upon our Beloved. Then should the chaste virgins sing with joyous heart concerning him to whom they are espoused, "What is this vain, this visionary scene Of mortal things to me? My thoughts aspire Or with full joy replenish every wish, Is found in thee, thou infinite abyss of ecstasy and life!" Each believer should be thirsting for God, for the living God, and longing to put his lip to the well-head of eternal life,-to follow the Saviour and say, "Oh, that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother, when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised. I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please. Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? I raised thee up under the apple tree: there thy mother brought thee forth; there she brought thee forth that bare thee." Oh! that the believer would never be content with having drops and sips of love, but long for the full feast. O my soul thirsteth to drink deep of that cup which never can be drained and to eat of all the dainties of that table which-boundless love has furnished. I am persuaded that you and I are content to live on pence when we might live on pounds; that we eat dry crusts when we might taste the ambrosial meat of angels; that we are content to wear rags when we might put on kings' robes; that we go out with 'tears upon our faces when we might anoint them with fresh oil. Satisfied I am that many a believer lives in the cottage of doubt when he might live in the mansion of faith. We are poor starveling things when we might be fed; we are weak when we might be mighty, feeble when we might be as the giants before God, and all because we will not hear the Master say, "Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away." Now, brethren, is the time with you after your season of trouble, to renew your dedication vow to God. Now, beloved, you should rise up from worldliness and come away from sloth, from the love of this world, from unbelief. What enchants you to make you sit still where you are? What delights you to make you as you now are? Come away! There is a higher life; there are better things to live for, and better ways of seeking them. Aspire! Let thy high ambition be unsatisfied with what thou hast already learned and known; not as though thou hadst already attained, either wert already perfect; this one thing do thou-press forward to the things that are before. Rise, thou soul, greatly beloved, and enter into thy Master's rest. I cannot get my words this morning as I would have them; but if these lips had language I would seek by every motive of gratitude for the mercies you are enjoying, by every sensation of thankfulness which your heart can experience for grace received, to make you now say, "Jesus, I give up myself to thee this day, to be filled with thy love; and I renounce all other desire but the desire to be used in thy service, that I may glorify thee." Then, methinks, there may go out of this place this morning many young men and old men too, many youths and maidens, determined to be doing something for Christ. I well remember preaching a sermon one Sabbath morning which stirred up some brethren to the midnight meeting movement, and much good was done thereby. What if some new thought should pass through some newly quickened spirit, and you should think of some fresh avention for glorifying Christ at this good hour! Is there no Mary here who has an alabaster box at home unbroken yet? Will she not to-day break it over the Master's head? Is there no Zaccheus here who will to-day receive Christ into his house, constrained by love divine? Oh! by the darkness that has gone, and by the brightness that has come, live lovingly towards 'Christ. Oh! by the fears that have been hushed, by the pains that have been removed, by the joy you now experience, and by the delights which he has vouchsafed to you, I beseech you cling to him and seek to serve him. Go into the world to bring in his lost sheep, to look after his hidden ones, to restore to him that lost piece of money for which he has lit the candle and desires you to sweep the house. O Christian men and brethren, it is an angel's work I have attempted now, and mortal lips fail; but I conjure you if there be any bowels of mercy, if there be any consolation in Christ Jesus, "if ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God." Lay not up your treasure upon earth, where thieves break through and steal; but lay up your treasure in heaven: for where your treasure is there shall your heart be also. If you love my Master, serve him: if you do not, if you owe him nothing, oh, if you owe him nothing, and have had no favour from him, then I conjure you to seek mercy; but if you have found it; if ye do know it, oh, for his love's sake love him! This dying world needs your help; this wicked sinful world needs your aid. Up, and be doing! The battle is raging furiously. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! Guards, up and at them! Do you sleep, sirs-sleep when now the shots are flying thick as hail, and the foemen are rallying for the last charge in the world's mighty Armageddon? Up! for the defiant standard of hell waves proudly in the breeze. Do you say you are feeble? He is your strength. Do you say you are few? It is not by many nor by few that God worketh. Dost thou say, "I am obscure?" God wanteth not the notoriety and fame of men. Up, men, women, and children in Christ! Up! be no more at ease in Zion, but serve God while it is called to-day, for the war needs every hand, and the conflict calls for every heart, and night cometh when no man can fight or work. V. And now, last of all, the time is coming to us all, when we shall lie upon our dying beds. Oh, long-expected day, hasten and come! The best thing a Christian can do is to die and be with Christ which is far better. Well, when we shall lie upon our beds panting out our life we shall remember that then the winter is past for ever. No more now of this world's trials and troubles. "The rain is over and gone;" no more stormy doubts, no more dark days of affliction. "The flowers appear on the earth." Christ is giving to the dying saint some of the foretastes of heaven; the angels are throwing over the walls some of the flowers of Paradise. We have come to the land Beulah, we sit down in beds of spices, and can almost see the celestial city on the hill tops, on the other side of the narrow stream of death. "The time of the singing of the birds is come;" angelic songs are heard in the sick-chamber. The heart sings too, and midnight melodies cheer the quiet entrance of the grave. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me." Those are sweet birds which sing in the groves by the side of the river Jordan. Now it is that "the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;" calm, peaceful, and quiet, the soul rests in the consciousness that there is no condemnation to him that is in Christ Jesus. Now does "the fig tree put forth hef green figs;" the first fruits of heaven are plucked and eaten while we are on earth. Now do the very vines of heaven give forth a smell that can be perceived by love. Look forward to your death, ye that are believers in Christ, with great joy. Expect it as your spring tide of life, the time when your real summer shall come, and your winter shall be over for ever. "One distant glimpse my eager passion fires! May God grant that the people who fear his name may be stirred up this morning, if not by my words, yet by the words of my text, and by the influences of God's Spirit, and may you who have never had sweet seasons from the presence of God, seek Christ and he will be found of you, and may we all meet in the land where winters of sin and sorrow shall be all unknown. A SIGHT OF SELF. A Sermon DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 2ND, 1862, BY AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities. But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand."-Isaiah lxiv. 6, 7, 8. It is easy to commit sin, but hard to confess it. Man will transgress without a tempter; but even when urged by the most earnest pleader, he will not acknowledge his guilt. If we could but bring men into such a state of heart that they felt themselves to be guilty, there would be hope for them; but this is one of the most hopeless signs concerning our race, that it is so hardened and so perverse, that even when sin stares it in the face, it still pleads innocence, and proudly lifts up its head and challenges the accuser. Transgressors always seek to escape from the painful and humiliating duty of acknowledging their offences. Some seek to hide it both from themselves and others, silencing their own conscience, and throwing dust in the eyes of their companions; like Achan, digging in the earth to hide the Babylonish garment and the wedge of gold, they forget that their sin will surely find them out. As the foolish ostrich, when pursued by the hunters, buries its head in the sand, and when it cannot see its enemy, thinks it has escaped; so these men take the fact that they are undiscovered by men, and are at peace with themselves, as a good omen, whereas it is a sad sign of hardness and blindness of heart. Many pursue another course, and make excuses for their offences. They did do wrong, it is true, but then there is much to be said in extenuation; like Aaron, they urge the clamours of the people, or they will have it that even Providence itself compelled them to sin. "I cast gold into the fire, and there came out this calf," as if sin were an accident, and not a wilful wickedness; as if disobedience to God were a sort of necessity of nature, and not a direct rebellion of the will against the Majesty of heaven. Others, too, will throw their sin on their fellows a trick which they learned of our first parents, for Adam, in the garden, said "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat;" or they may have learned it of our mother 66 Eve, for even she understood this stratagem-"The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." So they will have it that they were dragged into sin by force; that they were over-persuaded or craftily enticed, so that they ought not to be considered as accomplices in the crime that they are, in fact, only the instruments of others' sins, and could hardly resist, so that others must take the whole of the guilt, and they themselves go scot free. Some who have attained to a higher pitch of brazen impudence, will actually deny altogether that they have sinned; will come before God's servant as Ananias did before Peter, and say, "Yea, for so much," while yet they are holding a lie in their right hand. We have some who will stoutly say, "We have not sinned," and who think themselves insulted if in plain terms you accuse them of having violated the law of God. There are some also, and those not a few, who endeavour to colour their sins, and to cloak them with a profession of godliness, by attending to the ceremonies of religion with ostentatious carefulness. Like the Pharisees of old, they devour widows' houses, but they make long prayers. They hate Christ in their hearts, but they tithe mint, and anise, and cummin; they violate the precepts of the law, but they bind it on their foreheads, wear long fringes on their garments, and write texts of Scripture on the door-posts of their houses. These serve at the altar of the devil, in the garb of God's priests, and offer unclean flesh upon the high places, in pretended honour of the God of Israel. We know that all these classes abound everywhere, for a man will do anything to hide sin from himself; and he will give skin for skin, yea, all that he hath that he may be self-justified, that he may have somewhat to answer when he stands before the Most High, that he may find food for his pride, and a coverlet for the infamous arrogance of his heart. He will dig, and labour, and strive, give his goods to the poor, and his body to be burned, that he may win a righteousness of his own. Beloved, if you and I have ever been partakers of the grace of God, we have been brought to the distasteful duty of confession of sin, for it is not possible that we have been pardoned if we have refused to acknowledge our guilt. We cannot be partakers of the life of God in the soul if still we can say, "Lord, I am righteous, and of myself I can plead exemption from thy curse." A clear sense of our lost estate is absolutely necessary to make us even seek for pardon. As the man who thinks himself in good health will never send for a physician, as the man who is sufficiently warm will not avail himself of an extra garment which is proffered to him, as the man who is not hungry will not accept an invitation to a feast of charity, so we find that none will come to Christ but those who feel that they must come, and that out of him they are utterly lost, ruined, and undone. Moreover, as none will seek the mercy till they know their need, so we may rest assured that none would value that mercy even if it were given to them before their spiritual poverty had become manifest. What is medicine to the healthy man? Send it to his door, and what thanks will you receive? You have been guilty of an impertinence. Why offer charity to the man who is rich and increased in goods? Will he receive your dole? Will he not turn up his heel and tell you to find out the beggar in the street, but not to mistake him for one who needs your alms? Even, I say, should God |
