if so; we should be glad because we have something to cast at his feet. Have you faith? I must thank him for faith, I must lay it at his feet, and say, "Jesu, use my faith for thy glory, for thou art its author and finisher." If you and I shall by divine grace persevere to the end, and shall arrive at heaven, it will be a joy to think that we are saved, but we will lay it all at the door of love divine. Will you wear a crown, believer? Will you accept jot or tittle of the glory? O no, ye will each of ye disown anything like the Arminian's proud boast of free self-will. It will be grace, grace, grace alone in heaven. There will be no division and no discord in that eternal hymn. We will cast our crowns at once before him, and we will say, "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be all the praise." We imitate them, then, in this-in our gratitude mingled with humility,

3. Further, I well perceive that these elders spent their time in joyous song. How glorious was that strain-"Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." These elders knew that the time was come when all earth and heaven should be more than usually glad. They, with the four living creatures, whom we take to be the representatives of some special order of presence-angels, about whom we know but little, led the strain; and as the music rolled through the aisles of heaven, distant angels, who were in all parts of God's dominion keeping watch and ward, stood still and listened till they had caught the strain; and then they joined with loudest notes, till from north and south, and east and west, from the highest star and from the uttermost depths, there came up the blessed refrain from ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing;" till, as these angelic ones sent up the song, the inferior creatures caught the divine infection, and in heaven and earth, the sea and the uttermost depths thereof, the voice was heard, and all creatures responded, while the universe echoed with the song, "Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." This is the occupation of saints before the throne; be it yours, brothers and sisters. Let us, as God's redeemed, sing with all our hearts, and let us enlist others in the strain. Let us remember that we are to be leaders in the hymn of God's works. We are to begin with, "Bless the Lord, O my soul;" but we are not to end there. We are to go on bidding all God's works praise him, till we come to a climax like that of David, "Bless the Lord, ye hosts, ye ministers of his that do his pleasure; bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion; bless the Lord, O my soul." The world is the organ-we are the players. We are to put our fingers upon the notes, and wake the universe to thunders of acclaim. We are not to rest with our own feeble note, but we must wake even the dumb earth itself, till all the planets, listening to our earth, and joining her song, shall sing forth the music of the ages. God give you, brothers and sisters, to imitate the saints thus. Some of you perhaps are good hands at groaning; perhaps some of

ou have come up here to-day mourning and murmuring; lay these things aside; take up your proper vocation, and now smite the strings of your harp; magnify the Lord; let the day of jubilee come to your spirits. Ye saints of God, rejoice; yea, in your God exceedingly rejoice. 4. Yet once again, these saints not only offered praise, but prayer. This was the meaning of the bowls, which are so foolishly translated vials. A vial is precisely the opposite of the vessel that was intended: the vial is long and narrow, whereas, this is broad and shallow. A bowl is meant, full of incense, covered over with a lid, and perforated with holes, through which the smoke of the incense rises. This does not mean that the four-and-twenty elders offer the prayers of the saints below, but their own prayers. Some have thought, Is there any prayer in heaven? Certainly, there is room for prayer in heaven. If you want proof, we have it in the chapter which follows the one out of which we have been reading this morning-the ninth verse of the sixth chapter"I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" There is prayer. Perhaps the prayers of the saints are the major portion of that perpetual litany which goeth up to heaven. But leaving that for a moment, let us imitate them. If they pray, how much more reason have we? If they plead for the universal Church, they who enjoy the rest of God, how should we pray who are still in this land of temptation and of sin, who see the perils of our brethren, know their weaknesses and their afflictions. Let us draw near unto God; let us never cease day and night to offer intercession for the whole company of the elect. 5. I must not forget, however, here, that these elders before the throne were ready not only for prayer and praise, but for all kinds of service. You remember there was one of them, when John wept, who said, "Weep not." Depend upon it that elder had been occupied in visiting the sick when he was on earth; and often when he had gone into their cottages and found them sorrowing, he had said unto them, "Weep not ;" and the good man had not lost his character when he went to heaven, although it had been spiritualized and perfected; and seeing John weeping, he said to him, "Weep not." Ah! those saints before the throne, if there were mourners there, would comfort them, I know; and if they could be sent down here to visit any of the sorrowing children of God, they would be too glad to do it. Then there was, you remember, another of the elders, who said to John, for his instruction, "Who are these that are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they that came out of great tribulation." I venture to believe that this elder used to teach a catechumen class on earth; that he had been in the habit of teaching young people, and he put the question to John first, as he had been in the habit aforetime of putting it to young disciples on earth. The saved ones would be ready to teach us now, if they could; and they do to-day bear testimony for Christ, for to the ages to come God through his Church makes known to principalities and powers the exceeding riches of his grace.

Now, those before the throne are willing to comfort the weeper or to instruct the ignorant. Let us do the same! and may it be ours to wipe the tear from many an eye, to chase the darkness of ignorance from many a young heart. Have you been doing that lately, brothers and sisters? If not, mend your ways; be more earnest in these two good works, visit the fatherless, the widow, the suffering, the mourning, and to teach the ignorant and those that are out of the way.

III. And now, lastly, WHAT IS THEIR WORD AND LESSON TO US THIS MORNING? Bending from their shining thrones, being dead they yet speak; and they say to us thus:

First, by way of encouragement, brethren, follow on. Be not dismayed. We fought the same battles that you fight, and passed through the like tribulations; yet we have not perished, but enjoy the eternal reward. Press on; heaven awaits you; vacant thrones are here for you-crowns which no other heads can wear-harps that no other hands must play. Follow courageously, faithfully, trusting in him who hath begun the good work in you, and who will carry it on.

Hear them, again, as they say, mark the footsteps that we trod; for only in one way can you reach our rest. We have washed our robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They say to all the world, If ye would be clean wash there too. None but Jesus can save your souls. Trust in him; repose in his atonement; confide in his finished work; flee to his sacrificial blood. You shall be saved by faith in him, even as we have been.

"I asked them whence their victory came; they with united breath
Ascribed their conquest to the Lamb, their triumph to his death."

Friends! are ye trusting in Christ? My hearers, many of you are perfect strangers to me this morning, I ask you; are you putting your trust in Christ? Have you come under the shadow of his cross, to find a refuge from his vengeance? If not, no golden crown can be for you; no harp of gold; but, whoever thou mayest be, if thou will believe in Christ Jesus, and put thy soul into his hand, thou shalt be a partaker of the glories which he hath laid up for them that love him.

Lastly, they say to us, as they look down from the battlements of heaven, Are ye getting ready to join our ranks, to take up our occupations, and to sing our song? Answer for yourself, my brother, as I must answer for myself. Are you living for your own pleasure? Then you must die; for "he that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption." Are you living for Christ? Then shall you live; "because he lives you shall live also." Are you a priest to God today? You shall bear the golden bowl in heaven. Are you instead thereof a servant of your own body, your own lusts, your own gain, your own pleasure? Then the lowest depths must be your portion. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people." Are we prepared? Brothers, sisters, can we say, "We hope in Christ; he is our only trust;" and do we endeavour to live to him? and though with many failings and frailties, yet still can we say, "For me to live is Christ?" Ŏh! if it be so, "Come, death, and some celestial band, to bear our souls away!" But if it be not so, then our end must be destruction, because our God has been our belly.

66

GOD'S WILL AND MAN'S WILL.

A Sermon

DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 30TH, 1862, BY
REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy."-Romans ix. 16.

"Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."-Revelation xxii. 17.

THE great controversy which for many ages has divided the Christian Church has hinged upon the difficult question of "the will." I need not say of that conflict that it has done much mischief to the Christian Church, undoubtedly it has; but I will rather say, that it has been fraught with incalculable usefulness; for it has thrust forward before the minds of Christians, precious truths, which, but for it, might have been kept in the shade. I believe that the two great doctrines of human responsibility and divine sovereignty have both been brought out the more prominently in the Christian Church by the fact that there is a class of strong-minded hard-headed men who magnify sovereignty at the expense of responsibility; and another earnest and useful class who uphold and maintain human responsibility oftentimes at the expense of divine sovereignty. I believe there is a needs-be for this in the finite character of the human mind, while the natural lethargy of the Church requires a kind of healthy irritation to arouse her powers and stimulate her exertions. The pebbles in the living stream of truth are worn smooth and round by friction. Who among us would wish to suspend a law of nature whose effects on the whole are good? I glory in that which at the present day is so much spoken against sectarianism, for "sectarian ism" is the cant phrase which our enemies use for all firm religious belief. I find it applied to all sorts of Christians; no matter what views he may hold, if a man be but in earnest, he is a sectarian at once. Success to sectarianism; let it live and flourish. When that is done with, farewell to the power of godliness. When we cease, each of us, to maintain our own views of truth, and to maintain those views firmly and strenuously, then truth shall fly out of the land, and error alone shall reign: this, indeed, is the object of our foes: under the cover of attacking sects, they attack true religion, and would drive it, if they could, from off the face of the earth. In the controversy which has raged,-a controversy

which, I again say, I believe to have been really healthy, and which has done us all a vast amount of good-mistakes have arisen from two reasons. Some brethren have altogether forgotten one order of truths, and then, in the next place, they have gone too far with others. We all have one blind eye, and too often we are like Nelson in the battle, we put the telescope to that blind eye, and then protest that we cannot see. I have heard of one man who said he had read the Bible through thirty-four times on his knees, but could not see a word about election in it; I think it very likely that he could not; kneeling is a very uncomfortable. posture for reading, and possibly the superstition which would make the poor man perform this penance would disqualify him for using his reason; moreover, to get through the Book thirty-four times, he probably read in such a hurry that he did not know what he was reading, and might as well have been dreaming over "Robinson Crusoe" as the Bible. He put the telescope to the blind eye. Many of us do that; we do not want to see a truth, and therefore we say we cannot see it. On the other hand, there are others who push a truth too far. "This is good; oh! this is precious!" say they, and then they think it is good for everything; that in fact it is the only truth in the world. You know how often things are injured by over-praise; how a good medicine, which really was a great boon for a certain disease, comes to be despised utterly by the physician, because a certain quack has praised it up as being a universal cure; so puffery in doctrine leads to its dishonour. Truth has thus suffered on all sides; on the one hand brethren would not see all the truth, and on the other hand they magnified out of proportion that which they did see. You have seen those mirrors, those globes that are sometimes hung up in gardens; you walk up to them and you see your head ten times as large as your body, or you walk away and put yourself in another position, and then your feet are monstrous and the rest of your body is small; this is an ingenious toy, but I am sorry to say that many go to work with God's truth upon the model of this toy; they magnify one capital truth, till it becomes monstrous; they minify and speak little of another truth till it becomes altogether forgotten. In what I shall be able to say this morning you will probably detect the failing to which I allude, the common fault of humanity, and suspect that I also am magnifying one truth at the expense of another; but I will say this, before I proceed further, that it shall not be the case if I can help it, but I will endeavour honestly to bring out the truth as I have learned it, and if in ought ye see that I teach you what is contrary to the Word of God, reject it; but mark you, if it be according to God's Word, reject it at your peril; for when I have once delivered it to you, if ye receive it not the responsibility lies with you.

There are two things, then, this morning I shall have to talk about. The first is, that the work of salvation rests upon the will of God, and not upon the will of man; and secondly, the equally sure doctrine, that the will of man has its proper position in the work of salvation, and is not to be ignored.

I. First, then, SALVATION HINGES UPON THE WILL OF GOD, AND NOT UPON THE WILL OF MAN. So saith our text-"It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy;"