foundation of the
world, that he should be holy and without blame before Christ in love.

III. Now for the APPLICATION. A word or two with you my dear friends,
before I send you away this morning I regret that I cannot better enter into
the subject; but my glorious Master requires of each of us according to
what we have, not according to what we have not. I am deeply conscious
that I fail in urging home the truth so solemnly as I ought; nevertheless,
“my work is with God and my judgment with my God,” and the last day
shall reveal that my error lay in judgment, but not in sincere affection for
souls.

First, allow me to address the children of God. Do you not see, my
dear brethren, that the best mark of our being sons of God is to be found in
our devotion? “Behold, he prayeth.” Well then, does it not follow, as a
natural consequence that the more we are found in prayer the brighter will
our evidences be? Perhaps you have lost your evidence this morning; you
do not know whether you are a child of God or not, I will tell you where
you lost your confidence – you lost it in your closet. Whenever a Christian
backslides, his wandering commences in his closet. I speak what I have felt.
I have often gone back from God – never so as to fall finally, I know, but I
have often lost that sweet savor of his love which I once enjoyed. I have
had to cry,

“Those peaceful hours I once enjoyed.
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void!
The world can never fill.”

I have gone up to God’s house to preach, without either fire or energy; I
have read the Bible, and there has been no light upon it, I have tried to
have communion with God, but all has been a failure. Shall I tell where that
commenced? It commenced in my closet. I had ceased, in a measure, to
pray. Here I stand, and do confess my faults; I do acknowledge that
whene’er I depart from God it is there it doth begin. Oh Christians, would
you be happy? Be much in prayer. Would you be victorious? Be much in
prayer.

“Restraining prayer, we cease to fight
Prayer makes the Christian’s armor bright.”

Mrs. Berry used to say, “I would not be hired out of my closet for a
thousand worlds.” Mr. Jay said, “If the twelve apostles were living near
you, and you had access to them, if this intercourse drew you from the
closet, they would prove a real injury to your souls.” Prayer is the ship
which bringeth home the richest freight. It is the soil which yields the most
abundant harvest. Brother, when you rise in the morning your business so
presses, that with a hurried word or two, down you go into the world, and
at night, jaded and tired, you give God the fag end of the day. The
consequence is, that you have no communion with him. The reason we
have not more true religion now, is because we have not more prayer. Sirs,
I have no opinion of the churches of the present day that do not pray. I go
from chapel to chapel in this metropolis, and I see pretty good
congregations; but I go to their prayer meetings on a week evening, and I
see a dozen persons. Can God bless us? Can he pour out his Spirit upon us,
while such things as these exist? He could, but it would not be according to
the order of his dispensation, for he says, “When Zions travails she brings
forth children.” Go to your churches and chapels with this thought, that
you want more prayer.

Many of you have no business here this morning.
You ought to be in your own places of worship. I do not want to steal
away the people from other chapels; there are enough to hear me without
them. But though you have sinned this morning, hear while you are here, as
much to your profit as possible. Go home and say to your minister, “Sir,
we must have more prayer.” Urge the people to more prayer. Have a
prayer meeting, even if you have it all to yourself; and if you are asked how
many were present, you can say “Four.” “Four! how so?” “Why, there was
myself, and God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost; and
we have had a rich and real communion together.” We must have an
outpouring of real devotion or else what is to become of many of our
churches. Oh! may God awaken us all, and stir us up to pray, for when we
pray we shall be victorious.

I should like to take you, this morning, as
Sampson did the foxes, tie the firebrands of prayer to you, and send you in
among the shocks of corn till you burn the whole up. I should like to make
a conflagration by my words, and to set all the churches on fire till the
whole has smoked like a sacrifice to God’s throne. If you pray, you have a
proof that you are a Christian; the less you pray, the less reason have you
to believe your Christianity; and if you have neglected to pray altogether,
then you have ceased to breathe, and you may be afraid that you never did
breathe at all.

And now my last word is to the ungodly. Oh, sirs! I could fain wish myself
anywhere but here; for if it be solemn work to address the godly, how
much more when I come to deal with you. We fear lest on the one hand we
should so speak to you, as to make you trust in your own strength; while
on the other hand, we tremble lest we should lull you into the sleep of sloth
and security. I believe most of us feel some difficulty as to the most fit
manner to preach to you-  not that we doubt but that the gospel is to be
preached – but our desire is so to do it, that we may win your souls. I feel
like a watchman, who, while guarding a city, is oppressed with sleep; how
earnestly does he strive to arouse himself, while infirmity would overcome
him. The remembrance of his responsibility bestirs him. His is no lack of
will, but of power; and so I hope all the watchmen of the Lord are anxious
to be faithful, while at the same time they know their imperfection. Truly
the minister of Christ will feel like the old keeper of Eddystone lighthouse.
Life was failing fast, but summoning all his strength, he crept round once
more to trim the lights before he died. O may the Holy Spirit enable us to
keep the beacon fire blazing, to warn you of the rocks, shoals, and
quicksands, which surround you and may we ever guide you to Jesus, and
not to free-will or creature merit.

If my friends knew how anxiously I have
sought divine direction in the important matter of preaching to sinners,
they would not feel as some of them do, when they fancy I address them
wrongly. I want to do as God bids me, and if he tells me to speak to the
dry bones and they shall live, I must do it, even if it does not please others;
otherwise I should be condemned in my own conscience, and condemned
of God. Now with all the solemnity that none can summon, let me say that
a prayerless soul is a Christless soul. As the Lord liveth, you who never
prayed are without God, without hope, and strangers from the
commonwealth of Israel. You who never know what a groan is, or a falling
tear, are destitute of vital godliness. Let me ask you, sirs, whether you have
ever thought in what an awful state you are? You are far from God, and
therefore God is angry with you; for “God is angry with the wicked every
day.” Oh sinner I lift thine eyes, and behold the frowning countenance of
God, for he is angry with you. And I beseech you, as you love yourselves,
just for one moment contemplate what will become of you, if living as you
are ye should at last die without prayer.

Don’t think that one prayer on
your death-bed will save you. Death-bed prayer is a death bed farce
generally, and passes for nothing. It is a coin that will not ring in heaven
but is stamped by hypocrisy, and made of base metal. Take heed, sirs. Let
me ask you, if you have never prayed, what will you do? It were a good
thing for you, if death were an eternal sleep; but it is not. If you find
yourself in hell, oh, the racks and pains! But I will not harrow up your
feelings by attempting to describe them. May God grant you never may feel
the torments of the lost. Only conceive that poor wretch in the flames who
is saying, “Oh for one drop of water to cool my parched tongue!” See how
his tongue hangs from between his blistered lips! how it excoriates and
burns the roof of his mouth, as if it were a firebrand. Behold him crying for
a drop of water. I will not picture the scene. Suffice it for me to close up
by saying, that the hell of hells will be to thee poor sinner, the thought, that
it is to be forever. Thou wilt look up there on the throne of God, and it
shall be written “for ever!” When the damned jingle the burning irons of
their torments, they shall say, “for ever!” When they howl, echo cries for
ever!”

“‘For ever’s written on their racks,
‘For ever’ on their chains
‘For ever’ burneth in the fire
‘For ever’ ever reigns.”

Doleful thought! “If I could but get out, then I should be happy. If there
were a hope of deliverance, then I might be peaceful, but I am here for
ever!” Sirs, if ye would escape eternal torments, if ye would be found
amongst the numbers of the blessed, the road to heaven can only be found
by prayer-by prayer to Jesus, by prayer for the Spirit, by supplication at his
mercy-seat. “Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die, O house of Israel. As I live
saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but had
rather that he should turn unto me and live.” “The Lord is gracious and full
of compassion.” Let us go unto him and say, “He shall heal our
backslidings, he shall love us freely and forgive us graciously, for his Son’s
name’s sake.” Oh! if I may but win one soul today, I will go home
contented. If I may but gain twenty, then I will rejoice. The more I have,
the more crowns I shall wear. Wear! No, I will take them all at once, and
cast them at Jesus’ feet, and say, “Not unto me, but unto thy name be all
the glory, for ever.”

“Prayer was appointed to convey
The blessings God designs to give
Long as they live, should Christians pray,
For only while they pray they live.
And wilt thou still in silence lie,
When Christ stands waiting for thy prayer
My soul, thou hast a friend on high,
Arise, and try thine interest there.
‘Tis prayer supports the soul that’s weak,
Though thought be broken, language lame
Pray, if thou canst, or canst not speak,
But pray with faith in Jesu’s name.”

I am thoroughly enjoying having my two grandchildren (2yrs & 8 Months) to stay and am inevitably watching far too much TV, especially CBeebies!

I was intrigued with a new program called Waybuloo, which showed children engaging in Yoga to achieve a state of happiness. Here is a few descriptions of the program for you to get the flavour:-

Parents will be invited to do yoga with their toddlers and hug them in a new BBC children’s TV show.

Mothers and fathers may be forgiven for thinking they have travelled back to the late 1960s when they sit down with their children to watch Waybuloo.

The series, which it is hoped will be as big a hit as the Teletubbies, is said to be imbued with a ‘hippy’ philosophy.

Viewers will be encouraged to hug each other to achieve happiness and the show’s characters float when they achieve the zen-like condition of ‘Buloo’.

The four ‘Piplings’ – Lau Lau, De Li, Nok Tok and Yo Jojo – teach youngsters how to deal with their emotions as they travel through the countryside of Nara.

BBC publicity for the show claims: ‘Waybuloo is not just a series, it’s a philosophy for a happy life.’ It claims that the Piplings embody a range of emotions including love, wisdom, happiness and harmony and ‘personify positive emotion’ by floating.

Waybuloo Cbeebies

Zen-like: The four Piplings, who float when they are happy, encourage children to try yoga in new BBC show Waybuloo

Nok Tok is bear-like and represents wisdom. He solves problems and comes up with creative, inventive solutions for fixing and mending things. He has a very colourful toolbox and a special Anything Machine which can solve a multitude of problems.

In each episode, six children visit Nara to play with the Piplings and explore their land, as real life interacts with the animated world, showing that every child can visit Nara and find their own Waybuloo. Children will be able to play with the Piplings, learn yogo with their parents and experience Waybuloo moments for themselves through the magical world of Nara on the CBeebies website.

Gosh they get to them early now don’t they. I wish that the BBC would be so keen to promote wholesome Christian values to our young ones. The only true joy that can be achieved in this life, is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Happiness is a superficial, fleeting emotion, only Christ can give an everlasting true Joy.

There is certainly nothing wrong with hugging and physical expressions of our love to our children, but do we really need an eastern philosophy to teach us to do this? If we do, then it is a sad day indeed!

“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
terrestial affairs. He might, if he pleased, wrap himself with night 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 within 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 smile it out 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 for ever; 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, incomprehensive 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.

1. 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 I 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 other. 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 fetter 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 Habbakok 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 the 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, to a demonstration, for there are
arguments enough, there are reasons enough, did I care to occupy your
time tonight 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
any 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 forth 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
folly to bring forward these firebrands of hell, even if we are well prepared
to 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 them to fill up! but God’s own chosen men
need not do that; they are taught of God, and God supplies them with
matter, with language, and with power. There may be some one here tonight
who has come without faith, a man of reason, a free-thinker. 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 once I slipped 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 upwards 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 land marks 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 were 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 death-dream, 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
profession 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 Solomon 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
man, we might reject them, but oh, 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 orders. 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
hand-writing 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,
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 on 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 Revelations, and find an error. This is a vein of pure gold,
unalloyed by quartz, or any earthy 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 minister’s
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
of the Word, because they are unpalatable. Oh ye who dislike certain
portions of the Holy Writ rest assured that your taste is corrupt, and that
God will not stay for your little opinion. Your dislike is the very reason
why God wrote it, because you ought 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 there 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 around 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, 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 wondrous 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, that
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 set 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 says 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
be both right in the main; but can they be both 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 nonessentials.

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 your 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 ownselves. I love my
parents above all that breathe, and the very thought that they believed a
thing to be true, helps me to think it is correct; but I have not allowed
them, I belong to a different denomination, and I thank God 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 chains, and I will use them; and if you have any
intellect, use it too. Never say it doesn’t matter. It does 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 must always 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 the 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 all for ruin. We were all ruined in the fall; we were all lost when
Adam sinned, and we are 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’ve 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 Calvanism: 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
should be saved, before all things it is necessary that he should hotel 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 sea-shore 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 still stood there, until at last
there was the greatest difficulty in getting on shore; the waves had washed
between me and the 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 throws 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 tell 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 for ever,

“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 whines 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 son!, the Bible says, if thou art lost, thou art lost for ever; it
tells thee, that if thou didst without Christ, without God, there is no hope
for thee, that there is a 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 not
these 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 pains 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 to 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
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’s writes a catch of the
day, is greedily devoured.

“I have written unto 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 never have 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
word he uses. He says, “My mother said 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-salve on, then 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 souls, 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 hath 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 tonight 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 well 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
thee 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 Savior’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 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 a name graven thereon, which no man knoweth, saying
he that receiveth it. Would ye study history? Here is the most ancient of all
the records of the history of the human race. Whatever 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 soul, 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 ‘tis!
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.”

“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” 1 John 5:4

THE epistles of John are perfumed with love. The word is continually
occurring, while the Spirit enters into every sentence. Each letter is
thoroughly soaked and impregnated with this heavenly honey. If he speaks
of God, his name must be love; are the brethren mentioned, he loves them;
and even of the world itself, he writes, “God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten Son.” From the opening to the conclusion, love is
the manner, love the matter, love the motive, and love the aim. We stand,
therefore, not a little astonished, to find such martial words in so peaceful a
writing, for I hear a sound of war.

It is not the voice of love, surely, that
says, “He that is born of God overcometh the world.” Lo, here are strife
and battle. The word “overcometh” seems to have in it something of the
sword and warfare; of strife and contention; of agony and wrestling; so
unlike the love which is smooth and gentle, which hath no harsh words
within its lips; whose mouth is lined with velvet, whose words are softer
than butter; whose utterances are more easily flowing than oil. Here we
have war — war to the knife, for I read, “Whatsoever is born of God
overcometh the world,” strife until death; battle throughout life; fighting
with a certainty of victory. How is it that the same gospel which always
speaks of peace, here proclaims a warfare? How can it be? Simply because
there is something in the world which is antagonistic to love; there are
principles abroad which cannot bear light, and, therefore, before light can
come it must chase the darkness.

Ere summer reigns, you know, it has to
do battle with old winter, and to send it howling away in the winds of
March, and shedding its tears in April shows. So also, before any great or
good thing can have the mastery of this world, it must do battle for it.
Satan has seated him self on his blood-stained throne, and who shall get
him down, except by main force, and fight, and war? Darkness broods o’er
the nations; nor can the sun establish his empire of light until he has pierced
night with the arrowy sunbeams, and made it flee away. Hence we read in
the Bible that Christ did not come to send peace on earth, but a sword; he
came to set “the father against the son, and the son against the father; the
mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against
her mother-in-law,” not intentionally, but as a means to an end; because
there must always be a struggle ere truth and righteousness can reign.

Alas!
for that earth is the battle-field where good must combat with evil. Angels
look on and hold their breath, burning to mingle in the conflict, but the
troops of the Captain of Salvation may be none but the soldiers of the
cross; and that slender band must fight alone, and yet shall triumph
gloriously. Enough shall they be for conquest, and the motto of their
standard is ENOUGH. Enough by the arm of the helping Trinity.
As God shall help me, I shall speak to you of three things to be found in
the next. First, the text speaks of a great victory: it says, “This is the
victory.” Secondly, it mentions a great birth: “Whatsoever is born of
God.” And, thirdly, it extols a great grace, whereby we overcome the
world, “even our faith.”

I. First, the text speaks of a GREAT VICTORY — the victory of victories —
the greatest of all. We know there have been great battles where nations
have met in strife, and one has overcome the other; but who has read of a
victory that over came the world? Some will say that Alexander was its
conqueror; but I answer, nay. He was himself the vanquished man, even
when all things were in his possession. He fought for the world, and won
it, and then mark how it mastered its master, conquered its conquerer, and
lashed the monarch who had been its scourge. See the royal youth
weeping, and stretching out his hands with idiotic cries, for another world
which he might ravage. He seemed, in outward show, to have overcome
old earth; but, in reality, within his inmost soul, the earth had conquered
him, had overwhelmed him, had wrapped him in the dream of ambition,
girdled him with the chains of covetousness, so that when he had all, he
was still dissatisfied, and, like a poor slave, was dragged on at the chariot
wheels of the world, crying, moaning, lamenting, because he could not win
another. Who is the man that ever overcame the world? Let him stand
forward: he is a Triton among the minnows; he shall outshine Caesar; he
shall outmatch even our own lately departed Wellington, if he can say he
has overcome the world. It is so rare a thing, a victory so prodigious, a
conquest so tremendous, that he who can claim to have won it may walk
among his fellows, like Saul with head and shoulders far above them. He
shall command our respect, his very presence shall awe us into reverence;
his speech shall persuade us to obedience; and, yielding honor to whom
honor is due, we’ll say when we listen to his voice, “’Tis even as if an angel
shook his wings.”

I shall now attempt to expand the idea I have suggested, showing you in
what varied senses the Christian overcomes the world. A tough battle, sirs,
I warrant you: not one which carpet knights might win: no easy skirmish
that he might win, who dashed to battle on some sunshiny day, looked at
the host, then turned his courser’s rein, and daintily dismounted at the door
of his silken tent — not one which he shall gain, who, but a raw recruit today,
puts on his regimentals, and foolishly imagines that one week of
service will ensure a crown of glory. Nay sirs, it is a life-long war — a fight
needing the power of all these muscles, and this strong heart; a contest
which shall want all our strength, if we are to be triumphant; and if we do
come off more than conquerors, it shall be said of us, as Hart said of Jesus
Christ: “He had strength enough and none to spare;” a battle at which the
stoutest heart might quail; a fight at which the braves might shake, if he did
not remember that the Lord is on his side, and therefore, whom shall he
fear? He is the strength of his life; of whom shall he be afraid? This fight
with the world is not one of main force, or physical might, if it were, we
might soon win it; but it is all the more dangerous from the fact that it is a
strife of mind, a contest of heart, a struggle of the spirit, a strife of the soul.

When we overcome the world in one fashion, we have not half done our
work; for the world is a Proteus, changing its shape continually; like the
chameleon, it hath all the colors of the rainbow, and when you have
worsted the world in one shape, it will attack you in another. Until you die,
you will always have fresh appearances of the world to wrestle with. Let
me just mention some of the forms in which the Christian overcomes the
world.

1. He overcomes the world when it sets up itself as a legislator, wishing to
teach him customs. You know the world has its old massive law book of
customs, and he who does not choose to go according to the fashion of the
world, is under the ban of society. Most of you do just as everybody else
does, and that is enough for you. If you see so-and-so do a dishonest thing
in business, it is sufficient for you that everybody does it. If ye see that the
majority of mankind have certain habits, ye succomb, ye yield. Ye think, I
suppose, that to march to hell in crowds, will help to diminish the fierce
heat of the burning of the bottomless pit, instead of remembering that the
more faggots the fiercer will be the flame. Men usually swim with the
stream like a dead fish; it is only the living fish that goes against it. It is
only the Christian who despises customs, who does not care for
conventionalisms, who only asks himself the question, “Is it right or is it
wrong? If it is right, I will be singular. If there is not another man in this
world who will do it, I will do it; should a universal hiss go up to heaven, I
will do it still; should the very stones of earth fly up and stone me to death
I will do it still; though they bind me to the stake, yet I must do it; I will be
singularly right, if the multitude will not follow me, I will go without them
I will be glad if they will all go and do right as well, but if not, I will
despise their customs; I care not what others do; I shall not be weighed by
other men; to my own Master I stand or fall.

Thus I conquer and overcome
the customs of the world.” Fair world! she dresseth herself in ermine, she
putteth on the robes of a judge, and she solemnly telleth you, “Man, you
are wrong. Look at your fellows, see how they do. Behold my laws. For
hundreds of years have not men done so? Who are you, to set yourself up
against me?” And she pulls out her worm-eaten law-book, and turning over
the musty pages, says, “See, here is an act passed in the reign of
Nebuchadnezzar, and here is another law enacted in the days of Pharaoh.
These must be right, because antiquity has enrolled them among her
standard authorities. Do you mean to set yourself up and stand against the
opinions of the multitude?” Yes, we do; we take the law book of the
world, and we burn it, as the Ephesians did their magic rolls; we take her
deeds, and make them into waste paper; we rend her proclamation from the
walls; we care not what others do; custom to us is a cobweb; we count it
folly to be singular; but when to be singular is to be right, we count it the
proudest wisdom; we overcome the world; we trample on her customs; we
walk as a distinct people, a separate race, a chosen generation, a peculiar
people.

The Christian behaves in his dealings not as the laughing infidel
insinuates, when he sneeringly describes Mawworm, as saying, “Boy, have
you sanded the sugar?” “Yes, sir.” “Have you put the sloe leaves in the
tea?” “Yes, sir.” “Have you put red lead in the pepper?” “Yes, sir.” “Then
come to prayers.” Christians do not do so; they say, “We know better; we
cannot conform to the customs of the world. If we pray, we will also act,
or else we are hypocrites, confounded hypocrites. If we go to the house of
God, and profess to love him, we love him everywhere; we take our
religion with us into the shop, behind the counter; into our offices, we must
have it everywhere, or else God knows it is not religion at all.” Ye must
stand up then, against the customs of mankind. Albeit, this may be a three million peopled city, ye are to come out and be separate, if ye would
overcome the world.

2. We rebel against the world’s customs. And if we do so, what is the
conduct of our enemy? She changes her aspect. “That man is a heretic; that
man is a fanatic; he is a cant, he is a hypocrite,” says the world directly.
She grasps her sword, she putteth frowns upon her brow, she scowleth like
a demon, she girdeth tempests round about her, and she saith, “The man
dares defy my government; he will not do as others do. Now I will
persecute him. Slander! come from the depths of hell and hiss at him.
Envy! sharpen up thy tooth and bite him.” She fetches up all false things,
and she persecutes the man if she can, she does it with the hand, if not, by
the tongue. She afflicts him wherever he is. She tries to ruin him in
business; or, if he standeth forth as the champion of the truth why then she
laugheth, and mocketh, and scorneth. She lets no stone be unturned
whereby she may injure him. What is then the behavior of the Lord’s
warrior when he sees the world take up arms against him, and when he
sees all earth, like an army, coming to chase him, and utterly destroy him?
Does he yield? Does he yield? Does he bend? Does he cringe? Oh, no! Like
Luther, he writes “Cedo nulli” on his banner — “I yield to none;” and he
goes to war against the world, if the world goes to war against him.

“Let earth be all in arms abroad,
He dwells in perfect peace.”

Ah! some of you, if you had a word spoken against you, would at once
give up what religion you have, but the true-born child of God cares little
for man’s opinion. “Ah,” says he, “let my bread fail me, let me be doomed
to wander penniless the wide world o’er; yea, let me die: each drop of
blood within these veins belongs to Christ, and I am ready to shed it for his
name’s sake.” He counts all things but loss, that he may win Christ — that
he may be found in him; and when the world’s thunders roars, he smiles at
the uproar, while he hums his pleasant tune: —

“Jerusalem my happy home,
Name ever dear to me;
When shall my labors have an end,
In joy, and peace, and thee?”

When her sword comes out, he looketh at it. “Ah,” saith he, “just as the
lightning leapeth from its thunder lair, splitteth the clouds, and affrighteth
the stars, but is powerless against the rock-covered mountaineer, who
smiles at its grandeur, so now the world cannot hurt me, for in the time of
trouble my Father hides me in his pavillion, in the secret of his tabernacle
doth he hide me, and set me up upon a rock.” Thus, again, we conquer the
world, by not caring for its frowns.

3. “Well,” saith the world, “I will try another style,” and this believe me, is
the most dangerous of all. A smiling world is worse than a frowning one.
She saith, “I cannot smite the man low with my repeated blows, I will take
off my mailed glove and showing him a fair white hand, I’ll bid him kiss it.
I will tell him I love him: I will flatter him, I will speak good words to
him.” John Bunyan well describes this Madam Bubble; she has a winning
way with her; she drops a smile at the end of each of her sentences; she
talks much of fair things, and tries to win and woo. Oh, believe me,
Christians are not so much in danger when they are persecuted as when
they are admired. When we stand upon the pinnacle of popularity, we may
well tremble and fear. It is not when we are hissed at, and hooted, that we
have any cause to be alarmed; it is when we are dandled on the lap of
fortune, and nursed upon the knees of the people; it is when all men speak
well of us that woe is unto us. It is not in the cold wintry wind that I take
off my coat of righteousness, and throw it away; it is when the sun comes,
when the weather is warm, and the air balmy, that I unguardedly strip off
my robes, and become naked. Good God! how many a man has been made
naked by the love of this world! The world has flattered and applauded
him; he has drunk the flattery; it was an intoxicating draught, he has
staggered, he has reeled, he has sinned, he has lost his reputation; and as a
comet that erst dashed across the sky, doth wander far into space, and is
lost in darkness, so doth he; great as he was, he falls, mighty as he was, he
wanders, and is lost. But the true child of God is never so, he is as safe
when the world smiles, as when it frowns; he cares as little for her praise as
for her dispraise. If he is praised, and it is true, he says, “My deeds
deserves praise, but I refer all honor to my God.” Great souls know what
they merit from their critic; to them it is nothing more than the giving of
their daily income, Some men cannot live without a large amount of praise;
and if they have no more than they deserve, let them have it. If they are
children of God, they will be kept steady, they will not be ruined or
spoiled; but they will stand with feet like hinds’ feet upon high places. —
“This is the victory that overcometh the world.”

4. Sometimes again, the world turns jailer to a Christian. God sends
affliction and sorrow, until life is a prison-house, the world its jailer — and
a wretched jailer too. Have you ever been in trials and troubles, my
friends? and has the world never come to you and said “Poor prisoner, I
have a key that will let you out.

You are in pecuniary difficulties; I will tell you how you may get free. Put
that Mr. Conscience away. He asks you whether it is a dishonest act. Never
mind about him; let him sleep; think about the honesty after you have got
the money, and repent at your leisure.” So saith the world; but you say, “I
cannot do the thing.” “Well,” says the world, “then groan and grumble: a
good man like you locked up in this prison!” “No,” says the Christian, “my
Father sent me into want, and in his own time he will fetch me out; but if I
die here I will not use wrong means to escape. My Father put me here for
my good, I will not grumble; if my bones must lie here — if my coffin is to
be under these stones — if my tombstone shall be in the wall of my
dungeon — here will I die, rather than so much lift a finger to get out by
unfair means.” “Ah,” says the world, “then thou art a fool.” The scorner
laughs and passes on, saying, “The man has no brain, he will not do a bold
thing; he hath no courage; he will not launch upon the sea; he wants to go
in the old beaten track of morality.” Ay, so he does; for thus he overcomes
the world.

Oh! I might tell you of some battles that have been fought. There has been
many a poor maiden, who has worked, worked, worked, until her fingers
were worn to the bone, to earn a scanty living out of the things which we
wear upon us, knowing not that ofttimes we wear the blood, and bones,
and sinews of poor girls. That poor girl has been tempted a thousand times,
the evil one has tried to seduce her, but she has fought a valiant battle;
stern in her integrity, in the midst of poverty she still stands upright, “Clear
as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners,” a
heroine unconquered by the temptations and enticements of vice. In other
cases: many a man has had the chance of being rich in an hour, affluent in a
moment, if he would but clutch something which he dare not look at,
because God within him said, “No.” The world said, “Be rich, be rich;” but
the Holy Spirit said, “No! be honest; serve thy God.” Oh, the stern contest
and the manly combat carried on within the heart! But he said, “No; could
I have the stars transmuted into worlds of gold, I would not for those
globes of wealth belie my principles, and damage my soul:” thus he walks a
conqueror. “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”

II. But my text speaks of a GREAT BIRTH. A very kind friend has told me
that while I was preaching in Exeter Hall I ought to pay deference to the
varied opinions of my hearers; that albeit I may be a Calvinist and a
Baptist, I should recollect that there are a variety of creeds here. Now, if I
were to preach nothing but what would please the whole lot of you, what
on earth should I do? I preach what I believe to be true; and if the omission
of a single truth that I believe, would make me king of England throughout
eternity, I would not leave it out. Those who do not like what I say have
the option of leaving it. They come here, I suppose, to please themselves,
and if the truth does not please them, they can leave it. I will never be
afraid that an honest British audience will turn away from the man who
does not stick, and stutter, and stammer in speaking the truth.

Well, now, about this great birth. I am going to say perhaps a harsh thing,
but I heard it said by Mr. Jay first of all. Some say a new birth takes place
in an infant baptism, but I remember that venerable patriarch saying,
“Popery is a lie, Puseyism is a lie, baptismal regeneration is a lie.” So it is.
It is a lie so palpable that I can scarcely imagine the preachers of it have
any brains in their heads at all. It is so absurd upon the very face of it, that
a man who believes it put himself below the range of a common-sense man.
Believe that every child by a drop of water is born again! Then that man
that you see in the ring as a prize-fighter is born again, because those
sanctified drops once fell upon his infant forehead! Another man swears —
behold him drunk and reeling about the streets. He is born again! A pretty
born again that is! I think he wants to be born again another time. Such a
regeneration as that only fits him for the devil; and by its deluding effect,
may even make him sevenfold more the child of hell. But the men who
curse, and swear, and rob and steal, and those poor wretches who are
hanged, have all been born again, according to the fiction of this beautiful
Puseyite church. Out upon it! out upon it! Ah, God sends something better
than that into men’s hearts, when he sends them a new birth.

However, the text speaks of a great birth. “Whatsoever is born of God
overcometh the world.” This new birth is the mysterious point in all
religion. If you preach anything else except the new birth you will always
get on well with your hearers; but if you insist that in order to enter heaven
there must be a radical change, though this is the doctrine of the Scripture,
it is so unpalateable to mankind in general that you will scarcely get them
to listen. Ah! now ye turn away if I begin to tell you, that “except ye be
born of water and of the Spirit, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” If
I tell you that there must be a regenerating influence exerted upon your
minds by the power of the Holy Ghost, then I know ye will say “it is
enthusiasm.” Ah! but it is the enthusiasm of the Bible. There I stand; by
this I will be judged. If the Bible does not say we must be born again, then
I give it up; but if it does then, sirs, do not distrust that truth on which your
salvation hangs.

What is it to be born again, then? Very briefly, to be born again is to
undergo a change so mysterious, that human words cannot speak of it. As
we cannot describe our first birth, so it is impossible for us to describe the
second. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
thereof; but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth; so is every
one that is born of the Spirit.” But while it is so mysterious, it is a change
which is known and felt. People are not born again when they are in bed
and asleep, so that they do not know it. They feel it; they experience it.
Galvanism, or the power of electricity, may be mysterious; but they
produce a feeling — a sensation. So does the new birth. At the time of the
new birth the soul is in great agony — often drowned in seas of tears.
Sometimes it drinks bitters, now and then mingled with sweet drops of
hope. Whilst we are passing from death unto life, there is an experience
which none but the child of God can really understand. It is a mysterious
change; but, at the same time, it is a positive one. It is as much a change as
if this heart were taken out of me, and the black drops of blood wrung
from it, then washed and cleansed and put into my soul again. It is “a new
heart and a right spirit:” a mysterious but yet an actual and real change!

Let me tell you, moreover, that this change is a supernatural one. It is not
one that a man performs upon himself. It is not leaving off drinking and
becoming sober; it is not turning from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant; it
is not veering round from a Dissenter to a Churchman, or a Churchman to
a Dissenter. It is vast deal more than that. It is a new principle infused
which works in the heart, enters the very soul, and moves the entire man.
Not a change of my name, but a renewal of my nature, so that I am not the
man I used to be, but a new man in Christ Jesus. It is a supernatural change
— something which man cannot do, and which only God can effect, which
the Bible itself cannot accomplish without the attendant Spirit of God;
which no minister’s eloquence can bring about — something so mighty and
wondrous, that it must be confessed to be the work of God, and God
alone. Here is the place to observe that this new birth is an enduring
change.

Arminians tell us that people are born again, then fall into sin, pick
themselves up again, and become Christians again — fall into sin, lose the
grace of God, then come back again — fall into sin a hundred times in their
lives, and so keep on losing grace and recovering it. Well, I suppose it is a
new version of the Scripture where you read of that. But I read in my Bible
that if true Christians could fall away, it would be impossible to renew
them again unto repentance. I read, moreover, that wherever God has
begun a good work he will carry it on even to the end; and that whom he
once loves, he loves to the end. If I have simply been reformed, I may be a
drunkard yet, or you may see me acting on the stage. But if I am really
born again, with that real supernatural change, I shall never fall away, I
may fall into a sin, but I shall not fall finally; I shall stand while life shall
last, constantly secure; and when I die it shall be said —

“ Servant of God, well done!
Rest from thy blest employ;
The battle’s fought, the victory’s won;
Enter thy rest of joy.”

Do not deceive yourselves, my beloved. If you imagine that you have been
regenerated, and having gone away from God, will be once more born
again, you do not know anything about the matter; for “he that is born of
God sinneth not.” That is, he does not sin so much as to fall away from
grace; “for he keepeth himself; that the evil one toucheth him not.” Happy
is the man who is really and actually regenerate, and passed from death
unto life!

III. To conclude. There IS A GREAT GRACE. Persons who are born again
really do overcome the world. How is this brought about? The text says,
“This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” Christians
do not triumph over the world by reason. Not at all. Reason is a very good
thing, and nobody should find fault with it. Reason is a candle: but faith is a
sun. Well, I prefer the sun, though I do not put out the candle. I use my
reason as a Christian man; I exercise it constantly: but when I come to real
warfare, reason is a wooden sword; it breaks, it snaps; while faith, that
sword of true Jerusalem metal, cuts to the dividing of soul and body. My
text says, “This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith.”
Who are the men that do anything in the world? Are they not always men
of faith? Take it even as natural faith. Who wins the battle? Why, the man
who knows he will win it, and vows that he will be victor. Who never gets
on in the world? The man who is always afraid to do a thing, for fear he
cannot accomplish it. Who climbs the top of the Alps? The man who says,
“I will do it, or I will die.” Let such a man make up his mind that he can do
a thing, and he will do it, if it is within the range of possibility.

Who have
been the men who have lifted the standard, and grasping it with firm hand,
have upheld it in the midst of stormy strife and battle? Why, men of faith.
Who have done great things? Not men of fear and trembling, men who are
afraid; but men of faith, who had bold fronts and foreheads made of brass
— men who never shook, and never trembled, but believing in God, lifted
their eyes to the hills, whence cometh their strength.

“Never was a marvel done upon the earth, but it had sprung of faith;
nothing noble, generous, or great, but faith was the root of the
achievement, nothing comely, nothing famous, but its praise is faith.
Leonidas fought in human faith as Joshua in divine. Xenophon trusted to
his skill, and the sons of Matthias to their cause.” Faith is mightiest of the
mighty. It is the monarch of the realms of the mind, there is no being
superior to its strength, no creature which will not bow to its divine
prowess. The want of faith makes a man despicable, it shrivels him up so
small that he might live in a nutshell. Give him faith, and he is a leviathan
that can dive into the depths of the sea; he is a war horse, that cries, aha!
aha! in the battle; he is a giant who takes nations and crumbles them in his
hand, who encounters hosts, and at a sword they vanish, he binds up
sheaves of scepters, and gathers up all the crowns at his own. There is
nothing like faith, sirs. Faith makes you almost as omnipotent as God, by
the borrowed might of its divinity. Give us faith and we can do all things.

I want to tell you how it is that faith helps Christians to overcome the
world. It always does it homoeopathically. You say, “That is a singular
idea.” So it may be. The principle is that, “like cures like.” So does faith
overcome the world by curing like with like. How does faith trample upon
the fear of the world? By the fear of God. “Now,” says the world, “if you
do not do this I will take away your life. If you do not bow down before
my false god, you shall be put in yon burning fiery furnace.” “But,” says
the man of faith, “I fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.
True, I may dread you, but I have a greater fear than that. I fear lest I
should displease God, I tremble lest I should offend my Sovereign.” So the
one fear counterbalances the other. How does faith overthrow the world’s
hopes? “There,” says the world, “I will give thee this, I will give thee that,
if thou wilt be my disciple. There is a hope for you; you shall be rich, you
shall be great.” But, faith says, “I have a hope laid up in heaven; a hope
which fadeth not away, eternal, incorrupt, amaranthine hope, a golden
hope, a crown of life;” and the hope of glory overcomes all the hopes of
the world. “Ah!” says the world, “Why not follow the example of your
fellows?” “Because,” says faith, “I will follow the example of Christ.” If the
world puts one example before us, faith puts another. “Oh, follow the
example of such an one, he is wise, and great, and good,” says the world.
Says faith, “I will follow Christ, he is the wisest, the greatest, and the best.”
It overcomes example by example, “Well,” says the world, “since thou wilt
not be conquered by all this, come, I will love thee; thou shalt be my
friend.” Faith says, “He that is the friend of this world, cannot be the friend
of God. God loves me.” So he puts love against love; fear against fear;
hope against hope; dread against dread; and so faith overcomes the world
by like curing like.

In closing my discourse, men and brethren, I am but a child, I have spoken
to you as I could this morning. Another time, perhaps I might be able to
launch more thunders, and to proclaim better the word of God; but this I
am sure of — I tell you all I know, and speak right on. I am no orator; but
just tell you what springs up from my heart. But before I have done, O that
I may have a word with your souls. How many are there here who are born
again? Some turn a deaf ear, and say, “It is all nonsense; we go to our
place of worship regularly; put our hymn books and Bibles under our arm,
and we are very religious sort of people.” Ah, soul! if I meet you at the bar
of judgment, recollect I said — and said God’s word — “Except ye be
born again ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Others of you say,
“We cannot believe that being born again is such a change as you speak of,
I am a great deal better than I used to be; I do not swear now, and I am
very much reformed.” Sirs, I tell you it is no little change. It is not mending
the pitcher, but it is breaking it up and having a new one; it is not patching
the heart, it is having a new heart and a right spirit. There is nothing but
death unto sin, and life unto righteousness, that will save your souls.

I am preaching no new doctrine. Turn to the articles of the Church of
England, and read it there. Church people come to me sometimes to unite
with our church; I show them our doctrines in their prayer book, and they
have said they never knew they were there. My dear hearers, why cannot
you read your own articles of faith? Why, positively, you do not know
what is in your own prayer book. Men, nowadays, do not read their
Bibles, and they have for the most part no religion. They have a religion,
which is all outside show, but they do not think of searching to see what its
meaning really is. Sirs, it is not the cloak of religion that will do for you, it
is a vital godliness you need; it is not a religious Sunday, it is a religious
Monday; it is not a pious church, it is a pious closet; it is not a sacred place
to kneel in, it is a holy place to stand in all day long. There must be a
change of heart, real, radical, vital, entire. And now, what say you? Has
your faith overcome the world? Can you live above it? or do you love the
world and the things thereof? If so, sirs, ye must go on your way and
perish, each one of you, unless ye turn from that, and give your hearts to
Christ. Oh! what say you, is Jesus worthy of your love? Are the things of
eternity and heaven worth the things of time? Is it so sweet to be a
worldling, that for that you can lie down in torment? Is it so good to be a
sinner, that for this you can risk your soul’s eternal welfare? O, my friends,
is it worth your while to run the risk of an eternity of woe for a hour of
pleasure? Is a dance worth dancing in hell with howling fiends for ever? Is
one dream, with a horrid waking, worth enjoying, when there are the
glories of heaven for those who follow God? Oh! if my lips would let me
speak to you, my heart would run over at my eyes, and I would weep
myself away, until ye had pity on your own poor souls. I know I am, in a
measure, accountable for your souls. If the watchmen warn them not, they
shall perish, but their blood shall be required at the watchman’s hands.

“Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die, O house of Israel?” thus saith the Lord.
Besotted, filled with your evil wills, inclined to evil; still the Holy Ghost
speaks by me this morning, “If ye turn unto the Lord, with full purpose of
heart, he will have mercy upon you, and to our God, he will abundantly
pardon.” I cannot bring you; I cannot fetch you. My words are powerless,
my thoughts are weak! Old Adam is too strong for this young child to
draw or drag, but God speak to you, dear hearts, God send the truth home,
and then we shall rejoice together, both he that soweth and he that reapeth,
because God has given us the increase. God bless you; may you all be born
again, and have that faith that overcometh the world!”

Have I that faith which looks to Christ,
O’ercomes the world and sin
Receives him Prophet, Priest, and King,
And makes the conscience clean?
If I this precious grace possess,
All praise is due to thee
If not, I seek it from thy hands;
Now grant it, Lord, to me.”