CHARLES SPURGEON INDEPENDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.”
Zechariah 4:6
GOD’S first and greatest object is his own glory. There was a time, before
all time, when there was no day but the Ancient of days, when God dwelt
alone in the magnificence of his sublime solitude. Whether he should
create, or not create was a question depending upon the answer to another
question — Would it be to his honor or not? He determined that he would
glorify himself by creating; but, in creating, beyond all doubt, his motive
was his glory. And since that time, he hath ever ruled the earth, and even
blessed it with the same object in his infinite mind — his own glory and
honor. Lesser motive for God to have, were less than divine; it is the
highest position to which you or I could attain, to live for God; and the
very highest virtue of God is for him to magnify himself in all his greatness
as the Infinite and the Eternal. Whatever, then, God permits or does, he
doeth with this one motive, his own glory. And even salvation, costly
though it was, and infinitely a benefaction to us, had for its first object, and
for its grand result, the exaltation of the Being and of the attributes of the
Supreme Ruler.
Now, as this is true in the general of the great acts of God, this is equally
true in the minutiae of them. It is true that God has a church, that that
church has been redeemed and will be preserved for his glory, and it is
equally true that everything that is done to the church, in the church, or for
the church either with the permission or by the power of God, is for God’s
glory, as well as for the church’s weal. You will notice, in reading
Scripture, that whenever God has blessed the church, he has secured
himself the glory of the blessing, though they have had the profit of it.
Sometimes he has been pleased to redeem his people by might but then he
has so used the might and power that all the glory hath come to him, and
his head alone hath worn the crown. Did he smite Egypt, and lead forth his
people, with a strong hand and outstretched arm? The glory was not to the
rod of Moses, but to the Almighty power which made the rod so potent.
Did he lead his people through the wilderness, and defend them from their
enemies? Still, did he, by teaching the people their dependence upon him,
preserve to himself all the glory? So that not Moses or Aaron amongst the
priests or prophets could share the honor with him. And tell me, if ye will,
of slaughtered Anak, and the destruction of the tribes of Canaan; tell me of
Israel’s possessing the promised land; tell me of Philistines routed, and laid
heaps on heaps; of Midianites made to fall on each other; tell me of kings
and princes who fled apace and fell, until the ground was white, like the
snow in Salmon. I will say of everyone of these triumphs, “Sing ye to the
Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously;” and I will say at the end of every
victory, “Crown him, crown him, for he hath done it; and let his name be
exalted and extolled, world without end.” Sometimes, however, God
chooseth not to employ the agency of power. If he chooses to save, by
might and by power, it is that glory may be unto him; and when he says,
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord,” it is still
with the same object, and the same desire, that we may be led —
“To give to the King of kings renown,
The Lord of Lords with glory crown,”
God is jealous of his own honor; he will not suffer even his church to be
delivered in such a way as to honor men more than God; he will take to
himself the throne without a rival he will wear a crown that never head did
wear, and sway a scepter that never head hath grasped, for as truly as he is
God, the earth shall know that he, and he alone, hath done it, and unto him
shall be the glory.
Now, my objects this morning will be to glorify God, by showing to you,
who love the Savior, that the preservation and the triumph of the church
are both of them to be accomplished, not by might, nor by power, but by
the Spirit of God, in order that all the honor might be to God, and none of
it to man. I shall divide my text very simply; it divides itself. First, not by
might; secondly, nor by power; thirdly, but by my Spirit.
You will ask me whether there is any distinction to be drawn between these
two words, “NOT BY MIGHT, NOR BY POWER.” I answer, yes. The best
Hebrew scholars tell us that the “might,” in the first place, may be
translated, “army.” The Septuagint does so translate it. It signifies power
collectedly — the power of a number of men combined together. The
second word, “power,” signifies the prowess of a single individual, so that
I might paraphrase my text thus — ”Not by the combined might of men
laboring to assist each other, nor by the separate might of any single hero,
but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.” And now you will see the distinction,
which is not without a difference.
To begin then, the preservation and the triumph of the church cannot be
accomplished BY MIGHT — that is, not by might collectedly.
First, let us consider that collected might to represent human armies. The
church, we affirm, can neither be preserved nor can its interests be
promoted by human armies. We have all thought otherwise in our time, and
have foolishly said when a fresh territory was annexed to our empire, “Ah!
what a providence that England has annexed Oude,” — or taken to itself
some other territory — “Now a door is opened for the Gospel. A Christian
power will necessarily encourage Christianity, and seeing that a Christian
power is at the head of the Government, it will be likely that the natives
will be induced to search into the authenticity of our revelation, and so
great results will follow. Who can tell but that, at the point of the British
bayonet, the Gospel will be carried, and that, by the edge of the true sword
of valiant men, Christ’s Gospel will be proclaimed?” I have said so myself;
and now I know I am a fool for my pains, and that Christ’s church hath
been also miserably befooled; for this I will assert, and prove too, that the
progress of the arms of a Christian nation is not the progress of
Christianity, and that the spread of our empire, so far from being
advantageous to the Gospel, I will hold, and this day proclaim, hath been
hostile to it.
We will just confine our attention for a moment or two to India. I believe
that British rule there, has been useful in many ways. I shall not deny the
civilizing influence of European society; or that great things have been
done for humanity; but I do assert, and can prove it, that there would have
been greater probability of the Gospel spreading in India if it had been let
alone, than there has been ever since the domination of Great Britain. Ye
thought that when Christians, as ye called them, had the land, they would
favor religion. Now I will state a fact which ought to go through the length
and breadth of the land; it does not rest on hearsay, I was informed of it a
little while ago by a clergyman, upon whose memory the fact is vividly
impressed. A Sepoy in a certain regiment was converted to God by a
missionary. He proposed to be baptized, and become a Christian. Mark,
not a Christian after our way and fashion, as a Baptist, or an Independent
or a Methodist; but a Christian according to the fashion of the Episcopalian
church established in this realm. He was seen by the chaplain, and was
received as a Christian. What think you became of that Sepoy? Let the East
India Company blush for ever, he was stripped of his regimentals,
dismissed the service and sent home, because he had become a Christian!
Ah! we dreamed that if the; had the power they would help us. Alas! the
policy of greed cannot easily be made to assist the Kingdom of Christ.
But I have another string to my bow, I believe that the help of Government
would have been far worse than its opposition, I do regret that the
Company sometimes discourages missionary enterprise; but I believe that,
had they encouraged it, it would have been far worse still, for their
encouragement would have been the greatest hindrance we could receive.
If I had to-morrow to go to India to preach the Gospel, I should pray to
God, if such a thing could be, that he would give me a black face and make
me like a Hindoo; for otherwise I should feel that when I preached I should
be regarded as one of the lords — one of the oppressors it may sometime
be added — and I should not expect my congregation to listen to me as a
man speaking to men, a brother to brother, a Christian full of love, but they
would hear me, and only cavil at me, because even my white face would
give me some appearance of superiority. Why in England, our missionaries
and our clergymen have assumed a kind of superiority and dignity over the
people; they have called themselves clergy, and the people laity; and the
result has been that they have weakened their influence. I have thought it
right to come amongst my fellow men, and be a man amongst men, just
one of themselves, their equal and their friend; and they have rallied around
me, and not refused to love me. And I should not expect to be successful in
preaching the gospel, unless I might stand and feel that I am a brother,
bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh. If I cannot stand before them
thus, I cannot get at their hearts. Send me, then, to India as one of the
dominant ruling race, and you give me a work I cannot accomplish when
you tell me to evangelise its inhabitants. In that day when John Williams
fell in Erromanga, ye wept, but it was a more hopeful day for Erromanga
than the day when our missionaries in India first landed there. I had rather
go to preach to the greatest savages that live, than I would go to preach in
the place that is under British rule. Not for the fault of Britain, but simply
because I, as a Briton, would be looked upon as one of the superiors, one
of the lords, and that would take away much of my power to do good.
Now, will you just cast your eye upon the wide world? Did you ever hear
of a nation under British rule being converted to God? Mr. Moffat and our
great friend Dr. Livingstone have been laboring in Africa with great
success, and many have been converted. Did you ever hear of Kaffir tribes
protected by England, ever being converted? It is only a people that have
been left to themselves, and preached to by men as men, that have been
brought to God. For my part, I conceive, that when an enterprise begins in
martyrdom, it is none the less likely to succeed, but when conquerors begin
to preach the gospel to those they have conquered, it will not succeed, God
will teach us that it is not by might All swords that have ever flashed from
scabbards have not aided Christ a single grain. Mahommedans’ religion
might be sustained by scimitars, but Christians’ religion must be sustained
by love. The great crime of war can never promote the religion of peace.
The battle, and the garment rolled in blood, are not a fitting prelude to
“peace on earth, goodwill to men.” And I do firmly hold, that the slaughter
of men, that bayonets, and swords, and guns, have never yet been, and
never can be, promoters of the gospel. The gospel will proceed without
them, but never through them. “Not by might.” Now don’t be be fooled
again, if you hear of the English conquering in China, don’t go down on
your knees and thank God for it, and say it’s such a heavenly thing for the
spread of the gospel — it just is not. Experience teaches you that, and if
you look upon the map you will find I have stated only the truth, that
where our arms have been victorious, the gospel has been hindered rather
than not; so that where South Sea Islanders have bowed their knees and
cast their idols to the bats, British Hindoos have kept their idols, and where
Bechuanas and Bushmen have turned unto the Lord, British Affairs have
not been converted, not perhaps because they were British, but because the
very fact of the missionary being a Briton, put him above them, and
weakened their influence. Hush thy trump, O war; put away thy gaudy
trappings and thy bloodstained drapery, if thou thinkest that the cannon
with the cross upon it is really sanctified, and if thou imaginest that thy
banner hath become holy, thou dreamest of a lie. God wanteth not thee to
help his cause. “It is not by armies, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith
the Lord.”
Now, understanding this word “might,” in another sense, to signify great
corporations, or, as we say, denominations of men. Now-a-days, people
get a queer notion in their head, and they form what they call a
denomination. It is all wrong; there never ought to have been any
denominations at all, for according to Scripture, every church is
independent of every other. There ought to have been as many separate
churches as there were separate opinions; but denominations, which are the
gathering up of those churches, I take it, ought not to have existed at all.
They may do some good, but they do a world of mischief. Now, when first
denomination starts it is very much opposed. Take, for instance,
Methodism; how earnest were its first preachers, how indefatigably did
they toil, and how incessantly were they persecuted; yet what a harvest of
souls God gave to them! What a great blessing was showered from the
cloud that first started at Oxford, with those few young men preaching the
everlasting gospel! Methodism goes on till it grows to be a most
respectable kind of society, its ramifications extend all over England and it
has societies in every country — and now — God forbid I should say
anything against Methodism; let those who like it believe it; I do not like it
— but I do say now, when they have come to the greatest is the time when
they are doing the least. They will confess that the ancient power of
Methodism has to a great degree failed. That power which once seemed to
turn the world upside down, and set the whole of the churches on fire with
a divine light and life, is to a great degree quenched. Wars and rumors of
wars are in their camp; till, what with new connections and old
connections, reformed and conferential, and an infinite quantity of names,
one does not know into how many fraternities they intend to divide
themselves. The fact is, that just when the corporation began to be the
greatest, God said, “Now then, you have done your work, to a great
degree, it shall not be by you any longer; not by might, not by your allied
forces. You have said our efforts will cover the earth with the gospel.”
“Now,” says God, “I will diminish you by thousands, I will take off your
roll year by year, as many as would make another denomination strong;
and though you shall still exist, you shall have to weep and repent with
bitterness, because of your departed zeal.” It is just the same with every
other denomination. When we Baptists were reckoned to be the poorest lot
in the world, and everybody sneered at us, we did far more good than we
do now. There was far more pure doctrine, and far better preaching than
there is at the present time. But we began to be respectable — and just as
we began to be respectable we began to lose our power. Every fresh
Gothic Baptist chapel was a diminution of simplicity; and every fresh place
where the minister become intellectual, as it was called, was just a loss of
evangelical might, till now, as a denomination, we are just as low as any
other: and we need some of our old leaders again, just to preach the word
with demonstration and with power, and to overthrow all those grand
conventionalisms which have tried to make the Baptist denomination
respectable. I pray to God I may never be called to preach to a much
applauded congregation; it would be a sad and evil day. To be despised, to
be spit upon, to be caricatured, and to be jeered, is the highest honor that a
Christian minister can have; and to be pampered, flattered, and applauded
by men, is a poor, base thing, that is not worth having. If any come here
and say “They are not a respectable sort;” we reply, “we labor to preach to
the poor.” But mark this, whenever a great denomination begins to get too
great, God will cut away its horns, and take away its glory, till the world
shall say, “It is not by might nor by power.”
And now, I shall give one more application of the word “might.” It is so
with one particular church, just as I have been observing. I tremble for the
church of which I am the pastor. I never trembled for it when we were few,
when we were earnest in prayer, and devout in supplication, when it was a
thing of contempt to go into “that miserable Baptist Chapel in Park Street,”
when we were despised and maligned and slandered. I never trembled for
them then; God was blessing the ministry, souls were saved, and we
walked together in the fear of the Lord and in love. But I tremble for it
now, now that God hath enlarged our borders, and given us to count our
members not by tens but by hundreds, now that we can say we are the
largest Baptist church in England. I do tremble now, because now is just
the time when we shall begin to say, “We are a great people,” “We shall do
very much,” “We are a great agency,” “The world will look upon us, and
we will do a great deal.” If we ever say that, God will say, “Cursed is he
that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm,” and he will hide the light of
his countenance from us, so that our mountain that standeth firm shall
begin to shake. O churches! — all of ye here that are representatives of
churches, carry ye the tidings. O churches! take heed lest ye trust in
yourselves; take heed lest ye say, “We are a respectable body,” “We are a
mighty number,” “We are a potent people;” take heed lest ye begin to glory
in your own strength; for when that is done, “Ichabod” shall be written on
your walls and your glory shall depart from you. Remember, that he who
was with us when we were but few, must be with us now we are many, or
else we must fail; and he who strengthened us when we were but as “little
in Israel,” must be with us, now that we are like “the thousands of
Manasseh,” or else it is all over with us and our day is past. “Not by might,
nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord.”
II. NOR BY POWER, that is, individual strength. You know, beloved, that
after all, the greatest works that have been done have been done by the
ones. The hundreds do not often do much, the companies never do, it is the
units, just the single individuals, that after all are the power and the might.
Take any parish in England where there is a well-regulated society for
doing good — it is some young woman or some young man who is the
very life of it. Take any church, there are multitudes in it, but it is some
two or three that do the work. Look on the Reformation, there might be
many reformers, but there was but one Luther, there might be many
teachers, but there was but one Calvin. Look ye upon the preachers of the
last age, the mighty preachers who stirred up the churches; there were
many coadjutors with them, but after all, it was not Whitfield’s friends, nor
Wesley’s friends, but the men themselves that did it. Individual effort is,
after all, the grand thing. A man alone can do more than a man with fifty
men at his heels to fetter him. Committees are very seldom of much use,
and bodies and societies sometimes are loss of strength instead of a gain. It
is said, that if Noah’s Ark had had to be built by a company, they would
not have laid the keel yet; and it is perhaps true. There is scarcely anything
done by a body, it almost always fails; because what is many men’s
business is just nobody’s business at all. Just the same with religion, the
grand things must be done by the ones, the great works of God must be
accomplished by single men. Look back through old history. Who
delivered Israel from the Philistines? It was a solitary Samson. Who was it
gathered the people together to rout the Midianites? It was one Gideon,
who cried, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” Who was he that
smote the enemy? It was one Shamgar, with his ox goad, or it was an Elon,
who with his dagger, put an end to his country’s tyrant. Separate men —
Davids with their slings and stones, have done more than armies could
accomplish. “But,” says God, “it is not even by individual might, the gospel
is to be spread.” Take individual might in different senses; sometimes we
may say, of this kind, it represents learning. We discover here and there
certain great and mighty men in learning, that can take an infidel, strap him
on to the dissecting board, and just anatomise him in a minute, they are
great doctors of divinity, they have achieved the highest titles that can be
given them at the universities; they have read the Scriptures thoroughly,
they are mighty theologians, they could dispute with John Owen, and could
entirely take the wind out of the sails of Calvin, they know a great deal, a
very great deal; they can write most excellent reviews, and are much gifted
in philosophical disquisitions. But did you ever hear, in the course of all
your life, of any one of these being blessed by God to lead any great
religious movement? Such a thing may have been, but I have forgotten all
about it; there may have been such an occurrence, but I do not remember
it. This I am sure of; that the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ had taken no
degree, except it was a good degree of being excellent fishermen, this I am
certain, that all through the ages God has not often used men of any very
great intellectual compass, they have not seemed to be men of profound
learning; they have generally been men of determined will and strong
principle, but not often of any very high intellectual attainments. Do I,
therefore, rail at learning? O! no; God forbid, the more of that the better.
Let men be as wise as they can be, and as learned as they can be, but still
the fact remaineth, and there is no one that can dispute it — that God hath
often taken the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, in order
that men may see “It is not by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.”
I have the pleasure and happiness of being acquainted with a large number
of the most eminent ministers in England; I have walked and talked with
them, and spoken to them about the things of the kingdom, and with great
pleasure, and if they were present they would not think me severe in what I
am about to say. Many of those at whose feet we have been prepared to sit
as little children to hear their wisdom, confessed as ministers, that when
they reviewed up their life, they felt that it has been unprofitable. They
have been learned, but they would say with Owen, “I would give up all my
talents to preach like Bunyan the tinker.” They have wished that they could
have believed something else besides having attained a name for profound
learning and research. My brethren, it is not their fault, they have labored
well and earnestly, I find no fault whatever with them: it is God’s
supremacy that stamps this upon them and makes them feel the force of it
— that it must not be by power, and their very intellectual prowess, puts
them out of the way — so that they are incapable of being used by God as
a mass at least, though individuals may be, for any very great result in the
church, because then it would seem to be by power.
“No, no,” says one. “If a man is not learned that does not signify much, a
man must be eloquent.” That is another mistake, it is not by power of
eloquence that souls are saved. I believe every man that preaches the
gospel in his heart is eloquent; so I have used a wrong word. I mean,
however, that great oratorical powers are very seldom made use of by God
for any very great result; not even here, is God pleased to let it be seen to
be by power. Ye have heard of the preaching of Whitfield did ye ever read
his sermons? If ye did ye will say they were rather contemptible
productions. There is nothing in them that I should think could have
approached to oratory; it was only the man’s earnestness that made him
eloquent. Have ye heard any preacher that has been blessed by God to
move the multitude? He has been eloquent, for he has spoken earnestly, but
as to oratory, there has been none of it. I, for my own part, must eschew
every pretension thereunto. I am certain I never think, when I come into
this pulpit, “How shall I talk to this people in a grand fashion?” I think
when I come up here, “I have got something to say, I will tell them it.”
How I will tell them, it does not signify much to me, I shall find the words
somehow or other I daresay, God helping me, but about any of the graces
of eloquence, or the words of oratory, I am utterly and quite in the dark,
nor do I wish to imitate any who have been masters in that. I believe that
the men whom we call eloquent now they are dead, were laughed at in
their day as poor bungling speakers. Now they are buried they are
canonized, but in their lives they were abused.
Now, my brethren, God, I do think will generally cast a slur upon fine
speaking and grand compositions and so on, in order that he may show that
it is not by individual power, but by his Spirit. I could stand here, and point
my finger in a certain circle around this place, and I could pause at such a
chapel and say, There is a man preaching there whose compositions are
worthy to be read by the most intellectual of persons, but whose chapel
contains this morning, a hundred. I will point you to another of whose
preaching we can say that it was the most faultless oratory to which we
ever listened, but his congregation were nearly all of them asleep. We
might point you to another, of whom we could say that there was the most
chaste simplicity, the most extraordinary beauty in the compositions he
delivered, but there has not been a soul known to be saved in the chapel for
years. Now, why is that? I think it is because God says, it is not by power,
it shall not he by individual power. And I will say this that whenever God is
pleased to raise up a man by individual power to move the world, or to
work any reform, he invariably selects a man whose faults and whose
errors are so glaring and apparent to everyone, that we are obliged to say,
“I wonder that man should do it, surely it must be of God, it could not be
of that man.” No, there are some men who are too great for God’s designs,
their style is too excellent. If God blessed them the world would cry —
especially the literary world — it is their talent that God blesses; but God,
on the other hand takes up some rough fellow, truly an earthen vessel, puts
his treasure in him, and just shakes the whole world. People cry, “We do
not see how it is, it is not in the man certainly;” the critic takes up his pen,
dips it in gall, writes a most fearful character about the man, the man reads
it, and says, “It is just true, and I am glad of it for if it had not been true
God would not have used me. I glory in my infirmities, because Christ’s
own power rests on me. If I had not those infirmities so much could not
have been done, but the very infirmities have insured against men’s saying,
‘It was the man.’” I have often been delighted at some of my opponents,
they have sneered at everything in me — from the crown of my head to the
sole of my foot, I have been all over bruises and putrifying sores, every
word has been vulgarity, every action has been grotesque, the whole of it
has been abominable and blasphemous; and I said, ‘Well that is delightful,
now that is good.’ And while some persons have said, ‘Now we must
defend our minister,’ I have thought, “You had better let it alone, it is
much the best that it should be so; for suppose it is true — and it is, the
most of it — there is all the more glory to God; for who can deny that the
work is done?’” And he is a great workman that can use bad tools and yet
produce a fine piece of workmanship; and if the conversion of hundreds of
souls now present, if the sobriety of drunkards, if the chastity of harlots, if
the salvation of men who have been swearers, blasphemers, thieves and
vagabonds from their youth up, is not a grand result, I do not know what
is. And if I have been the unwieldy, uncouth, unworthy tool employed in
doing it, I bless God, for then you cannot honor me, but must give all the
glory to him, and to him all the glory belongs. He will have it proved that
“It is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.”
III. And now to conclude lest I weary you. Whilst the progress and
advance of the church are neither to be accomplished by the collected
might of armies, corporations, nor churches, nor by the separate exertions
of individuals, by the might neither of learning nor of eloquence, yet both
the objects are to be accomplished BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD.
I was thinking, yesterday, my friends, what a magnificent change would
come over the face of Christendom if God were on a sudden to pour out
his Spirit as he did on the day of Pentecost. I was then sitting down
meditating upon this sermon, and I thought! oh, if God should pour his
Spirit upon me, should I not leap from this place where I am now sitting,
and on my knees begin to pray as I never did before; and should I not go
next Sabbath-day to a congregation who would feel a solemn awe about
them! Every word I spoke would strike like arrows from the bow of God;
and they themselves would feel that it was “none other than the house of
God and the very gate of heaven!” Thousands would cry out, “What must I
do to be saved?” and go away carrying the divine fire till the whole of this
city would be kindled. And then I had pictured to myself what would come
over all the churches if they were in the same condition, and all the people
received that same Spirit. I had seen the minister from Monday morning till
Saturday night doing little or nothing; delivering his weekly lecture,
attending one prayer-meeting, and thinking himself hard worked I saw him,
on a sudden, start from his couch, and go round to all the sick of his
chapel, and I marked how he delivered a short address of comfort to the
sick, with such holy gravity and such divine simplicity, that they lifted their
heads from their pillows, and began to sing, even in the agonies of death. I
thought I saw others of them girding up their loins, and crying, “What am I
doing? — men are perishing, and I am preaching to them but three times a
week and am called to the work of the ministry.” I thought I read of all
those ministers going into the open-air to preach next Monday night; I
thought I saw the whole of them flying, like angels fly, to-and-fro this land.
And then I thought I saw the deacons all full of the Spirit too, and found
them with all their powers, doing everything in the fear of God. I found
those who had been lords and rulers no longer seeking to be like
Diotrephes; I saw the heavenly influence spread over every mind, I saw the
vestries too small for the prayer-meetings, and I saw the chapel crowded,
and I heard the brethren who year after year had prayed the same
monotonous prayer, break forth in earnest burning words; I saw the whole
assembly melted in tears when the pastor addressed them, and urged them
to prayer, and I heard the brethren one by one as they rose up speak like
men who had been with Jesus, and had learned how to pray. They prayed
as if they had heard Christ pray in Gethsemane, that prayer which was such
as never man prayed; and then I thought I saw all those members, and
those deacons, and those pastors going out into the world. And, oh, I
pictured what preaching there would be, what tract distributing, what alms
giving, what holy living! And then I already thought I heard every house at
vesper uttering its song, and every cottage as its matin, sending up its
prayer to heaven. I thought I saw upon every ploughshare “consecrated to
God,” and every bell upon the horses, “holiness unto the Lord.” And then I
thought I saw the different denominations rushing into each others arms; I
saw the bishop doff his mitre, and clasp his dissenting brother and call him
friend, and bid him preach in his cathedral. And I thought I saw the stiff
puritanical dissenter casting away his hatred of conformity, and receiving
the Church of England brother to his heart. I thought I saw baptized and
unbaptized sitting at one table. I saw Presbyterian, Wesleyan, Independent,
and Quaker agreeing in one thing — that Christ crucified was all: and
clasping one another’s hands. Ay, and then I thought I have the angels
coming down from heaven. And I was not long before I finished my reverie
by hearing the shout — “Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, the Lord God
Omnipotent reigneth!” It was a reverie, but it will be true some day. By the
Spirit of God all this will be accomplished. How and by what means I
know not, but I know the great agency must be the Holy Spirit.
And now, dear friends, let me counsel you. The grand thing the church
wants in this time, is God’s Holy Spirit. You all get up plans and say,
“Now, if the church were altered a little bit, it would go on better.” You
think if there were different ministers, or different church order, or
something different, then all would be well. No, dear friends, it is not there
the mistake lies, it is that we want more of the Spirit. It is as if you saw a
locomotive engine upon a railway, and it would not go, and they put up a
driver, and they said, “Now, that driver will just do.” They try another and
another. One proposes that such-and-such a wheel should be altered, but
still it will not go. Some one then bursts in amongst those who are
conversing and says, “No, friends; but the reason why it will not move, is
because there is no steam. You have no fire, you have no water in the
boiler: that’s why it will not go. There may be some faults about it; it may
want a bit of paint here and there, but it will go well enough with all those
faults if you do but get the steam up.” But now people are saying, “This
must be altered, and that must be altered; but it would go no better unless
God the Spirit should come to bless us. You may have the same ministers,
and they shall be a thousand times more useful for God, if God is pleased
to bless them. You shall have the same deacons, they shall be a thousand
times more influential than they are now, when the Spirit is poured down
upon them from on high. That is the church’s great want, and until that
want be supplied, we may reform, and reform, and still be just the same.
We want the Holy Spirit, and then whatever faults there may be in our
organization, they can never materially impede the progress of Christianity,
when once the Spirit of the Lord God is in our midst.
But I beseech you be earnest in praying for this. Do you know that there is
no reason to day, why I should not have preached to day, so that every
soul in the place was converted, if God the Holy Spirit had been pleased to
manifest himself. There is not any solitary shadow of a reason why every
soul that has been within the sound of my lips should not have been
converted by something said to-day if God the Holy Spirit had been
pleased to bless the word. Now I will repeat, there, is not a humble
Primitive Methodist, nor a poor insignificant preacher of any sort on earth,
but who, if he preaches the truth, God the Spirit may not make as useful in
conversion, as any of the great departed, who are now before God’s
throne. All we want is the Spirit of God. Dear Christian friends, go home
and pray for it; give no rest until God reveals himself, do not tarry, here
you are, do not be content to go on in your everlasting jog-trot as you have
done; do not be content with the mere round of formalities. Awake, O
Zion; awake, awake, awake! Put on thy strength, O Jerusalem, start ye
from your slumbers, arouse ye from your lethargy, and cry unto God and
say unto him, “Awake, awake! put on thy strength, O arm of the Lord, as
in the ancient days,” then when he shall do it, you will find that while it is
not by might, nor by power, it is by God’s Spirit.
And now I conclude with a brief address that shall not occupy a moment.
Sinner, unconverted sinner, thou hast often tried to save thyself, but thou
hast often failed. Thou hast, by thine own power and might, sought to curb
thy evil passions and licentious desires with thee, I lament that all thine
efforts have been unsuccessful. And I warn thee, it will be unsuccessful, for
thou never canst by thine own might save thyself; with all the strength thou
hast, thou never canst regenerate thine own soul; thou canst never cause
thyself to be born again, And though the new birth is absolutely necessary,
it is absolutely impossible to thee, unless God the Spirit shall do it. I pray
for thee that God the Spirit may convince thee of sin, and if thou art
already convinced, I bid thee believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, for he has
died for thee, hath washed away thy sins; thou art forgiven. Believe that; be
happy, and go thy way rejoicing; an, God Almighty be with thee until thou
diest.
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