GRACE EXALTED-BOASTING EXCLUDED.

A Sermon

DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, JANUARY 19TH, 1862, BY

REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law of works? Nay: but by the law of faith."-Romans iii. 27.

PRIDE is most obnoxious to God. As a sin, his holiness hates it; as a treason, his sovereignty detests it; as a rebellion, the whole of his attributes stand leagued to put it down. God has touched other sins with his finger, but against this vice he has made bare his arm. There have been, I know, terrible judgments against lust, but there have been ten times as many against that swelling lust of the deceitful heart. Remember, the first transgression had in its essence pride. The ambitious heart of Eve desired to be as God, knowing good and evil, and Adam imagined that he should be lifted up to divine rank if he dared to pluck and eat. The blasting of Paradise, the sterility of the world, the travail of human birth, the sweat of the brow, and the certainty of death, may all be traced to this fruitful mother of mischief, pride. Remember Babel, and how God has scattered us and confounded our tongues. It was man's pride which led him to seek for an undivided monarchy that so he might be great. The tower was to be the rallyingpoint of all the tribes, and would have been the central throne of all human grandeur, but God has scattered us, that pride might not climb to so high a pitch. Pride, thou hast indeed suffered severe strokes from God. Against thee has he furbished his sword, and prepared his weapons of war. The Lord, even the Lord of hosts hath sworn it, and he will surely stain the pride of all human glory, and tread all boasting as straw is trodden for the dunghill. Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let no arrogancy come out of your mouth, for the bows of the mighty have been broken, and the haughtiness of man has been bowed down. Remember Pharaoh and the plagues which God brought on Egypt, and the wonders which he wrought in the field of Zoan.. Remember the Red Sea, and Rahab cut, and the dragon broken. Think of Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty architect of Babylon, driven out to eat grass like the oxen till his nails grew like birds' claws, and his hair like eagles' feathers. Remember Herod, eaten of worms, because he gave not God the glory; and Sennacherib, with the Lord's hook in his jaws, Nos. 429-30. Penny Pulpit, 3,645-46.

turned by the way he came to the place where his sons became his slayers. Time would fail to tell of the innumerable conquerors and emperors and mighty men of earth who have all perished beneath the blast of thy rebuke, O God, because they lifted up themselves and said, "I am, and there is none beside me." He hath turned wise men backward, and made their knowledge foolishness, and no flesh may glory in his presence. Yea, when pride has sought to shelter itself in the hearts of God's chosen people, still the arrows of God have sought it out and have drunk its blood. God loves his servants still, but pride even in them he abhors. David may be a man after God's own heart, but if his pride shall lift him up to number the people, then he shall have a choice between three chastisements, and he shall be fain to choose the pestilence as being the least of the plagues. Or if Hezekiah shall show to the ambassadors of Babylon his riches and his treasures, there shall come to him the rebuke-"What have they seen in thy house?" and the threatening-"Behold they shall take thy sons to make them eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." Oh, brethren, forget not that God has uttered the most solemn words as well as issued the most awful judgments against pride. "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." "Him that hath a high look and a proud heart will I not suffer." "Pride and arrogancy do I hate." "The Lord will destroy the house of the proud." "The day of the Lord shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low." "I am against thee, O thou most proud, saith the Lord God of Hosts." There are hundreds of terrible texts like these, but we cannot now recount them all. Now mark, to put an everlasting stigma upon human vanity, and to hurl once for all mire and filth upon all human glorying, God has ordained that the only way in which he will save men shall be a. way which utterly excludes the possibility of man's having a single word to say by way of vaunting. He has declared that the only foundation which he will ever lay shall be one by which man's strength shall be broken in pieces, and by which man's pride shall be humbled in the dust. To this subject I ask your attention this morning. It is to enlarge and amplify the sentiment of the text that I seek. "Where is boasting, then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith."

We shall notice first of all, the rejected plan or law; then we shall note the excluded vice; having so done, we shall notice in the third place, that the very fact that boasting is excluded permits of the reception of the worst of sinners; and we shall close by observing that the same system which excludes boasting includes humble and devout gratitude to God for his grace and mercy.

I. First, then, THE REJECTED PLAN.

There are two ways by which man might have been for ever blessed. The one was by works :-"This do and thou shalt live; be obedient and receive the reward; keep the commandment and the blessing shall be thine, well earned and surely paid." The only other plan was-"Receive grace and blessedness as the free gift of God; stand as a guilty sinner having no merit, and as a rebellious sinner deserving the very reverse of

goodness, but stand there and receive all thy good things, simply, wholly, and alone of the free love and sovereign mercy of God." Now, the Lord has not chosen the system of works. The word law as used twice in the text is employed, it is believed by many commentators, out of compliment to the Jews, who were so fond of the word, that their antagonism might not be aroused; but it means here, as elsewhere in Scripture, plan, system, method. There were two plans, two systems, two methods, two spirits, the plan of works and the plan of grace. God has once for all utterly refused the plan of merit and of works, and has chosen to bless men only, and entirely through the plan, or method, or law of faith. Now, brethren, we have put the two before you, and we beg you to mark that there is a distinction between the two, which must never be forgotten. Martin Luther says:-"If thou canst rightly distinguish between works and grace, thank God for thy skill, and consider thyself to be an able divine." This indeed is the bottom of theology, and le who can understand this clearly, it seems to me, can never be very heterodox; orthodoxy must surely follow, and the right teaching of God must be understood when we once for all are able to discriminate with accuracy between that which is of man-works, and that which is of God-faith, and grace received by faith. Now, the plan of salvation by works is impossible for us. Even if God had ordained it to be the way by which men should labour to be saved, yet it is certain that none would have been saved by it, and therefore all must have perished. For if thou wouldst be saved by works, remember O man, that the law requires of thee perfection. One single flaw, one offence, and the law condemns thee without mercy. It requires that thou shouldst keep it in every point, and in every sense, and to its uttermost degree, for its demands are rigorous in the extreme. It knows nothing of freely forgiving because thou canst not pay, but like a severe creditor, it takes thee by thy throat, and says, "Pay me all;" and if thou canst not pay even to the uttermost farthing, it shuts thee up in the prison of condemnation, out of which thou canst not come. But if it were possible for you to keep the law in its perfection outwardly, yet, remember, that you would be required to keep it in your heart as well as in your external life. One single motion of the heart from the right, one reception of even the shadow of a passing temptation, so as to become a partaker of sin, would ruin you. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbour as thyself." Fail here, and oh! who among us can be such a hypocrite as to think he has not failed ten thousand times!-fail here, and though your life were virtuous, though your exterior were such as even criticism itself must commend, yet you perish because you have not kept the law and yielded its full demands. Remember, too, that it is clear you can never be saved by the law, because if up to this moment your heart and life have been altogether without offence, yet it is re.quized that it should be so even to your dying day. And do you hope that as temptations come upon you thick as your moments, as your trials invade you numerous as the swarms which once thronged from the gates of Thebes, you will be able to stand against all these? Will there not be found some joint in your harness? Will there not be some

moment in which you may be tripped up-some instant when either the eye may wander after lust, or the heart be set on vanity, or the hand stretched out to touch that which is not good? Oh! man, remember, we are not sure that even this life would end that probation, for as long as thou shouldst live and be God's creature, duty would still be due, and the law still thine insatiable creditor. For ever would thy happiness tremble in the scales; even in heaven itself the law would follow thee; even there, as thy righteousness would be thine own, it would never be finished; and even from yonder shining battlements thou mightest fall, and amid those harps, wearing that white robe, if thou wert to be saved by thine own works, there might be a possibility of perishing. The obedience of a creature can never be finished; the duty of a servant of the law is never over. So long as thou wast the creature of God, thy Creator would have demands upon thee. How much better to be accepted in the Beloved, and to wear his finished righteousness as our glory and security. Now in the face of all this, will any of you prefer to be saved by your works? or, rather, will you prefer to be damned by your works? for that will certainly be the issue, let you hope what you may.

Now I suppose that in this congregation we have but very few-there may be some-who would indulge a hope of being saved by the law in itself; but there is a delusion abroad that perhaps God will modify the law, or that at least he will accept a sincere obedience even if it be imperfect; that he will say, "Well, this man has done what he could, and, therefore, I will take what he has given as though it were perfect." Now, remember against this the Apostle Paul declares peremptorily, "By the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified,” so that that is answered at once. But more than this, God's law cannot alter, it can never be content to take less from thee than it demands. What said Christ? "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail," and again he expressly said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." The law's demands were met and fulfilled for believers by Christ; but as far as those demands are concerned to those who are under it, they are as great, as heavy, and as rigorous as ever they were. Unless his law could be altered, and that is impossible, God cannot accept anything but a perfect obedience; and if you are hoping to be saved by your sincere endeavours to do your best, your hopes are rotten things, delusions, falsehoods, and you will perish wrapped up in the shrouds of your pride. "Yes," some say, "but could it not be partly by grace and partly by works?" No. The apostle says that boasting is excluded, and excluded by the law of faith; but if we let in the law of works in any degree, we cannot shut out boasting, for to that degree you give man an opportunity to congratulate himself as having saved himself. Let me say broadly-to hope to be saved by works is a delusion; to hope to be saved by a method in which grace and works are co-acting, is not merely a delusion, but an absurd delusion, since it is contrary to the very nature of things, that grace and merit should ever mingle and co-work. Our apostle has declared times without number, that

advents of Christ; secondly, the dissimilarity between them, which is a far more extensive subject, and then we shall make some few remarks concerning our personal interest in both advents.

I. The text asserts very plainly that as we are here twice-once in a life of probation, and a second time in the day of judgment; so Christ shall be here twice-once in his life of suffering, and then again in his hour of triumph, THE TWO COMINGS OF CHRIST HAVE SOME

DEGREE OF LIKENESS.

First, they are like each other in the fact that they are both of them personal comings. Christ came the first time, not as a spirit, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as he had. He was one who could be pressed to a woman's bosom ; one who could be borne in a father's arms. He was one who could afterwards walk in his own person to the temple; one who could bear our sins in his own body on the tree. We have done once for all with the foolish ideas of certain of the early heretics, that Christ's appearance upon earth was but a phantom. We know that he was really, personally, and physically here on earth. But it is not quite so clear to some persons that he is to come really, personally, and literally, the second time. I know there are some who are labouring to get rid of the fact of a personal reign, but as I take it, the coming and the reign are so connected together, that we must have a spiritual coming if we are to have a spiritual reign. Now we believe and hold that Christ shall come a second time suddenly, to raise his saints at the first resurrection; this shall be the commencement of the grand judgment, and they shall reign with him afterwards. The rest of the dead live not till after the thousand years are finished. Then shall they rise from their tombs at the sounding of the trumpet, and their judgment shall come and they shall receive the deeds which they have done in their bodies. Now, we believe that the Christ who shall sit on the throne of his father David, and whose feet shall stand upon Mount Olivet, is as much a personal Christ as the Christ who came to Bethlehem and wept in the manger. We do believe that the very Christ whose body did hang upon the tree shall sit upon the throne; that the very hand that felt the nail shall grasp the sceptre; that the very foot that was fastened to the cross shall tread upon the necks of his foes. We look for the personal advent, the personal reign, the personal session and assize of Christ.

Nor less shall the advents be like each other in the fact that they shall both be according to promise. The promise of the first coming of Christ