we need not fight; we will leave the fighting to the few, there they are; let them go and do it all." Why, if they had said that, they would very soon have all been cut in pieces. They must every one of them take their turns, horse, and foot, and artillery; men who were lightarmed, and men of all kinds; they must each march to the fray; yes, and even the guards, if they are held back as a reserve to the last, yet they must be called for,-"Up guards, and at 'em ;" and if there are any of you here that are old men and women and think you are like the guards, and ought to be spared the heavy conflict, yet up and at them, for now the world needs you all, and since Christ has bought you with his blood, I beseech you be not content till you have fought for him, and have been victorious through his name. Tell it; tell it; tell it; with voice of thunder tell it; yea, with many voices mingling together as the sound of many waters; tell it till the dwellers in the remotest wilderness shall hear the sound thereof. Tell it till there shall be ne'er a cot upon the mountain where it is not known, ne'er a ship upon the sea where the story has not been told. Tell it till there is never a dark alley that has not been illuminated by its light, nor a loathsome den which has not been cleansed by its power. Tell out the story that Christ died for the ungodly.

With a few words of application to unbelievers I draw to a close. Unbeliever, if God cannot and will not forgive the sins of penitent men without Christ taking their punishment, rest assured he will surely bring you to judgment. If, when Christ, God's Son, had imputed sin laid on him, God smote him, how will he smite you who are his enemy, and who have your own sins upon your head? God seemed at Calvary, as it were, to take an oath-sinner, hear it!— he seemed, as it were, to take an oath and say, "By the blood of my Son I swear that sin must be punished," and if it is not punished in Christ for you, it will be punished in you for yourselves. Is Christ yours, sinner? Did he die for you? Do you trust him? If you do, he died for you. Do you say, "No, I do not?" Then remember that if you live and die without faith in Christ, for every idle word and for every ill act that you have done, stroke for stroke, and blow for blow, vengeance must chastise you.

Again, to another class of you, this word. If God has in Christ made an atonement and opened a way of salvation, what must be your guilt who try to open another way; who say, "I will be good and virtuous; I will attend to ceremonies; I will save myself?" Fool that thou art, thou hast insulted God in his tenderest point, for thou hast insulted his Son. Thou hast said, "I can do it without that blood;" thou hast, in fact, trampled on the blood of Christ, and said, "I need it not." Oh, if the sinner who repents not be damned, with what accumulated

terrors shall he be damned, who, in addition to his impenitence, heaps affronts upon the person of Christ by going about to establish his own righteousness. Leave it; leave your rags, you will never make a garment of them; leave that pilfered treasure of thine; it is a counterfeit; forsake it. I counsel thee to buy of Christ fine raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and fine gold that thou mayest be rich.

And consider this, one and all of you, oh my hearers! If Christ hath made atonement for the ungodly, then let the question go round, let it go round the aisles and round the gallery, and let it echo in every heart, and let it be repeated by every lip,-"Why not for me?" and "Why not for me?" Hope, sinner, hope; he died for the ungodly. If it had said he died for the godly, there were no hope for thee. If it had been written that he died to save the good, the excellent, and the perfect, then thou hast no chance. He died for the ungodly; thou art such an one; what reason hast thou to conclude that he did not die for thee? Hark thee, man; this is what Christ saith to thee, "Believe, and thou shalt be saved;" that is, trust, and thou shalt be saved. Trust thy soul in the hands of him who carried thy load upon the cross; trust him now. He died for you; your faith is to us the evidence, and to you the proof that Christ bought you with his blood. Delay not; you need not even stay to go home to offer a prayer. Trust Christ with your soul now. You have nothing else to trust to; hang on him. You are going down; you are going down. The waves are gathering about you, and soon shall they swallow you up, and we shall hear your gurglings as you sink. See, he stretches out his hand. "Sinner," saith he, "I will bear thee up; though hell's fiery waves should dash against thee I will bear thee through them all, only trust me." What sayest thou, sinner? Wilt thou trust him? Oh, my soul, recollect the moment when first I trusted in him! There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, but I hardly think that is greater joy than the joy of the repenting sinner when he first finds Christ. So simple and so easy it seemed to me when I came to know it. I had only to look and live, only to trust and be saved. Year after year had I been running about hither and thither to try and do what was done beforehand, to try and get ready for that which did not want any readiness. Oh, happy was that day when I ventured to step in by the open door of his mercy, to sit at the table of grace ready spread, and to eat and drink, asking no questions! Oh, soul, do the same! Take courage. Trust Christ, and if he cast thee away when thou hast trusted himmy soul for thine as we meet at the bar of God, I will be pawn and pledge for thee at the last great day if such thou needest; but he cannot and he will not cast out any that come to him by faith. May God now accept and bless us all, for Jesu's sake! Amen.

GOD'S ESTIMATE OF TIME.

A Sermon

DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 27TH, 1862, BY
REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."- 2 Peter iii. 8.

FROM this text certain persons, more desirous to find arguments for their theories, than a truthful exposition of the apostle's meaning, have drawn the inference that a day in Scripture is typical of a thousand years: that is to say, that inasmuch as God was six days in creating the heavens and the earth, and then rested on the seventh day, so we must expect to have a thousand years for every day; a thousand years in which the new heavens and the new earth will be in preparation, and then we shall enjoy in the seventh thousand a period of perfect peace and holiness. Now such may possibly be the case. It may so happen that when the six thousandth year of labour shall be over, we shall enter upon the millenial rest; the last chiliad may be a Sabbath to the preceding six. But even if we knew this, I am not sure that it would be of any great assistance to us in foretelling the day when the Church militant should be universally triumphant through the coming of her Lord, for the chronology of the past is surrounded with so much obscurity that we question whether any man will be able to tell us when the six thousand years will be over, or within a hundred or two of how old the world is. Our curiosity would be rather tantalized than gratified, even if this theory could be verified; for all the chronologies we have, even that which the translators have put into our Bibles, are matters of conjecture; and their accuracy is far from indisputable. We could not, therefore, ascertain the times and seasons any the more certainly, nor ought we to desire to do so, for the Father keepeth them in his own power, and as for the time of the end we believe no man knoweth it, no, not the angels of God. Brethren, we would not wish to discover what God has hidden, nor to question where he declines to answer. It is certain, however, that our text does not teach the doctrine of the Sabbatic seventh thousand years; for looking at the whole drift of the 'passage, you will see that the words were written to meet the arguments of some who said, "Where is the promise of his coming; for

since the Fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." "No," answers the apostle, "It is not so;" and then he quotes the memorable case of the flood as an instance of Divine interposition. Knowing, moreover, that even the faithful had begun to chide the tardy hours, and think the promise long in fulfilment, he meets the adversary and consoles the friend by the words of our text. He as much as says, "You know not what you say when you speak of length of time, for you forget that in God's estimate one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." The apostle, no doubt, wrote this also for the encouragement of Christians in our day, who, because the chariot of Christ is long in coming to the triumph, are growing weary, and are ready to cast down their arms and leave the conflict. Like a good officer rallying the dispirited, he exhorts them to patience; "Beloved, it is not long; it may seem a tedious age to you; but it is fitting that you tarry for a while. Cease your impatience, and while you cry, 'Why are are his chariots so long in coming?' remember that the time is not long to him; to him one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years are as one day." What the apostle seemed to teach was, the general principle that our estimate of time is not the right one, certainly not the Divine standard; and that when we look at time in relation to God, we must remember that the distinctions which are known to us are not observed by him.

Before, however, I enter upon the subject itself, let me remark that the apostle says he would not have us ignorant concerning this matter; and therefore, beyond a doubt, great importance is to be attached to it. Some have a wilful ignorance, and of them the apostle speaks in the preceding verse: "This they willingly are ignorant of" See to it, brethren, that ye do not commit this sin of shutting your eyes to the light. Others have an idle ignorance; they will not study; they do not search the Scriptures; and, therefore, many things are not revealed to them. That the soul should be without knowledge is not good; and more especially, that the Christian's mind should be without knowledge of God must be exceedingly harmful. We cannot form an idea of what God is, but we should be very careful that we do not make him to be what he is not. Our apostle is the more earnest that upon this point of God's eternity we should make no mistakes, and should not estimate and measure the existence of the Infinite One by our rules and standards, because, practically, the worst effects may flow from an error here; impatience may ripen into unbelief; this may rot into petulant complaint, and that may breed inaction, sloth, disobedience, rebellion, and we know not how many other evils.

But now, to the text at once, and we will handle it, as God shall help us, in three ways. First, we shall say a little as to the general principle of the text; secondly, taking the words of the passage, we shall dwell upon God's estimate of a day; and then, in the third place, still keeping to the words of the sentence, we shall enlarge upon God's estimate of a thousand years.

I. First of all, then, we shall take the statement before us As A GENERAL PRINCIPLE, "that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

1. In opening up this general principle, we remark that all time is equally present with God. When we know that an event is to transpire to-day, it appears very near to us; but when we know that it will not occur until a thousand years have elapsed, we think nothing of it; we feel that we shall have gone to our graves long before that era, and therefore, the event does not strike us as having any connection with ourselves. Now, it is not so with God. All things are equally near and present to his view; the distance of a thousand years before the occurrence of an event, is no more to him than would be the interval of a day. With God, indeed, there is neither past, present, nor future. He takes for his name the "I AM." He does not call himself the "I WAS," for then we should conceive that he used to be something which he is not now; that some part of his character had changed, or some attribute ceased from existence; for there is an ominous sound of annihilation in the sound of the word, "He WAS." Is it not rather a knell for the dead, than a name for the living? Nor does our Lord God speak of himself as the "I SHALL BE," for that might lead us to imagine that he is not now something which he is to be in the ages to come: whereas, we know that his being is perfect, his essence infinite, his dominion absolute, his power unlimited, and his glory transcendant. Development is out of the question, he is all to-day that he will be in future. Of the Lord Jesus we read that he is the Everlasting Father, and yet he has the dew of his youth. Childhood, manhood and old age belong to creatures, but at the right hand of the Most High they have no abode. Growth, progress, advancement, all these are virtues in finite beings, but to the Infinite the thought of such change would be an insult. Yesterday, to day, and to-morrow, belong to dying mortal, the Immortal King lives in an eternal to-day. He is the I AM; I AM in the present; I AM in the past; and I AM in the future. Just as we say of God that he is everywhere, so we may say of him that he is always; he is everywhere in space; he is everywhere in time. God is to-day in the past; he is to-day already in the future; he is to-day in that present in which we are.

This is a subject upon which we can only speak without ourselves fully understanding what we say, but yet, perhaps, a metaphor may tend